Noir, Pur, Superflu

“Your ex-girlfriend is dead.”

You hear this upon finishing your margarita. The sour taste of the lime became particularly strong, as if you ingested your own ill feelings toward her. It’s such an irony, really, that you heard this while celebrating with your friends on a fruitful gambling night.

“Screw her. She deserved to die in the first place.”

She was a harlot, who did away all her problems by drinking and by cavorting with rich men who overcompensate their tiny penises with their sheer wealth. I gave her all my attention, shared her all my thoughts, and provided her all the material things that she could ever want, yet they were never reciprocated. Her heart was so black that it resembled the starless sky in late November evenings, the blanket of soulless nights that envelope all your hopes for light. She died like the dog that she was.

You showed apathy and continued to drink.

The seemingly endless hours went on as your friend mumbled about her life. You notice that this year is particularly hot and dry, that the usual month at this time of the year should be accompanied by irregular drizzles and by cold air. You remember the feeling of shitting on toilet seats as cold as brushed stainless steel.

And while your mind was busy thinking of fecal matter, you heard one important word from your friend.

“Suicide.”

Like your bare ass kissing that ice cold toilet seat, it smacked you and made you realize that something’s amiss. No, not of the weather, but what really happened between the two of you.

The cloud of second hand smoke filled in the room as your friend continues his story of how she died, and you are becoming aware that your disbelief is slowly detaching you from reality. Every sensation is turning bland, turning mute, turning cold.

Deafening silence. From the ambient noise, and more importantly, from your friend’s voice. Even the sound of your thumping heart was muffled to a halt. You try to scream, and you yelled with all your pathetic might. You notice that everyone in the room frenzied to pacify you, yet everything is still devoid of sound.

They say that only deafening silence can accompany disbelief, and you felt like smacking guy who said that right on the face, for his words are a painful picture of the truth.

God turned off the volume of your cheap existential television. For half an hour you had to bear your distorted perception of reality (as if it wasn’t distorted enough), and for half an hour, you were catatonic.

Loneliness followed you all your life, like a mad, salivating street dog in unlit street alleys. And as if loneliness was not the worst thing that the cruel world cursed on to you, it is only now that you realize that its jagged fangs bit you and made you delusional the whole time.

“She left a note; it talked about you, only of you, and against you.”

It comes with so much pain and of catharsis that your love for her was nothing more of desperation, that the girlfriends you had before and after her were nothing more than patches, to cover up the sad truth that she rejected you for so many times, that she never really loved you.

Yes, she’s dead, but your love for her never really lived in the first place.

“Oh yeah, did you know that her name literally means ‘purely pure’?”

xxx

[Indeed, it was a redundant black and white love, one of polar opposites, one of idiosyncrasies. Dark black, light white, there are no such things. Yet ironically, it was then revealed that black was white and white was black. And more so, what was now white is purely pure. All of these realizations came in too late.]

Killer Laydown

Actual hand from two nights ago in the Auckland Casino

2-5 No Limit Holdem

I'm first to act and I get KK. I limp for 5 dollars. The button raises to 25. The big blind reraises to 80. I smooth call with my KK. The button calls as well. The pot is now at 242 dollars.

The flop is T83 rainbow.

The big blind bets 150. I fold my KK. The button folds as well, he had 99.

I ask the big blind what he had. He says 25 dollars for him to show. I quickly throw five 5 dollar chips to see his hand. He flips over AA. Boo-yah!

Short Post

Just read today that at the height of bowling's popularity in our dear motherland, three players dominated the sport's scene in our country and in the world. The first two players are Bong Coo and Paeng Nepomuceno. No surprise there, since we all know them primarily as bowlers. The third one might come as a surprise.

Clue : He's an ex-senator.

Answer : Tito Sotto.

Yes, Tito Sotto, the future brother-in-law of Pia Guanio, the campaign manager of the opposition when FPJ was gunning for the country's top post, the comedian, the FAMAS hall of fame awardee, was indeed a top bowler in the world at his prime.

The Other Side of Poker

So okay, I just came back from a poker trip over the weekend. My poker friends are all over NZ right now crashing the casinos, I separated with them for a couple of days as I have classes to attend. I'll be catching up with them again by the weekend though.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, I cashed in a couple of tournaments, even though I'm quite the tournament donk. What makes me a really good cash game player is also what makes me a tournament pushover. Nonetheless, I still played my way to a couple of good finishes and even won a last longer bet (12:1) against them in one of the tourneys. In the cash games, I did even better and have really tailored a consistently winning style. That's probably good news for Wilson as the 10k challenge looks even more realistic as Christmas draws nearer.

Over the last year, I've really pushed myself in terms of being a poker player. In doing so, I've been exposed to the seedier side of poker. When you watch the World Series of Poker and other shows of that mold, it shows poker as prestigious and wholesome. The reality is that it's far from that. The buddies I've hung out with are professional gamblers, not just in poker. I've hung out with professionals who bet on sports, blackjack card counters and pros in all forms of casino games. One of them actually went with a blackjack team to Russia, a country with little blackjack rules, disguised their play and won a lot of money counting cards (they're thinking of trying that out in Manila, by the way). I also heard stories of gambling problems and once-friends who borrowed money and was never heard from again (one of them was a filipino who I met a couple of months ago. When I asked the guys where he's been, they said he borrowed money from everyone and then split town when they tried to collect. Sobering to hear). One of my buddies, the blackjack pro, actually loaned someone 18 grand and then never heard from him again.

It's really quite the world I stumbled into. These are gamblers who see money with lesser value than ordinary people. One of the players we played with, a fish who says his cousin is Joe Hachem, bets big on sports (I took 2000 off him in poker, by the way). While playing poker, he showed us a 13000 bet he made that Australia would score the first try (touchdown) in the Australia/England Rugby match. When an Australian player did score the first try, he jumped up the table screaming. I'd scream too if I won 27 grand. He says one of the gambling tricks he does is called "buying money". This means you bet on the favorite with a big bankroll. He finds a sure-fire match, like Roger Federer against a 100th seed or something like that and then he puts something like 200 000 on it. he'll only win around 20 grand for it, but it's such a surefire win that it's a once in a thousand upset for Federer the machine to lose. I agree with the logic, but I wouldn't want to be there with him if Federer rolls his ankle in the second set or something.

I'm not really judging what they do. I don't think I'm in a position to judge anyway. A better person than me said judge not lest ye be judged. I think I'm just saying that it's really easy to get sucked into this world. These guys throw around money like there's no tomorrow. Then again, if you win as much as they win, you'd probably spend a lot too. In New Zealand, a place with no rules and everything is absolutely legal, it's quite the pit to fall into. For once, I'm glad to have been raised relatively conservative compared to the rest of the world. The guys are amazed at how little gamble I have, especially for a poker player. I'll even make deals at last longer bets to make sure I end up with something instead of nothing. I guess I just approach it more of a business than a gambling hobby. I don't really lie on my bed at night thinking how to play AK from early position as some of my friends do. I don't have that kind of passion for poker that will end up with me living in Vegas waiting for the Series every year. I think I see this as something I happened to be good at and something I found that I can make a lot of money on. I like that next year, even if I have a job, I'll probably still make more money playing poker on the side. Best of all, if I wanted to go back to the Philippines on a whim, all I have to do is go to the poker room and I can get the money I need. It's that easy when you play with a winning style.

I'm at the school library now typing this. I'm waiting for my Business Statistics class that's about to start soon. It's really hard to be studious when you've just come from a trip where everything is exciting and fast-paced. It would be so easy to just take a job from a poker friend of mine and drop all this. I guess what I'm saying is that as much a poker player as I am, it's not what I want to do all the time. I'm excited with the direction Marketing and Advertising can take me and that's something no river-checkraise can beat.

Alright, enough ranting. Time to go to class.

Hotness Factor

I was randomly searching for articles on wikipedia where I chanced upon the Scoville Scale. Apparently, this scale is being used to measure the hotness of the varieties of Chili peppers but has been extended to other hot foods. The hottest pepper I found was the Naga Jolokia (found in India...they like it hot there) with a Scoville scale of 855,000 - 1,041,427.

What's more interesting though is that the standard issue pepper spray has a Scoville scale of 2,000,000 - 5,000,000. To put things into perspective, Tabasco sauce has a Scoville rating of a mere 2,500 - 5,000 while Cayenne pepper is on the 30,000 to 50,000 side of the chart. Now I understand why people grimace in pain after receiving a pepper spray treatment. Maybe someday we can buy a pepper spray and while somebody is drunk, spray some on his manhood. Or better yet, cut open the bottle and pour the whole content on his wiener or asshole hhahahahahahahahahahaha, what a wonderful torture idea.

Transformers the movie

i just found some interesting facts about the transformers movie just because i recently had a recall episode of old saturday morning cartoons when i learned that there's a Voltron movie in the works

Leonard Nimoy (Spock from the first Star Trek series) voiced Galvatron, the reincarnation of Megatron after he and Optimus Prime were killed.

Transformers the movie was Orson Welles' last movie he died right after he finished all his lines as Unicron.

Orson Welles' hated the movie and his character.

It was said that the transformers movie was supposed to be shown after G.I. Joe the movie came out. G.I. Joe had first issued their script which incidentally also had a lead character, (Duke) die as well. The G.I. Joe movie was delayed leaving the transformers movie enough time to be released first. The company handling both titles felt that having two lead characters die off consecutively would be too much for the audience and opted to not release G.I. Joe on theaters at all. Had the G.I. Joe movie been on schedule, Optimus Prime would most probably still be alive.

If there are any of you who like jimson, watch the West Wing. I just noticed an uncanny resemblance between Kup, the old transformer that was introduced in the movie as a mentor to Hot Rod, and John Spencer, the actor who plays White House Chief of Staff Leo Mcgary. Just something i realized just now.

I'm waiting on the download of the special Voltron episode where the Lion Voltron travelled across space to the area of the Vehicle Voltron and they fought together against Zarkon.

By the way my flight was moved a month earlier, i'm going home in around 56 hours. My lord, excited just can't satisfy what i'm feeling right now.

The Power of Stephen Colbert

Link

I've been thinking of what to post since I haven't done so in a while, but since I'm in a Stephen Colbert obssession these days, I figure there's no better topic than Mr Colbert.

One of the many things I like about the character of Stephen Colbert is that somehow he has an incredible influence on the real world. He was named one of Time's 100 most influential people because of that power he exudes and his army of die hard fans from the Colbert Nation.

The link above is an online article about how every politician he interviewed was re-elected, enjoying the infamous "Colbert bump", meaning a positive bump in popularity and votes after they appear on the show. New speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi once said that she doesn't get why politicians would risk looking foolish by appearing in those skewered interviews, but it seems like the answer is they get re-elected.

Speaking of american politics, I have something to confess. Because of my addiction to the Daily Show and the Cobert Report, I now know a lot about American politics, even going so far as monitoring the mid term elections and knowing every detail about it, from the states the Democrats picked up to take the Senate and the House, to the Senators involved. It's weird given the fact that I know next to nothing about Philippine politics. Given my ahiya's situation, I plan to learn all I can when I get home this Xmas. It's just really weird that I suddenly find american politics interesting now and how the Daily Show has made even watching CNN captivating. I guess I can chalk that up to the continuing influence Colbert has on me.

Post-Milenyo MOA

Talk about being in the eye of the storm. Here are some pictures that I took of SM Mall of Asia, just after Supertyphoon Milenyo struck, using my cellphone cam:

NBA lovers out there!

About four months ago, I download this great software called TVUplayer. Although it has less channels than the other internet tv players, it still contained my favorite channels like Star Movies, NBC (I get to watch Conan as it is aired in the US), CBS and Fox among many others. However, I never noticed this channel called NBA TV!!!

Damnit. I missed NBA opening night between the Bulls and the Heat (Big Bulls fan here) because our stupid cable operator (Destiny) doesn't carry the basketball channel. But that's ok, since the season's early and I can watch NBA games at the confines of my pc without hating Destiny Cable. How I wish I knew the existence of this channel from the very beginning. I even got to watch the live NBDL draft. Its really different from the NBA draft. Four guys, one talking on the speaker phone with the GM of the drafting NBDL team, the other on a laptop typing something, the other writing something and the last one who was in charge of the whiteboard were all the people in the draft.

Old School

Found this picture today. Couldn't find a better copy but I guess this would do.


I was the one who took this picture. It was a candid shot. Notice how each had different poses. It was teacher's day and the best CAT batch of all time helped in that day's preparation. The camera was intended to make snapshots of our physics project update (The project where Kwok made a car without wheels hihihihihihihihihhi spending 40k for a grade of 60 hihihihi priceless). Btw, teachers that attended that day still remember it as the best teacher's day ever. They even have a fresher memory of that year's teacher's day than last year's. With Jeco's Safari Patrol Siren and Jimson singing the Baywatch theme song.

Updated WWE superstars salaries

Below is the World Wrestling Entertainment superstars roster payroll that was taken from December of 2004 until March of 2006. The shown dollar amount beside each wrestler is the grand total that they earned from World Wrestling Entertainment in a one year period (downside guarantees, bonuses, and merchandise shares).

Some wrestler’s were given special privileges and bonuses in their contracts which can also be seen beside their total pay. All wrestler’s contracts begin and end at different months of the year, thus each shown amount is what that particular wrestler earned in a 365 day time period between December 2004 and Marchy 2006 (or however long they have been with the company).

All dollar amounts were rounded up/down (Example: $365,766 would be $366,000)”

I was suprised to see that there was a huge discrepancy between the salaries of Cade and Murdoch. Matt Striker, for all his appreances, apparenlty has the lowest salary, I wonder why....Simon Dean even has a higher salary than Matt Striker.

- WWE RAW SUPER STARS SALARIES -

– Triple H: $2,013,000 (Allowed the personal use of company jet (10) times per year. First class flight tickets, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation paid for every week)
– John Cena: $1,743,000 (First class flight tickets, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation paid for every week)
– Shawn Michaels: $1,045,000 (First class flight tickets, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation paid for every week)
- Big Show: $1,000,000 (Base salary)
– Kane: $ 851,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
– Edge: $704,000
– Ric Flair: $508,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
– Shelton Benjamin: $366,000
– Carlito: $319,000
– Gene Snitsky: $292,000
– Rene Dupree: $289,000
– Chris Masters: $253,000
– Rob Van Damn: $220,000 (Only received downside and royalties due to injury)
– Val Venis: $210,000
– Chavo Guerrero: $206,000 (Quit in April 2006)
– Jerry Lawler: $204,000 (First class flight tickets, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation paid for every week)
– Eugene: $189,000
– Rob Conway: $186,000
– Jonathan Coachman: $175,000
– Viscera: $130,000
– Tyson Tomko: $127,000
– Lance Cade: $118,000
– Rosie: $105,000
– Trevor Murdoch: $48,000
– Matt Striker: $43,000

- WWE RAW DIVAs SALARIES -

– Trish Stratus: $618,000 (Receives 20% of all Trish Stratus merchandise sold)
– Victoria: $275,000
– Lita: $286,000 (Mostly downside paid due to lack of wrestling)
– Torrie Wilson: $260,000
– Ashley Massaro: $131,000
– Lilian Garcia: $90,000
– Mickie James: $72,000
– Candice Michelle: $64,000
– Maria: $41,000

- WWE SMACKDOWN SUPER STARS SALARIES -

– Undertaker: $1,811,000 (First class flight tickets, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation paid for every week)
– Kurt Angle: $1,023,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
- Batista: $813,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
– John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) : $786,000 (Five star hotel accommodations paid for every week)
– Randy Orton: $711,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
– Chris Benoit: $488,000 (First class flight tickets paid for every week)
– Rey Mysterio: $414,000
– Christian – $396,000 (Switched to TNA last year Dec 2005)
– Booker T: $375,000
– Matt Hardy: $322,000 (Missed over $70,000 of pay due to firing)
– Late Eddie Guerrero: $372,000
– Mark Henry: $300,000 (Base pay)
– Gregory Helms: $277,000
– William Regal: $225,000
- Bob Holly: $217,000
– Nunzio: $186,000
– Paul London: $177,000
– Orlando Jordan: $145,000
– Johnny Nitro: $143,000
– Joey Mercury: $134,000
– Ken Kennedy: $133,000
– Simon Dean: $132,000
– Danny Basham: $130,000
– Doug Basham: $126,000
– Funaki: $124,000
– Psicosis: $122,000
– Steven Richards: $94,000
– Kid Kash: $62,000

- WWE SMACKDOWN DIVAs SALARIES -

– Stacy Keibler: $178,000 (Only downside paid during absence)
– Melina: $155,000
– Jillian Hall: $52,000