Things that really bug the shit out of me..

1. People who put L plates on arseways.

Keep well clear of these imbeciles! I would recommend at least 200 yards. If these people are too stupid to perform correctly this most elementary of tasks, they are surely a danger to all other road users.

2. People who refer to simple coincidences as Ironic.

Let's say Gerry Ryan is on the radio talking about monkeys that eat their own faeces, and you were 'only just talking about that', in a drunken pub conversation the night before, well, that my friend is not Ironic, it's just a simple coincidence.

3. Bible belt Christians.

These people truly are the most despicable, hypocritical, small minded bunch of people on this planet. If you don't eat, sleep and shit like them, you are going to burn for all eternity in hell. Yes, that's right, their all powerfull, all LOVING god is going to burn you, and 4.4 billion others in a big fire beneath the earth! I wonder how many of these 'moral' clean living people would classify Hitler as an evil man.

4. Daft Dave

A message to Right Price Tiles management: Because of that annoying bastard, I would rather walk naked from Turkey to Dublin with travertine on my back than cross the threshold of one of your stores.

5. TV licence ads.

RTE keep warning us that one of these days, the wolf will knock on the door, catch you without your licence, and your family and friends will disown you with the shame of it all. They bombard us with scare mongering ads to make us believe the Gestapo are patrolling the country ready to haul in the non compliant BULLSHIT. There is more chance of you getting hit by a runaway speed boat while sunbathing on the beach, than there is of a TV licence inspector arriving at your door. And, even if he did, I think I could just about survive the 'shame' of it all. My advice: don't get one in the first place, then they won't hound you with letters to renew.

6. Skanger city centre young wans that wear pygamas outdoors.

WTF is this all about? Girls, this is not a trendy fashion statement, nor is it an outward expression of your desire to stick two fingers up at the rest of society. It's simply ridiculous, and it makes you look like you just wandered out of a mental institution.

7. D4 girls.

These fake, shallow annoying people really bug me. Why do they speak as if they've just walked off the set of Dawson's creek? YOU ARE IRISH!! Stop speaking with an American accent. Oh my God, it's like, sooo annoying.

8. Rubbernecking.

It's a really pleasant experience when you're sitting in an hour of traffic on the M50, only to discover the cause of said traffic is an accident on the OTHER side of the motorway. People, unless a member of your immediate family is involved, don't fuck my day up, keep your foot to the floor.

9. Calgon tablets.

"Washing machines live longer with Calgon"The fact that this company has a market shows how some people in this country are devoid of simple common sense.A good washing machine will cost you about €300, and will easily last five years without the help of Calgon.They say, use one tablet in every wash and your machine will last longer.Maybe so, but each tablet costs .30c, meaning if you had five washes a week, in five years you would have spent €390, JUST ON CALGON TABLETS!Is this not blindingly obvious?

10. VIPs.

Why should someone be considered a 'very important' person just because they followed a certain career path or were born into a certain family?I mean, if my mother had the choice of pushing me or Bono in front of a train, I can guarantee it would be me visiting her in prison.So, how come I can't get beyond those red ropes?

/End rant.

Fun at the emporium

I went in with my buddy Al to the sporting emporium last night for their weekly Sunday tournament. I like this game as it starts nice and early at 7.30, has a cheap buy in and usually gets four or five tables. We met beforehand for a quick pint in Kehoes, then strolled over. The tourney was halfway through the first level with three full tables running, so they opened up a fourth and myself and Al ended up sitting right beside each other with Al to my left. Bummer. Al knows my game inside out, so the last place I want him is exactly where he is, thankfully we're only there to have a bit of craic. I fold the first five hands, but notice the guy to my right has limp called OOP four of these, check folded flop on three, and one hand he got to the river and folded to a 1/4 pot bet, in short, he's bad. Anyway he limps UTG with 3.5k behind, I raise to 200 (25/50) with QQ (5k), button (5k) calls and UTG 3-bets to 600! Mmmmm, anytime I've seen a bad player limp raise from UTG it's QQ+, and I've seen it a lot, but I'm never folding here. I just call the 400, and button calls too (this guy will have anything here, KJ=monster merchant). The flop comes 10 high, and UTG confidently fires out 1k, I figure I'm toast way too often here, put it down to a cooler and fold. I nag him to show, and he turns over KK. Obv happy with my read, but I was thinking afterwards that I played it badly preflop, and I should've just shipped it to the 3-bet given how shallow we were, flat calling it multiway wasn't optimal and folding would just be ghey. The next hand I played lost me a chunk. MP opens for 350 (50/100), villain from previous hand flat calls, I'm on the button and figure this is a super standard squeez spot, I've played with OR before and he's pretty weak, therefore won't recognise what I'm doing. Although it's a very profitable play, the problem with doing it shallow stacked is, there's not much room for it to backfire lol. But hey, I can't resist, so I make it 1150 with 10 3. OR folds as expected but the other dude calls. Shit. Flop is 10 J Q rainbow, he takes an age then eventually checks. I bet 1100, leaving 2k behind. It's a small bet but he folded earlier to a ridic small bet, plus, it just enough to not commit me, also I don't want to check in case he bluff shoves the turn. To my disgust he calls the 1100. I'm done now. Another Q on the turn and he checks, I check behind. J on the river and he insta-shoves. Uggh. He told me later he had AQ. Nothing much of note after that, I picked up AA twice and didn't get paid, so it was one of those nights. My exit hand was funny though, I'm in the SB with J9 and Al is BB. It's folded to button who just arrived at the table with a monster stack, I've played with him once before and from what I remember his opening range is pretty nitty, but that didn't stop me shoving when he opened his button lol. There was a third of my stack in there, and surely even the nittiest of nits opens the button wide now and then, especially with a healthy tank. So I ship it, but Al insta ships behind me 'OH OH', then the button almost knocks the table over getting his chips in! He flips KK, Al has 88 and I slowroll them with the J9 lol. Flop is J 10 4, wahoo there's hope, BOOM 9 on the turn, 'Yay, triple up, just have to dodge 15 cards', but a justified 4 on the river gives the pot to the KK. 'BOO' :( That was a fun hand, a good way to go broke so to speak. It's a fun tournament and not one to be taken too seriously, but it's still a half decent cash for first (I won it recently for €800), and it finishes up relatively early. My next outing will probably be Lukes game on Friday, it's a wonderfully structured game, and by far the best regular Dublin tournament.

Tilted by a rasher

This happened last Monday morning and I'm still tilting over it. I was working in Rathfarnham painting an apartment. At 10.oclock, myself and another lad headed down to the shopping centre for a bite to eat. There were really only two options available to us, one was a typical deli, the other a cafe/restaurant. All the deli had to offer were those shitty photo-copied cuisine de France rolls, I really really hate them, they're so boring, where the fuck did all those white fluffy rolls with the crust go? You know the ones with all the little circular bumps on the bottom, man I miss them. Anyway, the deli was a definite no no because of this, so I grabbed my embarrassed workmate (I always make a point of telling deli staff the reason why they've lost my fiver), and off we went to the cafe. Up to the counter and there's this weird looking oul'one with no eyebrows serving, and wiping sweat off her brow a lot, I feel like explaining the function of the eyebrow to her, but I decide to leave it. Anyway, I order the large breakfast, it's €9.00 which I feel is a little steep considering it's not made fresh, and barring the fried egg it's sitting in a heater thingy for god knows how long. So she throws two eggs, two rashers, two puddings and two sossos on to the plate, all's well so far.
I'm looking at the big lump of black pudding on the plate, and I know full well I'm never going to eat it, so I say to sweatybrow, quite politely I might add, 'excuse me, would it be possible to swap that pudding for a rasher?' Well, before I finished the sentence she snapped 'NO!'. I just stood there with this 'WTF?' look on my face. I asked her could she explain why? She says, 'rashers are much more expensive than pudding' in one of those really smug annoying tones. I really was dumbstruck by this. I can never understand how people as stupid as this are entrusted with such important roles in a business, she doesn't realise how costly that rasher actually is considering it's the last one she'll never swap for me! Later on I was sick that I didn't just walk out there and then and not give this bitch any of my moniez, I suppose I was too hungry.
Next she hands me these two pathetic excuses for toast, it was basically bread with a slight tan, so I told her very un-politely to try again.
I sat down with the food still fuming, when it got worse, the breakfast was effectively a pile of shite because of how long it had been sitting there, I never felt as violated.
I went up and got all the little butter thingies, and opened every one of them like a big four year old, opened up all the sugar sachets and poured them over the plate then loosened the salt and pepper so the next lucky punter will totally destroy their food, I have fantasies of some 'Falling down' type going postal with nobrow. Immature but lots of fun nonetheless.

Finally got around to it...

I've finally done it, I've been meaning to start one of these for a long time now. It's really just gonna be a personal thing to start off (feels weird writing to my future self!). I was recently reading a thread on boards.ie about poker blogs and their importance or lack of, and I was intrigued by a post from Willie C about his own blog. Apparantly he's been blogging for quite a while unbeknownst to me. I really enjoy his posts on boards, he's a very witty guy, so I sent him a PM to ask for a link. He refused saying he'd rather not as it's really just a private thing he does for his own enjoyment. I didn't realise people do this, and I kinda liked the idea, so here goes. Maybe some day I'll unleash it on the world : ), but not just yet.