This is one of times when it’s probably a good idea to leave the Spanish translation off of the sign.

It took me a couple of days to figure out that “Pies” is Spanish for feet. If you want to get picky, “pies” is plural, so it should read “feet,” or it should be “foot” and “pie.”

But that’s not really the problem. The problem is I don’t want a food related word anywhere near the word “foot.” I know what a cream-pie is in pron, and I don’t even want to find out what a foot-pie is in pron.  But I wonder if the “special” means you get a happy ending.

The Honda FCX, which has been around since 2007, was sighted on the 405 recently. Apparently, it’s a prototype and not available directly to the public. This one looks like it’s a dealer test car. The FCX is a hydrogen fuel cell, zero emission vehicle (ZEV) and the EPA has confirmed a range of 210 miles. Must be nice.

According to Honda’s website, the Honda FCX Clarity is their production model of this ZEV and about 200 vehicles will be available for lease in Southern California. I wasn’t even aware that Honda has such a car out in production. Looks like everybody else is going to be playing catch-up.

Although the original company was partly owned by McDonald’s, Coinstar bought them out and created redbox. It’s only very recently that they have put their new DVD rental machines (made by Flextronics - also manufactures Zune, Xbox 360) at Southern California area 7-11 stores.

As you can see below, the main part of the unit is about the size of an ATM machine but they display is much larger, to attract more attention from potential customers coming to 7-11.  The machine is located on the outside of the 7-11 so I assume it’s water resistant.

There is a touch screen located on the front of the vending machine, much like the newer ATM machines. From there, you make your movie selection, and pick from the inventory inside the machine. Next, swipe your credit card, and out pops a DVD from the side.  You can also reserve your DVD from their website (redbox.com) and go to the nearest vending machine that has your movie. The machines are connected to the Internet so it will not give out your movie to somebody else.  I wish Blockbuster had that feature online.

The cool thing about the rental is that it’s only $1 per day (return by 9pm) and there are no late fees. They just keep charging you $1 per day until 25 days, then you own the DVD.  Also, you can return your DVD to ANY redbox vending machine.  So you could rent one near work, then return it near your home.

The only thing stopping me from using this service right now is they don’t have any Blu-ray movies yet.  When they do, I’m going to be on it.

After my disappointing performance at the last series of tournaments at the Bicycle Casino, I decided to keep trying at the Legends of Poker tournaments.

First, I tried the re-buy $300 tournament ($200k guarantee) with no luck.  The week after that, the Bike decided to change their rebuy tournament on August 14-15th 2009 to a no-rebuy tournament for some reason. It still a $200,000 guarantee, which made it a good one to try. The rounds are 40 minutes and started at 50-100 blinds.

Everybody gets one of these free baseball caps for entering the tournament, as well as a coupon for free dinner. Hey, they have to do something to make it seem like you’re getting your money’s worth.

Men “The Master” and his wife were there, as well as Lou Diamond Phillips, the actor slash poker player. On another table, Sam Simon (co-creator of the Simpson’s) was trying his luck.

Actually, both of these guys are fairly serious about their poker. Simon is famous for having a big home game in Los Angeles, which was featured on 60 minutes a while back.

Now, Simon has had a cable show called “Sam’s Game” on Playboy, since June 2009. Here’s a clip from their show below. You can tell that it’s more talking and BSing than poker. What little poker that is played is only good for showing people what NOT to do if you want to play properly. The only reason for watching is to see Playmates playing poker, but they have their clothes on so it’s not very interesting. However, I would watch this show if it was Simon playing strip poker against only Playmates at the table.  Now, that would be a real show to watch.

But I digress.

In the $500 buy-in tournament, I was doing fairly well when I got pocket Queens under the gun. The blinds were only $150-$300 but I raised to $1,500 because I was on a super high action table. As I suspected, I got 5 callers.  The flop was Jack high, no straight draw but a club flush draw possible.  After the big blind checked, I went all in for about $18,000.  I got one caller, who had an Ace high flush draw, and he got there on the river. He easily covered me and I was out.

So ends my Legends try. I’m not even going to try to win my way into the main event. Well, at least I got a free baseball cap.

When I watched this video, I was thinking how robots will probably replace surgeons and operations that now take hours could be done in seconds by robots. There will be no such thing as intricate detailing by humans in any factory or shop.  That sounds like people will be out of jobs, but that’s not the bad news. Unfortunately for us, when the robots become self-aware, they will eliminate the carbon units off the face of the planet.

I’ve seen the TV ads for the Nissan Cube but had not seen one in the wild until recently. I saw this one parked in the Ralphs parking lot in downtown.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to talk to the owner about the car because I was in a hurry and had to leave. But if I ever get a chance, I’m going to ask the owner what they think of the car.

The most interesting feature of this car is the right rear window area which has no blind spot at all.

Frankly, I wish Ford had brought their SYNus concept car to market.  I’m sold on that concept car 100%. Not only does it not have a rear window, it also has a metal front windshield cover that comes out of the hood.  See the SYNus video below.

Normandie exterior

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Normandie but I was talking to a poker friend and was reminded of all the action they used to have on Saturday nights.  I don’t know if it’s still going on but it sure was fun back in the day.

There’s not much else going on at the Normandie as far as poker, but on Saturday nights, some of the people from Caribe (back in the day) go there for a $500+ no limit game.  Steve, his brother Mike, Dr. Laura, Mickey, and some new people are there for some crazy action.

For me, it’s a challenge because Steve uses every trick in the book to confuse and annoy the players.  Not only that but it’s pretty much like a private home game in that people will make deals during the hand, including asking another player if he wants half the action.  Cards are passed to other players for examination before more prop bets are taken.  Of course, showing one or both cards is nothing unusual at a game like this.  All things that would not be allowed in a casino are allowed.  Side bets and props are the norm.

On top of all this, there’s some crazy action, pre-flop and post-flop.  $3,000 pots can happen on an unraised pot.  This is no game for pussies, that’s for sure.  Sometimes new players will come in and will leave after a few hands because of all the craziness.  Other times, the craziness causes new players to go on tilt and give away all their money before they leave mumbling obscenities.

Since this sushi restaurant was listed as the best sushi in Los Angeles in a magazine, I decided that I had to try it out.

However, when I drove to the address, there was what appeared to be some type of business with just a fish logo on a sign, with no address showing or the name of the business. Very strange.   I’m not sure where their parking lot is, or if they even have one, but I just parked on the street right in front of the restaurant. We walked in to find a very non-Japanese, modern looking restaurant, with all white walls.

We decided to order their 6 course meal (around $80 each) and see what we get. Well, you can see from the pictures below, the dishes were prepared perfectly and tasted as good as it looked. Mori Sushi’s website says that each plate and serving dish are specially made for the restaurant. Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger version.

One note about the service at this restaurant. Whenever I would take a few sips of my green tea, the waitress would bring me a brand new cup of green tea. The service was off the charts and almost to the point of being ridiculous. The problem with getting new tea so often is that it’s hot again every time you get a new cup. Then you have to cool it down a bit, then you take a few sips and they bring you a new cup. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think that I would complain about service that was too attentive, but that’s what I experienced here.

The meal was expensive but definitely something to remember. The sushi that comes with the 6 course meal was good but not the best I’ve had. I’m sure that if I were to order the sushi separately, it would be better. I’m definitely going to have to return to this place and try the sushi only.

Mori Sushi
11500 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
(310) 479-3939
morisushi.org

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.