I spent Memorial Day weekend in the San Jose area visiting Kat. She set up this super sweet bed and breakfast deal for the weekend in Half Moon Bay (a 1 hr drive from Mountain View) so we spent the majority of the weekend hanging around the beach and generally being lazy. It was unbelievably awesome. A much needed change of pace. We did all the typical stuff youd expect out of a bed and breakfast weekend, walk along the beach, checked out Fitzgerald Marine Preserve, drove through the Purisima Creek Redwoods, ate some tasty foods, and watched the sunset (cause were all romantical and shit, yo). It really was fantastic.

And then, gambling?
Being that we are who we are, there was some casino action involved over the weekend. On the Friday before the weekend, we ventured back to Bay 101 for some poker action. The list was pretty long so I signed up for 2/4, 3/6 and 6/12 (since I had such good luck at it last time). Of course 6/12 came up first, so I prepared for the worst and started playingmy game. There were a lot of maniacs and within a couple hours, I was a bit shortstacked when A2s came at me in the big blind. There was a raise from a maniac that was shorter on chips than me, so I didnt feel guilty calling a preflop raise with 6 callers. The flop came 2-X-X. First person bets, maniac raises, one guy calls, it folds around to me (I call) and the original raiser folds. I was certain that neither of the two guys left in the hand has hit anything yet. Turn comes A and now with 2 pairI bet, maniac raises all in, other player calls, I call. River comes 2 and completes a flush draw. I bet, non-descript guy raises. I only have $11 left, so I re-raise all-in. Non-descript guy calls and flips over pocket aces. Theres a lesson in all of this. Beware the guy who calmly lets you do all the betting. Hell no doubt flip up the hand you werent even looking for. I had to rebuy, there were no two ways about it. Eventually, I won my money back and was actually up $200 for a while, but lost it all on a few straights and flushes that panned out for other players against my top pair, top kicker. I ended the session down $50. Not terrible, but not awesome either.

After the relaxing weekend on the coast, we decided to get some more poker action in on Monday afternoon. Since I have a strong desire to gamble everywhere, we went to Garden City Casino to check out their poker room. Its actually slightly closer than Bay 101 (I think) but on the I-280 side rather than the 101 side which means its more of a pain in the ass to get to from Kats place, even if it is closer.

Garden City
I could go on and on about Garden City. I could tell you about how its more crowded, dingy, and less professional than Bay 101. I could tell you that the dealers let all sorts of ridiculous table talk, players showing cards to other players in the hand, and even accidentally flip up mucked cards at the end of a hand. All of that stuff is interesting and true. My table was full of a bunch of regulars who routinely made deals to check out the rest of hands when heads up against other players they knew. It was silly and boring. I could tell you about how some regulars at my table made stupid obnoxious comments to Kat when she came by my table, but shes already covered that. I could tell you about the weird (seriously) Santa Cruz hippie that sat down next to meand managed to hit quads four times in three hours. Between him and the asshat to my left I found myself wishing there was a stronger cigarette smell to cover up their collective body odor. Instead of all that, Im going to tell you about the most interesting thing that happened while I there: visiting the bathroom.

The first thing I did after getting on the list was go to the bathroom. When I walked into the bathroom, I instantly see a short Asian man at a urinal swaying side to side emphatically as he urinates like a child underlining his name after he first discovered that you could write your name in the snow while pissing. Im not sure that my description does it justice. It was just flat strange. As if it couldnt get any weirder, the next time I went to the bathroom (2+ hrs later) another Asian guy was using the same urinal only this time instead of swaying side to side, hes making a humping motion. Not an exaggerated shaking it off humping motion when he was finished, but humping motion the entire time he was pissing. Either the people in this casino are strange, or there is something really special about that first urinal. And if there is something special about that first urinal, Id rather not know about it.

As far as *actual poker* goes, I played 3-4 hours of 3/6 and ended the evening up $50, evening out my poker for the trip. The most notable thing about the session was the number of quads that were hit. I counted 6 sets of quads all of which were for some huge pots. I hit quads myself (quad 2s) and destroyed a couple guys with AKs (See what happens when you dont raise the flop with AK?!?). The hippie hit quads four times. Twice with pocket pairs. Unbelievable . Wheres the bad beat jackpot when you need it? The most amazing quads came didnt involve anyone Ive mentioned so far. It went a little like this (cutting out all the preflop business). Guy in early position (EP) bets a flop that goes 10-10-4, called by late position (LP). Turn is a blank, EP bets, LP raises, EP calls. River is an A. EP bets, LP raises, EP re-raises (back and forth until EP is out of chips). EP flips up A-A, LP shows 10-10. It almost hurt to watch, but I didnt like either player so I was hoping that somehow theyd both lose. One loser is better than none though, thats what I always say.

Bay 101, revisited
On Tuesday, Kat had to work, so I made another stop at Bay 101. My plan was to play for a while and then see about entering the daily tournament at 9:45. I got to the casino around 8:00am (there were probably five tables working at the time). After some confusion and getting bumped on my slot for 6/12, I decided to bite the bullet and play 8/16 because no one was looking like they were going to be getting up any time soon and I didnt want to wait for another table to open up. I had an unbelievable run at 8/16 and in an hour an a half managed to be up $360. Yeah, it was ridiculously awesome. I dont think I could handle the swings though if I happened to hit a bad streak starting out. I mean, at one point I was up almost $500 and $140 vanished without blinking an eye. Happy with my winnings, I decided to play the tournament. $50 buy-in with $20 rebuys.

The tournament is an insane all-in fest for the first three rounds. You start with 500 in chips (1000 with the double rebuy) and people continually went all-in and rebought over and over again. One of the poker roommanagers told me that the last time he played the tournament he spent $280 on buyins. Insane in the membrane. I only spent $90, getting busted twice total. Both times I got busted I had the best starting hand. The first, pocket 7s with 300 in chips left, I pushed in late position to try to take some blinds. Reraises all-in, big blind calls us all. LP shows pocket 2s, big blind shows A-10. 10 spikes on the river. Once rebuys were over I had one hand where I doubled up and got to around 1300. A guy in early position raises to 400. I raise all-in with J-J to isolate and get one other caller. EP shows 10-10, other caller shows 6-6. Flop comes out J-9-2, turn Q, river K. This was the same fucking guy that spiked the 10 to bust me previously. Runner-runner straight. It hurt. I decided Id had enough poker for one day and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in a coffee shop in downtown San Jose catching up on email, talking to my work peoples and typing this.

Overall, it was an amazing weekend. Hopefully it’ll be enough rest to get me through to the Fourth of July, when I think I should look for some Vegas Centennial action. We’ll see how that pans out.

So since I was going to San Jose for the long weekend, I had to fly, which meant I spent an entire day in a panic trying to get everything accomplished before I left. (Am I ever going to learn to plan for vacations better? I didn’t think so). It didn’t help that I had spent the previous night out after the Nine Inch Nails show. I left work half an hour later than I wanted to, but still managed to get to the airport in time for the flight. I was absolutely the last person on the plane. As I’m waiting for everyone to find their seats, I notice a guy sitting in the aisle seat typing furiously on a blackberry. Then I notice that he’s not in a business suit, but rather a black t-shirt and jeans. Black dyed hair. I look at the guy across the aisle from him; same thing. Wearing all black, hair dyed black. I look back at the blackberry guy and notice the beefy arms, but he’s still not looking up enough for me to tell if he’s actually who I think he is: I don’t want to embarrass myself, so I use Kramer technique for figuring out who someone is. I call out “Hey Trent!”. He looks up at me blankly.

Me: “You played a great show last night.”
Trent: “Thanks. I’m glad you liked it.” *shakes my hand*.

That’s right. Trent Reznor (and the keyboard player was the other guy) was on my flight. I’m on my way to San Jose, but we stopped in Phoenix, where NIN is playing a couple shows this weekend. Proud of myself for not totally obsessed fan-ing out on him, I take my seat on the plane, resisting the urge to sit within talking distance of him. I mean, the guy’s minding his own business, right? But during the flight, my superfan status takes over and I keep trying to think of reasons why I need to talk to him again at greater length. The majority of the flight we had turbulence though, so the flight attendants weren’t letting people walk around. Finally, the ride was smooth for a while. I decided to go to the bathroom, walk by and see if he was doing anything. He had a Sony PSP and was playing tetris or some game that looked like it. Either way, I didn’t want to interrupt. Once in the lavatory, I remembered that I still have the May issue of Spin in my backpack (the one with Trent Reznor on the cover). I decided that I would just have him autograph it. While I’m in the bathroom though, we hit more turbulence and the safety belt light comes on again. And then the plane starts its decent into Phoenix. Realizing that this is my last chance, I decide to go for it while the flight attendants are cleaning up the back of the plane.

Me: *Tap Trent on the shoulder*. “Hey, I’m sorry to do the stupid fan thing, but would you mind signing my May issue of Spin?”
Trent: “Sure.” *signs the cover*
Me: “I really liked the show last night. The track selection was awesome. Are you guys playing Phoenix tonight?”
Trent: “Naw, we’re playing tomorrow and the next night.”
Flight Attendant: “Please take your seat.”

So before I could work up the nerve to ask for the photo op, the flight attendant shut me down. Too bad. But, I do have my autographed cover of Spin. It brings up an interesting question though. Why did I want it? I have no idea what I’m going to do with this issue of Spin. Do I frame it and put it on the wall? Maybe. I used to be a horrible autograph whore. I used to stay at shows way after the show was over to see if I could meet the band, get them to sign ticket stubs, cds, posters, whatever. Then I woke up one day and thought to myself, why? I still keep ticket stubs because I have some strange idea in my mind that I’ll make some collage of them at some point. But by the time I do that I’ll be a thousand years old and I think I’ll feel somewhat like Uncle Rico every time I look at it. All of this being said, sitting here on the plane, my only thought was “How am I going to get him to autograph this issue of Spin.” The logical “what the hell do I want it for?” question was still there in my mind, but I completely left it unanswered and insisted on getting the autograph, which Trent politely gave me without a scowl. His really quiet demeanor made me feel bad for bothering him. He kind of reminded me of my friend, Kevn (the devil machine). If I didn’t know him, I’d feel bad for bothering him because he always looks like he’s got his own shit going on and doesn’t need to be bothered. Not in a bad way, just like he has better things to do than sign issues of Spin. But fuck it, when am I ever going to meet Trent Reznor again?

Last Wednesday, Nine Inch Nails played at Stubb’s. Multiple people that I know asked me the same question when I told them I was going to the show, “Nine Inch Nails is still around?” Apparently no one remembers “The Fragile” which in my opinion is a high quality album. But never mind that, I was going to see Nine Inch Nails! Things didn’t get off on the right foot; I was late leaving and had to deal with the 6pm I-35 parking lot situation. I was feeling rather impatient though, so I took back roads all the way downtown.

The Show
When I finally got to Stubbs, I saw two big lines. Both appeared to be going into the venue, but one was dramatically shorter than the other. I decided to go for the short line and quickly got into the show. Note to self: always look for the really short line. The other people I was meeting stood in line for an extra 30 minutes for nothing. I secured a great spot 20ft from the stage, dead center.

The Dresden Dolls
They were pretty good. Their drummer can wail like no one’s business. Really good. And they did a cover of War Pigs (the black sabbath song, or as I like to remember it, the Faith No More cover song on Falling to Pieces) which was really interesting. I liked their set, despite the people in the crowd that were flipping them off (as if that accomplishes anything).

Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails came on at 9pm, which although extremely early, was a welcome surprise to me because now I had no room to myself being that close to the stage. Instead, I had the pleasure of rubbing up against 5 people at the same time, none of which were attractive, female, or smelled the least bit desirable. The show was awesome. It was as if Trent Reznor picked my favorite songs from each album specifically for me. The Downward Spiral? Let’s play “Reptile”. Broken? Let’s play “Suck” and “Gave Up”. They even played “Burn” (the non-album track from Natural Born Killers). Rock out. The only frustrating thing is that there was a lot of singing along. Not that singing along is particularly bad, but the guy next to me was a horrible singer. And I’m not talking bad like the rest of humanity, but rather horrible as in “it should be crime for you to speak and thus should not do so in public”. Especially really loudly in my ear. But if that weren’t bad enough, during “Hurt” this guy had to continually sing the wrong lyrics with the wrong timing. I’d give a sample lyric, but it hurts me so bad I can’t bring myself to relive those feelings again. The stage was definitely toned-down from the last time I saw them (on the ’94 downward spiral tour). No big screens with videos playing this time, no smashing of equipment after every song, just some giant LEDs (which looked pretty cool though they were very simple), and five guys bringing teh rock.

In summary:
The show was at Stubb’s BBQ
There were about 2000 people at the show
The jam session was awesome

NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS
NINE INCH NAILS

Rock over Austin, rock on Chicago
Winamp: It whips the llama’s ass