Monday, April 18, 2005

cK & Friends' Poker Night!

Roberto wins big on Poker night. Plus-wrestling, dancing and an earthquake!

I have never played poker in my life. Not even online. My roomates used to have a regular poker night in thier old apartment, and I would only hear of how much fun it was. We decided it was time to start it up again. We kicked off our regular poker event at our friend, Arjin's residence in Westwood Village.

Our players included: Natalie, Alex, Kristina, Roberto, Arjin and myself. Because a lot of us never played before (namely the girls and I) the buy in for this round was $2! Yes.. 2 dollars.

For a guy who didn't know much, I had a lot of beginner's luck. I was up to about $6.60 in winnings. Then I got too confident and lost my pot gradually. It was a lot of fun, I had a blast. The big winner who came out on top was Roberto. He actually was totally down.. and came out of nowhere to run the game. We didn't play to the end, the game was taking some time so we just cut it off after a certain time.

The following are the pics I took:

Steve & Band	Laying the rules	Roberto's Power Drink
Alex, Kristina and Arjin	Deal the cards	Natalie drinks a beer
More dealing	Cheers!	Cards are down
Kristina wins big!	My little earnings	Alex deals
I win some!	Nice to look at	Fold!
Roberto wins some	Natalie tries to take it away!	Give me more!
No More Bets!	Roberto raises you	Lets see what you have
Kristina wins	Arjin puts his chips in	Roberto Wins

Roberto WINS BIG!!

>>FRIDAY
The poker was on Wednesday night, so the next time the gang saw each other was Friday night. Arjin came over with Kristina, Judy, Roberto and Oscar. Kristina has only been in the United States for not even one week. She's on an internship here from Germany and is staying in the same residence as Arjin. They brought beers and some chocolate cookies. After a while, Roberto and Oscar (as they usually do) get into a scuffle. Not to hurt eachother, just playfighting. Arjin has a little to drink and then gets the idea to take me on. I didn't want to participate, but hey...I was a little buzzed myself. So I did... I took on Arjin. Within seconds, I had Arjin locked up with his arm behind his back within inches away of making a snap, but I didn't want to go that far. I released the lock and went on to toss him around the apartment. We scuffled a little bit more before we got too winded and eventually just sat down to drink some more beer.

I haven't had much wrestling with my pals since I was living back in Toronto. It was cool.
Here are some photos from my camera of Oscar and Roberto having a scuffle:

Good thing Roberto is not a plumber	advantage: Roberto	advantage: Oscar

After the match	Kristina enjoys it!

>>SATURDAY
It was just after 12 o' clock in the day. I was sitting on the couch watching TV. I suddenly feel the couch slightly tremble. Almost like if you are in a room, and you feel like some people walking behind you. The thing is, I was alone in the house. It lasted for about 3 to 5 seconds. It happened so fast that I convinced myself that it was just my tummy grumbling.

The next day I found there was an earthquake in California that was felt as far as Los Angeles. It was rated at 5.1 on the Richter Scale. What I felt was like a very small percentage of it.

Wow! My first earthquake. It wasn't really much, but I'd rather have that than something larger and more closeby!

>>SATURDAY NIGHT
My new German friend, Kristina invites me over to her place for dinner and a beer. She made these really nice potatoes with all sorts of stuff in it, and then served me a beer that was half Corona and half 7 UP. It was really good! Everything was good. Alex came along with me and was going to take us to a birthday party.

After having the fantastic potato and 7UP Beer, Kristina and I go with Alex to the party. It was for this real nice Puerto Rican woman named, Liz. She had all sorts of foods and drinks at her place. We met a great bunch of characters there. The following are the pics I took with my phone:

People at party	More People	Then more people

Some others	cK

Alex had to leave to start work early so we asked him to drop us off at the "W" Hotel in Westwood. Kristina and I have a great time dancing up a storm. We even met some cool architects from Chicago who were there at the hotel visiting LA on a conference. They invited us up to their room for more drinks and such. They were mad cool. It was too that they were leaving at 6:30am the next morning, or else we'd get to hang out before they left.

>>SUNDAY
Kristina and I head to the 5 Star rated, Peninsula Hotel where our friend Arjin works. We go into the illustrious LIVING ROOM and have tea. Yes.... TEA. Not just your average tea, its that expensive kind that you don't buy because you don't want to spend that kind of money on.... TEA!
Anyways, it was very relaxing. The atmosphere was real nice. The hotel overall is beautiful. It was good to spend a good part of the day, sipping exotic teas instead of imported beers. I took some pictures of it here with my phone:

Peninsula Living Room	Peninsula Pool and Garden