Kicking the tyres...

2010-11-15

Hi everyone Not too much to report on the poker front, after two breakeven days that could've been real ball-tearers I bricked out hard on Sunday and Monday and dropped maybe 3k so we're back to about square for November. This is a little bit disappointing since I've made 15 final tables in 13 sessions, but that also implies I'm playing pretty well and it's not hard to see how the month could've been huge already. FTOPS is on which provides a little excitement; so far RAWKZ has been the standout with deep runs in the 100r rush, turbo and 129KO event (which he finished 11th in I think).

Friday night I took Mell to the Arts Centre to see Rafael Bonachela's contemporary dance work, We Unfold, which was excellent. The performers were from the Sydney Dance Company and performed for an hour with almost no interruption, and were supported by a really eerie video depicting the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and a composition by Italian composer Ezio Bosso.

After yoga Saturday we checked out the new breakfast menu at St Jude's Cellars. If you've been reading the blog for a while you probably remember that we go there for dinner occasionally, however the new chef now cooks up breakfast as well so we figured it was worth a try. I had baked eggs with chorizo, peas and celery which was great, but the cheddar and beer bechamel with mushrooms on sourdough is definitely getting a run next time

Mell and I spent the afternoon getting through bits of seasons 5 and 6 of Sopranos, which still continues to deliver. I have to say though that the episodes are a lot darker now than they were before - the stuff about Tony's father's mistress, Carmella sleeping with the Dean of AJs school, the death of (Christopher's girlfriend) Adriana and Tony killing his cousin as a form of protection from his pursuers were all really heavy themes! That and all the dreaming going on while Tony has been in a coma after being shot.

I also found out my back tyre was damaged which has been a huge drama all weekend. I have a four year old VW GTi, but it's only done 23,000km so I've yet to have to have to do much to it in terms of maintenance. Manual tasks aren't my strong point so stuff like working on cars has never come naturally to me, but my dad owned a speed shop for many years, a close family friend is a drag racer and my best mate is an auto electrician so I've forced myself to learn as much as I can about stuff from them.

Obviously I've changed a bunch of tyres, but it turns out the jack was completely useless, a real cheap thing that kept sliding underneath the car which was annoying enough to prompt me to borrow one from a mate. Then after jacking the car up I simply could not remove the tyre, even after kicking it a billion times to shake it loose from the hub. I did some research and found out that if you lower the car again with the lugnuts loosely in place, then drive back and forth a few times while stomping on the brakes this can help. I had to do that TWICE and keep kicking the shit out of the tyre before I managed to loosen it at all, one of those supposedly basic tasks that makes you feel like a complete retard when you can't do it. Anyway I feel a sense of accomplishment for getting it done!

I've also been firing up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the Playstation a bit more lately, it kind of fits into the schedule a bit better since with the recent time changes I'm finding I'm reging from 4am more frequently and wrapping up earlier. Anyway if you're into it and play weekday afternoons feel free to add me, my username is ofwolfandman.