The Newest Member Of The Family

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Tabitha, Frank and Scott.

Subject: The newest member of the family

“Another run? This is absurd!”

“Another run! Keep it coming!”

“Woah, where'd that second tv come from?” Scott asks, indicating the new flat screen tv sitting in the corner.

“Best Buy apparently. We were obviously lost without having a second tv in the living room, so Frank there just ran right out and picked it up for us.” Tabitha says sarcastically, looking up from the book she's reading.

“Isn't it great? It's a 37 inch LCD HDTV. Don't the Yankees look great on it?”

“That is pretty nice. Our old tv has HD too doesn't it? Why aren't you using it?”

“SNY doesn't have HD for most of the away games yet, they're still working on it.”

“Pathetic isn't it?”

“Relax, it's only the station's second year. They'll get there. I prefer it to Al-Yankzeera over there anyway.”

“Calm down you two, or I'll have to separate you! You're fighting more now than when you were fighting over the one set.”

“It's only because Frank keeps raising the volume. You know how Michael Kay's voice makes me sick.”

“And listening to Keith Hernandez talk about all the birds in the outfield in Detroit is so much better?”

“Wow, that is a lot of birds. Why are there so many birds on the field? Is this little league?”

“Apparently Comerica Park is now an aviary.”

“Maybe they should change their name from the Detroit Tigers to the Detroit Gulls.”

“Detroit Gulls just doesn't have the right ring to it. That'd be more like a WNBA team name or something.”

“Detroit already has a WNBA team actually, and it's not 'Gulls', it's the Detroit Shock.”

“Shock? What kind of name is that? Is their logo one of those warning stickers for electronics that warn of electric shock?”

“That would be a pretty cool logo I think!”

“Gulls is probably more of a minor league sounding team. The Mets do have a minor league affiliate called the Savannah Sand Gnats,

Gulls would be better than that.”

“Most definitely, although I don't think you can have a worse name than the New York Red Bulls. Being named after an energy drink has to be one of the worse forms of product placement.”

“Red Bull gives you wings!”

“We'll see if the wings help them win their game today against DC United.”

“Wow, do you actually follow soccer Frank?”

“Nah, I happened to read a blurb somewhere that said who they were playing. I did notice they're doing pretty well this year. I think they're in first place.”

“You know what we should do? We've gotta hook up something to both tv's and get a game going. Rainbow six or something. Is the new Vegas version out yet?”

“It's out for everything except PS3, which it's supposed to be released for sometime soon.”

“It's cross platform compatible right? We can get one for the X-Box and one for the Playstation and play each other?”

“I think so. We'll have to check before we buy it.”

“That would probably be pretty cool on these flat screens. You'd have to angle them a little bit so you couldn't see what the other person was doing though.”

“Well of course, you know Scott's a cheater.”

“Cheating at 'Go Fish!' doesn't count!”

“'Go Fish!' What were you playing that for? Are you six?”

“It was Jack's idea.”

“Jack? The guy that lives on the 7^th floor?”

“Jack as in Daniels. Lots of him.”

Tabitha just rolls her eyes. “I should have known.”

Stalking the Barmaid

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Stalking the Barmaid

“Doesn't that Barmaid live somewhere around here?”

“I don't know, she doesn't exactly publish her location.”

“There are clues though.”

“Sure, how many bars could there possibly be in New York? I'm sure if you just go to each one you'll find her in no time.”

“Well there are clues to what neighborhood. That narrows it down, and there are a couple of us, we each hit three or four bars a night, and maybe we get lucky.”

“I'm not going barhopping by myself to find some random girl from the Internet!”

“That's your loss.”

“Okay, lets hit a couple and check it out. Are you going to come with Tab? It'll be just like going barhopping anyway.”

“No thanks. I'll just stay in tonight.”

“No fun! Let's go, you coming Frank?”

“Sure, not like I have anything better to do.”

“Sara?”

“Umm...No. I'm still hungover from those three margaritas you forced on me at lunch.”

“Ann? Oh, Ann's not here? Where is she? She's always been fond of stalking. Oh well, lets get going.”

The next morning...

Frank emerges from the bathroom. “Note to self, once you start reaching double-digit beers, it's time to stop.”

“Stop drinking or stop counting?”

Frank burps. “Probably both.”

“I think I have heartburn. I vaguely remember ordering food at every place we went.”

“Every place? How many places did you go to?”

“Well..I uhh..I don't know.”

“Well, that's a good sign. When you can't remember where you've been, you've usually been nowhere good. Did you actually find her or can you not remember that either?”

“I think we'd remember if we found her. Wouldn't we? I'm not sure.”

“I remember nachos, a corn dog, and potato skins. That's at least three bars.”

“Mozzarella sticks. I definitely remember those.”

“So four. Which blocks did we decide to walk down?”

“Well, we definitely went downtown. I distinctly remember turning left at the corner.”

“Yes, we definitely turned left, but we went to the other corner and turned left to go uptown!”

“No! We saw the moon as we were walking, so that must've been south.”

“What? How does that make any sense? Do you have any idea if the moon was in that part of the sky last night?”

“I'm sure. It was just hanging up there in the sky, I remember thinking it was bright and full.”

“Are you sure we didn't just go to a bar with 'Moon' in its name?”

“I don't think there are any bars like that near here.”

“Frank said he had a lot of beers, maybe one of them was a Blue Moon?”

“Yes! That does sound familiar!”

“So does that mean Frank was right and we went uptown?”

“Oh, I don't know. I barely remember anything.”

“You guys don't even know if she was working last night do you?”

“Well, if she updates her blog about last night we'll know.”

“You'll know she was working, but that won't help you remember if you were there or not.”

“I think this was a pretty hopeless quest. You guys don't want to do this again tonight right? I don't think I could handle that.”

“A little hair of the dog will do you good.”

“I'm out too, I can't do that every night. If we're meant to find her, we'll find her by accident. We shouldn't be stalking her anyway, that's not nice.”

“She's a Yankee fan anyway, why would you want to find her?”

Frank sticks his tongue out at Sara. “I need more Yankee fans in my life after living with you and your Mets for these 15 months.”

“We just need another television in the living room so we can have both games on, rather than doing that picture in picture stuff and fighting over what game gets the focus.”

“You know, that's an excellent idea!”

Three Months in the Books

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Three Months

Yesterday we're standing around in the kitchen as usual, Tabitha's making tomato sauce and the rest of us are just getting in the way.

“We've managed to keep up the blog for three months tomorrow. That's kind of exciting.”

“It kind of is, I though for sure we'd just let it flop. It's almost enjoyable when you're not bugging me to make a post.”

“I compiled some statistics that I found interesting about it. Ann, not surprisingly made the most posts, 10, of the 27 total. And Scott the least, with two.”

“I'm surprised he made two. That's less then one a month, but at least he's paying attention.”

“I pay attention more than you think! I always answer all those emails from our hot female fans!”

“We don't really get any emails, and how would you even know they're hot?”

“You can learn a lot from a person's email address.”

“You can usually learn their name, and not much else. How well did knowing Liza's name do you on that blind date?”

“That's enough! Don't bring her up!”

“Liza...Liza..Was that the one with the...“

“Drop it!”

“Oh fine.”

“Anyway, 27 posts doesn't seem that bad. That'd be over 100 in a year.”

“Do we do 100 things worth blogging about in a year?”

“Probably not, but they can't all be gems right?”

“Not a lot of people find our blog by searching, but some did by some odd search words. Although I doubt they stayed and became readers. We do only average about 20 visitors a day, and who knows how many of those are us?”

“What kind of search words? Here, taste this.” Tabitha shoves a wooden spoon of tomato sauce at Billy.

“Mmm, delicious.”

“Well there was 'Kahlua Stripper'.”

“I wouldn't mind having a Kahlua stripper.”

“'Old rooms to go Mickey Mouse'. I don't even know what that was, I'm assuming it went to Frank's post about his trip to Disney World.”

“The person that stuck around longest after searching, other than the person who searched for 6thfloorblog.blogspot.com, was the person that searched 'disney tourist trap'.

“Well my post was relevant to that search, so it makes sense.”

“Another weird one, 'soda no straws'. They didn't stick around, but I have no idea what they were looking for.”

“Any porn ones? I always hear bloggers talking about weird porn searches.”

“Shockingly, no.”

“Well are you going to blog about this conversation? I could start talking about...”

“NO! Knock it off. We don't want weird porn freaks coming here.”

“Well who cares how they get here right? A reader is a reader.”

“I don't care.”

“Anyway, my favorite search was 'tabitha coors light girl'.”

“Some guy met some girl at a bar that was doing a Coors Light promotion and he's trying to find her again?”

“Maybe. Or maybe Tabitha moonlights as a Coors Light girl?”

“Haha. I don't think so.”

“Our most common labels are all alcohol related. We've got drunk, drinking, tequila, alcohol..”

“That's not that surprising knowing us. Look at Scott, we haven't even eaten dinner and he's already finishing his second beer.”

“It was a rough day today! I had to work with this really stupid girl, and the customers were all annoying. And I had the early shift, I've been up for a long time.”

“I'm really in the mood for ice cream tonight, do you guys want to head over to that place on 3^rd that we like after dinner?”

“Ice cream would really hit the spot tonight. This isn't the place with the creamy corn gelato is it?”

“No, not that one. Although that place was pretty good too, at least the other stuff was, I don't think I'd want to try the corn.”

“First, lets have dinner. Scott, help Billy set the table.”

“I'm setting the table?”

“If you want to eat you are.” Tabitha says with a wink.

The Party From Hell

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann , Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Party from Hell

“So why do we have to go to this party?”

“Because they're new in the building and it can't hurt to welcome them in and make new friends can it? Isn't that how we met Sue and Amy when we moved in?”

“Amy and Sue are hot though.”

“What are their names?”

“Jack and Cinthia. The party's at John's, on the 7^th floor, who you should know.”

“John's the guy with the daughter who sells girl scout cookies right?”

“'Figures that's what you remember about him. Thin mints.”

“I think my stomach has a better memory than my brain sometimes.”

“We're here. Hi John!”

John: “Hi guys! Come on in!”

“Hello. So you have any thin mints hiding anywhere?”

John: “Nope, sorry Billy.”

“Lets say hello to Jack and Cinthia and then find a corner to hang out in.”

“Sounds good.”

So we do just that, and find ourselves a spot near the window out of the way.

“I'll go get us some drinks, come help me carry Tabitha.”

“So Jack seems nice. What was it he said he did?”

“Something about trade..or commerce. Shipping? I don't know. Frank?”

“What? Oh..I wasn't listening, sorry.”

“Whatever it was, it was boring.”

“We've got a dire situation, we have to go.”

“Go? What's the matter?”

“Nothing, he's just upset because they have no alcohol.”

“No booze?! Lets go.”

“We can't go, we just got here. You'll live without a drink.”

“Drinks are the only way I can get through party's like this. There is nothing more boring than a party with casual acquaintances.”

“Look, lets get some soda, wander around and talk to everyone, and then we can politely leave, with everyone having remembered talking to us.”

“Fine. We already talked to Jack and Cinthia, so let's talk to the others.” Billy looks over to the rest of the people. “Mike! Come here!”

Mike: “Hi guys, what's up? Nice to see you.”

“So how are you Mike? What are you up to lately? How's work? Good? Great. We're all fine, normal stuff. Tabitha did great on her finals, is thinking about waitressing for the summer for some money. Isn't that wonderful? Okay, you can go now, nice talking to you Mike.”

Mike: “Uhhh..umm..I..Terrific! Nice seeing you!”

Mike walks away confused.

“That doesn't count! Be nice!”

“Do we even like these people?”

“About as much as fruit salad.”

“Fruit Salad?”

“Not a bad dessert, but not quite what you're looking for.”

Sara groans and flicks Scott's ear. “That wasn't funny.”

“Come on, lets go get some soda and talk to some people. We can worry about leaving later.”

“Oh fine, lets go.”

Brett: “Hey 6^th Floorers, how's life treating you down there?”

“A hell of a lot better then being on the 14^th floor. I can't imagine having to wait for the elevator all the time to get up that high.”

Brett: “The view from my bedroom is so worth it!”

“Not as good as the view in Ann's bedroom I bet.” Scott says with a wink.

Ann punches Scott. “You've never seen the view, so how would you know?”

Henry: “Ann! Good to see you! You written anything lately?”

“I've been writing in our blog, but other than that nothing since we were helping each other out last year.”

Henry: “Yeah, why did we stop doing that anyway? I've been too busy to get much writing done since then either.”

“We stopped because Carol got jealous that you'd meet me once a week.”

Henry: “Oh. Right.”

“Where did Scott go?”

“He was right here a second ago.”

“He better not have left!”

“I'll go check the hall for him.”

“Aha, no! You stay right here. No sneaking out.”

“But it's so boring! And the soda's not even name brand!”

“Oh woe is you. You have to drink a White Rock cola instead of a Coke. The world's going to come to an end.”

“How do you know it won't?”

“I'm a college student remember? I know everything.”

“Come on, lets go talk to Jack and Cinthia some more, make them feel welcome.”

“Ugh, could there be more boring people on the face of the earth?”

Cinthia: “Who's boring?”

“These two guys I work with. They drone on and on about nothing. It's a pain to have to work with them.”

Cinthia: “I understand, everyone can't be as exciting as me!”

“Yeah, I guess I should just be thankful that everyone is not as boring as them.”

As Cinthia walks away, Tabitha whispers to Billy. “Nice save there.”

“Wouldn't want them hating us right off the bat. We should give them at least a month for that.”

“Maybe even two months.”

We mingled for a little while longer, and then slipped out as some other people arrived. Scott was already asleep on the couch watching television when we got back downstairs.

Poker and Me

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Frank

Subject: How I Earn A Living

I've been asked a bit about my job so I figured I'd talk about what I do, and how I do it.

I'm generally a cash game player. Which means that I play in games where you exchange money for chips, and I can walk away whenever I want and change any of the chips I have for their value in money. The alternative is tournament play, which is what you see on television where you buy-in to the tournament, and you play until you either have all, or none, of the chips. I've played a tournament occasionally, but I generally stick to cash games. The big difference is with a tournament, you have to beat everyone to make money, in a cash game you only have to beat one person, and it can be the worst player at the table.

One of the biggest reasons my parents basically kicked me out of the house is because they didn't believe I could make a living playing poker, they considered it gambling with my future. Now poker playing does contain a lot of gambling situations, but it's not like rolling a dice for my dinner. What happens is when I get into situations where I need a certain card to win the hand, I calculate the odds of getting that card. If it's only going to come 25% of the time, I make sure that if I win I'm winning more than 4 times what I would be betting in that situation. If I'm consistent and play that hand the same way every time the situation comes up, in the long run I'm going to win money, even though each individual situation may be a gamble.

The trick to that is being able to play for long enough that you get enough of those situations before you run out of money. You should never run out of money while playing poker or you're playing at too high a level. Even if that means you're playing with nickels for months.

I'm not going to say how much money I make or what level I play at, but it's enough to get by. I've been banking money, and I have some loans to pay off, but I haven't made the push yet to play at a higher level. I like to have some extra money to do things with, and often times I splurge and spend the money that I'd need to bankroll to move up to a higher level. I always make sure I have enough saved, and can pay the rent though, I'm not stupid.

I've never been to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, but I hear even the cash games during those weeks are great. I suppose a lot of amateur poker players come and want to play. I may go and check it out this year, I'll have to look into it.

While it's always great to not have to get up for work, or have set hours, it's not all flowers and sunshine. I still spend a lot of time working, and I can get very stir crazy never leaving the apartment. Even if I did have a regular job, I don't imagine I could have one where I work from home. It's nice to get out and see the world sometimes, which is why I occasionally find a wireless hub and play from there.

Tequila Hangover

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann

Subject: Tequila Hangover

My bladder wakens me from a drunken snooze around 7:30am. I'm oddly not hungover or even tired at this obscenely early hour on a Sunday. I use the bathroom and step out into the living area, and the overpowering smell of lemons greets me. There is a squished lemon wedge ground into the carpet by a chair leg, and a multitude of discarded rinds in a pile on a plate on the table as well as inside shot glasses and strewn about the counter. There are a bunch of shot glasses on the table and counters too; some are sitting in puddles, and some are upside down. There is a soft drip coming from the kitchen area, as a puddle forming on the counter from a bag of ice that was never returned to the freezer slowly melts and overflows onto the floor. I put the bag in the sink to finish melting and grab the dustpan and broom to sweep up the remains of a broken shot glass. As I walk towards the garbage I find that the floor is sticky, probably from spilled tequila. It being much too early to mop the floor and really clean up, I ignore it and open up the fire escape and step out.

The cool metal against my feet, I cast my gaze down and take in the city at this early hour. I feel the first rays of sun warming my skin, and listen to the sounds of New York waking up. I can see people down the street getting their coffee and breakfast and picking up the morning paper. Some of them walk over to the bus stop, and start reading the paper as they wait for the bus to start the day and continue to their destination on this Sunday morning. Some may be going to work, others may be headed to church. Others are just early risers, out for morning errands, or even just jogging. I relax, leaning against the building and take in the sights for a while longer, losing myself in the bustle below.

I reenter the apartment and am again greeted by the powerful lemon scent. From this angle I can really appraise the wreck of a room; six friends and roommates and two bottles of tequila can do plenty of damage. Besides the squished lemon in the carpet, the broken shot glass and the puddles, there is salt everywhere. I can see it in the couch cushions, all over the table, on the floor and in Scott's hair, who I now realize has been passed out on the couch the whole time. There are glasses of all types discarded around the apartment as they'd been emptied the night before, puddles of sour mix, tequila and melted ice, and lemon rinds thrown all over the place. I vaguely remember Scott and Frank having a lemon-rind fight as the night degenerated, and I expect we'll be finding them around the room for weeks to come; especially at the rate we usually clean. As some of the memories of the night before flood back, so does the grogginess and hungover feeling. I pick up a martini glass off the floor before it can be broken, and head back to bed hoping someone else will clean up before I wake again.