Catching Up

Well, since everyone is curious, the pasta salad turned out pretty damn good, although I'm completely pissed off now. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day when I made it, and now that my weekend--with two full days away from the casino--is imminent, it's cold, overcast, and windy. Just a shitty day outside. Pasta salad is "summer" food. I'm eating it, but I'm not happy. Today is more of a soup day. Believe me, I'd rather be out on the patio getting some sun and drinking a rum cocktail, but no, I'm inside, eating cold food, and looking for some wool socks and a sweater. Ugh. It better be nice outside tomorrow, or I'm going to have a few choice words for Mother Nature.

I played two tournaments today, but gave up in frustration. I went out on the bubble in the first one (for you non-poker players out there, "on the bubble" means "the last moron knocked out before the prize money"), and then took a third place in another tournament--I swear I would've won the thing--I was totally outplaying the other guys and had them dead to rights, but when I made a straight and a flush and went all in, the doofus next to me had two pair and called, catching a ten on the river to make a full house. Mikey went out in third. Oh well... That's poker. All the skill in the world doesn't matter when somebody catches their miracle card. So I'm taking a break until tomorrow.

As far as the new computer goes, it looks like we'll be picking it up the week of March Madness. And it looks like I'll probably be going with a Toshiba laptop. They seem to offer the most bang for the buck and the least amount of headaches. (Never again will I go with Compaq/HP unless I get some sort of SCREAMING deal). Dell was an option, but I question their service capabilities and would hate to have to ship the thing away whenever there is a problem. The ability to take the machine back into the store where I bought it to do upgrades/maintenance/repair is a big factor, so we've pretty much eliminated Dell from the equation. As far as getting a Mac goes--that was more tongue-in-cheek, but as nice as their machines are, price is a heavy consideration. We keep looking at Sony, HP, and Toshiba, and Toshiba keeps edging out the competition in every category.

Anyhow, with a laptop handy during the Madness, I will hopefully be able to do in-progress reports, and maybe post a few pics along the way. And we've got big plans for Saturday, even beyond the poker tournament, so there should be plenty to keep everyone entertained.

That's the news from here. I've just got to endure eight more hours of work, then I'm free at last, free at last...

Mikey