SEAHAWKS, SEAHAWKS, SEAHAWKS

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I LOVE THIS TEAM! I love Matty finally taking advantage of teams stacking the line like woah. Holmgren must have gone into the lab and studied the Giants game or something because our offense looks faaantastic. I realize that we just played the 49ers but man, they look like they're clicking on all cylinders. Joey J is the the second coming of Steve Largent and Tutupu is the second coming of Junior Seau. He seems to be getting better by the game and I like him. A lot. Like, enough to mother his children if that were possible. Again, we need to take care of business next week and set up the possible SB preview at 12-2 vs 14-0. I think the Colts will still play hard and I'd like to see if we can hang with those boys. My heart says yes and my mind is keeping its mouth shut.

On Friday, I decided to relax and played some $30/60 at the Bellagio. Pauly called and told me that there were 30-40 poker bloggers at the MGM so I cashed out and headed over there. They had 3 tables of 2/4 HORSE going so I got on the list and chatted for a while with Brad and Pauly. It took along time to get seated but I finally got seated at a table with Pauly, his brother Derek, Al, Daddy and Jaxia. They were all really cool and I thoroughly enjoyed donating my money to them. Pauly is in love with Jaxia even though she's attracted to women. Al drinks a lot of shots and I got really, really twisted. After a few hours, Duane showed up and the HORSE game broke so I went to sit with Duane in his 2/4 Hold 'Em game. I donked away about $100 in that game and kept pulling out my tourney money(about 6-7K worth of $100 bills in a WaMu envelope) and throwing it across the table at Duane, telling him to rebuy. I kept throwing it perfectly so that the money slid out a bit and all the players at the table could see the money but it never came all the way out or went flying all over the place. I don't know why I did this but I was as hammered as I've been in a long time(sorry, Mom). We finally quit around 5 AM and I drove Duane back to the Bellagio........JUST KIDDING!!!!.......we caught a cab back to the Bellagio where Duane tried to get me to come up to his room but I shut him down and told the cabbie how to get to Christy's mom's house. I ended up apssing out in the back of the cab and he had to wake me up when he got lost. I guess my directions were less than perfect but I managed to get us there and I gave him $30 for a $20 tab.

On Saturday there was a super satellite the the 15K main event at 1 PM and I decided to play in it...until I woke up at 3 PM at Christy's mom's house with no car. I showered and called John, who was going to bed but said he would pick me up around 7PM to get some dinner and take me to the MGM to pick up my car. We went to a really good Mexican place called Viva Mercado that I found on citysearch.com. The portions were huge and the food was really, really good. They have a great Vegetarian menu, too so if my loving mother or father ever come to Vegas with me I have a good place to take them. The restaurant is in a strip mall and has a horribly ghetto neon pink and blue sign but the food is excellent. If I was driving by there is no chance I'd ever stop at the place but it was packed inside. After dinner, John dropped me off at the MGM and I waited there for Duane and his mom and grandma to get out of Ka, the Cirqur du Soleil show at the MGM. I drove them all to the Bellagio and Duane and I went to the poker room to find John while mom and grandma went to the room to rest. We talked to John and got on the 4/8 list but it was really long and we decided to go check out the Mandalay Bay since they spread a 2/4. Well we never got in the same game because Duane got seated in a 4/8 first and started wining so he didn't want to switch tot eh 2/4 I was at. I ended up hitting a straight flush and winning $500, $150 of which I tipped to the dealer. He was speechless and I was very happy. The hand was pretty crazy. I straddle with 6h3h and get 5 callers. The flop is 6x4h2x. I bet and everyone calls, still 6 players to the turn. The turn is the 2h and I bet again. This time, everyone folds to the button and I need him to call or I don't get to see the river. I'm really pissed at myself for betting but I thought everyone was going to call again. Finally, he throws in 4 chips and I get to see the beautiful 5h on the river. I bet and he raises! I 3-bet and he just calls, tabling T5o for a rivered pair of 5s. A straight flush beats a pair of 5s so I got the pot AND $500. I should have tipped the guy something but I didn't think about it until later. I drove Duane back to the Bellagio around 3 AM and went back to Christy's mom's for a good night's sleep before the 1 PM super satellite.

This time I actually made it to the satellite but ended up wishing that I missed it. about 20 hands in I run QQ into AA and I'm out in 10 minutes. $1500 for 15 minutes of poker. I probably could have gotten rid of the QQ but basically, I suck at poker and I want to jump off the Stratoshpere without a bungee cord. I'm playing really porrly and not running very good and it's really pissing me off. The running bad I'm used to but I've been playing so bad and that really upsets me. I'm pretty sure that it's rustiness from all the travel and I'm going to make a real effort to play a lot of tourneys online over the next few weeks before heading to the Bahamas. I've played so frikkin bad this trip and at the same time run into a lot of crappy spots and sometimes you just want to fold you cards forever. I probably will stick it out until the end of the World Series of Poker next year but I can tell that I'm not going to be into this forever. I guess that's a good thing.

Enough negativity. Christy's mom has Sunday and Monday off so I called her once I busted to see if she wanted to go out to dinner, as a way for me to repay her for letting me live at her house. She ended up making reservations for a really nice Japanese restaurant at the Wynn called Okada. so I needed to get some clothes. I made Duane go with me to Robinson & May and he picked out some pants, shoes and a belt for me to buy. I needed brown shoes and a brown belt anyway, so really the only semi-unnecessary purchase was a pair of pants. They are pretty sick and have the auto-adjust waist so they're perfect for my fat ass. We couldn't find a good shirt so we went to Nordstroms where I bought a sick Ben Sherman shirt. It's far sicker than any of the going-out shirts that I currently own and I really like it. For dinner we had the Okada roll, avacado and asparagus in a roll topped with lobster and wasabi sauce. It was so unbelievably great I can't even describe it. I've never had lobster on sushi before but it worked well and makes my mouth salivate just writing about it. After that we had some Kobe Beef and marinated short ribs. The beef was unbelievably tender and melted in my mouth. I had some sweet potato sho-chu to wash it all down and finished with a pumpkin creme broule. The whole meal was insanely bomb and the bill ended up as $175. I left $220 and decided that was cheap for 10 nights lodging. Afterward, Christy's mom and I went to the Orleans casino to play so low limit hold 'em then went to the Gold Coast to play Bingo. That's right, B-I-N-G-O. I was the youngest person there and Christy's mom, at 50 years-old, was the second youngest. I had fun and had to laugh at everything that was going on. There were two regular lines to buy bingo tickets and one handicapped line. Sadly, the handicapped line was longer than the regular lines and kinda defeated the purpose. We didn't have any luck and ended up losing $40. Oh well, I had fun with Terry and I really appreciate her letting me live here. It's really nice to be able to get away from the chaos of the strip for a while and have a living room to hang out in instead of a hotel room. I think it's definitely a better environment to keep my poker focus, I just need to relearn how to play.

Since I didn't qualify for the tournament, I'll probably head back to San Diego on Wednesday night and fly up to Seattle on Friday afternoon. I've been gone from Seattle for 2 weeks and already miss it like crazy.

Oh, man, they're showing the Seahawks highlights on SportsCenter. Joey J is a MAN. See y'all soon.