I Suck At Euchre | 02/02/04
This afternoon I took Chompy to Wendy's for a quick lunch. I was going to make up a story about my new healthy eating habits but apparently Marty saw me with Dr. Chomp. Busted! My plan for the afternoon was to do some laundry and finish sending out some more job applications. I was tired from eating lunch and decided to play some online Euchre (just a few games, I swear). After a couple of games, I was asked to play in an impromptu tournament with 15 other people. Much like the NCAA tournament, we were paired by our rankings (mine a decent 1550 at the time) and although I thought my ranking was high, my partner and I were seeded numbers 11 and 12. It was single elimination with the finals determined by best of three set. Amazingly, my partner and I breezed through the competition and and wound up in the finals after absolutely destroying the higher seeds. We won in the "East" bracket and played against the #1 and #2 seed from the "West" bracket. We won the first game 10-2 but lost the next two 10-9 and 10-8. I typically like to blame the cards but in the finals the other two people simply just outplayed us. Our downfall was my fault, of course, as I called a set with the game 7-7 in the 3rd game. It was fun to play with people who normally would kick me out of the room because my rank of 1550 would never allow me a seat in their 2100-2500 rooms. For my first tournament I think it went really well and I hope I get to play with the same guy sometime in the future. Now that I have "red square" status again I think I can play against anyone I want and not have people curse their monitors for having me sit down across from them. If you've never played with Yahoo Games, it's free and you should. You're assigned a color based on your rank: grey, green, blue, purple, orange, red (in order from suckiest to best). At the end of the summer I had finally reached an extremely difficult red square in Canasta and now I'm too afraid of losing to play anymore. Unlike in Euchre, the points in Canasta are extremely difficult to receive--you typically get between 2-10 in Canasta as opposed to 10-30 per match in Euchre. Starting at 1500, to hit the 2300 mark in Canasta took a summer of ass-kicking and I think my record by the time school started was something like 180-25. Had I not stupidly used that screen name when I played my friends and played carelessly, I'm sure it would be closer to 200-5. My grandma taught me to play canasta when I was in the womb and, at the risk of being arrogant and assuming we're dealt fairly even cards, I don't think anyone can beat me. I know people throw that term around a lot "anyone" but I mean it in the truest sense of the word. Go out, herd some people up and sit them down. At my peak of confidence, I once played against two people and still won (by about 1500 no less). I'd share my strategy but that might take away my title. There have been, of course, where I had to play against the very, very small minority of people who play the same way that I do and those are usually the games I lose if my opponent is given even the slightest "luck-advantage". I'm not sure why I'm so chatty tonight but I think it has to do with the iced coffee Jamie brought me from Java-Sucks down on Railroad or the fact that Chompy and I were almost involved in a fatal collision about a half hour ago.
Returning from the gas station, I was making a left-hand turn with an arrow. Out of nowhere, the car facing me (waiting to go straight) just decides to go and comes within inches (like, if that car were parked in a parking lot, I would park my car with a greater distance away) of hitting me head-on. Fortunately, the person behind me was also sober and avoided rear-ending me. My gut reaction was to roll down my window and yell. I pulled up next to the beat up Suburu and yelled out my window at the crying girl at the next light. I'm not sure her driving with her crying head in her hands was such a great idea, so I gunned it and put myself about 4 miles away from her. I still can't get over the absolutely glord-awful driving in this town. I just can't believe it. And glord help that bitch if anything had happened to Chompy because I would have strangled her with my jumper cables until she was good and unconscious and then electrocuted her.
Tonight also marked the end of Mike's fish-friend sleepover. The little fish I moved to the hospital tank died last night. I cleaned some of the water out of my bedroom tank and I think my fish-friends will sleep a little more soundly tonight because of it. I'm sorry this is so long but I have a lot of work to do and I love to put it off.
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