Story idea: Stuck down in Century City.

And no one gives a pity. In the reflected glam of West Hollywood, we glanced up at the half-full moon and wondered how our all-out big-night out had turned out. Down, in the drank-too-much smoke-too-much clan in Century City. Many characters can be combined from ridiculous night with Kayvon Parth Ben Dave Karr Jeff Cho and What's his name? The faux Adrian. I hope he never gets to read this. Allen, that's who he was, and probably still is. Ridiculous night, as Pennawitz so graciously pointed out.

Sometimes I wonder if portions of my personality are built in direct result of "Jeff Cho" being such a caricaturistic arrangement of a caricacture's name?

Occasionaly grammar must be sacrificed in the eye of the Greater Truth (capitalization in place strictly for the enhancement of hoky-poky neo-new-age spiritualism).

I hereby adhere to that rule. You have to write thinking a few sentenceses ahead, the direct result of such bullshit is not considered good writing. Of course such relapses have been tolerated up to this point, the indirect result of chemical inbalances in such said person's circulatory system. The indirect result of withdrawing to a distance from the main skirmish is vagueness. That is what I seek, vagueness in the shadow of intentions and will.

4 handed poker followed by Happy Hour Thursday at D&B's followed by more 4 than 3 than 2 handed poker which Mark won against Ed. Eric first out I soon followed. Damn it. Me:6Ko Mark:AA Flop 44X(lower than 10)rainbow. CheckCheck. Turn:K. Me 10 Mark Call. River:6. Mark: All in I call. Lost it all. Mark then annhilated Ed's $2.50 re-buy-in, Ed had one 2x-up against the superior stack but could not survive the second one.

One great win though: I turned a gut-shot straight and than doubled-up against Ed.

Is it possible, just possible, that there is an actual, fundamentally-sound-basketball reason behind the linkage of basketball and baggy shorts? Maybe ballers started wearin' it because baggy shorts disguise the movement of their knees, thereby increasing the unpredictability of their movements?

She captured me, not in the lubby-dubby sense, but in a predatory (sort of) way. "sort of way" really dampens the conviction and power of the prose, note to self.

There are 2 types of people in this world. 1, people who talk in order to hear themselves. 2, people who talk in order for other people to hear. Which one of these are you?

For some reason the idea sounded so much better in my head than on this screen.

Poker tournament (12-13 man I think) at Saddleback Mike's friend's house. I think his name is Romi, there was also P.O. (I thought and still suspect that people called him peel; Mike commented that P.O. is dumb as bricks, been at Saddleback for 5 years), Devan (that guy who kept getting pocket pairs and played like he's embarassed that he's winning) including Balus' brother Chucky (actually pronounced in a way that's somewhere between Chucky and Checky, the guy with the hair). It was Mike who bought me out for 2/3 initial position and then immediately lost everything to Ed (rivered trip 2's against poket trip kings on the flop). Ed did pretty well for himself, all the way to second place.

Class today. Kept saying the wrong things to Nancy. Good going.

Isn't it interesting that an Indian named Wood Burning is so different from a white man named Woody Burns?

Intersting quote from the short story "Some Other Me" by Brian Hodge: "I've said it before, but it bears repeating: It's only in our fears and dreams that anyone truly comes to know the real anyone else. In that spirit I can say I knew Mr. Cavanaugh better than anyone, but because he feared death. Often, the things we've been and things we've done leave a burden inside us, and when death becomes as real as an old friend planning a visit, we dream of more days to pay for the past a little at a time instead of all at once." Great method of transition between different sections of a story.

Yet another make-up entry.

Another 3 handed game with Ed and Mark. Same $5 deal. Ed lost $10 because he had one more buy-in and Mark and I split his share 1:2 according to chip standing. It was around 4am when we called it quits. Couldn't sleep afterward. 300 jump-shots and a tepid shower later I fell asleep. Until 2pm. Damn.

Surfed webwise, little ceasar for lunch, played NBA baller. Alright one-one baller-building game.

Watched movies with Mark and Susan. A shaolin monk documentry and another music/spoken word/images movie. Forgot the tiltle, must find out because it's a keeper.

Was there sexual tension between me and Mark's cousin or am I imagining things under the w?

3 handed freak played 3 handed poker w/ Eric and Ed, same deal, $5 buy-in tournament style, with the marked $5 from Ed (4/15) at stake. Eric took both of us to school. Final hand: eric 10/J, me 9/9. Double raised before the flop, flopped 10/J/J. All in from me, and Eric could not have called it faster. Who would've thought he flopped a boat? Thought I could push him out with an all-in but in retrospect should've thought again.

3 more hands with Ed after Eric took off. $2 buy-in heads up. Ed took the first 2, I made the last one double or nothing and won. Even for the night, except the $5 to Eric.

Gotta get back to normal tomorrow. Some Japanese and GRE studying.

Rakmon is from Stanford! Just found out today that Rakmon from writing class lived in EBF with Anthony Kalomas, aka Dionysus. What a small world.

Skipped Classes and went to the Newport film festival instead. Saw a movie called "Fossil" a semi-mocumentry about an anthropologist disappearing in the Congo while searching for a mythical beast. Innovative story-telling technique, but pretty boring I must say. Saw a couple more short films but none of them rose above the cheesiness factor. Overall a pretty forgettable experience. Although the brochure promised a handful of intriguing films.

Drank beer and had dinner at Kelly McCues with Mark while watching the 4th quarter of the Spurs/Grizzlies game. A rout, not much to talk about.

Returned home and drank some more beers with Mark for the Lakers/Rockets game. Ed showed up at halftime. More beers and some more non-game-related conversations. Lakers won but I felt like I wasn't even part of the game due to the Edwardian distractions. He wanted to play cards. Nobody else did.

Yo, Kathy Come wrote me back! Kathy Come came!

Tournament play Played in a hold'em tournament in Westwood last night. Ed knew this kid Balus (sp?) who used to hang out with my cousin Fred. I don't know how they did it but they managed to find and cram a field of 32 into 2 bedroom apartment. 4 tables, $25 buy-in, 5 boxes of 400 clay chips. My first poker tournament.

Mostly current or recently graduated college kids. Quality players, exciting pots, good fun all around.

There's this one pot where I limped in pre-flop with 3/4 suited, and by 4th street I made my belly-buster straight but with 3 low clubs on board. There was only one other kid in with me, the chip leader at the time, and I made a slightly less than pot-sized bet of 200, hoping just to get called and not lose huge to a flush, he came over the top for another 500. My instinct told me that if he had a flush draw on the flop he would've raised, which he didn't. Took me a long time to call it, which I eventually did. Imagine his disappointment when he flipped over trip 9's against my straight. That pot put me in the lead for the first table.

Before we left the table I wanted to make a big score, and the same situation arised against Balus' brother Craig. I bluffed with an open ended straight draw on 4th street, representing a flush with 3 clubs on board. He took his time, talked and asked me this and asked me this and that, trying to pick up something, which I think should have been illegal. Well I wasn't sure if he picked up something from my attempted poker face or just felt like gambling, but he went all-in over the top and I folded my straight draw. He had Q/J suited. Had to hand it to him.

Well that beat put me in an extremely short stack against an extremely huge one at the next table. Went all in on several occasions without doubling up, but stole enough blind to keep myself afloat. The entire night I had to play a lot of small connectors, one of which I went all in on (2/3 suited), had the chip leader folded his A/J suited just before I showed him my bluff. Nice. Earned respect all around the table, couple that with a nicely slow-played big slicks, I thought I was starting to pick up some steam.

Then I caught pocket queens. Raised the big blind, the Asian kid from first table, a sucker whom I have been pushing around all night, just called. The flop came ace 10 8, no flush possibilites. I was on the button, and he checked. At this point I didn't think he had an ace and I feel like leaning on him was the best play (I also needed to double up in the worst way) since I didn't think he had the aces, at most a straight draw. He called. OH shit.

Whew, I was right. He had a pair of 10's against my queens. He also had the kings, so he has a 6/45 chance of beating me, pretty good odds for doubling up. Then of course, he caught the other 10 on 4th street. Fuck.

10th place out of 32, not bad for a first tournament. Still, getting outdrawn after playing my hand and reading his hand correctly hurts bad. Now I know how Phil Helmuth feels after being outdrawn by that Vietnamese guy Toto.

The two-headed monster namely, Friday night and it's day-older-cousin Saturday night.

Friday night, drove up to LA for club ridiculous, as pennawitz coined on the celly conversation. Well, coined does not mean automatic participation. Pennawitz backed out and so did Mark, so yours truly drove up to LA all by himself. The hotel Grafton on Sunset, where the SF crew stayed, was ridiculous. The old Tercel was valetted alongside beamers and merce'des by valets with black bowties and red vests.. Can't exactly shake the feeling that I was stucking out in the glorious West Hollywood like a $200 manicure sore thumb, until I entered the front door and saw o'steen and ballen, checking in. Later in their room came kayvon and allen (not to be confused with ballen). After a few rounds of quick showers and shirt ironing and the exchange of load losers and snake charmers, the foursome were off.

Subsequently arrived at the White Lotus, where osteen instantly remarked that he has previously visited the club with a different name, with evan in a prievious summer. Waited in line and was greeted by a faux-sean connery who promptly ushered us inside the dinner area. In the entrance I somehow reflexively pulled out my ID to the doorman. How embarassing.

Bar first, greets all around, karr, parth, ben, allen, osteen, kayvon, and me all got reacquainted. At the dinner table, where osteen had pork tenderloin and ben had tuna and i had curry noodle and i think allen also had the tuna, no, parth had the tuna and carr had the sushi and kayvon had what did he have? Anyway, take a breath in between sips of heinekens and tell the waiter, "No, i insist on having what you recommended against," which was the curry noodle. He recommended the low-mein, pronouncing it not LAO but LOW. Somehow could not parley that rationale to the rest of the group. The collective energy dropped. My bad.

Ballen's virtuoso attempt at energy-raising was drowned by allen's loudness of speech. Dinner gulfed down and got a few curry drops on my beautiful shirt. To the VIP room, where liquor flows and rabbits dance to bacchic songs. A bottle of absolute mixed with orange juice, cranberry juice, and the remains of our sobriety. Out onto the dancefloor.

Hot. LA hot. No other description, no need for elaboration. Hard pickup, hollywood is hard, or else heidi fliess wouldn't have been an icon. Therefore, no need to discuss the attempts. But the effort was there, as a voluntary wingman for left-over girls. Sometimes, night clubs has that special something to bring the worst out of men, who thinks the best of women, who are worse than worst. Oh yeah, the stage is for girls only (asked the security guy about it and felt again, embarrassed and outclassed for asking. I simply ain't a high-roller and enjoys secret pleasure being the complete opposite), this will come into account later.

The drinks ran dry and were unable to enjoy the club further, or otherwise known as being sick of hiding the quiet desperation. Cigs with osteen, bought beers for kayvon at the bar, under hetero circumstances: the bartender simply wouldn't serve him on account of him "being crazy." Never found out why exactly. Dancing dancing dancing smoking pissing eyeing dancing closer and then further away, gamelessly.

Next club was, as osteen puts it bluntly, techno. Filled with Rave kids on or off. Would've liked to stay, but group decided otherwise. Decided on another club (Titled Trance Club in grotesque flourorecent blue) which was the same. Back to the hotel, some horsing around (excluding parth, who took no part of the horsing, who we lost contact earlier, regained contact at last laying face-down in the aisle) and then took farewell to the crew. Home and bed by 4.5am. I think.

Then there's the second head saturday night.

Woke up, slightly hung-over, received cell phone calls from Mark and Pennawitz on the cross road betwen the two heads. Then eric, wanting to work-out. dropped the car off at Ayres hotel and shook ben wyler's hand and got back into eric's car who decided that he couldn't get me into 24hr fitness so we ran at Soka instead. Failed to do the 71 push-up in 2 minutes. Probably could do the 200 sit-ups in how long? No poblem doing the 10 minute 1.5 mile. Ran 4 400s and a two mile. Also need to work on that.

Came home, watched as nets and pacers and san antonio blowing out, and eric came by, watched poker till mark and ed showed up. My car wasn't there, got shotgun in the red civic the whole way up. Nice.

Balus (sp?) lives in west wood. Real tournament with real clay chips. Nice. Drew same table as Ed. Actually, should recount the poker story later.

Misadventures and quite-a-night.
Woke up, blah blah went to Danny K's tournament. Drew Bruce, this European-looking guy who's an A player. Again, with my 3A a 9-7 race. Final score: 6:7. Had trouble recalling the score somehow. Was it really 6:7? I know I had more than 5 (I know I had a red counter) and he had 9 with the 2 spotted. Right. Final score 6:7. Could've played better, but let's be honest: I really wanted/needed to leave.

Played this Asian guy Howard (B) and talked with Kammy (sp?), THE Asian girl of the tournament. Who's also from Taiwan (until 6yo), lived in Diamond Bar, can speak pretty good Mandarin, has a boyfriend. Will take into account.

Picked up Jon, met up with Mark and Susan and Ed and went to Soka. Got high around the dark bend, proceeded to an episode of social awkwardness. It was a clash of universe: clashes of universe are never good, take George for example. Ka-Boom. There's gotta be a clown in every gathering, I suppose since I knew everyone I gotta be the clown tonight.

Came back home, awkward goodbyes and half-hearted farewells, followed by heads-up poker with Ed. (this was round 11.5pm, no, gotta be at least 12.5) For a couple of hours of entertainment Ed pays me $5. Not a bad deal. Actually, it was an especially good deal, the deck was like hot coal, every hand I played I had a hand. Raped him thoroughlly. Winning or had him flding virtually every hand (I had lots of small blind blacks from Ed).

Good prep for this Saturday. The inebriated interaction was good prep for tomorrow. Good prep overall capped by some sleep which must happen now.

Revelation I must get the habit of sleep talking from mom, who just wailed and whimpered and screamed in Chinese "Don't Kill ME!"

Death and Taxes Well, at least one of those is out of the way. Finished in less than an hour on H&R Block. Never thought it might be this easy. I got all worked up for less than an hour of semi-work.

Dreamt Worked in a bike shop in the mall, located near the entrance. Brought my bike in for fixings, put on some unidentified but bulky bike part on the handle bar, then hopped on and rode it down the hall for a test drive. A bright orange mountain bike with black handlebar much resembling my first Giant circa 5th or 6th grade. Rode no more than 30 feet before the mall cop stopped me and wanted me to pay a $30 ticket for riding the bike in the mall. Tried to get out of paying by apologizing, he didn't have pen nor paper and couldn't really write up a ticket, instead he expected me to pay him right then and there--what corruption! Upon realizing that this is a dream (in between alarm snoozes), I rewinded the dream. Spat in the mall cop's face, "Make me," and rode back to the shop.

Another poor showing at KellyMcQue's Only 6 people showed up so we played round robin, 5 games total against everybody. Won 3 against Lou, 2 against Vic, 2 against Alice, 2 against Jim, and just one against Brian. Awful effort. Was so frustrated by the time I played Brian I literally threw my cue when he made the 9 on the break (felt awful about the poor sportsmanship, but could only amend that by a "nice shot" comment when he comboed the 9 on the next rack). Could it be the beer? Or the lack thereof? Only drank 1 at the beginning of the night. Sober pool didn't seem to be my game, which is a problem.

What a pathetic weekend Let's see. Friday: nothing. Watched Bubblegum Crisis 4+5 and that's about it. Saturday: nothing. Played ball with a bunch of HUGE highschoolers, dinner at Black Angus with mom, and that's about it. Sunday: nothing. Lakers/Kings morning, balled with Fred and his buddies, tried unsuccessfully to get a poker game together but did some Japanese homework instead, and that's about it.

I did learn how to do the 10chip shuffle though! Productiveness indeed. (only 6-8 shuffle lefty)

Precision bombing? Visited the doctor's office today for the JET physical. The typical stuff, weight, height, blood pressure, vision, x-ray, and urine sample--WHAT? I didn't know urine test was on the menu. That got me worried.

So on my way out, I pulled the doctor aside,
"Excuse me, but what do you test the urine sample for?"
"Um mostly protein analysis."
"Well, I'm asking because, uh, I just came back from Amsterdam 3 weeks ago..."
"Oh," pause, "we can't really get any white blood cells out of urine..."
Confused. Wait a minute...
"Oh that's not what I meant. You know marijuana is also legal in Amsterdam..."

So, I have the doctor's assurance now that it's not used for drug testing. Whew. He also looked at my x-ray and commented on how big my heart was. Yup, I literally have big heart.

A big heart that didn't come in play last night at Danny K's. Played this Asian man in 40's with glasses named Jim. He was an A player, against my 3A (since I'm new to the tournament: didn't really think I could be triple A) comes out to a 7-9 race. He missed at least four or five shots on the 9-ball and gave me those games, and it ended up hill-hill when I wasn't even playing at my best. It was probably due to the fact that 1) the reluctance to stay at triple A and 2) I felt sorry for him for giving me all these games. The killer instinct just wasn't there, so naturally I lost the hill-hill game. Afterwards I complained to Wayne that Jim was off-stroke and I shouldn't really stay at 3A, his response "WTF, you never played against him in your life!"

Good point. Lesson learned: never underestimate your abilities and don't let your pity for your opponent diminish your thirst for their blood.

Great name for a bar Drater State University.

Future JETtison Heard back from JET last night: I'm in. So the next step would be signing up for GRE and begin grad school considerations, among other things. Somehow I'm not as excited about it as I thought I would be. For the past few months I've been living on the empty promise of JET and the possibility of arriving at that cross-road. Been living on a constant state of hope. Now that the promise is fulfilled, somehow the feeling of emptiness continues. Now that I'm at that cross-road, I still feel a little bit lost as to how to take that next step. I suppose it's better this way. Because nothing has really changed as to how my life is shaping up...yet.

Skipped Japanese class today and played at Danny K's. Practiced for about an hour and half, then prompted the old man at the next table (well, okay, old middle-aged man) to play. His name's Danny, as in Danny K, as in the person who puts the Danny K in Danny K's Billiards. Awesome shooter, in maybe 6 games broke and ran out 3 times. Friendly chatter, plus introduction to a few other shooters: Wayne, who runs the tournament, and Tom, some guy with a brown leather double case. Dropped the line that I might play in the tournament Thursday, think I will.

A dissapointing NCAA Tournament ended tonight with Conneticut dominating GTech. The Yellowjackets had heart, but didn't have enough baskets. What a jip. No buzzer beaters or even highlight-worthy upsets in the first two rounds except for Stanford. Georgia Tech, a 3rd seed, became the cinderella because the media couldn't find a neat storyline over this bore of a March. Beware, the bore of March.

Dreamt: Vacuum Dreamt that I was visiting Pennawitz, and went out jogging with his brother (although in the dream, he doesn't look like either of his brothers in real life, but rather Easter European). For some reason I had to drag this vacuum machine with me up and down hills on the jog. Along the way I ran into all these colorfully incoordinated and supposedly hip-dressed teenagers to whom I apologized for getting in their way. Jon's brother was way ahead of me and by the time I got back he was already in the shower. Jon's house looked like grandma's in Taipei, and his mom seemed to be rolling dough and making Chinese dumplings. All these teenagers were in the house too and it was strange to see them back there. I asked Pennawitz who these kids were, and he said, hush-hushedly, that they were at least ten years older than me and looked like teenagers only because of some hormone defficiency.

Let's see. Friday night, played poker and went out to Costa Mesa with Ed's buddies, Salick, Dominique and another. Cut even with the poker and a few harmless beers and cigs. Harmless in today's standards.

Dad will be leaving tomorrow. Had dinner at Wei's tonight. Szechwan at its best.

Balled at Eastwing in the afternoon after the Lakers' game. Played well I think, until that last game. Need to work on ball-handling and shooting off the dribble.

The waiting game ceased to be fun about 2 months ago. Every day I dread the arrival of the JET result. What if I don't get in? People ask me. I don't know. I tell them. I just don't know.

I suppose first things first, re-apply to NOVA, sign up (and study rigorously) for GRE. That's about all I can think of.

Will there be a poker game tonight? When all else fails, there's nothing like losing your bleeding money if you're lookiing for a pick-you-up. I've been looking for the pick-you-up in all the wrong places. Pool, poker, TV, video games, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, Saddlebac, IVC, an occasional book.

When will the downward spiral stop?