7up

So far, I haven't won at poker from the casino at all. The best I've done is broke even or maybe $7 up. "7up"

That's the trouble with me: I initially start off doing pretty well in the game, which is when I get reckless or bored--possibly both--and start playing my weak hands or maybe even overvalue my hole cards a bit.

I know I can play better, but I don't have that much time to play with--3 hours is the most usually.

It's always good to scope out the playing hall before you begin your game. There are regulars on every table. There is not one table where there isn't a recognisable face--I don't know them, but I know they're here more frequent than I am. I can't sit on a table without seeing someone I've played with before. And I don't even play often.

This is where you need to be careful as some of the players are here with each other. There's always a suspicion of an unfair game going on. Like today, where this married couple couldn't sit on the same table--I've played with them countless of times. Today, there was suspicion over whether they had signals for each other.

Where does all this lead me anyway? I'm still $122 down from all the bad calls I've been making since I was $15o up.

Sometimes. Sometimes, you're just outmatched by better players. Sometimes, your reads aren't as good as you thought they were--you get blinded into calling strong hands with cards you shouldn't have been playing with in the first place. Bad calls. Bored calls.

These are the kind of calls that release you from victory. Take a break once in a while, kid.

Start of a Bad Day

It began maybe 2 weeks earlier. I've had these irregular sleeping patterns since. I thought I had it under control--I almost did. But that was yesterday.

I was in bed right before 10pm. And I wasn't even interested in playing low stakes hold 'em at my brother's friend's house. What a waste of 3 hours, and $10. We left by 1:30am.

Seven hours, $200 later, I'm back from the casino, unable to sleep once more. Today, rapid roulette just made a new enemy of me. How could I even resist? The house was so close to the city.

Happy Mother's day--meaning: no full sleep.

Tai Sai

The game 'Tai Sai' has just grown on me. The game with 3 dices in a glass jar. 'Tai Sai' translates to big/small. My strategy--not complex--is to spread $20 onto 4 total-sum spots. The total sum spots are just values from 4 and up that indicate what the sum of all three dices add up to. The best odds you'll get are from 9-12 due to their frequency. I won $100 just from doing that; which isn't much to be proud of.

Yes, we were at the casino again. Two days in a row. And yet I have not tried my hand at hold 'em. Each time I want to take a seat, words of warning from my brother stop me.

Sitting at the roulette machine, drinking drinks like beer and Jim Beam cokes, and smoking more frequently than ever. I'm back into this line of work. Tsk...

Readjust

A lot of people sleep around 12 or 1am, wake up at 7 or 8am, then carry on with their day.

That's what I've been doing, with the exception that it's in pm and not am.

Just another phase, I'm sure. Readjusting.

Shooting Star

I was outside smoking the other day, and I was looking at a portion of the sky towards the left when coincidentally a shooting star went by. It wasn't a very long streak.

What are the chances of that one spot being the one where it would hit (and it did)?

Then later my brother says it happens all the time and that one day we should go to the some bay area and because it's clearer.

I don't know how true that was, however.

Back to the Casino

It's not so surprising how many people are at the city casino on a Wednesday morning--mostly Asians.

I didn't really know why I was there. I didn't feel like playing anything. That was till I saw the Hold'em tables upstairs. A maximum of $100 buy-in on the tables. It's a pretty small section of possibly 6-7 tables.

"I'll skip this round," I thought. "Shark attack waiting to happen."

After a half hour of just observing, my brother and I went downstairs; which was where I started to itch for a round of roulette after watching a few spins.

I put in $20 and cashed out $90 the first time. Then later after the second beer, went back to the table and inserted another $20 and came out with $101.

This was Rapid Roulette--where the betting time is shorter. So I missed a few hits, but no point thinking about that.

Still Settling In

Every time I wake up, I feel foreign--disoriented. That feeling when you don't know which direction you're facing in bed, even though it should be obvious to you.

Or not

It has become increasingly colder here than when I first arrived in late February. It was warm then compared to the soon-to-be rigid-fingers-freeze. And it's not winter yet.

There's going to be hell to pay again as I acclimate further and it'll be my fingers paying them as I have yet to stop cracking them as I set out to weeks ago--a really bad habit. In my mind, this appears as though it will affect the movement of my fingers a lot, but I can't be very sure.

Being sure implies certainty and there's nothing really certain about my life, sadly. There should be. Or not. I can't be certain.

Sometimes, I don't even really know what these ramblings are about but a stream of words somewhat related to cracking knuckles/fingers and the cold.

I don't like Omaha

I played poker today.

Here, they play for $5 for 5000 in chips, with the blinds increasing now and again from 25/50 till 75/150.

Neither did I win nor lose any money as I needed not pay, but that's not important.

The players here are pretty alright--brother's friends--and they mostly play for fun and pride rather than stakes. I still think that it's easier to get called on when stakes are so low, but I think it's highly unlikely that they'll convert to higher stakes.

The players here (who usually play Hold 'em) are playing more 'Omaha', which to most of you is much different than what we're used to. Any four cards can get you in trouble because it really blinds the fact that you are only playing with two of the four cards. Two pairs, trips, can sometimes be so trivial.

So the whole time, the games would swap from Texas Hold 'em and Omaha depending on the dealer's prerogative. However, I think more of Omaha was dealt.

Mainly, I was uncomfortable with the idea that I have to adjust (from scratch) to a different game on the night I play with new people after not playing since I left KL. I learnt that I'm slowly losing my grasp of the game--what time does, I suppose.

Due South

I had gone south this weekend. to Napier and Hastings, wine country and art capital (said somewhere/someone) of NZ, apparently. It was in the book--a rough guide to NZ. It's a small quiet town (but not rural) further south on the eastern coast of the North Island.

It took about 5-6 good hours of looking out the window of a minivan/MPV/whatever the fuck have you, into a largely different scenery that you see back there, wherever that is; into a world of rolling hills, thick dense bush, coastline, rolling hills once more, vineyards, paddocks, way too many farm animals, and sometimes: combinations of the above.

In my travels--as though I've traveled a lot--I happened across hundreds in both cattle and sheep, loads of red deer, plenty of horses, some ponies, emu, and one donkey (just one in the middle of nowhere; alone; like me; jackass... and the being alone part). There were probably more animals than I can remember. But that's one big farm blur to me. I tried to take pictures for you but the car/minivan went by too quickly.

There are so many varieties of things to view from down there, though I didn't get the full views.
Mini breweries can be found there and about; there was one place called 'The Rooster,' where you are able to buy big bottles (called flagons)--these are the LARGE coca-cola sized ones--of whichever ale you want to take back home

There was a night at a motel, with a visit to the hot springs or thermal bath area alongside the coast. This must be a place where the locals go on weekends with the family (at a price of $10 a head for adults) because it was pretty crowded. The other thermal area we stopped at was a place called Kerosene Creek--an actual creek where natural (pungent) thermal water flows freely, which was off the beaten path somewhere in Rotorua--I don't know, I fell asleep in the car.

Coordination

I should probably tell you all that I have a foosball table. I don't know why I should, but it appears to be something I would think you might like to know. It's one of those Tornado Tables that those pubs and pool houses carry.

And so, over the past few days since the weekend the table had been assembled (in the hallway next to my room) I've come to learn that I have very poor hand-eye coordination.

I'm lying about that--I didn't just learn it over the weekend or anything of the like. It's been like that since I was a kid. After a certain speed, my reactions are generally poorer in quality.

Badminton shuttlecocks are a prime example of this. Are you like me? Does the shuttlecock miss the racquet by mere inches? Are you like me--that when you miss it, you are no longer embarrassed because it no longer seems to be an issue of skill levels; that somehow or rather through either spellbinding magic or a higher form of sorcery, the opponents have been given an edge over you?

I'm just kidding about that: of course there's still some embarrassment, but it's only embarrassment from not being selected, picked by the divine almighty Badminton wind spirits. I hate them.

Come to whatever conclusion you feel like, but just don't start with your crazy-eyes comments because they will be filtered. Carefully filtered.

I stopped playing Badminton long ago; since primary school. By "playing" the idea of consistently or regularly is best suitable. I don't remember having this problem with missing, then but things are rather foggy in that direction of my life.

And Kwang Ming asked me to play football with them. He was trying so hard to persuade me. The guy is unwavering. No never means no. I'll be avoiding that football phone call, I assure you that. I have a strange feeling I have poor foot-eye coordination as well.

April Baby

I was April fooled when someone answered my "what's new?" with "nothing much, same old, except that I'm going to be a father."

Suffice it to say that that is evidently not the case.

Mantidae

It's about time for another insect post, and this week, I present to you: The Praying Mantises that find their way into the house. They make fluttering noises just soft enough for you to hear them. I once confused one for a clock. I was in the dark.

Being one of the insects that have a strange appearance, it's about time to start disliking something else. Thin stick legs; large eyes with a dot in the centre; what appear to be mandibles; jagged claw appendages thingamajinga--which folds backwards giving the impression of a serrated cutting process to follow.

This must be the season as they come in swarms. Already there have been three. That's almost as many drunk white men I've encountered in one sitting.

Stranger things have happened

I was just standing there, in a pub, Friday night, with a pint in one hand and no excuse in the other as to why I'm at a farewell of people I haven't even met until this night. I don't ask a lot of questions; not out loud at least.

The real reason was to have a drink and to watch and observe--people; to just lounge about, and get into the whole feel of this pub-going, crowd-gathering, glass-holding society. It was sick, cultural, unnerving, colourful, fun and beautiful, all at once--like a poem. Or a pub.

The more real reason is so that I can write you more amusing and anecdotal entries while laying in this uncomfortable sit-up position, in the dark listening to Travis - The Man Who album, not being able to catch a break from trouble sleeping. Don't you dare ask me for pictures in this dark heap of madness and questionable taste!

A welsh man of a tall and sizable nature came up to (the four of) us earlier. Initially, Doreen was caught by surprise by this man standing 1-2 feet to the side of her, body tilted slightly (head likewise) at her direction. Puzzling was this as no one knew why this man stood there till he explained in a faintly tipsy manner that he was looking for a friend. I surmised this by the size of his opened eyes and a smile that seems to follow every cheerful disposition to drinking aplenty.

All I know is that either these girls have this happen to them every weekend or never have this happen at all. This is evident (but not evident enough for me to draw a conclusion) by the way Doreen said "Okeyyyy.." It was in a disbelieving indifferent tone. I received this treatment before as an experience to make a guess. It's rude and sometimes amusing from both perspectives.

Welsh Man walks up between me and John, puts his arms on our shoulders muttering something facing John while Doreen and Maria watched. John asks "Having a good night?" to a yes sort of answer. Following this he turns his head to me and I'm smiling in an approving/agreeable manner while the two girls continue watching. Yes Giant, gooooddd Giant. I'm wondering what the Giant really wants aside from conversation. He looks back at John saying something else and the two girls are just standing there waiting for the next thing to happen. It felt like tennis and the Giant was that man that sits in the middle watching the ball from court to court and the girls were making it more so by being the spectators.

And sure enough, he turns to my direction again. Having had enough of this, I smile ear to ear and utter "I don't have anything to say..." I think everyone found that funny except the Welsh Man, who said "I can sense the doubt in me, here." Of course, seeing that no one wanted to entertain the guy, I stepped in and made conversation. I was hoping someone else would pick up the slack--that usually happens.

How I came to know he was Welsh and looking for his friend (Steve) is another story. The truth is I don't even think he was looking for his friend. Steve is quite a general name. He had a drunk pasted face just standing there. You know, the kind that just looks superimposed and has little expression by how little it changes.

He wasn't the first one, tonight. The moment I stepped out of the car, "There you go..." I was greeted drunkenly on the street outside another pub, waving. I wave back, with that stupid puzzled look on my face as before in the Welsh Man chronicle. I hear a muffled "High Five" and turn to see that he wants a high five now, and so I gave him one. That high five changed into some weird hand shake with the twisting and gripping and [you name it]!! Fuck this I thought, breaking the handshake in a surrendering look hoping that he would take that as me being done on my half; I even threw in a friendly wave and smile at the end.

Right in front of where we parked, a pub, with a high five-ing white guy with the famous drink-in-hand look that I seem to carry everywhere I go being turned against me. A conspiracy, damn you! I don't know anymore. I can't even guess on whether he was making fun of me or drunk or both.

"Would anything happen to our car contingent of how I shook his hand?"

"Did I do it right?"

"Was he going to thrash our car because of my mistaken secret Aoteroa handshake?"

"I should have done it better and now it's too late!"

I was nervous. Drunk people can do anything, and usually will. The thought of coming back to windowless car. I felt, at this point, the feeling that people usually have after an exam paper they were under prepared for--that only the results will tell and nothing you do will ever change the mark handed to you.

Fetch

I saw footage of a dog owner who trained her doggy to fetch her a cold beer from the fridge. The only flaw is that the fridge door remains open. It's not a novel idea but it's the first time I've seen it--Impressive.

That's Animal Planet for you

A mother wolf carries a pup in its mouth. The pup is dead. She takes her pup into the bush and starts eating it. She didn't kill the pup for it died of starvation. Another pup comes along, also suffering from starvation. It needs to eat, so the mother wolf regurgitates its dead brother for the pup to feed on.

I'm watching Animal Planet. It's depressive sometimes.

Weather

Most nights, you cannot see a cloud in sight. Stars everywhere, moon in clear view, moonlight on everything. The clouds you see at night are illuminated by the moon. Something about it that will tell you that you're not in Kansas anymore, except that it's Kansas was KL.

When it rains here, you will hardly hear thunder. That's not how it goes down here, for some geographical reason. I should be researching the reason why this is for you, but not this time.

An exercise in self-amusement

The theme was "white," in that you had to wear white to this birthday party. The big 3-0 of Lawrence (Malaysian). Lawrence is an old friend of my brother. He was here since the last time I was here: 4 years or more ago. He'd used to come over to play mahjong with his girlfriend Susan. He doesn't anymore.

We were headed to Galatos. Galatos is a bar/club place off K. Road. It consisted of a stage and tables downstairs and another hall upstairs overviewing the stage and tables below. We were the upstairs party.

The area upstairs is a very dimly-lit, large living room-esque hall with a bar in the corner and three large couches with a big coffee table in the centre. Hanging above were those blue lights that make your white shirts glow and occasionally your teeth, too. My teeth didn't.

An hour in to the party and I haven't seen anyone I knew. It took a good two hours for someone I recognised to arrive. By this time I was immensely bored, but that's how I get everywhere I go, so I just go with it--and two hours is a long time, dear.

In the time which I was waiting, I managed to make friends, though not many, but that's because I never know if I'm ever going to see the person I meet ever again. In retrospect, it is probably why I don't remember names of many people. Note to self: Remember more names. Of many people.

I met this couple: Peter (Chinese) and girlfriend (Chinese). It appears that Peter didn't know anyone else except Lawrence at this party. Had I not said hello and introduced myself, they would have been sitting next to me for hours staring at glowing white shirts all over. Ghosts! However, sadly to say, I was getting tired of the icebreaker conversation and left to the bathroom to reposition myself somewhere else--I did feel guilty leaving him there, though that changes nothing.

I also met a Gavin, an engineer who works with Ivy. First: Ivy was a girl that shared the birthday with Lawrence. They had decided to celebrate their birthdays together; which should explain to you by now that when we arrived, the place was full of her friends. It was 20 to 4 to Ivy's advantage. And so I recognised no one.

Gavin (Malaysian) is a chatty person. This amused me somewhat because we would have an amusing conversation later.

Gavin was a thin guy, a head taller than I am, speaks with a bit of an accent because I could see through the accent to the broken English beneath. Through my observations, Asians add "Eh/Aye?" behind their sentences a lot here to blend in. Gavin was no exception. You understand this to be an impersonation, aye? If you're trying to pronounce it, then it's a slightly elongated "A." If you say the first alphabet at the end of every question, then you've got it, eh.

Later: I think I made Gavin start smoking again. I say this only because he mentioned that he had quit. Cigarettes are expensive here, which leads me to think that you should never pass them up. I only offered, and did no convincing. Marlboro lights. His face lit up with a bit of hesitation--as if he was thinking "oh wait.. I quit, so that means I shouldn't....."

Over a few cigarettes, Gavin would offer me advice on looking for work here in Auckland. He seemed to disfavour Hayes (a recruitment agency) a whole deal; he kept saying to be careful of these agencies with negative overtones.

Aside from the warning above, he went on about how people think it's good to work here but there's discrimination and from his experience, YOU'RE SHIT. He would then follow it up with another statement only to end up with "You're Shit!" once again. He did this maybe 2-3 more times. To me, it had appeared as though he had been burnt a few times in terms of work.

I gather that he was quite adamant about not liking Auckland or the work in Auckland by how fervently he said "You're shit!" It didn't lack conviction at all, as though he really knew that I was shit by how fast he said it. I was convinced. I was considering diving into the toilet and embarking on my journey to the motherland when he stopped and changed the topic.

"Oh but the weed here is awesome, eh?" My eyes lit up now, but there was hesitation, as though I was thinking "Oh wait... I quit, so that means I shouldn't..." And so I held my silence.

This guy was exclaiming to me (and the sidewalk of half a dozen people) of his one and only experience and how he didn't take that much and was so fuccccckeeed up. If he only knew who he was talking to. According to him, you have to know some kiwi people to get really hooked up with the cannabis scene. I don't think it's that hard, really.

Then he shifted back abruptly to talking about looking for work. But seriously work this work that... Maybe he figured I was on to his over enthusiastic pot experience.

Pearson and Kwang Ming were at the party. Some of you might remember them. They were in the same secondary school as I was. By this time, Pierson had already adjusted to his Kiwi accent. This is where you add "bro" to the end of your statements, bro. Kwang Ming, however still sounds pretty much the same. Kwang Ming is continuing his studies here in business. I didn't get to find out what Pearson was doing here aside from drinking profusely. At one point, he took off his tshirt, but I have no idea what for--he might have been warm due to drinking or was duped into doing it by his elder brother Bronson. Bronson is also an old friend of my brother's, here since four years or so ago.

So Kwang Ming says: Let's go for a smoke. I just had one. He insisted. Five minutes later a bunch of us were heading to some other club or bar to meet some Brazilian girls. I didn't understand how one can end up deviating from just a cigarette to walking towards the main road in search of exotic girls. But these were Audrey's friends and I had no expectations of what was to come.

"Just go!"

"Just come!"

"What? Is this a strip club or what?"

"When you don't know, all the more reason to tag along!"

In case you have yet to learn this: that last quote is usually a surefire recipe for disaster, injury and/or prison-time. I yielded all the way up to the crosswalk and went back to the bar. What a waste of time.

That's about all of Saturday night--there's actually more but it's just meeting people and the like. I didn't get to play cards but the people play for $5 a buy-in so I'd rather do something else. And so we drank gin tonics and did tequila shots and beer amidst ghosts in white. That's about it. I'd have pictures but Audrey has all of them. I'll find them eventually.

Bad Dream

So I started by taking the toilet brush. This was one of those special toilet brushes; the kinds that looked like a tooth brush with bristles on the back.

I flush the toilet and start scrubbing the bowl down. It was filthy with residual crap all over. I remember the filth spreading from bowl to seat.

I think I finished cleaning around late 5am, which was when I woke up. This was a dream. I think I have mental health issues.

Maybe tomorrow

I woke up today determined to stop cracking my fingers, knuckles, whatever. I didn't have a dream about it or anything. I just thought that I should stop. That's just how I roll: I decide things when I wake up.

I didn't. A few hours later, it happened--I cracked my fingers; shoulders, feet, neck and toes altogether.

I've heard from people--the same people that say a lot of things, for some reason--that cracking your fingers will eventually cause some form of difficulty for your fingered future(s)--something to do with pain or big joints.