Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

Having had a long debate about what time Panic would come on, I decided to head down there for 9:45. Kick out is at 11, so they will probably finish fifteen minutes before that and based on an hour set, that means they will come on at 9:45. Seemed sensible.

As it happens they actually came on at 9:30 and I didn’t get there until 10 🙁 . Still, this did have the advantage that I got to piss most of their new stuff and arrive safely in time to hear I Write Sins Not Tragedies and their cover of The Darkness’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love, so I’m going to chalk that one down as a win 😀 .

With Wendy once again rolling around, we headed out for some good music and good times.

I thought I would write to share what I consider to be quite a positive experience I have recently had with the Advertising Standards Authority. Last month, I complained to them about an advert by Boots which I consider sexist.

It’s updated to their YouTube channel with the caption “the girls can’t let the onset of man-flu slow them down.”

Just three days after I had made the complaint, they posted out a letter to me! While it said they wouldn’t be taking any further action, they did take the time to explain to me why they wouldn’t – in this case because they did not feel the advert caused sufficiently widespread offence for them to take action. However, given complaints so often disappear off and are never heard of again, I think the ASA deserve praise for their speedy and in depth response.

Recently, I’ve been watching Nothing to Declare (aka Border Security: Australia’s Front Line). It’s about customs officers working at Australia’s airports and seaports. It’s pretty similar to UK Border Security, except that I actually find it interesting.

I use the term I because ultimately it’s trash TV. There is no real intellectual merit to either TV show but for some reason I find Nothing to Declare entertaining, while I find UK Border Security quite dull.

Indeed, we’ve been getting into it so much that last week I set a reminder in our calendars about it. Why is it so addictive?

The story gets stranger though. I randomly got an email from Gijsbert entitled “Nothing to Declare” with a message saying I’ve been watching loads of Nothing to Declare recently. Why do intelligent people, including myself, watch this rubbish?

It’s a fascinating question. It’s so predictable – it’s just people getting caught with cocaine on them and people trying to sneak into the country with the intention of working on their tourist visa, episode after episode. But we’re all addicted to it. Why?

It’s also interesting that both we, and Weili picked up on the fact that the show opens with the title caption “thousands of people dedicate their lives to protecting Australia’s border.” Not just work there – dedicate their lives.

Last month, I went to the Leeds Academy to see Evanescence. The gig was enjoyable, but not quite as good as I was expecting. I had a similar experience when I went to see Feeder in February, so I’m wondering whether it is the venue.

Never the less, I got to sing along to a great mixture of songs from their new album and the old classics as well. A very enjoyable night!

I also bought a t-shirt and unfortunately I was given the wrong size. Due to my expanding belly, I definitely cannot squeeze into. Still, at least that’s Elina’s Christmas present sorted :D.

Given we were all a big fan of the original Johnny English film, myself, Elina and Norm headed out to the cinema to see Johnny English Reborn.

The film was good, not great. It was entertaining, I didn’t find myself clock watching, which I often do at the cinema, and presented quite a few laugh out loud moments, but it was always going to get compared to the original and in the end, wasn’t quite as funny.

More of a concern though was the fact that my ticket into the cinema was £9.25! I’m sure when I was a kid it was like £4 to go to the cinema, now it’s more expensive than being a DVD to own :S.

I also got an earful off the guy checking out tickets in on the way in because I had bought Elina a student ticket but she didn’t have her student card on her. I understand they need to check it occasionally, but given we had bought full price tickets for myself and Norm, it seems pretty obvious that we were being honest – if we were trying to scam them we would have just bought three student tickets.

Last December, tickets for Rihanna’s next tour became available. It was ten months away, but I really wanted to get floor tickets, so I went onto the priority booking site to ensure I got some of the elusive standing tickets.

Ten months I waited.

Then, I was ill :(.

To avoid entirely wasting the £40 ticket I sent George with my camera instead. Still gutted though.

I’ve been playing a lot of poker recently. And by a lot, I mean I’m pretty much at work, working for CWF, or in a casino. Luckily, Leeds isn’t exactly a high rolling town, so you can enter quite a lot of tournaments without it costing you much money.

The good news is that my poker is improving. Norm joined me for one of the Sunday tournaments at Alea, which had potential as many of the regulars were playing in the end of league winners’ freeroll instead.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far after my aces got cracked and then I shoved post-flop with an over pair, only to have Norm call me with nothing and hit two pair by the river to knock me out. I actually quite enjoyed the night though because for once, I was able to walk away from the casino without having to think “you would still be in that tournament if you hadn’t made that stupid mistake.”

This was less true of the tournament on the following Thursday at Alea where I Was getting great cards and quickly became chip leader and stayed that way for four hours – right until the two hands I went out on. Haven’t dominated the tournament I made some really bad calls looking for straights and it cost me what should have been an easy cash.

The day after at Grosvenor didn’t go any better. I made it through the rebuy period on my freeroll stack alone and despite being short stacked for three hours I made it to the final table – only to be the first person to go out. Bad times.

My squandered stack from Alea.

While I’ve enjoyed playing poker at Grosvenor recently, I think to learn the game I need to play against good opponents and a lot of the time at Grosvenor you have to play past a lot of bad players before you get to the real players.

As such, I decided to head down to Alea for a few tournaments. They don’t get the turn outs that Grosvenor do, but as I’m not playing for the money (well, obviously I am playing for the money, but I’m not expecting to win quite yet), it isn’t too much of a problem.

So far, it’s not gone so well, but I’ve learnt quite a bit. I figured it was probably worth blogging about my experiences so that anyone who is good at poker that reads my blog can point out when I’ve made silly mistakes.

The first tournament I entered I ended up going all in on a pair of pocket queens pre-flop, and two other players followed me in with pocket kings and pocket aces. Despite hitting trip queens on the flop, a king came out on the turn.

The second tournament I entered, I was sitting on pocket aces and with a flop of 3, 7 and 10, all off suite, I check-raised all in. Someone called with an ace, 10 and hit a third 10 on the turn.

A few weeks ago, we dropped into the Golf Bar down by the train station.

While it seemed a nice enough place, with an outside area overlooking the river, the staff seemed somewhat shocked when we actually turned up and tried to order a drink. I always thought that was kind of the point when running a bar business, but maybe I’ve misunderstood.