Month: September 2005

Review: Crash

Nick Momrik2 Comments

Crash (Widescreen Edition)Movies like Crash are what keep me watching different movies all the time. This is not your typical movie where good guys win over bad guys and we have a happy ending.

Crash is a modern day tale of morality. The entire movie is based on racism in the lives of people from different backgrounds and how they come into contact with one another. The cast has some top stars that step down from their typical roles for the purpose of getting a message across to the audience. Sandra Bullock is the biggest star in the movie and she only ends up saying a few lines.

It really is a tough movie to explain because you need to watch it in order to understand. And by watch it, I mean the entire thing. About 1/3 of the way through the movie I was thinking, “I know we have racism in the world and I don’t need this movie to tell me about it. What’s the point here?” I caught myself looking at the DVD player several times to see how far along the film was. Soon after it started to get interesting though. The story requires a lot of background information on each of the characters and the producers did a great job of setting it all up.

Crash starts off with Don Cheadle’s character explaining the term “crash” and this really helps to set up the rest of the movie. As you get through the second half you come to realize what he meant by his explanation. This movie is an eye opener on some levels, but it was also a very entertaining watch. I give it an A-.

Up 10K

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No poker played tonight, but I had to post because it was one year ago today that I started playing on Party Poker. It was also the day I started to keep track of my wins/losses on a daily basis. Over the last twelve months I’m about $10,600 ahead with $5,550 coming from poker cash games and tournaments. The other $5,050 comes from deposit bonuses. I’m more than happy to be ahead 10K, but not too happy that it’s nearly 50/50 for poker and bonuses. With that many hours at the tables I’d hope to be up more than I am. I’ve had some streaks of really bad play which have cost me. I’ve taken nearly $8,000 out of my bankroll for what I call “poker paydays” and this is a great feeling because I’ve been able to pay off my student loans and will have my auto loan (which is less than 7 months old) paid off in less than a month. I’m making money from a game, a hobby.

My goal for the next three months is to make $3,000 at the tables. I just jinxed myself. Each time I’ve made goals in the past, I’ve gone on a losing streak. This time I’ll have better focus and win.

Back to Basics

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It’s been a rough month poker-wise. Since August 28th I have 23 numbers recorded for my poker play. Each number represents play at one site for that day. Of those 23, only 7 were positive with none over $150. All the rest were negative with several over $200 in the hole. Those are some rough days. I had been trying to beat the 6-max games at several different sites. I wasn’t faring too well if you couldn’t tell. For that month period it was nearly $1,400 in the hole for poker play. Good thing for deposit bonuses which totaled nearly $800 for that same period of play. So in reality I was down $600 for the past month. Not too bad when you look at it from a different angle.

Two weeks ago I bought the new iPod nano and one of the first things I did was start downloading some old episodes (back to around 38 or so) of the Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio podcast. Tomorrow I should finally catch up with Sunday’s podcast (episode 45). I’ve been playing the shows on my ride to and from work each day, which works out great. Listening to Sean, Brent, and everyone else involved in the shows has renewed my poker focus.

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Steer Clear

Nick Momrik1 Comment

I had to post this here in order to warn any poker sites out there that might run into this advertising site. It’s gam bling ads DOT com (remove the spaces). They run advertising auctions and the highest bidder gets the ad space. I noticed they were getting some good ad rates so I contacted them about getting me some advertising for Poker Chip Tricks because the site gets a lot of traffic. Michael contacted me asking for monthly page views and unique visitors. I informed him in my first email back that the stats provided by my host sucked and the numbers were way too high. So I offered him the numbers provided by my Google Ads and those by Poker Blogs Topsite which are both real counts of each page loaded. He didn’t trust the data.

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I Wonder

Nick Momrik5 Comments

I’ve decided to take the first “I Wonder” post and make it into the I Wonder Series. I’ll add things into a saved post and when I have enough I’ll post it. I think I come up with plenty of random thoughts to keep this going on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

I wonder…

  • Is there is a company doing drug testing of potential employees that would let someone off the hook because of a recent trip to Amsterdam? Doubtful.
  • Do some of the “bigger” girls wearing tight clothes actually think they look good? Working at a college I see way too many clothes that don’t fit being worn.
  • How much do people get paid on some of the big reality TV shows? The Real World and Big Brother as examples. I recently found out that a friend of a friend of a friend got paid $30,000 and over $200 a day for being on an FX reality show which taped for 30 days. The $200/day was for food and entertainment purposes. That’s some sweet cash!
  • Will Dan Brown ever finish his next book?
  • Why is the drinking age in the United States still 21? So many other countries with the age at 18 or 19 don’t seem to have a problem.
  • How long will it take Michelle Wie to win a tournament on the PGA Tour? Yes, that is the men’s tour. I think she is going to be that good.
  • What is the longest distance someone has run without stopping?
  • Does anyone besides me alphabetize their DVD collection?
  • How much snow will we get this winter? Hopefully a lot less than last year.
  • Would I feel more screwed if my birthday had been on a February 29th instead of the day after X-mas?

Any answers? What do you wonder?

Good Service

Nick Momrik1 Comment

When I go out to eat I expect good service from my waiter/waitress. You don’t have to be over the top, but I don’t want to feel neglected. I expect a fresh drink when my glass is full. Bring the check after we’re done eating or if we’re taking a really long time at least ask if we’d like our check at that point. Come back to the table to see how things are going, but don’t come so often that I don’t have time to eat my food and enjoy the company I’m with. My sister has been a waitress since high school so maybe I have high standards when I go out to eat.

Last night I went out to Hooters with my brother and some of his roommates. They have $6 pitchers and $0.35 wings for Monday night football each week. The view isn’t too bad either. I ordered a pitcher of beer figuring a friend would show up and he’d help me drink it. It turns out he was already there and I didn’t see him with some other people when I did a quick look through the place. So…needless to say, I had a whole pitcher to myself.

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Soaring Eagle

Nick Momrik1 Comment

This weekend I headed over to CMU to party with some of my friends for one of their birthdays. I got pretty wasted on Friday, and on Saturday I decided to pay a visit to the Indians at the Soaring Eagle Casino. I arrived at the casino about 3:00 p.m. and headed straight to the poker room. I put my name on the list for 3-6 hold ’em and took out $60 in chips. After about a 10 minute wait they called my name and I took a seat. Things were pretty slow for the first couple of hours as my chip stack stayed around $100, but at least I wasn’t down. Things started to pick up pretty heavily around 8-9 p.m. when I took down a nice series of pots, boosting my stack to around $250 or so. I had a nice run going and I thought it was about to get even better.

I limped from the button with A4 suited with 4-5 players to the flop. The flop came down a rainbow 3 5 9. The big blind raised and a player in middle position (player 2) and I both called. The turn brought a 2 making my 5-high straight. The big blind again raised, called by player 2 and reraised by me. The big blind now reraised me back and I capped the betting. Player 2 called every bet making this 3 players to the river. The river brought a 6, now the big blind checked and player 2 raised. ??? Odd play, so I just called and so did the big blind. The big blind showed 9 5 for a flopped two pair, I showed a 6-high straight and player 2 showed 4 7 offsuit for a 7-high straight. Talk about a bad beat, player 2 called preflop, a flop, and a capped turn with 4 7 offsuit and nothing more than a gutshot straight draw.

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