Since I didn’t win my way in to the 2009 WSOP main event this year (again), I decided to try the Stars and Stripes Championship event at the Bicycle Casino for $1070.  I waited until there were a couple of people sitting at my table before I sat down.  There was a young Internet guy in seat 3, and we chatted a little before the tournament.

While chatting, I noticed WSOP 2006 Main Event winner Jamie Gold sitting at table 6, seat 9 nearby.  Around the same time, I also observed Men “The Master” Nguyen buying in 2 of his “horses” apparently on credit. I’m not positive but I didn’t see Nguyen playing himself, but one of his horses came to my table later in the tournament. With all the controversy regarding Nguyen being accused of collusion, I’m glad he was not at my table.

I’ll spare you the boring details of how I got knocked out, except to say that I had top pair on the flop, and the big stack went all-in with his open ended draw and got the straight on the river.

On a side note, Jamie Gold ended in 6th place in the tournament.

When I switched over to Sprint to get the Palm Pre from Verizon Wireless, the switch was painless and quick. In fact, I was surprised that Verizon didn’t try to get me to stay with some offer, like the way AOL used to do. When I moved my old Verizon number over to Sprint, they said it might take 8-12 hours, but in actuality, it took less than one hour.  I didn’t keep checking it but it may even have been under 30 minutes. As a comparison, when I moved my number from Vonage to Ooma, it literally took weeks.

So, with such a smooth transition, it was a little funny when I got one last email from Verizon asking me to take a survey to find out why I left their service.  I started answering some questions about why I left, and after about the 3rd screen, I got this error below:

This error can be caused by many things but the most common is too many requests.  So I guess a lot of people are being asked to take a survey about why they are leaving Verizon Wireless.  Nice parting shot Verizon.

It was once again time to check out another sushi place I’ve never been to. My friend suggested we try Teru in Studio City since neither one of us had gone there. As with other restaurants in this area, parking is in limited supply and valet parking is required.

The building almost looks like a fake sushi place from a Hollywood movie lot at Universal. Although the inside is very narrow and long, they’ve really squeezed a ton of seats into a very limited space.  The service is good and the atmosphere is okay.

That’s about where the good news ends.

We ordered Crab cakes ($13) which were okay, and my friend ordered the Crunchy Roll ($10), which he declared was not the best he’s had.

Of course, I had to get the Sushi Combination ($21) and green tea ($1.25). The fact the green tea is not free should already clue you in to what I thought about the sushi combination. The quality was marginal at best, and the roll was below restaurant level, just slightly above Ralphs level.

Next time, I think I’ll just call ahead and see if their green tea is free or not.

Teru Sushi
11940 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 763-6201
terusushi.com

When I read on Engadget that Seidio, a Houston cell phone accessories company, had a Palm Pre battery with about 20% more capacity, I decided to check it out. Upon ordering it online, I got it in the mail in just a few days. The battery is the exact same size as the original Palm battery.

Although I have not done any scientific testing of this new battery, after using it for about a week, I can say that with my general use, it seems to last a little longer. It’s not a dramatic increase but I do notice that there is a little more power left at the end of the day.  However, I have to add that I’ve also learned some tricks on saving power (e.g. closing unused applications) so it’s very hard to measure the actual difference.  If nothing else, I now have an extra backup battery in case the power goes down to zero.

One strange thing that was included with the battery was the instructions as shown above. It tells you to charge the battery before inserting it into the phone. However, I don’t have an external bettery charger so there was no other way to charge the battery.  Maybe this is a marketing trick to try to get you to buy their external battery charger.

Many years ago, my ex-roommate from college, who became a NASA astronaut, invited me to his shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral. Without giving it much thought, I declined because I was busy at work and I thought I’d have another chance later in his career. What was I thinking? It turned out to be a once in a lifetime chance that I missed and have regretted. What has this to do with the Michael Jackson memorial? I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

So instead of selling the tickets, I decided to go with a friend of mine. I’m very glad that I went to the memorial. Seeing it on TV is one thing, but being in a building with over 10,000 people is something else. At times, it was so quiet that you can hear a sneeze. Indeed, it turned out to be a once in a lifetime experience for me.

As I stated before, I’m not a huge Michael Jackson fan. However, I grew up during the period when he was indeed the King of Pop and I have a lot of memories from those days. Hearing his music and watching his videos on the screen brought back a lot of memories. Hearing some of the people talk about Michael Jackson as a person was an eye opener for me. No matter what you think about his legal issues, he was a remarkable person with enormous talent.

One big surprise for me was how I felt after Rev. Al Sharpton gave his memorial speech. I often don’t agree with his politics and how he mixes it as a Reverend. However, his speech was from the heart and now I can clearly see why so many people drink his Kool-Aid. Without any prompters or papers, he delivered a moving speech for the family. If you have only seen clips on TV, try to see the entire event from start to finish.

It was amazing that AEG was able to put this memorial together in such a short amount of time. I can only imagine how good Michael Jackson’s concert would have been.

Over the years, I saw how disfunctional the Jackson family seemed to be in the media and felt they deserved what they got. But on this day, they seemed to come together and for a moment, I felt genuine empathy for the pain they were going through. In a strange way, I think Michael’s death will heal some of the pain from the past and perhaps the family can move on with their lives.

As soon as I picked up my car from the repair shop, I drove over to Dodger Stadium to pickup the Michael Jackson memorial tickets for Tuesday. The way they have it setup, you just show your printout and you never have to get out of your car. It’s like a drive-thru ticket pickup. The first booth checks and scans the printout, the second guy gives you your wristbands (and puts one on you), and the last guy gives you your 2 tickets. You’re out of there in about a minute.

Too bad they don’t allow pictures and video at the event. I hope they let me take my phone in there. I’ll post pictures to my photobucket account from the event.

Even though I’m not a super Michael Jackson fan, I decided to sign up for the free tickets to his memorial service at the Staple Center on Tuesday.  Somehow, I got lucky and got an email a few hours ago telling me that I was selected and that I have to go pick up my tickets tomorrow at Dodger Stadium.

Now, I have to decide if I should go or sell the tickets. I see some tickets going for $5,000 in ebay. That’s a lot of money. But it’s also a once in a lifetime event. Hmmm.

I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decided to do.

Sprint has a friend referral program that gives you $25. Since I switched from Verizon to Sprint, I was eligible for this program. You can get full info at sprint.com/landings/refrewards/

All you have to do is follow the instructions and enter your friend’s Sprint phone number and you both get a $25 Visa debit card as shown below. It takes a few weeks for them to send out the card. But hey. It’s free money.

Update 1/2010:
Not only is this program now over (as of 1/24), but it turns out they charge you $3 per month “service” charge. What a rip off.

You may have seen a strange looking taco truck driving around town with the word “Calbi” on it. I’ve seen them in West LA, Downtown and other areas of popularity. They also have a website at calbibbq.com where they have a calendar showing the location of their 2 trucks and even a Twitter page. So the day has come when taco trucks have Twitter pages.

Well, I like tacos. I like Korean BBQ, and I like Kimchee. So, it was a no-brainer for me to try this out. Unfortunately, the concept is great but it just doesn’t taste good. I thought it would be spicier and more… well, Kimchee-er.  To me, it just tasted like a bad taco.

The Palm Pre has a way to automatically upload pictures to Photobucket and Facebook.  Here are some pictures I took with the Pre.