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Ok, seriously, I am worried about our future as a species.

I just read a story about an EMT worker in Ohio who thought it would be funny to shock a co-worker with defibrillator paddles while she sat in the front seat of the ambulance. She went into cardiac arrest and died 2 days later. On the plus side, she was only a mother of 2, oh wait, you fucktard, that’s not good at all. I love the response of his family that he should be allowed to go because he only meant it as a joke. You know what would be really funny? Put this guy in the electric chair, that shit would crack me up.
Click here to read the story.

Also astounding is the story of a Columbian man who pointed a gun at his nephew to try and startle him into not having hiccups. The guy accidently pulled the trigger and killed the kid.
Click here to read the story.

I mean, I know you people are all down syndromes waiting to do something else stupid, but, um, I don’t know how much I can take anymore…

In other news I am going to be doing alot of working over the next couple weeks, gotta make that rent thingy happen, which is lame, people should not make me pay for things.

On the plus side I keep meeting cool hotties all the time. I knew they were around here somewhere, nice to finally meet them. This is for sure a plus, being the new guy still blows.

-Ray

So I saw on TV that this is supposed to be the most depressing day of they ear, or maybe it was yesterday, ugh, either way I should have picked a different day to recoup my losses at the poker table. My run of bad continued, I hung around all day, playing for about 10 hours straight or so, and when it was all said and done, I was down 150 or so, never up on the day. Blech. So now I gotta give up on cards and focus on rent for a couple weeks. On the plus side despite these losses I am still up on the month, so cards are still good. I think I need some time off to adjust my game anyways, I hate running bad. Last time I was I took some time off and came back to have 5 straight winning sessions.

And on top of that, actor Chris Penn died! In Santa Monica no less! Holy Crap that is like down the street! I guess I should start getting used to famous people dying in my neighborhood.

Also, the Buca employee I was hanging with the other night had dinner with Emo Phillips once! Ok, for most of you that means nothing, but for those that rule you will know how cool that is.

Well, anyways, I guess I gotta hang out the next 2 weeks, doing nothing but work and work and not spending much cash. On the plus side, Brandon is doing so well playing cards right now he is willing to give me some of his shifts. Grr, on the plus side I am not a hater, I am glad he’s doing so well. I told him if he hits the jackpot though rent is on him this month!!!

-Ray

…..I hate people.

That has to be it, after a worknight like this, my disgust for humanity grows stronger.

I had all of 3 tables tonight, all good sized, 2 were outstanding, but one was so bad it overshadowed the others.

They showed up on time and told me it would be 10 people, and gave me an order right away. That was great, except that up through about 80 minutes of them being there people kept showing up and ordering more food. It was such a disorganized joke! Who knows their party is reserved at 7pm, and then shows up at 8:20 and just orders food from the first server they see, someone who isn’t even their proper server? But the topper was the fact that the full bill was 186 bucks. They gave a different server the cash for it, again, for reasons I don’t comprehend. so I had to trackdown the server and get the two 100 dollar bills. I got change from the bar and counted out a 10 and four 1’s, put them with the bill, and dropped it off. I put it down saying, ok guys, here is your change, thanks alot! I made my rounds and came back, they told me “You only gave us 4 bucks change!” This was a lie and a scam, I checked, I didn’t have the 10 anymore, I counted it out twice to be sure, I know I gave it to them. So they gave me FIVE BUCKS and said, well, if you find that ten you can keep that too.

Fuckheads, thanks for the 5 on 186 you miserable bastards. Thanks for pretending like you were almost about to give me 15 on 186, like that would have even been acceptable in the damn first place!!!

I hate people.

Then I come home and try out my third bottle of 99 cent wine. The first 2 were good enough for me, but this third one was raunch city. It was so acidic that it burned my tongue like mouthwash. Ugh, awesome, it was so bad that I lost all desire to drink the rest of the night. I was going to go out to the bar and hang, but nah, not now!

So I am watching some Dave Chappele stand up special on comedy central. This is finally something good, til I see this same darn commercial that I have seen like 500 times. I of course speak of the Girls Gone Wild Games commercial.

How pathetic are the girls on these videos? They are all good looking, so why do they need to whore themselves out for nothing? What do they possibly gain from appearing on tv as ‘that stupid chick that got naked for a camera because they are stupid’. I am just disgusted that people debase themselves to the lowest level for what? What kills me is the girl that is on the phone with her father supposedly, and she says, “Hey Dad, I’m about to be on girls gone wild”. If I was that father, I would have only said, “Well, then don’t come home.” And then hung up on my disgraceful progeny, maybe commited seppuku, I’m not sure.

I am reminded of my first girlfriend, a crazy psycho hosebag that messed me up way back when. Anyways, I can remember one time she said to me, “Hey, I think I am going to get a tattoo.”
I wasn’t thrilled, but it was her choice to make, I asked, “Well, why do you want to do that?”
“I don’t know, it just sounds like it would be fun”
“Fun?” I stammered, “You are about to get something permanently transfixed to your body, fun is not a great reason to do this, what do you even want to get?”
“I don’t know, maybe a cute little Playboy Bunny symbol.”
Seriously, what the fuck? She didn’t read Playboy, she didn’t watch porn, she wasn’t into nude modeling, the whole thing made no sense whatsoever.
I was disgusted, I measured my response, “Well, if you decide to go do something that trashy and stupid, don’t be surprised if I don’t hang around any more.”
She never got the tattoo, at least not while we were together.

Now I am watching a show on E! Where a stripper, a cop, and a mom all give random guys a lapdance and the group tries to figure out which is which. What the fuck is wrong with humanity?!?

So am I a prude, or is shit fucked up in this world?

I think I will go and watch some Whitetail hunting on ESPN2. Not because I am a fan, just because I want to see something beautiful and innocent get killed by a fat redneck asshole drinking a Bud Light bemoaning the fact that the life he just took isn’t as big as the one he killed last week.

That might make me feel better.

-Ray

So I attended my first poetry slam here in LA yesterday. I of course have been to many in Ann Arbor, so I was looking forward to how the run things out here.

First off, the place was packed! The crowd was hot! They were all about the poetry, very responsive, and stuffed in this smallish theatre to the gills. I stayed through the Slam portion of the event, and left on the last slammer. It was different than other slams I have been to. They had 3 calibration poets, and 4 slammers, each slammer was given 10-12 minutes to do a set, with the whole set getting judged. If you went over time, there was no warning, you were just disqualified, harsh!
A few notes on the locale. It was in LA, very close to Hollywood, the area was very nice. The theatre was totally dry! No booze! No food! Nothing! My buzz was gone soon after I got in the door, damn it! I had to stand on the side the whole time because all the seats were already taken before I got there. There was a live DJ on stage spinning hip hop tracks between performers and doing entrance music for people. It gave the whole feeling a Def Poetry Jam feeling.
A word on the performers, it was wild having every single person acting like they were huge celebrities, but like they didn’t care. All 7 performers I saw had CD’s and books to sell, and almost all of them ‘inadvertantly’ bragged about shows in exotic locations that they had recently featured in. Usually through the form on an anecdote; “I was featuring in London last week, when this guy said to me….”, or ; “When I was in Hawaii featuring last month, I had a conversation that inspired the next piece.”
I will try to recap what I remember, I will remember no names, cause I’m bad at that.
1) First calibration poet kicked my ass. He did a typical poem about this and that all with intense ryhmes and performed with hardcore conviction, I will say he was the best of the night.
2) Second Calibration poet was a funny older black guy in a suit and suspenders. He did a piece about how ladies and women were all great, but bitches would bring down the world. He did the typical slam style work but inserted words like ‘pee-pee’ so the crowd ate it up. His bit went on way too long though, and after each paragraph, it felt like he should have ended it there, but it just keep going on and on and on and I started getting uncomfortable, as I think the crowd did too. It’s like when a clown comes over and makes a balloon animal for you, and it is nice and fun and you are happy with it, but then they hang out for another 15 minutes trying to make small talk. Eventually, you want to be like, thanks for the balloon, now leave me alone.
3) Some taller white chick was the 3rd calibrator. She did some work called ‘We the People’. It was kinda over the top about how all races should live together in peace but instead we still live in a segregated society. This may have truth to it, but it felt a little forced. The fact that she started crying halfway and let the tears stay fresh on her cheeks as part of the act made me cry out phony. What blew me away was the her scores were 9.8, 9.5, 9.0, 10, and 10. TWO TENS??? No way, if I was judging, and I think I am about the fairest judge ever, I think she would have merited about an 8.3
A word on the judges. They were bizarre. They popped off 10’s to every other performer, but it was not always deserved. There was a group of 4 or 5 youngish girls sitting on the stage behind the performers who team judged. They gave every female or anti man piece a 9.5 or higher (usually a 10), and gave most of the guys somewhere in the 7’s, gave one guy a 4.1!!! They reminded me of the audience from Oprah, ready to echo sentiments that they agreed with, and turning themselves off to anyone saying anything that was not already in their viewpoint.
4) Anyways, the first slammer got out there. I thought it was a big gorky white guy. He did a piece about white guys that act black. The first part was from the POV of that guy, and the 2nd part was basically him telling that guy to go fuck himself. I thought it was pretty funny, but I started feeling uncomfortable when he started dropping N-Bombs halfway through the piece. But for some reason the audience was digging it. I think it was a very anti-whitey crowd, even though half of them were white. After piece one I looked closer and realised that the lights were washing out his face, and he was actually a fair skinned black guy. Whew! That being said his 2nd part where he in so many words called crackas evil made me uncomfortable all over again. Oh well….
5) This guy was a trip. His voice sounded exactly like Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, that is very cartoony. He did 3 poems. The first one sounded very Matt Ernst’y about being at a diner after the apocalypse or something, I am not exactly sure, because he had a hard time not zipping around and staying on one point. So it was very stream of conciousness, and I had a hard time following it. His 2nd one was about Zombie love, and came from the POV of a guy zombie who found his true love after becoming a zombie and then they both get shot and killed. It ruled. I completely forget his third piece because it wasn;t that memorable. He was pretty cool.
6) This slick character came to the stage very full of his own importance. He did a very long narrative about alot of stuff. First off making fun of shitty poetry crowds, then pumping up his own self importance. Bragging about how tough his life is now that he quit his job to do poetry for a living. How the grind is how he pays his bills, and that until you quit your job for a life on the road, you are not a real poet. He also did a bit about how most people are not real poets, especially those that get up on stage and perform. He was pretty good, but his general arrogance made me not want to buy his shit. In fact, it started turning wheels in my head about a poem making fun of him. Hmm……
7) Last performer I stayed for. It was a dumpy white chick who was wearing some weird long skirt with what looked like patches that said random shit on it. I didn’t get it, I thought poets were supposed to be real, why did so many seem like they were playing characters instead? Anyways, she was decent, doing some generic stuff about whatever. She started with a story about how a guy told her real performance poets shouldn’t read off the page and her response was basically whatever, I’ll do what I want. It was a pointless story just to drop the name of an exotic place she featured, lol. I left right after she finished, she did 3 poems, none of which I found very interesting or compelling, but they had an urban flair to them the crowd dug it.

On my way back to my car a homeless guy was party dancing on the sidewalk by himself. There was no music or anything, he was just chillin out, banging around, throwing his hands in the air like he might not have even cared! If ever I wind up homeless I want to be just like him. Then I went to a bar in Hermosa Beach and listened to an open mic reggae band, that was interesting.

Well, that is basically it. I look forward to going next tuesday for the free open mic, and maybe even performing. We shall see………

-Ray

MLK day, 2006.

I woke up and went to the casino today, made a quick 230 bucks in a couple hours, and left before I could give any back.

I checked out a new sushi place that I LOVED called Fusion Sushi. This was a little more expensive than I’m usually comfortable paying, but F it, I was still up 200 bucks afterwards.

Went to work where it was slow so I got out pretty early, still making a small but reasonable amount of cash.

Got an E-mail today from the lovely Kari Buzewski telling me that she has potential plans to give living out here in LA a try. AWESOME!!!

Had a lovely Kung Pao Beef from my local Chinese fast food place.

Went out to the dollar store and bought a SHITLOAD of candy and a new candy dish, cause I like having random candy around.

After putting my delightful candy tray together, I did a little internetting, and just happened to check out the MySpace page of a certain someone. What a pleasant surprise to find out that this person has apparantly moved on, at least she was nice enough to wait a really long time before jumping in with that guy, oh wait………

I wish I could say that I don’t care and that I’m totally over everything, but that would be a lie, and unlike others, I’m not good at playing games with the truth. I’ve been having moody and emotional ups and downs since I moved here, ranging from complete rage to meloncholy sadness and moments where all I can remember are the good times and happy memories. What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I still care about someone who obviously never gave a shit about me? Oh well, I guess there is some ugly truth out there that I don’t want to accept as true. I plan on having a bottle of wine tonight, maybe 2, and trying to mentally come to peace with the reality I find myself in.

Sadly I now don’t find myself in the mood for candy, and I have so damn much of it!

-Ray

Wow, what fun.

The day started with me funding my internet sportsbook a little to take advantage of my supreme NFL smarts. I bet on the Redskins +10, and was any easy field goal away from winning my bet, however, I ended up tying it and getting my money back.
Next I bet on Denver -3 because I knew everyone in the world was taking New England and I thought it was a trap, I think I was right as Denver won by 14, 25 bucks for me! WOOT!

I worked at Buca and had a pretty solid night, every table was going for 20%+ until my last table. I think they were the cast of Queer as Folk: The College Years. Some of the flamingist men I’ve ever seen, and remember I have a BFA in Musical Theatre, so I’ve seen some shit. Anyways my friends tried to leave me 11 bucks on a bill of 198, AWESOME! So I left their change on their togo box I brought them with the bill on top to make a point. I guess it kinda worked, cause when they left I found 17 bucks on the table, WOOT! What really angers me is the 2 top 10 feet away from them left me 10 bucks on a bill of 36. Now those are some cool peeps I would hang with.

I started feeling sick to my stomach right about the last hour of Buca and I couldn;t figure out why. Well, now I think it had something to do with the fact that I ate an entire variety bucket from KFC all by myself for lunch. Now I’m extra gassy and my tummy hurts when I stand, it’s sad, pity me.

Quick question, who is a big loser who stays home on Saturday night even though Yahoo.com lists a club a few miles from me as the 2nd best singles bar in the whole LA area? If you answered me you win a cookie, and a punch in the face, administered upon reciept of the cookie.

Well, I’m meeting alot of new friends out here, and this is a good thing, I don’t even know if I’m ready to pursue anything more than that at this point anyways. Friends are good, and we can’t all have immediate backup plans after our hearts are broken. So I suppose I am cool where I stand. I know how I am anyways, and how people usually need to get to know me before they fully accept me, which makes meeting random chicks very difficult, but it’s cool cause usually they just bore me anyways.

Did any of what I just wrote make any sense? If you answered yes then you are ok in my book.

Tomorrow is another fun day, I get to work all evening, and I think I will try to get out to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach on the pier for reggae night, it was pretty cool last time I was there for it.

Oh yeah, if you actually want to tap into my vast NFL playoff skillz here are my picks for Sunday’s games. Take the Colts -9.5 And I am leaning towards the Panthers +3, but I need to wait til nearer game time, this spread feels like a trap as well.

-Ray

So I went back to the casino tonight. Won a quick hundred bucks, and came home. Oh yes, what a fun night.

We were walking around looking to see if any seats were open when a guy sitting at a table with one other person looked at me and said, “Hey, you guys want to play some poker?”
“Well,” I responded feigning ignorance, “What kind are you playing?”
“3-6 Texas Hold-Em”
“Ok, yeah, sounds like fun, I’ll be right back, hold us 2 seats.”
So I came back and promptly took all that guy’s money.

My favorite moment was when an annoying older guy was sitting to my left. He was in a hand with Brandon when Brandon flipped over his AJ for 2 pair at the end. This guy just sat there, not turning his cards over, staring at it. I leaned over and said, “He has 2 pair, Aces and Jacks.” This burned the guy up at me.
“I can see that without my glasses on.” He snarled back at me.
“Well,” I continued, “Then why haven’t you folded your cards yet?”
“Because I am waiting for you to tell me to fold.”
I gave it a beat.
“Ok, fold.”
He folded, but I could tell he was off balance.
2 Hands later it was him and me to the end, I had A6, the board was 6-3-10-3-6. I bet on the end and he called, I quickly turned my hand over.
“I have a full house, 6’s over 3’s.” Then just to rub it in….”With an Ace kicker.”
He folded his hand, and got up from the table, disappearing for a while, he came back and picked up his chips to leave. Before he left he muttered, “I got to get out of here, you guys are too good for me.” To which i responded, “It happens.”

Tee-hee, I have fun.

-Ray

Well, here we are, it is 2006.

I just burned the last of my ‘Temptress’ incense last night. This has special meaning to me, it means I am turning the page and taking another step forward, away from my past, not that I want to forget things that have happened to me, for I strongly believe they have made me into the supreme being that i have become.

Finally I felt some level of cloud go away from my head. I went to the casino and played poker, and wouldn’t you know it, I won money! Good money, it’s like I worked yesterday, but instead went out and had a great time and got paid for it, WOOT! I truly deserved to have a day at cards where I didn’t get totally unlucky making the right decisions. Even Brandon told me afterwards it was the best poker he had seen me play at the casino. So needless to say I was pretty happy with how it all went down. Lots of funny things happened too, short story time!

1) Some really drunk guy sat down next to me and started playing crazy! He was way drunk when he sat down and I talked him in to having 3 more shots of tequila while he was there. It was crazy, he kept raising every hand with nothing, and then catching miracle cards to win over and over again! I knew he was destined to go broke, so I kept talking him up, telling him what a good player he was, and then won a big pot from him and helped bust him out! I like drunk people, they help me pay rent.

2) Another guy started talking crap about the Lions! WTF?!?! So I saw he was wearing a Lakers jersey and so I couldn’t resist bringing up the finals from 2 years ago when the Lakers got SMOKED by the Pistons. It was funny, he really had nothing to say about it, he just kept talking about how they won titles, and I kept saying how the Lakers missed the playoffs last year. What was even better was I won 2 big pots from him. Better still was watching him get thrown off his game by my talk and dropping 200 bucks in like just over an hour. Guess who took a bunch of those chips? Tee-hee, I’m a bad boy.

3) A different guy got into a really big hand with me, and I drew a miracle card on the river to beat him with a higher full house. But I didn’t know it the whole time, so we got down to the river card, and I bet out 6 bucks in front. This guy hemmed and hawed about how he had a full house and was going to lay it down because he is a really good player and was about to prove it. Now, to be honest, he should have called if he had a full house, the pot was big and it was only 6 bucks. The best though was he started talking trash to me telling me that he ‘eats guys like me for breakfast’. To which I responded ‘Good luck with that’. I didn’t push it cause he was steaming enough, I could tell he wanted me to show my hand to prove him correct. So I just looked down at my cards, let out a ‘hmm’, and then tossed them into the muck, never to be shown. This set off fireworks inside of him. He left the table and came back with $1,000 in 1 dollar chips!!! 10 RACKS FULL!!! And was all like, I’m done playing these baby games, we’re here to gamble now. He raised every hand with nothing, and then berated players who beat him, it was kinda funny. Funny more was that he had blown through 150 bucks in like a half hour while steaming, and Brandon was the one picking up this money.

Those are my favorite 3 stories from yesterday, there are more, but those are best. I love poker, where else can I mess with people’s minds and then take their money, legally! WOOT!!! In the end both Brandon and myself won over 100 bucks each, and then went out for dinner at Sizzler, rock on for good days!

And rock on for moving on!

-Ray

This is weird, it’s past 4:30am friday night/saturday morning.

I can’t sleep. I have nagging concerns that something really bad is going to happen. Something cosmically is not right. Like I am on the path to destruction, but there is nothing I can do to stop it, whatever trouble I am in has already been set it motion, and I am powerless against it. I can’t explain it better than that.

I just do not know, I guess I will discover in it’s own time.

Hopefully I am just tired and when I wake up tomorrow all will be good again, but I can’t shake this feeling. I think it’s kinda like when Obi Won Kenobi felt that Alderaan had been destroyed.

Oh well, I must come to peace over this.

-Ray

I am too damn old for this I think. To prepare for the USC game yesterday I bought a bunch of bags of candy from the dollar store and crushed it during the game. Now I feel sick to my stomach and jittery and tired, ugh, what happened to the good old days? What happened to the days when I could eat anything I wanted to, and suffer no ill effects?!
I hate being old, guess I should go get my hip replaced next week, just to be safe.
Now I will sit here, playing games and watching COPS with a sugar head rush, and possibly later go out to the bar and meet someone new, who can pierce the veil of the future?

-Ray

PS. Congrats to Deanna for winning my title this year!