I have an interview at an animal hospital tomorrow. I need the part-time cash so I can pay back my parents for the new monitor I plan on getting. All I would be required to do is clean up after the animals in their cages, perhaps walk them. Nothing I'm not accustomed to doing with my pets.

Starting a few days ago my monitor started to randomly blink off and on. I have since learned that it is most likely about to die, so I'll have to get a new one. During that time I also ended up reformating my computer. I was trying to upgrade my video card driver and it got uninstalled and then Windows ME wouldn't let me reinstall it. I had planned on reformatting anyways because I wanted to put XP back on since it's been awhile and I figure all the problems I had had before should be fixed by now.

Anyways, so far I'm happy with XP and looking to get a 19'' Flat Screen LCD monitor, but I'm not sure which one yet. Either a Dell or Samsung. Don't really need a great monitor as I didn't even bother reinstalling any of my games. I never play them anyways.

For the past couple of days I've been spending most of my time working on my main site, No-Doubt.net. At first I wanted to finally sign up with Google AdSense, so once they finally approved my site, I added the banners. Then I decided to update some of the content, and after that decided I wanted to change the way the main page looked.

Well all that led to making the website all Valid XHTML 1.0. So far I've done about half the site. It's amazing how much there is that needs to be fixed. I would want to make my CSS a bit cleaner but I now realize that would definitely take more effort than I want to spend time on. Perhaps after my site is totally Valid XHTML 1.0, I will make sure this one is.

Why does Kansas vs. Texas Tech have to be scheduled for today? Luckily our reservations for dinner at the Melting Pot are for 5:30 (about an hour from now) and I will be home in time to watch it. I totally forgot about the game when we made the reservations around a month ago and I am glad my girlfriend will let me watch the game tonight after we get back. I just had to promise that once it was over I can't go on the computer anymore tonight.

It's the price I have to pay, but today's her day and she made mine by not getting angry that I want to watch my game. She's the best.

Saturday night's home game started off a bit slow for me. I didn't get much of any hands and when I tried to play, it only resulted in my eventual fold. We started each with $20 in chips and soon enough I was down to my final $3 looking at a Q7o in the BB. 3 others limped in, including the SB, and I just checked. Flop was K Q rag, and everyone checked to me, I pushed my final $2.50 in see as how no one bet, so hopefully I could just take the pot there. I was called by one loose player with A5o and their hand didn't improve. I was on a comeback. Next hand in the SB, I look down to see Q10o, I simply limp in with everyone else and see another flop of K Q rag, and it gets checked around. Turn is a Q, and I decide to try and slow play hoping someone fires at the pot, because I need more chips. River is a J and guy before me bets .50 and I raise to $2. BB calls me and other guy folds, my 3 Qs take down the pot. All the sudden I was back in, and eventually was up my initial $20 to $30 total.

As the night progressed though, I went back down to around $10 as the cards just didn't come for me. Then the hand that made my night was a K8s (diamonds) where I just limped in. 5 players to the flop of Ad 3 6d. I decided I needed this pot so I was staying in, and the loose player bet out .50, so I called. Another player raised another .50 trying to protect their A, but that was a weak bet, so again I called as did 4 others. Turn was a 4, unfortunately not a diamond. Loose player checked and the guy next to me bet out .75, again I called and so did everyone else. River was a 9d. Yes! I hit my top flush and no one can beat me. Loose player bet out $1. Guy next to her raised another $2 to make it $3 to me. This was great, they were betting into the nuts. I raised to $6. Girl with the A folded. Loose player and guy both called and we see loose player had 75d (they had the flush draw and a straight after the turn but slow played it, bad idea). Guy flips over 42d for yet another flush. Then I show them the bad news. I couldn't believe all 3 of us had flushes and yet they just all called my bet. Wish I could have made more on that.

Overall, I ended up the night with $35 -- made $15 that we immediately used the next day to buy some new fish for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day. I was glad to break the loose players, the continually bluffed at pots and got hit bad as the night was coming to an end. After being up a lot for most of the evening they ended up down $32. Guess the guy shouldn't be teaching his girlfriend how to play loose and bluff at pots.

Didn't really do much of anything today. Basically spent the day tinkering around with this website and added the Weather (which should update itself every couple of hours) and Comment Leaders over on the right hand side of the page. Now that I think about it, it's amazing how something that doesn't really appear to be much can take so much of your time without you realizing it.

One of these days I'll post some pictures, but that would require me actually using the digital camera. And if you know me, you know I'm kind of lazy.

edit: Forgot to mention that I got a gmail invite. Never really was looking to but finally decided just to get one anyways. So it's decipherXL AT gmail.com. So just replace the AT with @ and you're set to send me a message.

Well I started playing today at around 5:15 and got 3 hours of playing in. I started off playing a bit too loose as my % of flops seen was 50%+. I guess that's what happens when I haven't played for almost a week, I want to see some flops. That's always a bad idea because I end up paying for draws that just don't make it.

Anyways, once I realized my error I tighted it up some because I was down around $20 or so. My % of flops seen ended up around 47% only because some of the tables I was playing at started to break up and I was playing short handed. For the time being it appears I have found and fixed one of the major flaws in my game. Now let's see if I can keep from resorting back to it by getting tilted.
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Well, I didn't get a chance to play poker today, but that's okay. Right now I play over at Pokerstars at the .25/.50 Limit Holdem tables. I usually play about 3 tables at a time and so far am up about $235. This all comes from just starting out with a little $50 deposit and playing the .05/.10 Limit tables. At that time I just played 2 at a time and they were easy to beat but the most I made a session was $5 or so. Now the most I've made in one session (which also comes from playing an extra table) was $41.

Since I moved up limits though, I have had a couple sessions where I lost a decent amount of money because I took some bad beats and tried to get the money back by playing more hands and raising pre-flop with the crap I was playing. That was a bad idea and I have learned from my mistakes. Since I first starting playing though I think I have definitely improved my game. I'm not trying to become a pro or anything, it's just a hobby to make some extra cash to pay for things like the new ferret cage I bought a couple weekends back.

Regardless, playing online has also helped improved my play when we occassionally get together for a home game. We are planning on having another session this Saturday, so hopefully I make some more cash for Valentine's Day.

So I've officially decided to start posting in this thing now. I doubt anyone will ever read it, maybe my girlfriend and a couple random people just poking around the Internet. It took me over 6 months to finally get this thing all put together. At first I had a big idea of what I wanted this to be, and now I realize that is just way too much and so I simplified and over the course of the past 2 days, I have created this.

Obviously, I own the domain No-Doubt.net, so go give my site a visit and click on the sponsors links on the right side... make me some $$.