Watch U Want

I have a confession to make. I have not worn a wristwatch for close to 10 years now. I used to wear watches. But for some reason or the other, I just stopped wearing them. I tried to think about the reason why I did this. And I really couldn't come up with anything specific .

I think it was because as cellphones kept evolving, they eventually managed to displace the functions of the watch which was essentially to tell me the time and the date. And since we carry our cellphones every single second anyway. There was no compelling reason to keep on wearing watches except as a fashion accessory.

I also went on kind of a minimalist phase where I shunned anything not really essential in what I wore. I used to wear a necklace and a bracelet. But got rid of them the same time as I stopped wearing watches. I just didn't feel comfortable anymore with things dangling or attached to my body.

My last watch was a Tudor Submarine Something watch. It was actually quite expensive with a retail price close to 100k if I am not mistaken. When I decided to forgo watches, I gave it to my father in law as a gift. When my father in law passed away a couple of years ago, it was returned to me and I eventually sold it to a friend for around 40K. I realized eventually that this selling price was actually a bargain, as another friend who was into watches told me that the model that I had could have fetched a higher price even though it was second hand because it was considered a classic, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I never really felt that I got the raw end of the deal as the watch was quite old and wasn't in good shape with dings and scratches everywhere. So I was quite happy with the amount that I got considering that I had no use for it anyway.

Fast forward to today. And guess what? I am again wearing a watch. A few days ago, I just decided at the spur of the moment that I wanted to wear watches again. I have no idea where the urge came from. I don't know how it came about. I just woke up one day and thought to myself that I wanted to wear a watch.

And so after a little bit of looking around, I bought one. Are you curious to know what watch I got ? It's not a Rolex. It's not an Omega or a Breitling. It's not even a Tag or a Technomarine. My wife was shocked to see me wearing a Casio G-Shock. (pun on words deliberate).

It is the essential everyday watch. It was tough. It was water resistant to 200 meters. It runs on solar energy. It had different date formats, world time, alarm, stopwatch and a bunch of other features that I can use when I travel. I can drop it from a building or bang it against a wall. I can do all these things and it would keep on working. I can even tell the ambient temperature if I wanted to.

It is the ultimate anti-rolex. It was designed to work and last forever but it is relatively cheap. As I grow older, I realized that I don't really care about expensive brands anymore. It isn't even about saving money. I could have easily purchased a much more expensive watch. But it just didn't feel right.

In some ways, it is like a big fat middle finger to all the people who look at your watch and judge you for how expensive it is. The ultimate fuck you to the establishment. It was perfect. Well, perfectly geeky maybe. Heheh...

I can just imagine the jaws of my officemates dropping and their eyebrows raised when they see me wearing this watch. With their rolexes and omegas tucked neatly in their sleeves and then they'll see this big black chunky thing on my wrist. Classic.

Heard it Through the Grapevine

1. Set vs Trips. Not the same. Set is when you have a pair and there is a similar card on the board. Trips is one in your hand and two in the board.

2. Slowplay vs Slowroll. Slowplay is when you have the nuts or close to the nuts and you play passively to induce calls or bets from your opponent. Slowroll is when you act like a moron and pretend you lost the hand even though you have the better hand.

3. I'll call even though I know I'm behind or I'll call even though I know you have the better hand. DUH ..... this is like totally illogical but you hear it all the time from dumb opponents. If you know you're behind, why would you call ? It's primarily a defense mechanism that one makes so as not to look stupid in front of other players. It's like he's saying that all the signs say that you're ahead. But I can't help my stupidity so let me just qualify my call by saying the term to minimize the damage to my ego just in case.

4. Paying tuition. I think this is probably only used in the Philippines. Players use the term loosely to describe the amount that they lost when they play poker. It is like saying that losing is part of the process of learning poker and it is necessary for you to pay a certain amount to learn poker which is actually not true. It is another human defense mechanism to massage one's ego from bad decisions. Personally, I find the term totally illogical. I think it stems from the fact that you pay tuition to learn in schools. But in poker, you gain experience and knowledge from both winning hands and losing hands. So when you win, do you also pay tuition? But you get money when you win. So are you refunding your tuition ?

There are tons of other examples, but these are the ones that I can think of right now. Sorry, I know I'm probably inadvertently bashing other people. But I can't help it. It's like an itch that I can't scratch when I hear people say these things.

Much to everyone's surprise ...

No matter how much negative comments and bashing they got from the media and those last minute flash card snafus. In all fairness, one has to admit that the Comelec did a good job in the country's first automated election. Even with long lines and isolated failures, the PCOS machines did their job and for the first time in the country's history, we are enjoying credible results a day after the election.

From my observation, solving the long queues for the next election should be quite simple. They just need to add more machines and increase the number of voting precints. The process was actually already ok, there was just too many voters for the number of machines allocated.

My own personal experience was pretty positive. I was up in Clark with the family for the long weekend. So I arrived in Manila at around 4PM already and I immediately went to cast my vote in my old high school. And there was absolutely no line. I sauntered up to the desk, got my ballot, shaded my choices, placed it in the PCOS machine, and got my finger inked. I was done in about 15 minutes. My brother went in the morning and he said that he waited 2 hours in line.

So if you think about it, it was just a matter of too many people wanting to vote in the morning, at least in my area.

If you care any iota about the Philippines and its economy, then we can all heave a sigh of relief. Who wins is actually much less important than the fact that we had a fairly successful credible automated election. The worst case scenario of an election failure would have been a big blow to our country's already reeling state .

The successful staging of the election should now allow our country to move on and focus on the bigger problems. One side comment. You really cannot underestimate the charisma of Erap. Even with all the things that he did last time. Filipinos are still voting for him. Everyone thought it was going to be an Aquino-Villar battle, but he is a surprisingly strong 2nd place with Villar a far third. I don't think he's going to win. But his numbers are amazing considering all past events. Hindi mo tuloy alam kung he's really that popular and charismatic or that our masa is really that stupid. No offense. But seriously, that's the only conclusion you can make.

Still Got the Mojo

Over the labor day weekend, I had some free time. So I decided to play in some online tournaments.

First try, played a super turbo satellite for the $5k guaranteed bounty in Cake. Top 4 gets a ticket. Played well, finished 3rd in chips, got the ticket. Proceeded to then play the bounty tourney. Busted out somewhere in the middle. My pocket pair (88) push was beaten by an A2 dumbass call by chip leader in our table. Ace flops and sayonara for me.

Second Try, played in a $12+1 and $24+2 90 man Turbo Knockout Tourney simultaneously in Full Tilt. Made the final table in both tourneys. After the smoke cleared, I finished 4th in the first one and 2nd in the other.

3rd Try. $2.5K Guaranteed Rebuy in Cake. Joined right before the rebuy period ended. Just playing tight as a lot of jokers play these rebuys. I get AK in early position with about half of the players eliminated. Had about 12 BBs left but blinds and antes was a fifth of my stack. So easy push. A guy with roughly about the same stack tanks but proceeds to call and shows AQ.

If you've been playing poker a long time. You will come to realize that there is always this one time in a tourney where the situation makes or breaks you. You know that if you double up then you can make the final table for a good payday. If you lose, then a good chance wasted. Sometimes its hard to recognize when this critical point happens. But in this case, I knew that this was it. I was playing well and was confident in my decisions. With a good enough stack, I knew I could easily make it to the final table. AK vs AQ. Dominated hand. What more could you ask for ?

Alas, the poker gods again decided to fuck me over as the Q came out on the turn. Bugger!!

Anyways, it was a good run after a long period of inactivity. All my eliminations were 3 outer bad beats and I netted close to $500 over the weekend. So quite satisfied and ended up thinking that I still got the cojones to play and beat this game.