Luton Calling.

[nirvana]

and the miserable old nit telling us about the time he played in the Plymouth G Casino as if it was Binion's in the 1980s.

Haha very good, hope you win the world in Vegas and if not have a great time mate

[rfgqqabc]

Yeah huge diary fan too I must say.

[redsimon]

Yeah huge diary fan too I must say.

Big + 1

You playing the APAT World's at Aspers Stratford I guess, loads of mixed games?

[Ransom]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, as long as you are enjoying the diary, I will keep updating it.

Yeah huge diary fan too I must say.

Big + 1

You playing the APAT World's at Aspers Stratford I guess, loads of mixed games?

I plan on heading down, though I know a lot of the mixed games are capped at 50-60 runners and I imagine a lot of the APAT regulars will have pre-registered for most of the events if they're chasing leaderboard points. I think one of the Razz/HORSE/DC events is overlapping with the PLO/8 or the PLO4/5/6 so there should be open spaces in it given how PLO8 and 4/5/6 is insanely popular right now.

I reckon on mixed game days they will put on some DC as well. Given it's the APAT it shouldn't play huge like the £5/£5 DC you get in London.

[Ransom]

Morning Blonde!

4:30am - Bad weather in the USA means that flights are either hours delayed or cancelled entirely. This usually means I am on two phones at once to a bunch of miserable executives in the USA trying to re-arrange things for them (because making a phone call to American Express business transport directly is apparently too much of a menial task and they'd rather delegate it to me), but silence is golden as the song goes. Maybe they have frozen or been caught in some sort of monsoon. Not enough to kill them or inflict serious harm or anything, just enough to take away their phone signal and 3G so they can't email things in until I finish at 8am.

I debated making a really quick run to the G before work. Had a tip off about someone with deep pockets and a shallow poker mind who was looking for a cash game, but I felt that if I won a big pot I would snap tell my boss to piss off, stay the night and end up trying to grind out a living off £30 comps and £1/£2 cash in Luton. It would be a life of Super Noodles and tea without milk.

---

I logged into SkyPoker for the first time in about a year after writing about it in yesterdays entry. Turns out I had about £105 in my account still. I set myself a challenge to run it up over the next few months, and gave up after realising the reason I don't play on there anymore is because the software runs like hell on my laptop. Still took second in a £5.50 heads up comp this evening which was OK, and has paid for my order of e-cig juice for the next month.

You can tell SkyPoker is an English facing site with the sheer amount of limp/calling that goes on. If the software ran smoother for me, and the time bank was longer, I would add it to the list of sites I play regularly. I imagine it gets extremely reggy when you play .50/£1 and above.

---

I have been thinking about things that could improve poker in Luton in general recently, and I would love to see them finally get that livestream table working. Poker streams are massive right now. Jason Somerville has just been signed to PokerStars Team Pro through his video content on Youtube and his livestreams on Twitch.tv - If the G could get their feature table livestreamed a couple of times a month, it would bring a large amount of attention to the cardroom for being the only one in the UK doing it.

The logistics of it could be more difficult than I am imagining and it's going to be harder than just plugging wires in and connecting it to the internet - but get a good £1/£2 game going, stick it online, and people will come from miles around to get on it. The table is RFID capable so hole cards can be shown on a delay, couple of people on commentary (I commentated gaming events for like 2 years, nudge nudge) and it'd be golden.

I would also love to get a good limit mixed game going, though I can't imagine there would be many takers for £5/£10 limit or something. The DC is good as it is, but so many games are missing because they don't fit well with the pot limit structure. I've been calling for Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, Baduci/Badacey and regular Stud/8 limit for ages. £200 buy in for 20 big bets would last you a while and the limit structure would make it slightly less intimidating for those who don't want to tangle with any of the many insane Friday night regulars. £6-£7 an hour on the time charge, would be fun. Massive towers of £1 ante chips too.

While the Luton G is my favourite venue, I'm sure many will agree that the cash games there are infested with regs. Getting new players in would be beneficial to everyone involved IMO.

--- 

My phone is ringing, it's a call from Singapore. Last time they called they wanted someone pick up a suit from a hotel and drive it to a conference centre 45 minutes away because someone needed it for a business meeting. Apparently you don't even need to know how to dress yourself to get a job as an Executive these days.

Also the dress is Gold and White.

Run Good!

[bunnydas8888]

When they first got that table they had it streamed up on the GUKPT website.  Once GUKPT finished they still had the stream running for a few months but only had the comps on there, never cash.  I assume it probably would just be a matter of plugging it back in and getting the RFID deck back out!  Could be completely wrong though.

[Ransom]

Good morning Blonde!

I am currently on shift, and just over halfway through a 12 hour stint. On the plus side, I fell asleep from 1am until 6am and nobody called in so today is off to a slightly winning start. Which is handy as I haven't been winning much of anything lately. Taking all losses in a positive light though - they're temporary losses in my mind. With more effort and wiser play, fortunes should change. Which is probably the first line of the gambling addict's charter.

I do have a tendency to just slack off and autopilot during comps. Cash games, not so much. I keep saying I'm going to cut down on the local casino comps, but having said that I headed down to the G on Friday with Shane/UGOTNUTS to play the £5k GTD.

I always preach about bankroll management, and despite being a huge bankroll nit myself I went down with my case £150. Not busto, just awaiting my new bank card to replace the one that expired at the start of March. Enough for 2x buyin and 2x addon should I need the second bullet, and the taxi home.

It looked to be a quiet Friday, with 11 entries on the board 20 minutes before it was due to kick off. Table draw was interesting, 7 handed and I had never played with any of these people before. One was a Luton Reg (chap that wears the LUTON WINNER jacket), but we had never managed to cross paths in the 2/3 years I have been playing there.

---

Hand One - Blinds 50/100

We have As .

We open to 250 on the Button.
Called by the BB. Has an iPad out, but isn't using it so we can assume he's paying attention for the most part.

FLOP - 

We c-bet 450 and get quickly called. It's a board that hits his range better than ours in theory, but I feel at this stage he is going to defend his blinds reasonably wide. Lots of draw combos he can potentially have, so I don't plan on slowing down on the turn unless it's like the or something.

TURN - 

Couldn't have been a bigger brick really, but we get led into for ~1500. If he had a 9 here, he's so massive that donk leading this turn just folds out all my potential double barrels. I don't feel he is representing anything credible so I call.

River - 

Everything bricks out. We get led into again for 3600. This is almost 60% of our remaining stack. I have to spend a minute playing "What's More Likely?". Is he more likely to bet the turn with a missed draw and try and take it down seeing as I'm cbetting that board like 99% of the time? Or is he more likely to check and hope I check back so he can try and make his draw with a free card? Is he more likely to bet the river again when everything bricks out, or is he more likely to check and give up?

I decide that the line he has taken is just not representing anything as strong as he is suggesting, and I doubt this player is capable of Range Merging  or something. 

I call. He says "Ten High", I say "Ace High". He mucks, I soak up rapturous applause, and both massage girls start rubbing me down at the same time. Jeff Kimber comes in and says "Mate, you take my spot as a Grovesnor  pro because I'm not worthy after that sickness", and Paul Newey immediately puts me into a full schedule of EPT Super High Rollers*.

*May or may not have happened

---

Hand two -

Blinds 50/100.

We have  UTG.

We open to 400 with 2 callers.

Flop - 

Pretty great flop for us, we cbet for 1100. Get one caller.

Turn is the 

We bet 1600, and get snap minraised to 3200. In my experience, a turn minraise is the stone cold nuts. But we have the nuts at this point, so I was both rubbing my greedy little hands at the prospect of adding 8k to my stack and slightly confused about what he could have. Bottom set? Can't have top pair, top kicker with the flush draw as we block the .

I go ahead and stick him in for his last 3800 or so, and he folds reasonably quickly. Probably just an attempt at a fast one. A gentleman says I should have probably just called with top set, but then I have to check the river to him and hope he bets all brick rivers. If he was folding to a turn shove, he was folding the majority of rivers also. Given he had over half his stack in the pot on the turn, I was about 90% sure he had committed himself.

---

Hand three -

75/150 Blinds.

We are on the button with  .

Open from MP to 500. It's Yaz - I already know he's raise/folding about 90% of the time here.
CO makes it 2500 - has about 3k behind and can't really fold to a 4bet.
We make it 5500 - I think flatting is going to be the worst move here. It just entices Yaz to call, and even in position, I'm not going to be too comfortable on the majority of flops. CO can just shove into us if Yaz checks. I want to isolate and run the board out all in. We might be behind, but we make no mistakes post flop if we just get it in pre.

Yaz does the pained fold dance, as I expected and we get called by  .

Board is  -

   39.29%
As    60.71%   - It's always interesting to be ahead but not a favorite.

Turn is the , but the river is the . Never mind. I feel that we barely got away with flipping it, and 4betting was a bit of a mistake.

---

Hand four -

Blinds 100/200/25

We have  in the HJ.
Shane had just been moved to our table and is UTG, and is on his second bullet after a reportedly awful first attempt.

Shane opens UTG all in for about 4500 or so.

I know that Shane is likely to rip it in wide when down to 10-15bb. I feel I am ahead of this range more often than not with A5hh. Even UTG, I think that all broadway combos are possible here, as well as things like .

I attempt to isolate and 3bet to 9500. I have 4k behind. It's the Moorman move. We're effectively all in, without being all in. It looks like we might be trying to induce someone else to shove over us with a monster also.

Doesn't work, as we get 4bet shoved on by the small blind, so we have to call anyway.

  vs  vs Shane's  .

We flop a flush draw, but miss it and bust out in hilarious fashion.

Slight miscalculation, and apparently someone thought I was chip dumping to Shane and made a fuss over it. They must not have played with me before, and encountered my weird preflop logic that if it was visualized on the big screen, it would look like I was living in the matrix. If I ever was going to chip dump to someone, I would probably make sure that I didn't have to expose my hand to the whole table.

--------------INTERMISSION--------------

I was going to Rebuy, but after spending money to get to the casino and getting a couple of drinks, I had about £40 on me. It was go home time. Or.....BLACKJACK SPIN UP!

I am not a huge 'gambler' in any sense. I don't really enjoy pit games other than shouty aggressive Asian style baccarat, and I haven't played any non poker games since September. I'm not one to press my luck or believe in 'hot streaks', but this was the only way of getting back in the comp other than borrowing money which is something I've never done at poker and would like to keep it that way.

Stick £20 on. Make 20 vs a Dealers 17.
+£20 for a total of £50.
Decide I am freerolling the next bet, and go for one more £20 spin.
Make 19 vs a dealer bust, and we're back in the game.

Cash a £10 credit out from my G reward card, and use it as a partial buy in.

Felt amazingly degenerate going through all this fuss to buy back in, but it's nice when a plan comes together.

---

Blinds 300/600/50

in the big blind. We have about 9k behind after losing a smallish pot with two pair to a turned set of Jacks, and raise folding a couple of times.

Opener from the cut off makes it 1200.

I decide that I am shoving over the top of it if it folds around, which it does. We stick it in the mixer, and get called quickly by  .

Nothing for us on the flop/turn or river and we quietly make our exit.

---

It's a weird feeling being in a cardroom and not having any cash on you to play. I felt as if the bouncers were going to ask to see my wallet, and when they saw I didn't have enough to buy in for cash games that they would assume I was a vagrant taking advantage of the free tea and coffee or something and sling me out.

I'm probably about -£2000 for the year so far. Which is fairly small beans, not because I'm a high roller, but it's a couple of good sessions and we're back in the green. Funny how my non poker friends hear about this, and want to chastise me and tell me about the great holiday I could have gone on or the cool things I could have bought with that money. Funny how being down two bags for the year makes me some sort of problem gambler, but having two solid winning years on the bounce means I should "quit when I am ahead".

I can't win. Which seems to echo my recent tourney runs/cash game endeavours, strangely fitting.

We will just have to get it next time!

GL GL!

[Ransom]

Hello Blonde!

Haven't done an update in a while. That's a combination of being ill again, and doing absolutely nothing of note in the past two weeks. If you asked me to recount three events I remember since the 10th of March, I couldn't tell you. It's all blank. Just a blur of work and watching Jason Somerville's live stream until I pass out and it all begins again.

Don't really want to force the diary updates so that it becomes one 'interesting' update and 4 shit ones of me trying to keep this running. This diary is as much for me to follow my progress as it is for everyone else, and if I had to read my nonsense ramblings every day with pointless words words words, I'd be very bored.

---

I did however head down to the Luton G on Saturday, after missing the rake race again. About £23,000 in the prize pool this time, and I found out it was on about 15 minutes too late. I seem to live in a perpetual fantasy world where I need explicit instructions and about 2 days notice with texts and Outlook calender invites before I can get things into my head.

Went down for the evening £35+5 £2000 Guarantee, and I haven't seen the poker room as busy as it was in quite some time. 3 cash tables, a sit and go and 4 full tables left in the rake race comp at 7pm. And a line waiting to reg the evening one as well. Poker room at capacity, and not enough dealers to cover the tables.

Not quite as mental as last year when Day 2 of the £100 monthly and the regional pub poker final were both on at the same time, and we ended up with self dealt tables on the casino floor, but still very busy. Massive props to the cardroom staff, because it would have taken me a while to even realise they were short staffed as things ran as smoothly as they always do.

Because of the lack of dealers and tables, we got a 10 handed comp for a few hours until enough of the field were whittled down. 10 handed deep stacked poker with no antes - it's about as enjoyable as it sounds.

I figure I am just going to be a nit when it's 10 handed, and with no antes at all there is no need to be contesting for pots as aggressively as I usually would.

---

First hand of the comp we get  UTG. Open to 150.

3 callers. Flop 

Couldn't have asked for more. Continue for 450. One caller.

Turn   

Don't have the nuts anymore but I am still very happy. Bet 600 and quickly called.

River 

I'm intending to check call, which I do for 1100, and get shown a straight. Called down by  . Thank god for the 2k early bird chips.

---

That hand sort of set the tone for the evening. Limping encourages limping, and when there is one Chinese kid who limp/calls 100% of hands, it starts a chain reaction that is impossible to stop it seems.

Chipped it up to about 55k at peak, and then as if by magic the blinds are 2000/4000 and I get it in with  vs  and lose. At this point I was willing to just flip up for a big stack or go and play cash games.

Cash waiting list was 25 people deep for .50/£1, about 10 deep for £1/£2 and £1/£1 PL DC or PLO. Some guys in suits came in for a private sit and go and had to play 13 handed. One made a royal flush and apparently got no freebies because it was a private game. Queue rub downs from the usual crowd of Luton pisstakers that I have grown fond of.

John who was running the cardroom at 1am seemed to be doing his absolute nuts trying to keep everyone happy and dealing with the groups so credit to him as I would have probably tilt flipped a table and ended up in the fetal position by the cash desk. Played some weird DC mix of 2-7 Triple Draw, Pineapple Chinese, 6/7 card Omaha, Lowball and SuperStud with Shane/UGotNuts with a Kalooki deck it took forever to turn into two normal decks. We left the table for literally 30 seconds to get chips and someone came along and shuffled both decks back together. Nobody saw who it was - some say the phantom deck shuffler is still on the loose. Pissed about on Blackjack and lost £80 because I couldn't get on the cash tables, rare for me to do that but in my mind I was going to play something if I couldn't play poker.

I'm at the point now where I need to stop pissing about and being so frivolous with money before Vegas. Two months away but two months goes quickly. I booked the trip in the first week of January, so that's two months that have disappeared already. I've sold 20% of my WSOP events to private investors (private investors meaning my dear old mother on the premise that it's better odds than the lottery tickets she's bought every week since 1995 and not won a bean), but being a nit for two months will make for a much better experience in the summer.

I've had lots of 'Good Luck' messages from friends back in Cornwall before the WSOP. I don't like the phrase 'Good Luck', even though it probably comes out of my mouth a dozen times when I'm at the G. I feel it implies that the time I've spent learning the game and all of it's nuances over the years is void because I am just going in blind hoping luck is on my side. Just taking money 14 hours over the Atlantic to flip coins in 35 degree heat. A little bit of luck is needed, but I am going to have to be 100% on form and ready to tear souls from bodies like Shao Khan from Mortal Kombat.

I've said it before - Luck is for losers. When the first week of June comes I am coming out swinging.

No more poker until then. So see you the G next Friday I guess. 

[UgotNuts]

I had a dream about the Phantom Card shuffler last night, it was rather strange... the deck kept on splitting into two and then shuffling back in together, then some guy I have never seen before appeared on all the face cards...... Shouldn't of eaten that cheese sandwich before bed!

Your Luton G casino blog is brilliantly written.... I think G casino Luton should compensate you for raising the profile personally....

[Ransom]

Evening Blonde!

I haven't updated this in around a month, because I may have had the most boring month of my 24 year existence. A real "blink and you'll miss it" type of month where I would have had more enjoyment in an induced coma.

Vegas and the WSOP is about a month away now, and the excitement has sort of subsided. I look at the date and even though 4 weeks will fly by as quick as the last month has, the 6 hour layover in Philadelphia I have now been given courtesy of American Airlines has killed my buzz a bit. I am potentially the most impatient man in the world, 6 hours in an airport terminal waiting to catch a 4 hour long connection with nothing to entertain me apart from seeing how many cigarettes I can smoke at once. I am thinking about stumping up the $50 for the business lounge at PHL airport just so I have the guarantee of some Wifi so I can at least watch a film or pass a couple of hours on Reddit.

I've taken a load of extra shifts over the next couple of weeks, because it's double time for bank holiday weekends and basically nothing happens then. The extra money will come in handy and I'm hoping that it will help the next couple of weeks just blend together in a blur like night shifts tend to do. Most of the time I couldn't tell you what day it is, so here's to cruising through the next 4 weeks with the voices of unhappy business travelers in my ear at night and dreams of big stacks during the day.

---

As far as poker goes - Ending April -£700 or so. Mainly due to the cocktail fueled .50/£1 game at the G one night that I goaded people into making a ton of £2/£4/£8 straddles in. Hey when 5 roulette punters decide to play poker, I say let them punt. I wonder how much of my money ended up down the chute at the end of the evening.

BTW Nirvana - I owe you £10, I couldn't play APAT because of a crippling hangover. I still have the 2x£5 chips at home which I will return next time I see you.

I keep trying to knock the weekday comps on the head, because because every 20k starting stack comp with no antes sort of chips away at my will to live. But being impatient and living 30 mins away from Luton means I always show up too early, find cash isn't going to start for 3 hours and jump in one. It's that or arrive too late and end up on a waiting list for ages. Both scenarios end with me chucking pints down my neck to amuse myself and feeling like dirt the next morning wishing I hadn't bothered.

---

The last comp I played was a £25 bounty on a Wednesday or Thursday night. There was a young kid at my table who clearly hadn't played live before, making the mistakes I'm sure we all did when we first started. String betting, using the wrong denomination chips, trying to shuffle chips and spazzing them everywhere, folding out of turn etc. It was a shame to see a couple of Luton regs on his case needling him at every opportunity. I'm fine with laughing at myself and taking a jab or six at the table, but this lad was nervous as hell when he sat down and the not so good natured banter flicked his way probably means he won't come back. It probably looked like a lion's den to him as opposed to the marshmallow pit it really is, disappointing to witness the 'old guard' rip into a new player.

I am guilty of stepping over the line with my big mouth once or twice, but I am quick to apologise and offer a drink in compensation, but it was just two hours of constant shit flinging. I wish I said something but confrontation is not something I actively seek out, so I just took to constantly 3 betting and check raising the offenders in every spot I could because the longer the usual nitregs spend in the tank, the less they could wind up the new kid.

---

Lots of cash action springing up within a short distance of home now. It's like the single .50/£1 game has mated with the newish £1-£2 game that's been running in the past couple of months to have a load of inbred cash game children that have been adopted by Casino MK and Gentings. The main thing that put me off grinding cash live for 4 nights a week is that I would probably have to just pass money between the same people night in, night out. Now there's loads of £1-£1/£1-£2 and even £2-£5 knocking about without having to take a day trip and a £25 train to London.

Cash games are my favourite thing in the world. I couldn't be a tourney grinder. I like just getting in and getting to work straight away, not pissing about with a seemingly endless starting stack for hours before anything interesting comes up, or busting 15 comps in a row before getting a 3rd and breaking even on the month on the 16th go.

If anyone is playing cash regularly in the Luton/MK area, let me know. Preferably if you're 6'5 and built like Brock Lesnar so you can back me up the next time someone starts trying to verbally maul someone for being new to the game. Or can at least drive me to the hospital to have my nose reset afterwards.

---

Let's get this month out of the way, get to Vegas and get back again with no dramas.

Vamos!



 

[nirvana]

Ha , I'd never have known mate.

Can my tenner buy whatever fractional percentage it does of the first  tourney you play in Vegas ?  Could be worth loads imo

Well jel of your current trip plans, hopefully nearer the time you'll get excited again

Cheers

[Ransom]

Ha , I'd never have known mate.

Can my tenner buy whatever fractional percentage it does of the first  tourney you play in Vegas ?  Could be worth loads imo

Well jel of your current trip plans, hopefully nearer the time you'll get excited again

Cheers

Ha, you can have a chunk of one of the $235 Rio dailys, I think that'll give you the best return.

You can have your potential winnings paid out in £1 chips. From Gentings.

[Ransom]

Evening!

Well under a month now before the Vegas trip, and the excitement has returned. I am a self confessed America-phile (I think that's a thing, though I am careful to avoid words with the suffix -phile, as most of the '-phile's aren't good things), so I am looking forward to doing things I think Americans do. Like eating spoonfuls of high fructose corn syrup, waving a revolver about and riding around a Walmart in one of those scooters they reserve for the obese.

I have the following comps penciled in. I'm going to play mainly cash games, but I wanted to play at a good mix of venues with a good mix of game types. Plus I want some sort of trophy to take home, and I think my best shot at one is going to be one of the limit events in a smaller series. Plus the WSOP 2-7 Triple Draw gets about 300 runners on average, so I will take my bracelet shot at a game I am self admittedly pretty good at rather than try and get a seat on the run good bus in a 3000 runner holdem comp for the same price.

Aria $125 x 2 - $250 - Aria
Phamous Poker Series $200k GTD One Day Event - $400 - Planet Hollywood
$2 x Rio Deepstack $235 - $470 - Rio (May drop one of these if I can find a $200-$300 Omaha comp somewhere)
Grand Poker Series Stud Hi/Lo - $240 - Golden Nugget
Binions Poker Series H.O.R.S.E - $240 - Binions
WSOP $1500  2-7 Triple Draw - $1500 - Rio

Total - $3100-ish.

---

Work is starting to get on my nerves a bit now, mainly because our clients in Asia have decided to call instead of email now. Having commands barked at you in broken English gets old quickly. They don't mean to come across as rude, but it's like dealing with a child. I don't mind calls from the English folk as they want to get things over with as quickly as possible, but the guys in Singapore love to drag a 30 second call into 8 minutes worth of repeated sentences.

I don't really want to do it anymore, but summer is coming up and it's two months of quiet nights. So I'm going to sit back, collect my wages for doing almost no work and re-evaluate in September. I'm not doing another mental Christmas there, I just need to try and figure out the optimal time to leave. I think I'm one of the only employees not on a zero hour contract, and my notice period is a month as I would have to train my replacement.

When I am taking bookings for people younger than me who are going on business trips overseas with big clients, it's probably time to re-think the whole career thing. I've never believed in the whole deal where you find a job, work 45 hours a week until you're 65 and then retire. It doesn't make sense to me, that you'd sign most of your life away to swivel on an office chair for just enough money to get by on. But then I've never had a job I really liked.

Could take the money I have (or have left) after Vegas and move to Thailand to grind cash games online. Though my judgement is poor even when I am sober, and I can't tell a lady from a ladyboy. All cats are black in the dark though, right?

---

Lost chunks with KK vs AK this past week. Never mind.

When luck shuts the door, we go in through the window.


 

[Ransom]

So I've managed to put my back out quite badly. Walking to the chippy. I was so excited to get some chips in me, that I moved too fast and done myself an injury. It feels like I've had one of the G Casino massages.

I think it's the most embarrassing way I've ever injured myself, and that's coming from someone who has fallen in every open drain they have come across. I seemed to be quite resilient when it came to getting injured in the past few years, which was nice as I think I spent more time in hospitals and the doctors than I did in school from 12-16. House is basically empty this week as my dear old mother and her other half are spending two weeks in Sorrento in Italy, and my sister is on a regular person's sleeping pattern so I can't send her out for strong pain killers and deep heat when I'm about at 3am. You know you read about people who've died but nobody has noticed, and they get found 3 weeks later stuck to their armchair with the TV still going? I always wondered how that can happen, but I sort of get it now.

Kind of leaves me without much to do until I can actually sit up without grimacing. I finally got around to buying Football Manager 15, and I have spent the better part of 3 days getting Watford into the Champions League by the skin of my teeth. Been meaning to watch the new series of Game Of Thrones too, but since they've deviated so far from the books now I don't think I can really be bothered anymore.

In between batches of Football Manager and the eternal struggle to obtain work permits for 17 year old Albanian midfielders, I've been trying to watch some films. I'm not really much of a film person anymore, but I am practicing for the long trip to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. I watched California Split, which is now one of my favourite gambling films. I've been wanting to watch it for a while but it only had one run on DVD and is now out of print, so a copy is between £50-80 on Amazon. Managed to snag a download of it online though. I'm all for paying for music/films etc, but I couldn't justify £50 on 90 minutes worth of film. Though that might be the going rate in some shops in Soho, maybe one of the more 'cultured' readers could let us know.

---

The creepiest thing happened to me last night. I got a phone call at about 1am - which is not unusual really on a Friday night, but the number that called belonged to me about 2 years ago. I recognized it instantly. It rang for about 3 seconds and cut off. That number was my old one when I was contracted to EE, which I have (thankfully) been free of for a good while. It's probably been reassigned to someone else by now, but I am stumped as to how it could call my new number on my contract with O2.

The old sim card from that contract is still in my old iPhone, which has been turned off for the better part of 18 months and is rotting in a shoe box in the cabinet in the room downstairs. I wanted to go down and investigate, but I've seen enough horror films in the past to know that's how you get a machete in the neck. I am still unable to figure out how this could happen. Any ideas?

---

I am going to try and avoid anymore takeaway related injuries. I don't much believe in 'signs' or a higher being, but if something out there is telling me to lay off the takeaways and have a salad once in a while - I hear you.



 

[RED-DOG]

Great writing. I bet you could make tikay's shopping list sound interesting.