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Jason Haslup
jason at haslup dot com

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Sat, 29 Mar 2003

The Surprises Keep on Coming...
blog :: bozeman

I was driving "home" friday night and saw a sign on a bar saying, "Live Poker". And that got me thinking... could there be poker here in Bozeman?

First a little background on the gambling scene here... I couldn't tell you what the law is, but all I know is that there are five or six "casinos" in the city of Bozeman. But they're not what you'd expect... some are in strip malls, some are fortunate enough to have their own building, and some are part of restaurants, bars, and even gas stations.

When you walk into a casino you'll find yourself smoking a cigarette (second-hand) and listening to the sounds of maybe 20 slots or other gaming machines. I've only been in a couple casinos to check them out... I'm not sure what actual games they have or what the payout rules are.

Anyhow, back to the improtant items... that sign I saw on the way home caused me to look up casinos in the phone book. One of the last items I saw in the list was a place called, "TJ's Card Room". Aha! It's actually part of a Lucky Lil's casino -- a chain that has probably three to five casinos in the area.

So I left Rupert in the room and set out to find TJ's Card Room. It was just down main street, so not all that far from my motel. It didn't say anything other than Lucky Lil's on the outside of the casino (other than that it was also a liquor store), but when I walked in I knew it was the place.

There, back in the corner of the casino/liquor store, were two hold'em-style tables. One was empty, and one was chock-full of exactly the type of people you'd expect from a small-town local poker group. A selection of grizzled old veterans, a couple of younger guys, some blue-collar folks, and one lone philipino woman at seat one. Most of them were drinking beers of some sort (Bud was popular), and all of them were either smoking or getting ready to smoke.

So I walked to the table and noticed the rules on the back wall... as I was reading the house rules, an older guy came up to me and in a smokey, gravelly voice asked, "so, ya wanna play some poker?"

I was startled, but managed to give him a smile and say, "not quite yet." He then started telling me about his games... I'm thinking that if a TJ of TJ's card room existed, this was him.

Games start at 12:30 daily... they play a $1-5 spread, dealer's choice between hold'em, omaha hi-lo, 5 & 7 card stud, and maybe something else, I can't remember. It's a $2 ante for those kind of games, and I'm assuming it's $1/2 blinds for hold'em, although I didn't ask.

The house rake is 10% of the pot, with a cap of four bucks. After telling me this he started into how he rewards his players. This part I didn't quite understand completely, but it sounds like if you buy in at 5pm for $100 you get $20 back at 6pm. Something similar to that happens at 9pm, as well, as long as you've been playing for an hour. Seems kind of strange to me, but I guess it keeps 'em coming back.

TJ (and the rules) made a point of saying that check-raises were allowed, which, of course, is more fun. The rules also said something about the player is allowed to ask the dealer to point out any of the house's shills. I didn't see that until I left, otherwise I would've asked how many of the players were shills.

I tried watching the game a bit, but I didn't want to draw attention to myself. It seemed like everybody knew each other, though, and I'm sure they were starting to drool over the new guy maybe coming into the game.

They also run $5/10 hold'em on sundays only... that might be a fun game to play in. I'm not too sure about their weekly games, though... I'm not much of an omaha player, and haven't played the stud games in quite some time. I think they'd eat me alive during dealer's choice.

After watching for just a few minutes I decided to leave... I think I was in there for ten minutes total and I already smelled like an ashtray. Oh well... the price you pay for the game of champions.

So that was pretty cool... I didn't check out the other bar advertising poker, but I might tonight. I did ask TJ (we'll just call him TJ regardless of who he really is) if there were other poker games in town. He was honest and said yes, but also said, "this is the only place you want to play." Ahh, that TJ... what a crack-up.

Not much other Bozeman news... no new snow in the past two days, but I'm okay with that after the dumping we got on wednesday. Rupert definitely likes the powder better than the frozen snow... he's still having fun, though. I also decided that we need to check out four-wheel drive trucks before the next winter. I didn't really have any problems, but friday morning's icy roads were "interesting." I still appreciate all the local folks giving the xterra with Arizona plates a wide berth... it's much appreciated :-)

More later!

jason

Wed, 26 Mar 2003

Alright...
blog :: bozeman

Now it's starting to pile up...

jason

Snowing!
blog :: bozeman

There's this white stuff falling from the sky, piling up on the ground right outside my window. Ok, not really piling up, but it's trying to... crazy!

jason

Mon, 24 Mar 2003

It Snowed
blog :: bozeman

We had our first snow this past weekend ("our" being Mystique, Rupert, and me). We woke up to find the Xterra (and everything else) under a few inches of brand-spankin' new snow. Rupert loved it. I have some great pictures of him rolling around in the snow, digging and eating the snow, and just running back and forth between Mystique and me. I also have some great pictures of the lens cap of my camera since it was 7am and we had just gotten out of bed.

It's looking pretty good that our house will go through... inspection went fairly well, so we're feeling positive about the whole thing. More on that as it moves along... hopefully I'll get some pictures of it soon.

Mystique's on her way back to Tempe to wrap up everything there so it's down to me and Rupert. He's spending the afternoon with me at work... he doesn't care where he sleeps, either in the motel room or in the Xterra. At least this way I can stop by and say hello and let him out every now and then.

Tonight we'll probably run by Verizon and give those punks some money to sign-up for their dictatorial service. I'm all talk... I'm actually looking forward to having a local phone number and a new phone. It'll be my luck that AT&T will decide next month to bring their service to Montana... ugh.

More later...

jason

Fri, 21 Mar 2003

My Moral Dilemma
blog :: bozeman

Since Bozeman is not in AT&T's home coverage, I get to use that fact as an excuse to get a new phone & new service. There are some pretty cool phones out there, so naturally I'm looking forward to it.

And then I remember that I'm in Bozeman and not Phoenix. Up here we've pretty much got two service providers: Cellular One and Verizon. I wasn't very familiar with either one, but after some research it looks like Verizon offers better phones and better service. But to be fair, I'm only going on what's on CellOne's web site... I haven't actually gone to a store yet. I'm going to have to do that because of my thoughts on Verizon...

Verizon offers one of the cooler phones on the market, the Motorola T720. It has a nice color screen, is web-enabled, and can be used as a modem on a GPRS (I think) network. That's not available up here, but maybe soon...

But here's my problem: the T720 can run two different OS's that affect third-party applications. The Verizon model runs Qualcomm's BREW software which allows developers to use C++ or C to develop applications that run natively on the phone's ARM processor.

The AT&T model (which I of course cannot get) run's the J2ME software from Sun. It's basically a full-featured mini-Java virtual machine which allows developers to easily write applications in Java.

The really unfortunate part for me is that Qualcomm has made BREW very difficult for small-time developers (and hobbyists, like me). I think it would be $400 for me to just register as an actual developer so I can run an app on the actual phone. And in order to compile to the ARM processor I'd need to invest $1500 in an ARM compiler. Whatever! And even if I do all that I still can't distribute my application... I'd have to work with a carrier and work out pricing for my app so users would purchase it and download it to their phone. So free software is just about impossible in BREW.

So that's my problem... I know, it's just a hobby for me and I'd probably never develop anything for real on the phone, but it still sucks that I can't write cool J2ME apps for the T720. All because Verizon chose to try and squeeze more money from their customers by charging for everything... heck, I don't even think I can download new ring tones or background images without Verizon charging me for it. Money-loving bastards...

I'll see what Cellular One offers, but from what I saw on their website it's pretty lame. I hate giving Verizon my money, but my moral convictions aren't strong enough to pass up a nifty new phone... I'm weak!

jason

Thu, 20 Mar 2003

Chillin' in Bozeman
blog :: bozeman

As promised (threatened?), here we are in Bozeman, Montana, getting ready to settle down into the small-town life. We've been here since Sunday and I have to admit that I'm truly enjoying our new town!

Mystique, Rupert, and I drove up last weekend. It turned out to be a nice two-day drive without any problems. The Xterra's still adjusting to the cold, but it should serve well as our only winter car... at least for the rest of this winter.

We've got a room at a local motel for a month... it's nothing fancy, but it'll will do fine for our temporary housing. Mystique's leaving on Monday, but Rupert's staying to keep me company. So far I think he likes the new climate... he hasn't gotten to run around in any true snow just yet, but I have a feeling he'll enjoy it.

It's been fun getting to know the town... we've tried a lot of the restaurants, of course, and have found some great local places that we'll probably become regulars at. The motel we're in is right on main street, so we can easily walk to places instead of driving everywhere. Luckily a great breakfast place is right next door so we don't have to brave the morning cold for very long.

Some of the excitement from this week in Bozeman:

• The Bozeman high school boy's basketball team won the state championship
• The 4B's restaurant and Alpine Lodge are closed
• A new cineplex with stadium seating is being built at the mall
• The McDonalds has a new milkshake machine!

More later on where we're going to live once it all gets settled... we have a place under contract, but the inspections haven't been done yet, so we'll see how those go.

jason

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