Kill Bill

I don't like public transport. I don't like the fact that I have to pay over 40 euro a month just to haul my ass to Helsinki and back everyday. I don't like sitting in a bus that might as well serve as a can of sardines, with a baby crying it's lungs out and some manatee of a mother trying to fit on the seat next to mine.

Besides, it poured from the behind of Esteri today.

Nothing really up, just poker and school mostly. Zoidberg told me to write about an interesting cab fare for a change. So here's a few stories from my taxiing days. Pardon me for the shady details, it's been a while.

Battery - keeps you going

So there I was, at about 6 am, picking up my first fare from Lauttasaari. It was some lady trying to get to an early morning shift. I had my Battery next to me, trying desperately to keep me awake in those morning hours. I hate morning shifts. I had probably slept for 4 hours or something, as is my habit. So I've developed quite a high tolerance for Battery and other energy drinks. Anyway. I'm a good driver. I'm polite and I get people to their destinations rapidly and comfortably. As I did with this lady. Talked a bit about the weather and news of the day. And took a sip of my beloved Battery.

She said "How can you drink that shit? That really messes up your stomach, aren't you any ashamed? You really should get away from that habit."

WTF, I thought. Having the audacity to comment on a nasty habit of someone you hardly know is rude enough, but also stupid. If this lady was in a hurry, wasn't it the last mistake she could make to piss off the cab driver? I thought about giving her a lecture about private business and kicking her out, but I kept my mouth shut, as the diplomatic fellow that I am. What a twat.

Large men with beards and tattoos dressed in leather

So you see three huge guys standing at the taxi stop. I'm talking ZZ-Top-beards, brass knuckles, leather boots, scarfs.. The first reaction would be to press hard on the gas pedal and look for a better gig. But I had my adventure-hat on, and I didn't see any immediate danger in taking these blokes in. So my C-class was filled with raw heavy metal listening bloke-material. I didn't want to piss these guys off, so I kinda stayed quiet and turned the radio up, like they asked. After throwing a few jokes back and forth I realized we were much of the same type of guy. Except of course they were huge and I'm not, but heavy metal listeners anyway. By the time we got to Herttoniemi, they wanted to go through McDonalds. They even bought me a meal. What do we learn from this? The most sane people you see in town are either heavy metal-listeners or musicians. Preferably both.

Thar be shark infested waters, aye

We had our regular poker game at Spacestreet again. The old gang was there, guest starring Kilo, Stara and the small blind man. The old AK-master, Sammy Raty, Mr. Savo and I are becoming quite skilled at this silly game. And I'm not talking about the "Wow you can do chip tricks"-good, I'm talking about real skill. We don't play for a lot of money in that game, but the learning experience is priceless. It's a shame the Helsinki Grand Casino is the only place in Finland where poker games are officially allowed, live poker rules.

Movie nights at the Ladybird's

Choosing American History X to watch with a girl is silly. First of all, the movie is damn good. But second of all, it gets you thinking. And if you're thinking, you're not exactly making stupid jokes and chatting about stuff while or after watching, are you?

Kill Bill is more like it, but it also has this sentence interrupting-effect with all the body parts and blood flying.

So I asked her out for a pool game. Which seemed like a cool idea.


--Net poker says $440--