Shoot-outs.

FINALLY, a poker-related entry. I was going to write a completely different entry up until Sunday where I had several epiphanies.

Ageism is Dead to Me.

I keep reminding myself that old people don't always suck. Skill does not favor the meek, skin, or background. You simply account for how they play; plus, sometimes if they're the talkative type they have amazing stories. Sunday's table, the old people were the only ones going pro. We were Donald Gennaro on that flimsy Jurassic Park toilet, and the grand baby-boomers were the poetic-youthful raptors who eat Aussie-shotgun-totting game hunters. Dinosaurs, 1. Tourists, 0.

Tight People Who Think They're "Good."

Moan, "Just give me cards and I'd play with those donkeys! I think we can play just about any card and we'd be good against them har har!" and I just watch them get blinded out or run over by a loose table. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm a bit TAG myself but there are cats out there who play ONLY with premium hands, and that is not the way to go my friend. Dubious 6 times BB pops, and checking on the river EVERY TIME you don't hit is just predictable poker. And we know where that gets us.

Plus, when those ass-hats win money, they just sit on it for another two hours. They hoard their chips as if that crap was giving out free handjobs. As if I have time.

Hot Women are the Rake. Literally.

You just can't play with attractive women. It's arguably the worst combination ever: money & hotties. How WILL you ever spend that cash?

Try calculating your eight outs on a back-door flush draw with a gut-straight draw while you see a beautiful chest in a low-cut top wrapped in a sheer blouse. Nosebleeds, I tell you.

Poker is a Lonely Path.

In the beginning it was all fun and games. Friends were enthusiastic, and determined to go on a tear. Now I find myself in a precarious situation. It's like the recreational drug user suddenly shooting up before the morning shower by himself, and he says, "Uh oh..." That's me. And when you're in self-doubt, it's even worse. I mean, who do you really talk to about that. Interestingly enough, prayer seems like a good anecdote for my short-term bad luck.

Honestly I'm not playing enough to combat the variance. If I have one bad session, I can't just reload the next day and run it again; Foxwoods is another state away. At most I'm playing break-even poker. I win money, buy in tournaments, SNGs, and piss it out there. Which begs the question, "So why do you keep doing it?"

There was recently a snippet I read online from one of those forgotten-hacker-novels before The Matrix came into existence by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash:

"Until a man is 25, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherf-cker in the world. If I moved to a martial arts monastery in China and studied real hard for 10 years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

Sic writing. It's a pretty good read, too for those loose in reading morals. But to answer the question, I suppose poker's my outlet for vice in my youth. It kindles the hope of overcoming all the failures and short-comings that we all inevitably suffer.

So I scratch away a small bank-roll near an associate of sins in hope of wild success that we've only dreamed of, not planned.

Legendary Difficulty & Oranges.

Sadly, it's been nooooo poker WHAT so ever. Except parties, tennis, and Halo 3.

Just to show how ridiculous the Halo 3 release was on Monday to the oh-so non-video-gamers (bad timing is what it is for you peeps), Microsoft poured a $10 million PR campaign across cookies, Mountain Dew, and if they could, your children's pillow sheets (which Halo’s game developer Bungie Studios has denied).

Sure it's over-hyped. But I am playing the co-op campaign right now and we've barely scratched the surface on Chapter 1. I am already in the freaking Serengeti sniping Brute aliens on Legendary difficulty and I need to save not just Earth (add the fate of humanity, etc.), but the galaxy itself because of the impending epic Death-Star equivalent Halos simultaneously about to explode across the solar systems. This is better than a good girlfriend spooning-session. This perhaps explains why I'm single right now.

Numbers aren't out yet, but Halo 3's 24-hour sales are expected to pillage the "Spider-Man 3" MOVIE, the summer blockbuster that grossed $151 million on its first day. Not a fair comparison on Halo's part (it's only a video game serving a less-broader audience), but makes it only an even more amazing feat. Microsoft stock went an extra 1.5 points just because of Halo 3. There were an estimated 25% of absences in schools on Tuesday as a result of Halo 3. MIT vandalized their beloved John P. Harvard statue to celebrate this pseudo-U.S. holiday. Gwen wasn't kidding about BANANAS.

Speaking of fruit, Natalie Imbruglia's video "Wrong Impression" is on repeat right now. For so many years, I've hummed this song not knowing who sang it because it’s insanely catchy…and makes absolutely no sense. So it wouldn't hurt.

But it's weird, I had a Reunited moment when I saw that it was THIS song. And hot damn. Natalie is smoking in this video in that healthy-skinny-wholesome way. I mean, seriously she looks so sexy just peeling that orange, I kid you not. They have her peel that bastard tangerine throughout the whole song.

Unfortunately kids, Natalie is a true testament of how much hotter (in most cases, disclaimer disclaimer) long hair is. If you see her on the UK air waves with "Glorious," she cropped it. UGH. I suppose it works out in the end; she's married now.

There is no experience unmatched of her staring into you from above, a human waterfall cascade of intimacy brush your face. You bask and roll in it, taking in her post-shower shampoo scent and natural pheromones. And for the kinky, there’s nothing like taking a nice clump of it, viciously yanking, and eliciting screams of orgasmic pain. There's something for everyone. You sick, sick man.

With that said, why would you ever cut your hair short anyways. Less maintenance/change-up?

Wow, what a self-revealing entry. Didn't want to leave you with the wrong impression, didn't want to leave you with my last confession…(yeahhhh) of love.

Yeahhhhh.

All I Got Was a T-shirt.

So much for the two-posts-a-month foreign policy.

If anyone ever goes to Las Vegas, take a night-flight. When I saw it through the plane window, it seemed like the world was on fire...and the rush of all the things I saw & heard about Vegas, the rush of fish money, cheap dreams, beautiful people, and buffets came all at once. You need at LEAST a week to fully turn that place inside out. Well, pictures will help capture the unspoken elements:

The Stratosphere, where we stayed.

The one & only "Bobby's Room" at the Bellagio.

National Dodgeball!

In motion.

The Top of the World.

The remains.