Small World
Posted on December 23, 2004 by Ching under Life, Poker.
Speaking of.. It really is a small world. We ran into Casey Abay tonight at IHOP. We went there for post-poker munchies after Heroes. He happens to be friends with this guy that knows Brian from T-Mobile who sat with Brian, Jason and I in our booth and talked our ears off about how wonderful Brian was for what seemed like an eternity. Ugh. I get it already!
Anyway, it was so weird! To hear this guy rave about Brian.. It was nuts. It was like he worshipped him. Must’ve been the pot (and when I say pot I’m not referring to coffee) because the guy was totally stoned out of his ass.
The funny thing is that Brian would always tell me stories about reps lining up and trying to compete to get into his team because he is so fuckin’ awesome. He would tell me how all the reps just admired him and thought highly of him and everyone wanted to be on his team. I’m like, “Whatever.” We’re all deluded in one way, shape or form. I never really fully believed him until now, when I witnessed this guy just praise Brian out the ass.
Don’t get me wrong, I know Brian is wonderful but I didn’t think he was THAT wonderful.
I had to ask if Brian put him up to it or paid him to say all those things – or something. But then when that wasn’t it, I had to wonder if Brian somehow buttfucked the fella without my knowledge because of all the compliments that he was giving Brian. At one point the dude actually goes everyone at T-Mobile sucked except for Brian and then he realized that Jason works at T-Mobile and he had to back-paddle really quick and say that Jason was cool too because he was the IT guy who worked behind the scenes and made sure that everything worked. But that’s really all he had to say about Jason. Brian was his main focus, his IDOL! He was like a child meeting his hero for the first time. It was very, very weird.
At one point, the dude actually goes “I WANTED TO BE YOU!” Brian is all embarrassed to shit about the adulation so he’s trying to keep this guy’s ranting and raving level. Jason and I gave each other a look which pretty much said, “If you only knew.”
When he found that Brian had gotten fired, I thought he would cry. And then he’s like, “So what are you doing now? You’re probably working some place else where you are ten times more successful, right?” Brian told him that the termination of his employment just happened recently and he was still looking for a job. The guy is like, “They’re all assholes anyway.” And then he proceeded to tell us about he was screwed over by T-Mobile because this blonde supervisor with huge tits promised him that he would get a Monday to Friday schedule and he didn’t. He also said that he was told he was being hired on as a senior rep and then he was really just a regular rep. He’s like, “I wouldn’t have left my previous job that paid $22 an hour if I would’ve know I’d be answering phones!” Senior reps don’t make $22 an hour, mind you. So I’m not sure what he’s talking about.
He then went on to tell us how messed up it was that he had his masters degree and he was answering phones for T-Mobile. He must have brought up the master degree thing like a dozen times during the whole weird encounter. I guess he had greater ambitions than getting drunk and getting baked? Who would’ve thought?
This is what we get for spending almost three hours BS-ing at IHOP. Never again.
Next time we’re taking the food back to your house, Jason!
Brian commented that this is the weirdest night he’s ever had and he’s even sober! He added that he never had weird nights like these even when he was a stoner. It must be Jason then! The dude seems to be a magnet for weird-ass situations!
Speaking of Jason, I just realized that counting the time we spent at IHOP, we spent almost ten hours with the guy today. The sad part is that after we dropped Jason off at his place and we arrived home, the three of us proceeded to get on Yahoo! Messenger and chat. Very, very sad.
Anyway, the boring part where I narrate the evening’s events come next so feel free to stop here. You will get bored, I promise.
So you’re still reading, eh? Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
This is how the weird night began. We went to pick up Jason around six-ish at his place. Of course, we spend several minutes looking for his freakin’ wallet which he misplaced and turned out to be in the coat closet – of all places! We decide to go to Arby’s for dinner. It’s cheap. As soon as we get out of the car, Jason’s blackberry starts vibrating. It’s Jill (Jason Dill), Jason’s “boyfriend.” Jill’s like, “I’m at your place, where are you?” Jason tells Jill we’re fixing to enter Arby’s. It turns out that Jill had gone to grab some Arby’s to bring to Jason. How sweet! His boyfriend bought him dinner.
After BS-ing for a while at Arby’s the clock strikes seven and we agree it’s time to head to Heroes. On the way there I get a call from Nick questioning whether there is, in fact, poker at seven thirty. I flip out because I’m thinking that I could’ve been playing racquetball instead of going to Heroes this early if there’s not an early session. That’s the only reason I agreed to skip racquetball. This is what I get for believing a bunch of drunk guys!
We get confirmation from a couple of people that there is, in fact, a poker game at seven thirty and when we arrive we see the poker coordinator setting up tables. Some of them were already setup even. I don’t know what Nick was smoking but apparently it impaired his vision because he didn’t see all the poker paraphernalia when came in the door. There were a few people that came who I recognized from poker at Jason’s the night before. And then Jeff was there, too. He used to play with us at Fingers. He said he’s going to start playing our Tuesday night poker game at Jason’s so that should be fun! I like Jeff.
Incidentally, I found that Jeff and Jen went to school together. He goes, “I asked her out in eight grade and she turned me down.” I go, “Maybe she could tell the future?” And then laughed hysterically. And then I realized that wasn’t very funny. Ouch! There’s a line that divides witty and mean.. And I crossed it. I really shouldn’t have said that because I like Jeff. He’s likes to bet a little happy but he’s a really nice guy. As soon as I realized what I’d said, I told him I’m sorry and that I was only joking and then gave him a hug.
Bad, bad Ching! I hope he doesn’t hold it against me and still comes to play with us next week. I’m a really good person. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It just happens sometimes. You know the phrase open mouth insert foot? (Or open foot insert mouth, as I say when I’m really, really spacey.) I am prone leaving my mouth open when it should really be shut. All sorts of things, other than just my foot, end up getting inserted. Okay, that didn’t come out right but we are moving on..
Mano, Jeff and I were the final three. Mano took third and I got second. I won an APL shirt for Brian. Go me! When we got home I actually asked Brian, “Isn’t it supposed to be the guy who wins the girl a teddy bear at the fair?” To which he replies, “Yes but we’ve already determined who the man is in our relationship.” LOL! I guess we kinda-sorta have. Add gender issues to all the other issues on my list.
We also found out that I qualified for the in-house tourney on January 26. All the people who finished in the top five positions did. I’ve already marked my calendar! I’m going to miss class especially for the event but it will be worth it. There’s no entry fee (you just gotta qualify first) and it’s a $300 prize pool. First place pays $150, $100 for second place and $50 for third.
Second session was a bust. I think we were all distracted by this one guy’s sidekick. She was this chick with ENORMOUS boobs and she would sit next to him as he played. I mean, they were huge! If you were there, you probably know who I’m talking about. They were so huge that Jason was totally enamored by them. He was so enamored that he actually got caught staring! Typical.
How I got knocked out of second session is a story that I have already told at least half a dozen times so I will spare you the gory details. I went all in on pocket As and I actually lost! I was robbed!
Okay, I take that back. I will tell you the story because it is messed up! Here’s the scenario. The blinds are $2000 and $4000 at this point. The guy to my right only has $1000 left so he goes all in with his last chip. I look at my cards and I find pocket As, so naturally I go all in with my last $8500. The small blind folds. The guy in the big blind position just happened to be the chip leader and it was only $4500 more for him to call and so he does. It was the smart thing to do, given that he was holding a pocket pair himself.
The flop comes 8 3 2, or something similarly crappy. We all reveal our cards at this point. The dude that was all in for $1000 had pocket 4s and it turns out chip leader had pocket 8s, of all the cards in the world! All I could hope for was another ace to trip me up. The turn and river card are both 4s, so the guy who had $1000 left now has $4000 because he caught runners to win the main pot. The side pot where all the rest of my chips were went to the guy with the pocket 8s who was already the chip leader, thus only adding to his already huge stack. And I was the only one who got screwed over by that hand. And to think I had the MONSTER pocket pair! It was so lame! I hate it when that happens but I guess my luck had to run out eventually.
Speaking of pocket pairs, we had three people with pocket pairs at Jason on Tuesday night as well. The guy with the highest pocket pair actually won so the hand actually played out pretty fair. The remarkable park, however, is that all three pocket pairs tripped up. They were pocket 7s, Js (my favorite) and Ks going against each other. The flop comes 4 10 K. The turn is a 7 and the river is a J. I’d never seen that before. It was really amazing. But of course, the guy with the set of Ks takes the pot, naturally. As it should be. As I should’ve on the hand that was my undoing. It was totally unlucky!
Last night was probably one of the most interesting evenings we’ve had in a long, long time. I must say, it was worth skipping racquetball over. I gotta work out tonight though because I didn’t yesterday. But it works out because poker at either Zach’s or Jason’s house (depending on whether we can get a hold of Zach or not) won’t start until ten thirty or well after. Anyway, I’ll let you all know where we end up so you can come play with us if you want. It’ll be super duper fun!
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