Adam Turtle, Freelance Web Design in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Adam Turtle

Since1986

Monday!

Yesterday was fun.

Work

I started the day quite badly. Sunday night I worked the late shift at work, answering the calls until 10pm, then I worked the early shift on Monday which means answering from 6am. I forgot to turn my phone off between 10 and 6 and in the middle of the night, someone called to cancel their tour for Monday due to illness. 2am in the morning I answered my phone thinking it was 6am. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night so I arrived at work exhausted before I even started.

Playstation

But I got off work at 4.30pm and walked up to Mission St. I had been checking on Craigslist for a Playstation 2 just so I would have something to do if it was wet outside and I was totally bored (which thankfully doesn’t happen often here). There was a guy in Mission selling one with a ton of games and controllers or $100, so I needed to take the 14 bus into the Mission.

Stupid me, I took the wrong bus. I didn’t know there were 3 14 buses!

I ended up in outer mission, which is miles away. I eventually found my way back and got the Playstation, but without half the games. They were mostly crap. And I bargained him down on the price a bit, so I got the whole deal for $95. Tried it out this morning and it works like a charm. He also left one of the disks inside, so I got another one without even knowing it.

Free tickets to Advanced movie screening

I had to rush back downtown as I was meeting Valerie there. It was six months yesterday that we’ve been together so I planned a bit of a date. I met her (about 30 minutes late) at the Metreon, which is essentially a glorified cinema, and we waited in line for a movie that I had got free tickets to.

The movie is called ‘21‘. It’s based on a true story about a guy who is trying to get to medical school, but can’t raise the $300,000 he needs to pay the fees. His teacher notices he is very good with numbers and invites him to join the MIT Blackjack team, who use a system of counting the cards in a blackjack game to beat the dealer. Every weekend, the team flies to Vegas and uses their technique to win big at the casinos. Apparently this method of counting cards is not illegal, but casinos have strict measures in place to stop this activity.

The movie was pretty good, an intriguing story and well acted but it was a little Hollywood for my liking. There were all the cliched things, and at times it was predictable and a little fantasized which made it difficult to believe in parts.

Q&A

But by far the coolest part was that the guy who the movie is based on did a brief Q&A after the movie. He answered a lot of questions, and was very interesting. He’s basically banned from Las Vegas and can’t be within 20 ft of a blackjack table at any casino. Every casino in America knows his face and he can’t play anywhere.

The movie comes out on Friday here, and on April 11th back home, I think. It’s worth checking out if you like those sorts of movies.

Italian Food

The cinema organised some blackjack after the movie at nearby Jillian’s bar across the street, but I took Valerie to Buca di Beppo instead, which a great Italian restaurant that I went to over Christmas. It was great, I really love Italian food over here – it’s one type of restaurant that I could order almost anything off the menu and know I would like it. Usually there’s only a few things on a restaurant’s menu that I would go for. In the end we both settled for lasagna because it looked just too tasty. And it was. It was just the perfect size because I was just able to finish it and no more. Very satisfying.

Happy six months Valerie. Poor girl has been stuck with me for too long…

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