ACN Bowling Tourney 3rd Week: No fooling around

MILO'S BACK!!!!!


We faced our fellow projectmates in this week's bowling tournament. I felt a bit left out, I suppose, since all of them belong to the same team in the project. I was an "import" ala PBA Basketball.

What do PBA teams expect from their imports? Assist the team by being one of the, if not, the best player in the team. He is a better athlete over-all supposedly, or else, they'll send him packing. The funny thing is about PBA, is that when the team loses, it's always the import's fault. Seeing the high mortality rate of imports, an import needs to showcase his best every game.

If I was the import in this team, lucky for me, they still have fate in my abilities even if I showed up with some nasty scores back then.

This time, everything felt right. With my lucky shirt on, and a cute cap with a lizard on it (brought for a good luck mascot), I was determined to make an impact this week. I knew everyone would be noisy, friendly jeers will be thrown at each other, but this time around, I felt like a warrior ready for battle.

[i]My average for this tournament is 122.85, or 123 if you want to round it up. My average for the past 30 bowling games I had (that's when I started tracking) is 121.9, or 122 if rounded up.[/i].

This week, I played four games and scored 133, 127, 179 & 168. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! (ala Emeril)

The only downside to this performance is my handicap will go down, and I will be pressured to put on the same performance next week. Oh well. If I can do it this week, I can do it next week, and hopefully, even better.

Flushed Out

My run for the top spot in the Poker Tournament has finally come to an end.

In the semi-finals, I only placed second in our table thus eliminating me from the competition. My opponent was so lucky that 7 times out of 10, he would get a straight.

Well, for my first time in a poker tournament, semi-finals isn't bad.

ACN Bowling Tourney 2nd Week: Bowled out?

When cats unite!

I did not know what it was, but I felt that something wasn't quite right.

As I carried my bowling ball in my hands, it felt quite heavy, something that I've never felt before when using it.

Lethargy. That must've been it.

Maybe it was due to lack of sleep, or too much stress from work, but I couldn't play right.

And my scores for today show that I ran out of gas. It was something that never happened before. I know I can go on for 6 straight games, maybe even more, but this day was different.

My first game was 143, second 131, then 102. I decided to sit out the fourth game because I felt that I couldn't go on. My arm felt limp, like when you are down with high fever.

Our team split the four games. We did, however, have a really good game where we reached above 679 pinfalls, so we had 40 extra bonus points to go along with the win.

I'm expecting a better ranking for us after this week though. Our team, as a whole, did much better than last week.

Amazing Grace

December 10, 2005 - March 19, 2006

Thanks for the memories. I'll treasure those forever.

ACN Bowling Tourney 1st Week: First day Jitters

Frustration set in as I seemingly couldn't get the lanes correctly. Instead of the average of 110-120, in my first two games, I scored an 108 and 99 respectively. This isn't me. My bowling average says so.

The third game almost went that path too. If it weren't for the three consecutive strikes (Yes, a turkey! Oohh, minor prize for me!) in the 10th frame, my score would've barely grazed the 100 mark again. I ended with a 141 for the third game. My final game for week one had me scoring 136.

We won the first game, lost the next two, and won the final one in a catch-up style. The final game had us down by around 30-40 pins in the eighth frame due to their extremely large handicap (they should fix mine, they gave me a handicap that screams "I average a 150!" ). We fought back with closed frames, and I got a strike at the 10th frame. This caused a close fight with the opponent leading by a mere 5 pins on the last frame of our final bowler. He did one better, and scored a spare 7.

We almost won the third game too if our final bowler had made the spare-6. Unfortunately, he left it open.

But it was a good first week for our team, and for me. I look forward to next week since I seemingly have gotten hold of the lane. I am expecting to have better and higher scores come next Saturday.

===============
Talk about close :)

The other two teams in our division were really duking out in their last game. A real close, so close that it came to one final frame with one remaining player left, score tied.

Say Hello to my Little Pet

Call me childish, too old, having a second childhood or anything. But I don't care. This second generation of the fad that swept the country a few years back, Tamagotchi, is still so cool, and I got one today.

Now called Tamagotchi Connexion, it has now upgraded to V3, which is the one that I have. I got myself the silver design. It's main feature is the use of the IR (infrared) device, which can connect to others who have Tamagotchi Connexions as well for their pets to play games, visit one another, make friends or even have babies! It also makes use of secret codes, codes that you can pick up while exploring Tamatown (http://www.tamatown.com). It has different types of food, I think 6 mini-games, a replenishing shop, a tally of friends, a lot of items that can be won or bought, and more.

Compared to the first ever Tamagotchi, this one is much more addicting, although the fad has died here in the Philippines. In other countries though, according to reports, it is still selling strong, like in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and some parts of the United States.

This new Tamagotchi brings back memories of when I was given before a Tamagotchi-knock off dinosaur watch. Although it has the nifty watch strap that enables you to turn it into a watch if needed (great excuse to bring this toy to school), it has even less features than the original Tamagotchi. Like they say, nothing beats the original.

Ok, back to playing with my little pet.

Less than a week to go

I will participate in a bowling tournament, 8am - 12nn at the Makati Cinema Square. If you want to watch, come along.

Originally, I didn't plan to join, but a project-mate needed members, and he asked me so I accepted the invitation.

After the last tournament, it's been more than 3 weeks since I last held a bowling ball and played again. So here I am, back to the alleys again. I played earlier with my parents in Sta. Lucia Mall. It was my first and probably only practice for my upcoming game this Saturday.

It is interesting though how my game seemed to have improved after having my own ball.

[b]Pre-ball[/b]
1/14: 126, 135, 110
1/21: 124, 116, 93, 124
1/28: 105, 102, 115, 131, 91, 143
2/11: 133, 101, 116
Average: 116.56 out of 16 games (near my high average 105-115)

[b]Post-Ball[/b]
2/13: 82, 158
2/17: 140, 121
3/12: 126, 181, 124
Average: 133.14 out of 7 games

Sure, it's still a long way to go before I reach the 16 games during the pre-ball period, but I think I can still top the previous average, and I'm getting better. Probably, I now average around 120-130.

Except for the 82 I had when I first used the ball, everything else has topped my average of 105-115. And yes, you read that right. I got a 181 earlier. It was my highest score ever, and it was the first time I got a turkey (That's three strikes in a row if you don't know). I should've gotten a 200+ for that, but I missed the remaining pin in my last frame. However, it's still 181, and if I do that kind of performance in the tournament, wow, I'd probably be getting prizes for being the top scorer for the week. We are not professional bowlers anyway, and no one averages a 200.

So good luck to me, my team, and hope we make it to the next rounds, and possibly the championship!

Lucky Lucky Lucky!

I just got home straight from the card table. From being down early in the game up to the final round, I managed to win my table in our Interproject Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament! This gave me an instant pass to the semifinals to be held sometime soon.

It was my first time to play a real Texas Hold 'Em Poker game. Probably Beginner's luck can be attributed to this. The only knowledge I have of Texas Hold 'Em is via watching the Poker Tournaments on the television, and playing with my favorite, Gus Hansen, in a computer game.

When it came to the final two, I was facing a big deficit of almost 1:5 ratio with the blinds at 1000-2000. Two lucky all-in hands quadrupled my hoard of chips.

First was an all-in of 3-7. I paired a three in the turn, and luckily he didn't make any, even if his hand was technically stronger at first.

Second all-in came when I had a 5-5 at hand, and the flop produced another five and two other number cards. I acted a bit, and I just called the pot, and he called back. Another card entered, which was of no use to me, and I went all in, and he called my all in. When the hands were shown, I had a trio which beats his two pair. Lucky. I would've call that two if I had two pair.

Final showdown came when he called all-in this time around.

Looking back, I was extremely lucky today. I instantly lost around a half of my total amount when I first played the entire round, but I climbed back from there. The veterans took the first few rounds by storm, but one overbluffed himself, whileas the other one just got unlucky with the girl who won on the river everytime she went all-in.

I pray that my luck sustains when I play in the semifinals.