Anyone want to play Poker?

Several months ago I started to get an urge to play poker. A weekend game of poker is hard to come by more than a frequency of 3-4 times a year due to busy schedules and other responsibilities. To get over this and to feed my need to gamble, I signed up for an online poker membership at PokerStars.com


I was intrigued at the possibility of taking real money from complete strangers. I played a lot of poker in high school (those stories could take up three more blogs) and consider myself a skilled poker player. I was taught poker on cash games and never really played the tournament style that was made popular by the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour on television. I signed up online at PokerStars, made the minimum deposit, and started playing. I had also seen the greatest poker movie ever made, Rounders, about 28 times. This had to count for something right?


After I signed up, I transferred the minimum amount to start an account and started looking for games or tables to play . At first I was overwhelmed at the number of choices available on the PokerStars.com site. I started on the cheapest cash table for Texas Hold'em (which was kind of a joke calling it a "cash table" since we were playing the small blind $.01 and the big blind $.02 ) The playing style was much different than the weekend basement variety with your buddies. There are 9-10 people at very virtual table, which makes the odds that someone has an excellent hand very good. Someone always had the high pair and bluffing was hard to come by. I failed to realize this the first few times and paid because of it.


Then I got smart and started playing in the large Texas Hold'em tournaments. My favorite is the $.10 buy-in with the $100 add on by PokerStars.com This tournament usually draws between 4,000 and 8,000 people depending on the time of day it is run. Payouts usually start in the top 10-15%. The first time I played it, I kept thinking "Hey, I only need to finish in the top 850 to win my money back! Then I realized that I have to beat out 7,500 other people to do this.


Another fun thing about PokerStars is that you play against people from around the world. Once in awhile I'll log in the afternoon and realize that I'm playing with a lot of Germans. This is mainly because that Germany is 8 hours ahead of our time. While I'm relaxing and just started playing at 4pm in the afternoon, it is midnight for the Germans.


To be honest I haven't won alot of money playing online. However, it has served its purpose.
It cures the poker fix any day at anytime.

Waitering

"There's a whole lotta' Mexican goin' on...goin on at Taco Johns!"

How I love to serenade Chops with his taco jingles these days. His response is usually, "Hey! After 4 years, I was shift manager! SHIFT Manager! That was like, 8 bucks an hour! Back in '01, that's mad money! Shut it!"

I've also had my fair share of restaurant experiences. Allow me to share.

Freshman year of college, I worked at Blimpies Subs and Salads inside the cafeteria. Yes, inside. I was one of those creepy cafeteria workers that dished up tater tots and sneezed into my rubber gloves before hashing up a 5 gallon tub of mystery jello. I thought this would be a good job to have, and, for the most part, it wasn't bad. Except for Sundays--Sundays were hell.

Sunday's shift was 4-10 pm. Mind you, that's six straight hours of uninterrupted work. Six straight hours. To the freshman college student, this is already five hours and thirty minutes too long. To put it simply, I hated Sundays because the day before it was Saturday. Saturday was, well, "house party" night back in the day...and come Sunday at 4 pm, throngs of hungover freshman in sweatpants would come rolling in...

Fellow Hungover Freshman: "Yeah, uhh...can I get um, a turkey on wheat? Wait a minute...you look familiar. Do you live in Coate hall?"

Me: "Yes." *looks down at turkey*

FHF: "Yeah man! You were at that killer party last night! Was that you who I saw fall down the stairs while trying to show off doublefisting? Hey guys! Come here! It's that girl who fell last night! Man, you got bruises or somethin' ?"

Me: "Lettuce on that?"

..and so on, and so forth. One sweatpanted customer after another...until 10 pm.

Blimpies was ok, but, nothing beats waiting on tourists. Absolutely nothing.
I waited tables at a restaurant (location undisclosed for legal purposes) for two summers in the Dells. By July, I'd had my fair share of all of the following:

Unflattering swimming suits lined by fanny packs
"Can he just eat off of my salad bar? He's under six." (Very large in menu = Children's salad bar under six, $1.99)
"So uh, what's Leinies? Is that like, a crappy local beer?"
"Can I get uh, uh Bud Lite? I left my ID in the car..."
"Do you guys cut your pizza like they do in Chicago?"
"We've been swimming all day. We're hungry. Can you just sneak us a few extra pieces of cheese bread?"
"Is that White House looking thing up on the corner any fun?"
"Can you heat this water up for me? But not too hot, it's for the baby."
"What?! You guys close at midnight?! But we just came from Marley's!"
"You're such a sweetie. Keep the change!" (.39 tip enclosed)
"You wanna put this Cognac in a to-go cup for me?"
"Noah's Rush comin' in!"

I could go on forever--you wouldn't believe the characters the Dells brought out!

The Life and Times of a Taco John's Worker

During my college years I got a job working at the local Taco John's restaurant for spending money. I learned many valuable lessons during my years of employment there. Below are a few of the most important.

Stoners are the Best Customers

Beep-Beep-Beep (Sound of drive thru alarm)

Chops (on drive thru speaker) :"Welcome to Taco John's, May I take your order?"

Stoner (in beat up 86 Escort) :"He he heee....awwww...I'll take a Meat and Potato Burrrrritoo, a large Dr. Pibb and a burrito of your choice"

Chops "Excuse me? What was the last order again?"

Stoner "A burrito of your choice......"

Chops "Ok, I'm randomly selecting a burrito of my choice."

That is just one of the many colorful late night exchanges that take place with Stoners late at night. One stoner came in and had a great insight on life:

"If Taco John and the Taco Bell Chihuahua got in a fight, Taco John would kick some major ass."

That's great to know.

Truckers are Creepy
Once in a while a truck driver would stop in for a bite to eat. Many would come in late at night and get something to eat and then go back to their truck with there food. Many were overly-friendly and insisted on making conversation about anything. While we were making their food they would continue to make more annoying conversation. They would always eye up the jailbait that I would work with. One night one of our married employees had to call her husband because a trucker made a pass at her and would not leave her alone.

Attack of the Cricket

One day I was working the lunch rush as the steamer. The person working the steamer position would prep the shell or taco then add the meat, beans, or chicken. Then the steamer would tell the prep person what toppings was to go on the taco. During this lunch rush we had a order for two soft shell tacos with black olives added. I told the prep person "two soft shells with black olives added". The prep person prepped the taco normally, added the olives, then looked away. Then something moving caught my eye, there was a black cricket in the taco amongst the black olives! The prepper then noticed this as well. She proceeded to grab the taco and threw in the garbage while laughing hysterically at me. We just looked at each other and continued to prep the orders, not a word was said to anyone about this. There were probably 5 other people in the kitchen at that time, so we stayed quiet in order to avoid a panic among everyone.

Yes....Band Aids do Occasionally fall into a Burrito

That is all you need to know.

Its Fun When a Police Chase Ends in your Restaurant

One late afternoon this car skids into the parking lot going very fast. A guy then proceeds to enter the restaurant and immediately heads to the rest room. After five minutes or so, he walks back out calmly and sits in the corner booth. Then we notice a police car parked in the parking lot facing the building with the cop looking directly in. A second police cruiser then shows up and circles the building twice. All this time, this guy is paranoid looking around and acting all shifty. Finally he leaves and the police immediately pull this guy over. Unfortunate for us, we were unable to see if the police arrested him or not.

Bartering......Its Awesome!

One of our shift managers knew a shift manager at the local Domino's Pizza. So naturally when things got slow late at night a barter would sometimes take place. Domino's would deliver 2 pizzas, some wings, cheese bread, and dessert sticks to our back door. In exchange we gave them 2 Six-Packs and Pound, 2 Super Nachos, some Churros. Nothing tastes batter than pizza after working at a taco place for three months straight. I'm sure the workers at Domino's were thinking about the same thing about tacos.

One night we had all of the Domino's items in the back office area. Workers would take a quick break to eat a slice of pizza or a dessert stick. I was back there enjoying myself when someone from the front line yells "Natalie's HERE!". Natalie was the owner of the store. A coworker and myself grab all the Domino's stuff and quickly throw it in the walk in freezer. We hoped that she would not come to the back. She did, and nothing became of it, as she didn't check out the freezer.

Grease is Everywhere

The staple to preparing fast food is grease. Nothing preps food as fast and taste as good. At Taco John's grease was used to fry the hard shell tacos, nachos, and potato oles. Even though there was a large stainless steel hood above the grease fryers, it still got everywhere. Black shoes were a required part of the uniform. Most people aren't aware of this, but grease makes the sole of your shoes bend in a un-natural position. Your toes will bend upwards, like someone is pulling on them with a string. After a shift you stink to high heaven because grease gets on you everywhere.

A 100 inches of Wisconsin Winter

This past Wisconsin winter of 2007-2008 was one for the ages. When I say one for the ages, I mean that we got dumped on for 100 inches of the fluffy white stuff, enough for anyone of any age. A "normal" Wisconsin winter gets about 40" of the fluffy white stuff. I refuse to call the fluffy white stuff by its given name in fear that the mere mention of the fluffy white stuff’s real name may result in us in Wisconsin in getting more. This winter got so bad, that I went to my local Sears and bought a $700 fluffy white stuff blower out of fear of the next storm that was forecasted to come the next day. Much to my liking I actually used the fluffy white stuff blower the following two days to remove almost 15 inches of fluffy white stuff from my driveway. Now I have the pleasure of staring at the fluffy white stuff blower all summer when sits there useless. Thank goodness our residential lot doesn’t have a sidewalk. A 100” of the fluffy white stuff multiplied by the width and length of a sidewalk would probably equal to around 57 cubic yards of total fluffy white stuff removed for the entire winter. We nearly ran out of room to put store the fluffy white stuff on our property. At its highest point, the mounds of fluffy white stuff were taller than me. I think some commercial businesses in the area had several small mountain ranges form from all the fluffy white stuff being pushed into one corner of their parking lots. It is officially now Spring and the weather should turn for better. However one shall always remeber the Winter of 2007/2008 as being the worst in recorded hister of Wisconsin for snow ....oops!

"WTF!"......its on its way to becoming the next "LOL"

Remember when you used email for the first time and it was so neat and fascinating?

It’s amazing! I can instantly send anyone a short message at their computer at this very instant! Because instantaneous communication was so intoxicating to people they started saying and writing words or phrases that they normally wouldn’t. One of the most common and overused terms in this new "era" of communication was “LOL” which stands for “laugh out loud”. (If you didn't know that you should shut off your computer and leave the room right now!)

LOL started to be used everywhere. People were writing LOL in every email after anything that was remotely perceived to be funny. LOL started to show up in television ads and on bill boards. It got sickening to read LOL everywhere. It became quickly over used and ineffective.

Which brings me to “What the fuck” or the sanitized version used on the Web “WTF”. I've notice that this phrase has popped up all over the web the past few years. Browse around on your Facebook or MySpace account and you will probably see "WTF" roughly 13 times a page.

Why is "WTF" so commonly used? For starters, is fun to say in real life. Open up the credit card bill and look at many items that you wife charged? "WTF!" Driving to the store and someone cuts you off, "WTF!" After Davidson beat Wisconsin in basketball "WTF!!"

WTF.....enjoy it before it becomes the next LOL.