Archive for February 2005
Posted on February 26, 2005 by Ching under Life, Poker.
I’m so freakin’ tired of being carded! Remember that incident at the Warren that aggravated me so much that we didn’t end up watching our movie? I had a repeat last night. Not at the movie theater. At APL headquarters this time. The great thing about APL HQ is that they allow 18 year old people to play. At most of the places where we play (which are typically bars), you have to be 21 no matter what. You might not drink alcohol or whatever, but they require you to be 21 to play. Now at most bars, they’re pretty good about not carding me anymore. Loft 150 is the best. I don’t even bother bringing my purse sometimes because I know that Tiffany is the bomb and she won’t ask to see my driver’s license. Of course, after you’ve been there every week without fail for the last three months you’re pretty much a regular. Going back to my story.. While I think it’s great that people under 21 can play at APL HQ, this actually creates a bit of a problem for me. Since they have so many underage players running around, they always (and I mean always) have to card whenever I want to drink. And I can completely understand this because I know, on most days and depending on what I happen to be wearing, I may not look like I’m old enough to drink. I think it’s the baby fat. But I digress… Last night my unlucky ass got assigned to a table with a bunch of young-looking guys. Realize that you have to be at least 18 to play so, a few minutes into the first session, one of the female hosts comes to our table and starts carding the young guys sitting across from me. Now I knew that I left my purse at home and don’t have my driver’s license with me because I had no intention of drinking that night. I actually planned on playing poker sober for a change. Isn’t that something? So anyway, I’m thinking, I look at least 18. Surely she’s not going to card me. She comes across the table and cards the guy to my immediate right. Now this guy happened to be drinking a beer so common sense would tell you that he’s a least 21. I’m thought to myself, you’ve got to be kidding. The guy is really cordial about it, though. He jokes about the beer that he’s drinking and yet he’s being carded to verify that he is old enough to play poker. It’s preposterous, but I give him props for not making a big deal out of it. At this point, I’m worried. If she doesn’t think the guy drinking beer is old enough to play poker, she probably doesn’t think I’m 18 either. My fears were confirmed when, after she was finished with him, she turns to me and asks to see my identification. “I don’t have it with me,” I tell her. “Okay, but you have to show it to me before the next session begins.” Alright, so she was really nice about it. And she’s going to allow me to go home and get it. That’s pretty cool of her. It’s huge inconvenience, but several minutes prior Brian had busted so he’s sitting in the loser’s lounger just drawing. Since he’s not playing, I figured that he’d be willing to run home and get my driver’s license so I can continue to play. No big deal. I just have to convince him to go home and get my driver’s license. I mean, God! How embarrassing is that? I really don’t want to be kicked out of APL HQ because they don’t think I’m old enough to play. I’m almost 30 for crying out loud! In between hands I run over to the loser’s lounge to tell Brian, who is engrossed in his drawing project, that he needed to go home and get my driver’s license. “I’m not going to go home and get your driver’s license just so you can drink,” he says indignantly. “Baby! You don’t understand,” I insist, “You have to go get it. This lady came to our table and carded these boys and she doesn’t think I’m old enough to play!” Brian just has this blank look. It takes him a while to digest things sometimes. And I can’t blame him. It’s ridiculous. How can you not tell I’m at least 18? But since he hadn’t made any kind of attempt to pack his stuff and leave. I reiterate, “They don’t think I’m 18. I need my driver’s license to prove that I’m old enough to play. Otherwise, they’re kicking me out of the game.” I’m kind of overly dramatic anyway, and I thought the situation was so tragic (I must to play poker; I can’t NOT play) that you could really sense the panic and urgency in my voice. I’m thinking, go! Now! Move! Brian, one of the APL hosts, just happened to be in the room preparing chip trays. He overhears our conversation and starts laughing his ass off. Fueled by APL host Brian’s reaction my Brian goes, “Are you serious? I’m not driving all the way home and driving all the way back just to get your driver’s license.” “But I need it or they won’t let me play.” By now I’m pleading with him. Please, please go get my driver’s license already. Brian turns to the other Brian and goes, “You know how old she is.. Can you vouch for her? I really don’t want to drive all the way back home. We live all the way up North.” Note that APL HQ sits at the corner of Lincoln and George Washington Boulevard, which is located in Southeast Wichita. APL host Brian finally regains his composure and he goes, “Alright.” He’s the best! “Show me which one it is and I’ll talk to her,” he tells me as we walk back out onto the vast poker hall. I walk back to my table and share my story of how Brian, the APL host, overheard my conversation with Brian, my husband, and how he busted up laughing. “Brian doesn’t want to go home to get my driver’s license and then drive all the way back. It’s a huge pain in the ass, so he’s trying to get Brian (the APL host) to vouch for me so I can stay and play.” I reassure my table that I’m old enough by revealing to them that I’m almost 30. Granted I’ve got three more years to go, but I’m getting pretty close. I mean, I’m closer to 30 than 20 anyhow. They all say that I don’t look it and they can’t tell. But they all agree that I certainly look at least 18. I didn’t want them to think that we were trying to pull anything. I mean, the other guys had to show their driver’s licenses and everything. I’m all for equality and fairness so I want them to know that I am old enough to play. I want them to know that I get to stay without showing my driver’s license because of the sheer absurdity of the situation, and not because I’m cute and sweet and did my pouty, puppy dog look and I batted my eyelashes a couple of times. How I long for the day when I will no longer get carded. I hope that happens soon because I’m really tired of being in these awkward, preposterous situations. I’ve learned my lesson, though. I’m bringing my driver’s license with me everywhere I go from now on.
Posted on February 25, 2005 by Ching under Life.
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This is a map of the route that we took to work yesterday. Brian’s ridiculous way of getting me to work is marked in red. My suggestion is marked in green. And this is yet another example of why women are far superior than men.
Why in the world didn’t we just take the canal route (I-135), you might ask?
Well.. If you live here in Wichita, you’d know that yesterday was one of the foggiest days ever. As in, you had visibility only up to your nose. Naturally, these crazy Wichita drivers continue to drive recklessly anyway.
Whenever Brian drives me to work, we usually hit the Sonic that is just North of the 37th and Woodlawn intersection. From there we take Woodlawn to K-96, then K96 to I-135 South, exit on 1st and 2nd, and then voila! I’m at work. It’s a pretty short, easy drive.
Not yesterday, though.
There was a car accident that cause cops to block the on-ramp from K-96 to I-135 South. We didn’t actually find this out until we finally crawled to the end of the line.
Since K-96 ends (as you can see on the map), we didn’t have a choice but to take I-135 North. Our original thought was to exit and loop back to take I-135 South but then while driving North we noticed that traffic on I-135 South wasn’t moving at all. It was bumper to bumper and the cars were totally still. Think of LA traffic on a really, really bad day. Like when aliens are about to take over the world like in the movie Independence Day. I-135 South was definitely out of the question at this point.
Brian’s idea was to take I-135 North, which hits I-235, so we could take that freeway South. There’s a Broadway exit on I-235 so I told Brian to get off there. My idea was to take Broadway to downtown Wichita, which is a straight shot. I mean, I figured with the foggy weather conditions as they were, we’ll more than likely encounter other wrecks on the other freeways. Besides, it’s common knowledge that everyone else takes the freeways to work so it gets trafficky during rush hour anyway. Brian insisted on taking I-235 all the way around to Kellogg (US Highway 54) and then taking Kellogg East to the Central Business District exit.
Irked, I go “Can you get me there in ten minutes? I can guarantee you I can get from I-235 and Broadway to my work in ten.”
Brian goes, “But that’s 40 mph with stop lights. We’re going to go 70 mph with no lights.”
Notice how he cleverly avoids saying that he can beat, or even match, my ten minute time challenge. He knows he can’t. He’s just rationalizing at this point.
If it’s trafficky and there’s wrecks, you can’t go your full 70 mph anyway. So what good does using the freeway do? Nothing. It just aggravates me.
As we’re passing the Central exit, I said to myself “We would’ve been there by now had we taken Broadway.”
Just to prove my point I call Nick to find out if Broadway was trafficky. He lives by 29th and Broadway so he takes Broadway to work everyday and it only takes him ten minutes. I got voicemail.
We finally get to Kellogg which, despite the newly constructed fly overs, is trafficky as I expected. Brian begins to realize that I’m right at this point but refuses to admit it. It really annoys the shit out of me when people just can’t admit that they’re wrong.
I told Brian that I will prove to him that my way is better so I’m posting it here. We’ve got both routes mapped up. I must say, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it?
Posted on February 23, 2005 by Ching under Sex.
Posted on February 21, 2005 by Ching under Life.
So the Jason-bacon was in a stripper sandwich after poker last Thursday.. And Corey goes, “It’s only good as long as it’s not made with sourdough bread.” I think sourdough is the least of your worries. It’s the cottage cheese that you have to worry about! Ha! Ha! Ha! Brian and I wanted to give Jason the gift of Ridd the next day but we figured that he probably already had some in his medicine cabinet seeing as he’s been ho-baggin’ for years. He’s probably got some other stuff in there, too. I’m making a mental note to take a picture of it for you guys next time I’m over.
Posted on February 21, 2005 by Ching under Poker.
It doesn’t work either. I play tight, I get knocked out. I play loose, I get knocked out. Absolutely nothing has worked for me. So I decided on Saturday that I would dress in a school girl outfit to play poker on Sunday. Well, apparently that doesn’t work either. Jason says that I didn’t use my costume to its full potential because I didn’t play the part and do the “Hee, hee, hee.. I’m so clueless at this game.. This is the first time I’ve played.. Am I doing it right? Giggles.. Giggles..” APL guy Brian suggested playing “crazy monkey poker” (whatever that means). On Saturday Jason had me read this Bluff article on the way to lunch. It was written by Annie Duke. She was saying that females have an advantage over male poker players because men tend to think with their other brain sometimes. The idea is to take advantage of the “flirters” and to provoke anger and irritation from the “chauvinists” which will help one distract their opponents from their game. Easier said than done. I think it’s because I’m too self-conscious to be anyone else. The outfit was pretty easy, though. I am always adventurous when it comes to clothing anyway. I knew I got it right when Jason’s first reaction was, “Why did you LET her wear that? I was only joking yesterday.” In my defense and taking pride in his accomplishment, Brian retorts “I helped her dress!” Jason goes, “I can’t even look at you!” Well, that’s what you get. I’m pretty impressionable so I’ll go with anything. With me, you really have to be careful what you wish for because I’ll do it. They asked for it! At the coliseum I stuck out like a sore thumb among the hundreds of poker players. Jason had to give me props on the outfit. Even in the parking lot I was getting looks. Inside he commented on the fact that we had yet to pass a group of men who didn’t look our way. I’m thinking they’re probably confused, wondering what the hell I’m doing there. I can surmise that they’re probably saying to themselves, “Is she lost? This is a poker tournament.” That aside, Jason ran into his friend Gary right before lunch. Gary was one of the organizers of the poker tournament that Jason won. Remember when he won $950 for first place? That tournament. I think I may have written about it in the other blog. So Jason was telling Gary how his friend’s wife read the Annie Duke article in the most recent issue of Bluff Magazine and decided to dress up today. Gary was like “Dude, have you seen the Asian girl dressed as a school girl?” To which Jason could only reply, “Yup.. That would be her.” I don’t know if I was a source of embarrassment for everyone or a source of amusement. I seriously hope it’s the latter. I just want to have fun. I don’t want people to be embarrassed to be seen with me. Yikes! Yeah, I’m a character alright. Speaking of character, I think I may be a character in a local poker show. They had me wired with a mic and followed me around with a camera on Saturday. I was pretty boring, though, so I’m not sure if I’ll make the cut. It would be cool if I do. I’ll keep you all posted.
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