Christmas in... August?

Good evening all... It's been a helluva day, full of ups and downs, but right now I'm relaxing at home with an ice-cold bottle of water and the Cardinals game (just went to rain-delay) playing in the background.

First of all, the past 24 hours have been quite eventful. I took some time out of my afternoon yesterday to go down to the bank and then get a bite to eat, and as I was leaving the house, the UPS man showed up bearing gifts. My roommate thought the package was for him, as he'd ordered some computer games, but I was surprised to see that the box had my name on it. 'Mr. Moe' made my day by sending a box of my favorite cigars--Partagas Black Label Magnificos, along with a five-pack of Black Label Pyramides. Oh hell yeah! For those of you unversed in the mysterious world of fine cigars, well, these rate right up there with Osetra caviar as far as luxury consumables go. I love 'em--they are truly one of life's awesome little pleasures, and I was humbled beyond words, because they are not cheap. It was a very nice gift.

Once my cigars were unpacked, my errands were run, and I had some dinner, I played in another one of those $33 single-table sit-n-go tournaments on PokerStars--Hey, you know I'm gonna try and parlay my winnings! And my hot streak continued--I won the whole thing again, pocketing another $135 for my efforts. Woot!

After the tournament, I clicked over to the T2V chatroom to toot my own horn for awhile, but my peers know me too well and remain mostly unimpressed, which helps keep my sizable poker ego in check. But after chatting for awhile, I decided to call it an early night and went to bed by 10 pm or so, knowing I had to get up early on Tuesday morning.

I fell right asleep, and got almost five hours of quality pillow-time before waking up at 3:00 am. My alarm was set for 4:30, and I *knew* I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so I logged back on to PokerStars and signed up for another one of those $33 tournaments. Right away, I could tell that something was amiss--the screen kept clocking, but I was unable to make any bets. And it kept telling me that I was getting timed out. Not only that, but three or four of my hands were folded when I was trying to make bets.

Apparently, there were gremlins in the network. I tried rebooting, I tried logging off and on, I tried everything I could think of--turning off all other programs and windows didn't help either. I checked my network connections on my end, and all was well. But I kept getting screwed out of hands and couldn't make bets when I wanted to. Since I kept getting knocked off the site, I missed a few bets during key hands (one of which would've tripled me up and put me in the chip lead with five players left), and I ended up busting out, out of the money, unable to control my game.

I was pretty pissed, but I had no recourse but to send a note to tech support asking for a refund. They've been blowing me off all day with canned excuses, but I sent my log files over and showed that their PokerStars network server had a bad connection, so I'm hoping for some positive resolution. I haven't heard back yet on this last exchange, but at least this time they're actually looking at the log files and making an effort. Before that, it was just "Sorry, not our fault, no refund..."

Who knows what's gonna happen, but I just re-tested the connection a few minutes ago and it's still pretty bad, so until they resolve it, I won't be playing online again.

Anyhow, right after I busted out, my phone started ringing, and of course it was work calling, asking me to come down ASAP. So I hit the shower, then hit the road.

When I got there, we had three games going, and all the dealers had been locked down for a couple of hours without breaks. So I came in and sent one home, and then I was locked down for three hours straight. I was cool with that, because there was a juicy no-limit game going, and the 4/8 games were action-packed, too. I managed to pocket a hundred bucks in my first three hours of work.

The rest of the day was kind of a cakewalk, and I stayed until noon. I would've had to stay later and probably work overtime, but the simple fact of the matter was that since the Bad Beat Jackpot is so high right now, nobody wanted to play in the tournament and miss a chance at the jackpot. Since we had no tournament players, it was canceled, and I got cut out an hour early. That didn't bother me so much--I'd made decent money for the day, so I headed for the door.

I went over to Target to buy a bunch of household items and toiletries, then came home and got crazy with the epoxy trying to make jury-rigged repairs to the shower massage bracket in my bathroom. It's holding for now, and once I managed to un-stick myself from the bathroom walls and countertops, I took a nap.

I was completely out of it when I heard Push It playing next to my head, and I woke up to my gal 'Sweet Booty' calling me. She was in the neighborhood and wanted to see if I'd be willing to have dinner with her. Of course I would! Twenty minutes later we met up at my casino, looking forward to a nice meal at the Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, none of the good restaurants open until 5 pm, and we were an hour early, so we got stuck with the coffee shop with all the retirees. It wasn't bad, and I have to admit that the company was wonderful.

We laughed our asses off for about an hour and a half, telling stories and catching up on the latest gossip. It was a lot of fun to catch up and we both agreed that we have to do it more often. And Andrea absolutely refused to let me pay for dinner, snatching the ticket away as soon as it hit the table, insisting that it was on her since she invited me, so my meal was even better.

Kimmy was working at the time, so I told my gal Sweet Booty that she had to walk through the pit with me, and that as soon as we saw Kimmy, she (SB) had to act like my wang tasted like Dove chocolate. We giggled about that over the entire meal, but the execution wasn't nearly as brilliant as the concept, and well, Kimmy just walked on by and said "Hey" without stopping when she saw me.

Oh well, at least we had a laugh...

My gal Booty had left her car with the valet out front, and I was in the garage out back, so we said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways. Once I got off the elevator, I saw a cute little blonde heading my way. Putting on my glasses, I saw that it was Beth, another one of my cocktail girls who is probably the hottest chick I've ever known. She's like the opposite of Medusa--Seriously, I'm a stuttering mess if I look directly at her for too long... So she ran over and gave me a hug and we chatted for a few minutes which was nice because I haven't seen her in over a month, either.

Anyhow, she's got a new part time job working in the spa at one of the local country clubs, so next week I'm gonna go see her and have her give me a manicure. Not only will it be nice to spend some time chit-chatting with her and likely making some plans to hang out again, but every time I get a manicure, I get lots of compliments on my hands when I'm working, so it's worth a few bucks.

At that point, I realized that I was having a pretty good afternoon--I got to see a couple of my favorite ladies, and got a free meal out of the deal too!

Once I got home, I saw that there was yet another package from the UPS man on the porch. But I kind of had an idea what was in it before I opened it. See, just yesterday I was thumbing around on my Amazon Wish List, thinking of buying a couple of books to go on my new shelves. But I went to buy that Anthony Bourdain No Reservations book, but it wasn't on my list anymore.

WTF?

I was beginning to think that there was some sort of big internet conspiracy against me, but then I found the tab that said I could sort my list by 'purchased' items, too. Duh--I've only been using Amazon for frickin' ten years now, and never noticed that feature before. And then I saw that the book was purchased, along with another one that I was looking to buy. Hmmm... So when I talked to my sister Cyndi earlier today, I asked her if she'd bought them. But she said no. So I had no idea who sent them.

But back to the box on the porch--I opened it up, and inside were those same two books that I went to buy the day before. Talk about an eerie coincidence... And checking the receipt, I saw that they were from Lisa Lisa The One I Adore (of N9Ne steakhouse and Bacon Salt fame!). So I called her to say thanks, but got her voicemail. I left a message, but again--Lisa, thank you much!

In addition to the books and cigars, there was another package that came three days ago, but it arrived when I was taking my five-day blog sabbatical. Inside was a set of very nice Egyptian cotton towels, a house-warming gift from Scottie VegasJones in Texas. I actually got to talk to him, and him and his lovely bride Alice Lee are in town this week, so we're gonna go out and have dinner together one night.

So again, thanks everyone! I have some of the most generous readers ever, and I feel truly blessed. It means a lot to me, and it also keeps the pressure on to keep putting out some quality material. I hope I don't disappoint...

Anyhow, the ups lately have greatly outnumbered the downs, and I feel like I'm riding a lucky streak again. And it's wonderful to know that I'm not riding it alone.

Y'all have a great evening!

Mikey