Odds and Ends

What's worse, not posting a new entry in far too long, or posting several consecutve non-poker entries in a poker blog?
This is still a poker blog, but I hope you chose the latter option.
This is not a poker post.

I'm sitting here at 2 in the morning after beoing cooped up in the Daily Texan office for 10 hours. I have a one-page pape to write, but I can' only do that after I read the story I'm writing the pape on. And I have German homework to do. The seven hours of sleep I got was the most I've gotten in a long time, and I won't be able to take a nap tomorrow.
I'm tired.

But a lot has happened, and I'll update this before moving on with my exhausting existence.

I think the 4Runner has had it. I'm not such a bad ass. After driving it to Waco, it got stuck in third gear. So it accelerates very slowly and won't get into reverse.
A week before that, I drove it to College Station and got an $800 ticket on my way there.
Speeding, check. 61 in a 45 (oh noes!)
Rigistration out, check. Expired in August.
No proof of insurance, check. Where is that anyway?

So I was hit with an $800 ticket. Heart be still.

I called the insurance company and they faxed my proof of insurance to the court house; that should get the worst charge dismissed.
But then things went downhill. I took the 4Runner to get inspected because I had 10 working days to do that and still get the ticket dismissed. The guy at the desk smiled and informed me that nowhere does it say a car needs to be able to get into reverse to pass inspection. But there it sits still, because their tool for emissions testing is broken. It should be fixed by now, they say.
It was there I learned the extent of my transmission's troubles. An employee had the exact same thing happen to his Pathfinder, and he said it would cost over a grand to fix.
Between that and the $1000+ engine job it needs, I think it's time to cut my losses.

Which brings me to the useless Accord in my driveway.
It has a lien on it. The DMV won't tell me by whom, so i don't know how to get it resolved. Fuck the DMV. They are idiots. I'd like to buy out the lien and drive that sumbitch, but we'll see.

In the meantime, my parents told me it'd be ok for me to buy a car, and make payments on it (something my parents had never allowed me to do). Thanks, if you'd decided that before I bought the 4Runner, I could probably have saved some money. But bygones are bygones, and I may be car shopping again.

Shopping, that's always fun.
But bad things happen when I'm bored, and decide to browse eBay.
I spent $550 on a digital camera (and accessories) two days ago. It's a Konica Minolta DiMAGE z3, and I'm pretty excited about it. It has 12x zoom, which is as good as yu can get for the price range. It also has built in anti-shake technology that allows you to use the 12x zoom effectively.

It also came with a wide angle lense and a telphoto lense, just two items in a bevy of useful (and unuseful accessories). The MSRP for all of it is supposed to be $2K. The MSRP for all of it can be $550 for all I care, just so long as it's quality stuff.

I think it is.

I talked to Mason Crosby on the phone today. he seemed like a good kid. For the ignorant, he's Colorado's place kicker, best known for his 58-yard field goal against Miami. He says he's nailed one from 72 yards in practice.
Wow.

Partying has been treating me well.
If by well I mean, curled up on the bathroom floor-clutching the toilet-puking my guts out-and not rembering it two hours later-kind of well.
And I do.

College Station was great. I got two see my friends' place. Matt and Tony have a nice bachelors' pad and we partied two nights there.
The first night was drama filled. It was on my way there that I got the ticket. Then as soon as i got there, me and my friend, Shane, had to run off to the emergency room to check on a friend of ours. She'd just wrecked her car after leaiving the party. Alcohol was not a factor.
The next night was more of a party-atmosphere. I had way too much Everclear and spent from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. in a haze that I have only brief, fleeting memories of.
Holding on to the toilet, someone rubbing my back (best thing anyone can do for me when i'm sick-drunk), and then waking up with the party still in full swing. I made an incredible recovery, got back into the thick of things. I was walking around asking people if I had been throwing up. I had (in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the other bathroom, and outside.) At least I chose my spots well.

Last weekend I was in Denton while Texas beat the shit out of OU. The first night was great. We were visiting Lance and Shane, seeing their apartment for the first time. People there were friendly, even though some real losers came later in the night.
I'm not an asshole, they really were losers.
(Ok, maybe I'm an asshole [but thy were still losers]).

The next day was spent getting drunk playing volleyball, and losing evey game terribly. But I played well individually, and my team was in no shape to win anyway. So I had fun.