Vegas, Old Balling

Well, let's get a couple of things out in the open...first of all, I like to gamble, a lot. the game of preference is poker, but let's not kid ourselves, I've lost money at all kinds of tables in all sorts of locations, and recently, the table that has been taking my loot has been the craps table. It is for this reason that i will be taking a trip to Las Vegas next weekend. In one of my earlier posts, i spoke of a trip to Vegas, and I would love to speak in great detail about that experience, but they made me sign some sort of contract, indicating that "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." They were pretty indignant about it, but i'm pretty sure the contract i signed was only about the last Vegas experience...well there was no non-disclosure agreement penalty, so fuck it...

so my boy J and i are sitting in the hotel bar in the Planet Hollywood casino, having a couple of beers and enjoying the evening. As we sit there, J is approached by a young woman, who seems to have decided that J has caught her fancy...we sit down together, enjoy our beverages and conversation when it moves on to what brings us to Vegas, to which both of us respond "to have a great time." Not very specific. So she asks us if "we're up to have a good time together?" Preface 1: I'm somewhat of a Vegas veteran, with a pretty good eye for professionals. I see right through this, and tell the young lady "I think i'm gonna pass." Preface 2: my friend J is not a Vegas savvy kind of guy. He's a great guy, but he's never been to Vegas, so it just seems quite natural to him that a woman would make the hard sell...so they leave together, and i go back to my hotel...the 4:37am message on my voicemail is still the best Vegas message I've ever gotten...and i will choose to not paraphrase...

"dude, sorry i left you to hang out with that trick...i was under the impression i was going to get my dick sucked for free!"

I still laugh when listen to it. i erase almost all of my voicemails, as there's no need once the message has been listened to. that being said, i still listen to that message every couple of days, as it not only brings a smile to my face, but it actually makes me laugh the same way i did the first time i listened to it...

...this time when i'm in LV, there will be a conference going on in Vegas in my field of employment. I've been to LV under these circumstances on a couple of occasion, and it has been less entertaining than one might have imagined. but it is Vegas, and even when people end up being flakes, it seems to somehow be not that big of a deal, maybe its the free booze, but i don't think so. I imagine some of the foolios i'd like to chill with will be there, and i will chill with them for some block of time, but it provides me one of the few chances i have all year to play A TON of tournament poker, as LV is one of the few places in the world, where you can play multiple tournaments in a day (Reno has @ 3 a day, O'Shea's has 3 in a day, and there are 25+ more rooms, almost all offering tournaments almost every day), be the foodie I like being but have a hard time dropping $300 on a dinner in my home town, and live the bright lights big city life. I'll get to chill with my man, big Jim, and have a couple of cold frosty ones and remember times past and pleasent, and that's but one of a variety of people i'll get a chance to see, some of which i have not even considered...

...well, it's Masters weekend. The only weekend anyone ever mentions Martha Burk. The weekend everyone assumes Tiger Woods will pick up another one of those really ugly fucking green jackets (clearly, they didn't assume a black man would win one of those things, since they still don't want a nigga at Augusta National). But this isn't about Tiger Woods, or Greg Norman, who choked on more cock than in a Lexington Steele porno in the 1987 Masters, getting run down by a combination of his failures and the incredible run of Larry Mize...who is back...like the the Governator. As a snapshot of the world of 1987, i was a junior in high school, listening to the Beastie Boys, the Simpsons would appear on the Tracy Ullman Show two Sundays later, and Tiger Woods had not turned 12 years old yet. To give you an idea of how well Larry Mize had been playing, he hadn't made the cut in a major this decade- this decade ENDS in like 8 months. It does my heart good to see an old man getting it done, as I am reminded constantly how old I am (if you need a reminder of how old you really are, spend some time with high school kids, as they have the right combination of youth and insensitivity to say some cold blooded shit). I'm not a really big golf fan, and if i was gonna bet on this, I'd put my money against the old man, but that doesn't mean i won't be rooting for Larry Mize to run the table and win the Masters, and slip his old ass arms into that Green Jacket (a random fact- they don't keep the jacket, they just have it for a year and bring it back before the first round).

There's always more later...