A's beat the Giants yesterday; today's lead just cut by 2 to 7-4. Went in to buy a fan, came out with an 8500 BTU A/C unit. 30% off and I couldn't say no. Big game again last night-10 again. Mateen, from homepokergames.com, brought 2 friends. Remembered their faces from a house tourney/game I went to in Pinole awhile back. Mateen and 50/30 (Jiddy) were the winners for the night, while I ended up breaking even after all was said and done. Did make a Steel Wheel in 7 Card though! And quad 4s the hard way with 466? in Omaha...

I have decreed that the 46 now be called "Happy Hour"-because Happy Hour is from the hours of 4 to 6. And while a pair of deuces in the hole may be referred to as "AFLAC," making a set on the flop is called a "Glenn Chervin," aka "The Piano Man." Can never get anywhere in the Oil dammit-JJ runs into AA of course. Neg-O is Top Nine, not Ten. Mike and Cass and Kristin stopped by on their way to Waterworld-first time since I've lived in the East Bay that that bastard has come visited my home. Summer school is a total drag. First time I did it was right after high school, and not only did I have to ride my bike but it was while my friend's parents were out of town and right about every time I was supposed to go to class, the beer would show up. Suffice to say, it didn't work out well. Then I did DVC a few years ago with a good friend and that made it sort of tolerable. No fun this time around though.

14th, GrinderMJ's 6s sucked out a set on my 8s. Think that still ought to be good for 2nd place on the board. So long as the impossible doesn't occur next Wednesday, I should have secured a jersey from this session. $143 in, $442.50 out (unless I can FT the last game!), plus my Top Ten prize. 2 FTs, 1 top 20 finish, and 4 top 30 finishes out of 12 games, out of usually a little over 100 entrants each tournament. I'm calling it a positive poker achievement in my book for sure. The Neg-O crew is a solid group of players and I'm definitely proud to be amongst the ranks. Forecast for tomorrow-104 degrees. Swell.

Playing the Neg-O in 90 degree heat-ugh. Bounty on Bob and FidPoker but no Daniel. 1st hand find QQ but an Ace on the flop. Push with 77 and make a boat vs AK to double up early. AJ wins one then loses one. 99 would've made another boat but I knew I was beat on the flop. Flop Aces up to eliminate another Ace. Up to 4K so it's looks like I'm gonna pass on our last softball game of the season. OMG, is it hot. Final hour double up w/88 through KTs. Looks like I will lock in a Top 10 finish for this session with one more game to go; a FT tonight might even put me at #1 going into the last week! Made some key laydowns (99, 77) pre-flop where a year ago I probably would have called all my chips off on those medium-strength hands.

Played 6 or so hours @ the house, 10 players, ending the sesh up around $450. That's wonderful, moreso because I started off on a downer, about -$200. The nut flush on the turn vs the 2nd nut flush vs 2 pair(?!?) to get me all the way back plus. Then some good cards and nice pots did the rest. Even some Blackjack helped overall I think. The funniest thing ever was when Colin and Brian dared Jiddy to shotgun 3 beers in 5 minutes which he did, then 3 more in the next 3 minutes. The first 3, no prob, the second 3, well, we all saw the "I'm gonna blow" face and man, did he ever. Funny as hell.

First day of classes at the Concord campus. Which consists of some parking lots and like 2 big buildings in the middle of the hills out there. Thank God they're new buildings with A/C. Walking up to the classrooms there is a sign posted that warns people of rattlesnakes in the area. For real. First day of essentially a "grammar" class, teach says, "funnest." Excellent. Went and saw Nacho Libre to get some A/C and escape the sweltering heat (and it's not even "officially" summer yet).

$2.95/gallon and I'm sort of happy?!? WTF? When I was a kid growing up on the East Coast we could just cross the state line and gas was $0.99/gallon. Only a little over 10 years ago. Grades came in for last quarter-good news: I passed all my classes, bad news: only makes for a 2.5 GPA. Missed Chris' match against the Cigar Lovers because I was on the road; we are now at 4-5, tied for 2nd in our division. 3 months almost I've had my Jeep and I've paid off about $3000 on it. Plus the $200/month insurance payments for the complete coverage since it covers a vehicle bought on loan. Ugh. Put almost 6000 miles on it already. Is that a lot? Averaging around 2K a month? Nothing beats coming home to a big pile of catpuke. Marcie's cats were just gonna be here while she was in Vegas for her birthday. That was 2 months ago. Don't mind 'em, they're cool. Even'll miss 'em when they go, which apparently is soon.

A's go 10 straight!!! Took down the weekly FlopTalk game, knocked out Ryan to go heads-up with Vatche. Missed my up-and-down straight flush draw on the flop with a suited 46 to go bust in the Stars Blogger Tourney. Summer quarter begins today and grades from spring quarter are released as well...