Friday, January 4, 2008

Welcome to 2008!

Christmas. I love it. I love getting stuff (my vocabulary is pretty good eh?) I also like seeing other people get stuff. Everyone is happy – it’s good times.

This year was a lot of fun. For Christmas I went to my sister’s in Red Deer and I spent about 3 days there. After Christmas I came home for one day and then on the 29th went to Edmonton to hang out with a friend and watch the UFC. I lost $20 or so betting on the fights but had a lot of good wine and some good food with good company. BTW, the Penfolds Bin 389 2004 Vintage is stellar, if you can stomach cellaring it for a few years. We had a bottle that night and it’s BIG. If you want to drink it now you really need to decant it for at least 2 hours, which we did not, but it’s really good and it’s going to get better with age.

I’m going to sum up the next few days by recapping the various ass kickings that occurred.

- I got my ass kicked in Backgammon a few times (I don’t play the game, but should learn it).

- I kicked some major ass in Chess (this has been a long time coming)

- Major ass woopings occurred on a continual basis in Call of Duty. Think M60 vs. Pistol with the pistol winning and you can get a feel for things.

Another reason I was in Edmonton during this period was to party on New Years with a few of my friends who were going to come up on New Years Eve. On my suggestion (really, why is anyone listening to me?) we thought The Mall would be happening, but alas, when we arrived we really didn’t find much. After doing a little skating we decided to check out White Ave,

It was pretty cold out and after checking a few clubs it appeared as if we were going to have a tough time finding a place to go to without having tickets. Finally we walked past the Iron Horse and I remembered having a few good nights there and we decided to check it out. Many drinks later I was dancing and everyone had a good time. It was probably the best New Years Eve ever for me.

But, the fun did not end at the club. The cab ride from White Ave to our hotel on the west side was a lot of fun. I’m not sure where our cab driver was from, as he wouldn’t tell me, but I suspect Kazakhstan. He was Borat, minus the thong swim suit. Super funny. Basically his life philosophy could be expressed as equation of such simplicity and beauty as to truly astound Aristotle or even Nietzsche:

Happiness = Tea + Sexy Time

Now that I’m back in town and able to finally slow down and relax I’ll be playing poker again finally. It’s been a while. I’ll also be trying to get a bit of poker content into this blog as that’s what I meant it to be initially. We will see what happens.

3 comments:

zenmaster said...

If defeat has more to teach us then victory,then perhaps a defeat is a victory unto itself.

buck said...

Who's the zenmaster?

I like that quote btw. It's a very fitting poker quote.

zenmaster said...

who is the zenmaster......

The Zen Master hakuin was honored by his neighbours as on who led a pure life.

One day it was discoverd that a beautiful girl who lived near hakuin was pregnant.

The parents were very angry. At first the girl would not say who the father was, but after much harassment she named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to Hakuin, but all he would say was, "Is that so?"

After the child was born it was taken to Hakuin - who had lost his reputation by this time, although he didn't see, much disturbed by the fact.

Hakuin took great care of the child. He obtained milk, food, and everything else the child needed from his neighbours.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer, so she told her parents the truth - the real father was a young man who worked in the fish market. The mother and father of the girl went round at once to Hakuin to tell him the story, apologize at great length, ask his forgiveness and get the child back.

As the master willingly yielded the child he said, "Is that so?"