I think it's something I struggle with sometimes -- admitting to myself if I suck at something. I think a lot of people do too. Nobody wants to suck at something, so rather than admit to themselves or others they suck, they become delusional and try to convince themselves they don't suck at it, or are experiencing bad luck, or whatever other excuses which are conveniently available. They might even put on a facade to mask their deep down insecurities about whatever it is they might suspect they suck at, but are still living in denial over.

The crime isn't sucking. The crime is the denial of one's suckitude. If you can admit to yourself or others when you do suck, then there's at least hope you can improve -- or if improvement is not possible then at least you're able to consciously make a choice to avoid putting yourself into situations where it's highly likely you're going to suck. It's obvious that in the real world, someone who doesn't know everything, but understands what they don't know and how to learn it, is going to be more successful than someone who might be pretty brilliant, but is too blinded by their brilliance to be able to see the times when they're off.

In some regards, I'm a very modest person. In other regards, I'm very full of myself and think highly of my abilities. I guess it's one of my casual resolutions for 2009, that I'm going to work on identifying more of my weaknesses, and devising ways to improve -- in all facets of life.


For example, in poker (since this is a poker blog and I'd rather talk about poker than my real life which I mostly keep out of this blog), I'm beginning to identify that perhaps the last month or two I've lost some of my killer instinct and tenacity and I'm no longer the benevolent, rowdy mayor of Valuetown. I'm trying to fix that, and here is one hand where the me of a month ago would've won less money:


PapaWarbucks: posts small blind $100
kikiriki: posts big blind $200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PapaWarbucks [7d Ah]
SpottyDottie: folds
Zzeigler: folds
str8flushin5: raises $200 to $400
PapaWarbucks: raises $200 to $600
kikiriki: calls $400
str8flushin5: calls $200
*** FLOP *** [7h 8s 4c]
PapaWarbucks: bets $200
kikiriki: raises $200 to $400
str8flushin5: calls $400
PapaWarbucks: calls $200
*** TURN *** [7h 8s 4c] [8d]
PapaWarbucks: checks
kikiriki: bets $400
str8flushin5: folds
PapaWarbucks: raises $400 to $800
kikiriki: calls $400
*** RIVER *** [7h 8s 4c 8d] [9s]
PapaWarbucks: bets $400
kikiriki: calls $400
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PapaWarbucks: shows [7d Ah] (two pair, Eights and Sevens)
kikiriki: mucks hand
PapaWarbucks collected $5395 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $5400 | Rake $5
Board [7h 8s 4c 8d 9s]
Seat 2: kikiriki (big blind) mucked [2h 2d]
Seat 3: SpottyDottie folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Zzeigler folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: str8flushin5 (button) folded on the Turn
Seat 8: PapaWarbucks (small blind) showed [7d Ah] and won ($5395) with two pair, Eights and Sevens



A month ago I probably end up check-calling the turn and river, which would've resulted in $400-800 less won depending on if he bets the river too or checks it behind. I am going to get back some of that "well you might be beating me but efff it I also might be beating you, I'm putting more money in" attitude that makes ya a force to be feared at the table. Obviously the point isn't that I won an extra bet or two, because sometimes he does have me beat and I lose -- it's a pretty marginally close spot either way. My self-reflecting has concluded simply that I've lost some of my killer instinct, and am not the one at the table who's controlling the flow of the whole game. And the point isn't to say "look at this hand, don't you agree I dominate?" I just wanted to show that I identified something I can improve on, and am actually trying to make the progress to 'fix" it.


And finally, two songs I heard in the last few days for the first time in years that I had forgotten how solid they are (Goo Goo Dolls "Here is Gone" and The Vervepipe "Freshman"):

Taylor has talked about fast food a lot lately in his blog, so I feel left out not doing so a litle as well.

To me, Arby's is one of the better fast food restaurants around -- even withstanding 10+ years ago when in society's opinion I'd still qualify as being an impressionable youth, The Simpsons made fun of it with the line, "I'm so hungry, I'd even eat...Arby's." I guess the line never rubbed off on me or turned me into an Arby's hater. Anyway , more to why I'm bringing Arby's up. It's saddening, and perhaps a sign of the times, how drastically Arby's "pick 5" deal has changed. I remember at first when it was pick 5 for $5. That was a few years ago. Then they changed it to pick 5 for $5.95. And now it's a pick 4 for $5. Notice each time the value is decreasing, though it doesn't end there. I'm an Arby's connoisseur, so I also noticed that now the sandwich options in this pick 'em are "junior" sandwiches -- the things from the kid's menu!!! I know back in the day they were at least from the adult menu. Blasphemy. I'm half kidding, I'm not really that hardcore about Arby's.


Another thing I learned on my recent trip to Arizona is that apparently Jack in the Box is kind of a laughing stock of a restaurant. I had tried it out a few times after getting my place in California, and thought pretty highly of it. The burgers are pretty good, they have a large variety of food (I love ordering 5 or 6 different things and having a little of each of them), and most importantly, the churros are amazing and a must-have each visit. But yeah, apparently Jack in the Box sucks.


Finally, I'd rate Culvers as the #1 fast food joint. Best burgers I've ever tasted from a fast food restaurant (yes that includes In N Out), huge variety, and awesome malts with tons of flavors -- too bad they don't have them out west or not so much in the south -- all you southerners who loooove fast food would eat it up. Haha, kidding again.



I haven't been listening to "pop" radio stations as much lately, so only in the past few days did I finally hear the latest Eminem/Dre single, "Crack a Bottle." I remember back in high school, one of the popular rap songs by Snoop Dogg/Dre was "The Next Episode," of which, in the album the song ends with the lyrics, "smoke weed every day..." I remember that, as well as any other reference to weed, was bleeped out from the song when it was played on the radio. However, listening to "Crack a Bottle," it begins, "In this corner, weighing in 175lbs, with a record of 17 rapes, 400 assaults, and 4 murders, the undisputed, and still the most diabolical villain in the world, Slim Shady..." Now I dunno, but isn't the glorification of violent crimes and being a criminal just as bad, if not worse, than the glorification of weed? I mean if it were me I'd censor neither of them, but if I was a parent and had to choose one, I'd rather have the song that's trying to say it's cool to rape and kill get the axe first. Maybe this just falls along the same line of our country saying someone's mature enough to decide to die for their country at 18, but not mature enough to drink alcohol until they're 21, or the government saying it's ok for a church to throw a bingo fundraiser, yet it's not ok for a grown person to gamble on a game of poker online. If I were in charge I'd try to find some level of consistency across the board.


A song I just recently heard that I like:

Since it's been about minus 1000 degrees around here lately most nights, I've been spending most week nights laying around inside watching 1-2 movies a night and playing poker and/or writing. Here are some of the more interesting, quality films I've watched (as always, I'll keep the description brief in case you want to check them out yourself, since I think films are better when you go into them knowing little about the plot):


Brick -- Best described as a mystery movie that has a stylistic feel similar to Requiem for a Dream. It also has Eden from Heroes and Claire from Lost in it.


Death at a Funeral -- A pretty quirky, ironic comedy with a simple plot that is fun and easy to follow.


Paris, Je T'Aime -- A dozen or so shorts that are almost 100% unrelated, which had me feeing like the movie was pretty pointless -- until it was over, and then I had an "uh-huh" moment and realized it's a supurb masterpiece that says a lot about love and how an environment (in this case, Paris) can shape love in all its crazy forms. Bonus points for Natalie Portman being in it for five minutes and being awesome as always.


The Dead Girl -- Another movie with several short stories, except these ones are slightly more related. I could see some people getting bored by the movie but I thought it was very thought provoking and well-directed (especially the end story with Brittany Murphy).


Charlie Bartlett -- It's the Ferris Bueller of the 21st century, you heard it here first (maybe? we'll see, I think this one has cult-classic written all over it). Such a simple, stupid, light-hearted movie that also features the oft-underrated Robert Downey Jr. being great as always.




Keeping with the movie theme of this blog, today I ordered 41 movies off Amazon... I'm pretty pumped since a majority of them I haven't heard of or know little about, or else are old classics -- but all of them seem to have gotten great reviews. I think I've only seen one out of the 41 on this list (Love The Hard Way):


The United States of Leland
The Visitor
Double Indemnity
Edge of Heaven
Maachuca
Children Underground
Love the Hard Way
The Way I Spent the End of the World
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Voices in the Tunnels: In Search of the Mole People
Bomb It
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Green Street Hooligans
The Orphanage
Dead Man's Shoes
Cool Hand Luke
Bottle Rocket
Rebecca
The Philadelphia Story
Young@Heart
Doctor Zhivago
Lars and the Real Girl
Dark Days
Adam's Apples
My Flesh and Blood
Cowards Bend The Knee
Best in Show
Sunset Boulevard
Wall-E
All the Real Girls
The Hustler
The Devil's Backbone
This is England
Lust, Caution
M
The Squid and the Whale
The Sound of Music
A Streetcar Named Desire
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Vertigo
Me and You and Everyone We Know


Thanks to those who gave some movie comments a few blogs ago.


Also a few days ago my nice SLR camera arrived. I don't really know how to utilize all the features the camera and various lenses I purchased offered. It's pretty clear that learning how to get the most out of my camera is going to take some reading and practice (and maybe even signing up for a class or two), but it's going to be a fun challenge. Here is one picture I took that I think is artistic though you are certainly fine to think it sucks, but I could see it being usable in a game room or certain type of environment:





I would call it "winegraine." A play on words between the in-focus wine bottle, and the medicine jar that is out of focus and also reflecting within the wine bottle. Wine and soda are often causes of migraines, and the meds relieve them. Haha pretty stupid, but I was just fooling around my place aiming at random things and seeing what kind of things resulted when trying out various lenses. I'll get better with time and practice.


More later folks. Stay warm!

This was taken with my cell phone, and is a little choppy, but at least in person it is kind of funny to view:

www.youtube.com/watch

Basically from a staircase you can't see in the video, he can jump up onto this decorative ledge and then he walks across it... And since the ledge is about 2 inches wide, when he goes across it he can't turn around, so his only option is back pedaling across it. It's too high off the ground for him to really be considering jumping off it. Don't worry mom, he's not going to die even if he ever happens to fall from here!



The rest of my life is going well. 2009 for poker started off kind of meh, but I've dug out of it and am up $22,000 so far on the year. We got a 4-plex that has a verbal agreement on and the bank should be signing the purchase agreement Monday or Tuesday at the latest, then comes the real work of getting it inspected, shopping around banks for the best loan option, arranging lawyer meetings to set up an LLC for my real estate investment group, and then finding the right contractors to get our 4-plex fully ready to be rented. I continue having ideas flow quite easily for my book I'm trying to write. I hope I can keep up this pace and it might actually even be done in a few months! And finally my camera is set to get delivered any day now. I can't wait to get out around town and try my best photographer impression.


I'd like to be able to get out to LA for some live poker soon, I just don't know when life will afford me the moment to. If it keeps being frigidly cold in MN though I may have to sneak away for a few days...Otherwise I figure sometime close to the end of January is when I'll finally make it out there. BK, John and Dave all flew out there earlier tonight, I'm jealous I simply cannot possibly go this week.


That's 2009 in a nutshell so far -- keeping quite busy and focused! :)

Hey all, happy holidays. Before getting out to the fam's I just wanted to pass on these two "gifts":

1. A very inspirational video that helps put some things in perspective

2. I'm sure some of you had read this in a 2+2 thread but I'm also sure many of you haven't since it's in the high stakes LHE forum. I think it's pretty good:

"Heads-up poker is vampire that sucks the life out of all who play. Here is the problem:

When you win a hand, you are somewhat pleased, but after all you deserve to win your share including 3-outers like this one.

When you lose a hand, you are rather more strongly displeased, since this guy is such a luckbox you can't even begin to describe it, and just now he hit yet another effin 3-outer when he should never have even been in that pot in the first place for #*$@ sake!

Now over the course of a session, let's say you finish up even, but each of you has suffered 200 agonizing, knife-twisting losses that are not nearly balanced by the 200 mildly pleasant wins that you deserved anyway. Both of you feel like you have lost! There is a net destruction of utility and human happiness. Vampire poker!!" -pygmyhipo


Happy holidays once again and be safe! And some good movie comments from my previous blog, I'll address them when I have a few more minutes and am not on the go-go-go.

You may have noticed in my last blog in the background of one of the pictures is a big shelf that contains hundreds of dvds. Collecting DVDS (and slowly watching them) is one of my many hobbies, and recently I've watched a few really good smaller name films. However though, one thing I find is I usually end up liking a movie more if I go into it not knowing much about it or not having overly high expectations of it. That said, here's a brief rundown of a few of them:

Cashback -- Best described as a mix of Garden State with Eternal Sunshine and maybe even a tiny little dash of Donnie Darko. It's a slower-paced movie that is a little more artsy but still very compelling.


Boys Don't Cry -- Hilary Swank pulls off an amazing acting job in this late 90s gem that would best be described as a dark, painful love story. Oh, yeah, and Hilary Swank plays a female who dresses up and acts like a male and goes for females.


Rocket Science -- A quirky, weird movie similar to Juno or Little Miss Sunshine. It's so dumb, yet satirical and witty all at once.


Let me know if you've got any other indie movie recommendations, I love expanding my collection with good movies that most people have never heard of.

Here's a few random pics from my cell phone, as I sit here waiting for the Vikes-Falcons game to start.


Murray up high on the ledge (messy house!): img214.imageshack.us/img214/8969/murrayledgeiu2.jpg


View from Vikes-Cardinals game I was at last weekend: img370.imageshack.us/img370/5871/016me7.jpg


My California Lexus: img152.imageshack.us/img152/2609/011nq9.jpg


Winter wonderland: img249.imageshack.us/img249/9254/019bi5.jpg


Winter wonderland 2: img136.imageshack.us/img136/6246/022sv2.jpg


Me waiting for my Jacuzzi to fill: img166.imageshack.us/img166/9786/024jx7.jpg


WTF consumerism!?!? I ordered a digital camera battery and this little item came delivered in this huge box (a little blurry): img520.imageshack.us/img520/8053/001xj6.jpg




Nothing too exciting, but I hope you enjoyed those and maybe I'll put up another round of pictures in a month or two.

It's been awhile since my last blog. Here's the latest...

The Cardrunners Ft. Lauderdale trip was a blast. The house we had rented was huuuge and gorgeous and with a ton of bedrooms and bathrooms and places to sleep and at least a couple "living room" type rooms, a huge patio with pool on it and large grill, and the ocean directly across the street.

We played beach volleyball the first day I got there, and again on Saturday before leaving. Those who know me well know there's few things I'd rather be doing than playing beach volleyball. The CR crew has some guys who can play, and on Saturday we ended up playing three games with me, Taylor, Daut, and Stinger versus Cole, Wiggins, Raptor and Menlo. All three matches were fairly even. We won the first one by one point after having a huge lead, and then in the last two squandered a big lead once and came from behind to take the lead before again squandering it. I feel like I played pretty well other than the last 5ish points in our third game, which I played woefully bad and in my opinion cost us the match. Blaaaah I want a rematch in Vegas this summer, I feel like our team is a huge favorite even if the results don't suggest it. I can dig like a champ, and hopefully come summer I'll have gotten enough games under my belt before Vegas so my set-passes aren't so sporadic and I can actually use my pretty wicked overhand serve (in our CR games I abandoned trying for my overhand after about 4 tries of hitting it into the net and not feeling like trying to battle the wind and my own rustiness).

Our first night out we went to a combo Sushi/Thai restaurant and then off to a dive bar a few blocks from the house and had a blast playing beer pong/pop-a-shot/shuffleboard. Me and Daut played Raptor and his friend Jeremy the first game and got off to a quick lead only to lose it after sitting on one cup for about 100 shots. Near the end of the night me and Cole played Stinger and Wiggins 3 times and won the first two and lost the third. Also, Taylor is a pop-a-shot champ. I hope this doesn't kill any potential prop betting action he can get in the future, but I would advise not playing him for money :-P

The last night out we went to a swanky Chinese (I think?) restaurant in Miami that was locally famous for its roasted duck. I didn't try any duck because I just can't get past my mental block of eating that bird specifically, but did enjoy some super good beef and chicken items. After that we went out to a club and all of us managed to get very drunk - though I think after talking with everyone it's funny that really none of us are huge club-types in the group, and everyone had said they'd go to a club thinking that it was so-and-so who likes clubs so we'd go because they wanted to. I know my preference is going to a small dive bar, being the only group in there, and feeling like we're owning the place.

In other news, this weekend Thorvy and I are flying to Phoenix to visit another high school friend who lives there, Goodson. The main reason for going is to go to the Vikings-Cardinals game on Sunday, and I think we'll be making a visit to Casino Arizona too Friday or Saturday. I've never been there yet so it'll be fun to see, plus by going it becomes another trip that can be written off :)

I finally got around to using a whole bunch of FPPs on Stars to order a slick digital SLR camera and a few nice lenses and accessories. One of my many ambitions for 2009 is to get into photography and take some pictures that worst case are good enough for me to be willing to hang them on my own walls - best case to create a website and try to sell some of my pictures online and maybe even see about getting a booth at the Uptown Art Fair in 2009 or 2010. I don't expect I'd be able to make much money on such an endeavor; however, it's a challenge and something to strive for and would for sure give me an excuse and another reason to travel to places I've never been to.

Also in 2009, I would like to copy Cole and Tri and make my own e-book, but for LHE and charge something like $200 for a copy. I want to try to do this for the same reasons as the photography project - though I see this one as being a little less likely because it's not as "fun" and would probably take more actual focused work (not to say that photography doesn't take effort...it's a different kind of effort).

Plus it'd be neat to be able to say that I am a poker pro and teacher, real estate mogul, entrepreneur, photographer, and author. Hopefully within a few years I can have about 18 million different titles of things I do and make money on. :)

Poker has been going well. Swingy, but good. It's a shame though that the best and most plentiful action has been in the 1am-6am time ranges (and also sometimes like 9am-1pm), I'd really like to get to fully fix my sleep schedule. I wish though that the tracking sites that exist out there were at least close to accurate, if they're going to exist at all.

Finally, before I forget for the 50th time (I told him last May I'd give his blog a shout-out), if you're ever bored and want to check out an entertaining blog mainly filled with drunken debauchery stories, check out www.michaelmoller.com/ which is a high school friend's blog. Maybe they're entertaining to me just because I know him and some of the people referenced in his stories, but I think overall they're pretty funny.


I leave this blog with two "mashes" I've found when up late at night searching for music. A "mash" is basically combinining two songs into one. I think both of these ones work very well together:


The Killers & Muse - "When you were a starlight":
www.youtube.com/watch


The White Stripes & Prodigy - "Voodoo Blue Orchid":
www.youtube.com/watch

There really has been a lot that's happened in my life since my last blog, so I guess I'll go point by point through some of the highlights and/or interesting parts:


- I've been to LA and back twice now. The first trip, I won about $60,000 in 3 days of playing mostly $400/800 at commerce. The second trip the games were even bigger than that, and when all was said and done after my own action selling in them (1000/2000 and 1500/3000) my second trip was a $45,000 loser.


- The second trip I signed a lease on a place in Long Beach. I'm still living primarly in Minnesota, though it'll be nice to have a place of my own out there so I can get away from Commerce Casino. Since typically when I go out there, I stay at the hotel and basically am either awake playing poker, awake sitting in my room, or asleep. That kind of hotel-lifestyle makes you feel like a zombie after a few days. A friend from high school went to school at USC and has lived in Long Beach since graduating, and she was having roommate issues so she convinced her old roomie to move out, and I am taking over. The lease is like $1780 a month, and I'm responsible for $500 of it and can come and go as I please. I have my own bedroom and bathroom with shower, and feel like it's a pretty solid setup for me. I also have a garage space.


- Along with all that above, I bought a lexus ES 300. It's got a lot of miles on it but otherwise is great and feels a lot like my beemer I own in Minnesota.


- Some of those live LA players are such sick action junkies. Like seriously, maybe I'm just a busto nit compared to them, but I can't imagine playing $1000/2000 while having my action booked against two people (meaning that person was playing $3000/6000, essentially). The first time we kicked it up to 1k2k from 5/10, I objected to it jumping that big cuz I didn't want to play that high on my own, so Ali Eslami who was in the game says, "Schneids I'll take 200/400 of you, lets go." I asked if anyone at the table objected to Ali being in the game and having a piece of me, nobody did, and the game continued. Then the next day I went to Commerce after talking to the floor on the phone and being told the game was 1k2k, and show up with my chips and learn it's 1500/3000. Uh what? Ali again aware I don't wanna play that high, says, "I'll take 250/500 of you, Joe you want 250/500 of Schneids also?" Joe says sure, and once again problem solved. Also, two of the players in this game played it for 2.5 days straight, and a third was in it about 1.5 days straight.


- Ali Eslami has the most amazing headset I've ever seen. In addition to his headphones that cost about $1000, he also has this attachable base or sub woofer thing or I don't even know what it is but all said not including the ipod all that stuff it's connected to is about a $2000 setup. If you played as much live poker as he does I'm sure it's well worth it.


- Also have been playing some 500/1000 and 1000/2000 online. For a few days there, it really screwed up my sleep schedule, but I've fought to get it back to respectability. I think it was last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I was about to go to bed around 6am, then Busterstacks started playing a sesh on full tilt, so obviously I have to try to chase his tournament score dollars (he finished 4th I believe in the $5k ftops for around $200k). The few nights prior to that, he'd start at 100/200 and lose and move up to bigger limits and lose, and basically martingale his way up to 1k2k and eventually win back his losses there. That Wednesday morning he started immediately at 500/1k and lost about 20-30k and moved up to 1k2k. By about noon we were still going, and he was down, and it was pretty apparent to me that he was going to either bust his account or get it all back. By this point my fatigue was really setting in but I knew I had to press on, so I debated my options and decided to put up a facebook status msg saying something along the lines of, "if you're in the minneapolis area i'll pay you good money to bring me mountain dew asap." A few minutes later someone from my high school graduating class that I haven't seen or talked to in like 6 years msg'ed me and said she was pretty sure she lived near me and could do it, how much? I said I'd pay $30 if she could get me 2 liters asap, and 15-20 minutes later, she had mountain dew to my place. Best $30 I've ever spent. By about 3 or 3:30 Buster was down $100-150k or so and he moved to a HU table with Boosted J, and was down to $13k on the table and somehow managed to run it back up to $200k and insta-sat out. This was about 6:30pm. So I waited a few minutes and he didn't return and started getting myself ready for bed, and sure enough sometime between 7-7:30pm Buster returns, right as I'm about to go to bed and waaaaay too tired. I debate playing in it again and decide not to because I was nearing the point of delirium, and instead get 10% of Dean's action in the game. About 2 hours after that, Buster lost all $200k, and Dean was a $67k winner so at least I got an extra $6700 while I slept.


- Here is a screen from my marathon online session described above:
http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=overnightermx6.jpg


- Next blog I'll have to put up a few pictures, such as of my new work out set in my bathroom and my California car.


- Since being back to Minnesota, I'm still listening to California's "Indie 103.1" station from my computer. The music they play reminds me of the now defunct Drive 105 (for you Minnesota people).


- This week I've got meetings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pertaining to a company me and a few friends are starting up. I'll talk more about that in another blog too but I'm pretty excited about it (as well as a few of the other companies I've invested into the past year). Obtaining several sources of passive income and getting myself set up for life is definitely becoming a priority and challenge and source of fun and a way to occupy some of my spare time during the day since I certainly don't have the passion for poker that I once had long ago.



Until next time, g'luck at the tables and happy turkey day.

Last week I got these two pictures that're great additions to the walls of my game room (sorry about low photo quality, the photos were taken with my cell phone camera):


http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8056/sspx0015gk2.jpg (yeah that's an autograph)

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1908/sspx0016qw5.jpg


In other news, last weekend I ordered some exercise equipment from Sports Authority. On Monday they called, and we set up a 1pm Tuesday delivery, though they told me depending on traffic and how the day goes it could arrive as late as 3pm. So then Tuesday, by 3:30 I haven't heard from them at all, and call the phone number they had given me. No answer. So I leave a voice mail. Try again at 4:30 and 5:45pm. Still nothing. If you read my blogs back in like May 2007 when I was starting to furnish my new home, almost every time I had a delivery of some sort there was some kind of mess-up in it. Sooo frustrating when it happens every time.


So I did what I think most people would do in my spot, and drove to Sports Authority with my receipt and asked to cancel my order. They looked in their schedule book and saw they had me written down for 10/29/08 (Wednesday), but I'm sure that is not the case. I am 100% certain that the guy I was on the phone with had said either "tomorrow," or "Tuesday," and that "Wednesday" was never mentioned or that "the 29th" was never mentioned (it's tough to confuse Tuesday for Wednesday, and if he had said the date I would've certainly asked what day of the week the 29th was or had to look it up on a calendar cuz I don't often know what the date is). They tried to keep my business by offering me half off my delivery/assembly fee, but my principles cannot be bought for that little since I was genuinely pissed that I wasted the whole afternoon sitting around doing nothing/starting nothing because I didn't want to get engaged in something and then have the doorbell ring.


Also, WTF with a $230 delivery/assembly fee? I'm curious to see if this is standard for expensive exercise equipment. My view is if a customer is spending a lot of money on a product of yours that they probably cannot get home on their own, this type of thing should be a courtesy (or a small charge) and not some outrageously large fee. Like, between drive time and assembly, it could take no more than 1.5-2 hours tops, right? $230? I remember when I got my pool table the delivery/assembly of that was comped -- which, in my opinion is the best thing to do for customer relations when you are dealing with an expensive purchase. Or like how a few days ago I was at the Mall of America shopping in "Field of Dreams" (where I got those two pictures above) and asked about their autographed Michael Jordan "Wings" picture that is 7'x2' and costs $3500. My question was, "Do you guys do shipping? I'm thinking about coming back here some other time to get that Jordan picture, but I know it's not going to fit in my car." Their response: "No we don't normally do shipping, but since that's a pretty expensive picture, we can drive it out to you if you just throw us a few dollars for gas since gas isn't cheap these days." Very reasonable. $230 shipping/assembly fee? Not so much. I'll report back about if this is the norm after I find another exercise store to try my luck with.

Gotta get going now. Tonight BK, Pickett, Dave P and I are going out to dinner in St. Paul, and then to the Wild game (which us four have season tickets to). Go Wild! Hopefully they can bounce back after last night's first loss in regulation of the season.