Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Hasta la Byebye. I'm your host Turkman, and with me via satellite uplink is famed writer and comic actor Cantay [LAST NAME OMITTED, BITCH]. Thank you for making a return appearance on the show, Cantay.

My pleasure, Turkman. Hasta la Byebye is definitely among the best stuff on the air, and I'm honored to be here.

Aww shucks, Cantay. I think you're just saying that because you own this television show and are its director and producer.

I won't deny the possibility, but irregardless of all that bias-crap, I still think you are the w00t.

Thank you, Cantay. But we're pressed for time so I will forge on ahead. First, I think what's on everyone's minds right now is the simple question: why the hell have you kept me off the air so long?

Oh, it's a long and complicated answer, Turkman. I should certainly preface by saying it has nothing to do with your showmanship or any such thing, but rather my lack of time. I will now conclude by saying that this lack of time was caused by an acute case of Chronic Asshatitis.

Asshatitis? Perhaps you could explain for the viewers at home?

Yes, of course. Asshatitis is a viral disease especially common to Turks who were born in Ohio, and it is most rampant in the summer months. The glycoproteins on the virus are specifically designed for infiltration into Turkish Awesome Cells. Once infected, these cells, like any other cells infected by a non-latent virus, begin producing more copies of the virus until the cells explode from the volume of virus. This causes the Awesomeness Ratio so common Turks to drop significantly, resulting in profound cases of five of the seven deadly sins.

Which five?

Glad you asked. Sloth, avarice, vanity, envy, and wrath.

Wow. What a surprising list. If our viewers were making bets on which two sins you would not list, I can guess that most did not imagine that the two omitted would be gluttony and lechery.

Yes, those are easily the two coolest sins ever--their coolness is actually part of the reason I did not suffer from them. The rest of the reason comes from the fact that when you suffer from excessive sloth (which I have, I must say), gluttony and lechery are simply too difficult to accomplish. The other four sins were secondary to the sloth, which simply overwhelmed my very being; hell, I'm even wearing a t-shirt with a sloth on it. I think it speaks for itself.

Indeed it does.

But yes, the sloth is easy enough to guess at, as is the vanity. Vanity is one of those sins that I exhibit constantly, but when suffering from Asshatitis, it becomes even worse. Especially when it is accompanied by envy. Blegh. If ever there were a distasteful sin it was envy. The avarice turned me into a slightly more poker-minded fellow and the wrath... well, the wrath was levelled mostly at the littlest of my sisters, who can be a real bitch sometimes with her antics. Of bitchiness.

So we have heard. But, now that you have explained your illness, would you care to share some information with us about past activities?

I would, but I understand that we only have so much time. I have to make a reference to a week ago, however, when I went bike riding with Mr. Eric and Mr. Travis. And that is that flat tires suck. Ass. As does having a pickup truck pull over on the road just ahead of you, revealing multiple smelly teenagers that call you names and are determined to knock you off your bikes with hastily-prepared sticks fraught with nails. I still bear the scares of that day as I struggled to escape their cruel attack.

Now, anyway, on to now. Well, to keep things very very simple, I played tennis with Be (that would be my father) this morning per mutual agreement. Got up at about 8 AM to do this. So as you can imagine, I've been up for a while. The tennis was good though. We'd played a set on Father's Day, which I squeaked out of 7-5, with both of us playing poorly. Today, however, I had very good control of my groundstrokes, and so I was able to jump out to a quick 3-0 lead. I'm not sure how, but Be was able to break back against my serve and win two service games to even it up at 3-3. And then, since I was still clicking, I put him away with three more games to end the set at 6-3. I would very much have liked to continue to play, but unfortunately old Be just can't handle too much action. I tell you he needs to do this sort of thing more often.

And then after that I returned home to write six separate discourses on the reasoning that masochists use to have sex with pencil sharpeners.

And that was it?

That was it.

Well, that's quite wonderful. I really hope you find something to do, though, so you can report on it for the next edition of Hasta la Byebye. And now we are out of time folks! Special thanks to Kivae and Danielle for being insistent little wenches! Remember to floss using pasteurized horse hair and don't forget your tin-foil hats! Hasta la byebye, little goats and goatesses!

Just finished playing a dinky $2 tournament where I was eliminated in 6th place for $15.30.

But man, that was probably my best tournament. I can't describe it to you and this entry is going to be resultingly short, but I just want memory to know that this was a pretty kickass tournament. A lot of it probably had to do with the fact that the caliber of player I was up against was much, much higher than usual, so I felt much less like I was slogging through mud and more like I was... flying. Above the mud.

Plus, it was really cool because I was in the top five for about half the tournament, but as it started winding down I took a whole bunch of bad beats and got called on a lot of bluffs. But it was great cause I was able to rebuild enough each time to keep myself healthy--so that I could die five minutes later. I actually replenished my stack enough about five minutes before the end so that I could be in contention once more with eight players left. Unfortunately, a big hand came up with me holding pocket nines, another guy holding AK, and another holding KJ. The flop comes down something like J-8-2. KJ bets 3,200; AK calls; I raise to 9,600 knowing that at least one was bluffing and that the other might be scared. Naturally they both called. Turn comes down 4. Both players check, so I decide to strike and put in 4,800 more to make it look like I was trying to milk them for cash. KJ called and then AK went all-in. I was left with 7,920 chips at this point, so I was all... "zuh..." and then I folded. KJ then called. I was glad to see I was beat, but it was frustrating to see a 9 come down on the river (which I could have seen for free if I had checked on the turn).

It was cool, though. Especially because KJ had earlier said something like "Turkman, there aren't many good players on this site, but I think you're one of them." At the time I was a very dominant chip leader, but it was still nice. And this one dude named "rkrgoat" said he admired me for being the "big scary chip guy with all the chips" after I told him I admired him for his name. Always got to tip your hat to the goats, dawg.

Ooo! And I got a straight flush in that tournament! I didn't win too much from it, but I got a sizeable amount and it was quite nice. I held J-10 of spades in my hand. Flop came down Q of spades, 9 of spades, 10 of diamonds. Turn came up K of spades. And all was well. One card away from a royal flush, but I think I'll take my King high straight flush anytime.

Ooooo! And there's better news! See, all this time during the summer I'd been thinking that I wouldn't get to see Danielle at all--New Hampshire is quite far away, you see. But then I decided to make a push to let me make a side-trip up to New England when we went to Ohio in July. Because I am truly awesome beyond words, the push succeeded and I will be travelling to the crazy place of Patriots and Red Sox sometime in July. Hurray! ^.^

Now if only I had a job...

Ah, wait! I just might! I would like to announce that Turkishly Delightful Lemonade is now looking for venture capitalists and volunteers in Texas and California! Please email turkman at gmail dot com if you would like to help out this project! And that's all that I will say for now!

Cheerio, my darlings! Enjoy your hydrogenated feces and make sure to flush once for the bulk and twice for the remainder! Hasta la byebye!

Hello, all you crazy cats and dogs and goats and shaz.

I don't really have very much to say, but I feel like I should say something in hopes that my brain can finally find something to say while on a thought train.

So here we go. For starters, I picked up $28 in a recent tournament. Not much, sure, but it felt like a pretty nice accomplishment since I was shortstacked pretty much the entire tournament up until there were 30 or so players left.

I feel fatigued, though. It's quite distressing. Like various unnamed others, I'm starting to feel the strain of socializing, even if it's all quite pleasant. Perhaps it has something to do with my little losing streak in poker with Eric, John, Travis, and company. Perhaps it's because I have not allowed myself sufficient recovery time. I do know that nothing quite feels right, but much of that I can attribute (with reasonable certainty) to my awkward sleeping schedule and my awkward showering schedule. Hey, you may laugh, but I'm serious. Showering has become so strange to me now because of the awkward sleeping, and as a result it just doesn't happen as often. Hey, you may vomit, but it's the truth and it needs to be reported. Perhaps if I made an effort to shower even when it simply feels wrong, I might actually feel better during the day and such. Hey, you may be closing the browser window and vowing never to return to this disgusting blog again, and if you do, then I smack you, you squeamish bitch. Welcome to Cantay's summer!

Oh--and here's something that sucks. I pretty much just told the poker dudes in passing (because I don't like to mention it too much) but I got turned down for that damn job-thing at Sylvan. It was the most ridiculously stupid thing. Ever. The series of events went something like this: 5/18, I submit my resume to them, and they promise that they will call; 5/24, I call them because they haven't called, they schedule a telephone interview the next day; 5/25, the telephone interview takes place, I pretty much just read my resume, and I'm told I'll get another call by the center director very soon; 5/31, I call them again because they haven't called back, they promise to call the next morning; 6/1, I wake up in the morning and wait for the call--it never comes; 6/2, the center director calls me and informs me, after I reiterate that I need minimal refreshing to teach this stuff, that they need someone who "can start right away."

Naturally, I'm just a little pissed off. I mean, I did submit my resume two weeks before I was told I wasn't hired. If the reason was that they needed someone quickly, it would have been advisable for them to have told me that if I wanted a shot at the job that I should acclimate myself to the materials. If the reason was that they really wanted someone with a teaching certificate (though they made it clear that college students were encouraged to apply), then they ought to have said that. And no matter what their reason was, the bastards should have contacted me in a more timely manner so I wouldn't be hawkishly guarding the phone so much.

Now I am left to search for a job that I will in all probability hate. Eric says that I ought to do some sort of blue-collar work, and I understand his point, but I must blatantly say fuck no. If the blue-collar involved something that wasn't stocking items or preparing food, then I probably wouldn't mind. But what other jobs are there? I don't even know if those jobs exist!

As you can see, I'm quite frustrated. I think I should just screw the idea of getting a job and do the poker thing for profit. Heh. It would be a nice idea, at least. If only I could establish a definitive positive trend, which I cannot, then maybe the idea would be feasible. But even then, the most important part of my getting a job (which is also the most deplorable part), filling my resume, is not accomplished via poker.

Fucking grr.

Hmm... well, looking up it does indeed appear that my brain found something to write about. That's the most constructive thing it's done today.

Oh, and just so you all know, I'm planning to give Sylvan a call tomorrow. Let them know that I hate their guts. It doesn't accomplish anything, really--except the extremely important task of making me feel better. So do me a favor and discourage other people from using them. Because you love me so much. Bitches.

And that's all I have today. Brush your teeth with tetracycline and clean your derrier with lint. Hasta la byebye.