Bacon Butty Boycott

After Vegas, I have had what seems like a rather uneventful three months. Other than being shot in the back of the head at paintball and the car crash episode that is. Gareth moved out of our house to move in with his girlfriend, and one of our poker playing mates Craig moved in on 1st January. Craig was the guy who bought me Aftershock against my wishes in a previous post ("Poker Brat", September '06), and as he has an addictive personality I was a bit unsure as to what to expect. Indeed, in the first weekend of moving in he revealed that he lost £500 betting on two aces at odds of 1.5 on Betfair exchange poker. He has since asked Betfair to close his account, as he has broken even and wishes to gamble there no longer. I have a feeling that Craig's crazy antics will be featuring on the blog for many months to come.

This past week, Craig challenged me to go 7 days as a vegetarian. Craig is carnivorously challenged himself, and has not eaten meat at any point in his life. For me, going two meals without eating the flesh of an animal is a rare occurrence. Despite thinking that 21 meals without meat would be near impossible, if you plan your meals in advance it isn't such a chore. My main problem was that after the first couple of days I felt as if I was permanently constipated and yet was passing an average of two stools per day. Further to this, every time I did visit the lavatory, my anal passage seemed to be ripped open by the density of the turd. Thankfully, today is the last day of the challenge and my morning bacon butty will hopefully be as satisfying as my first non-vegetarian stool.

My brother received a pair of decks as his Christmas gift, and has now created a blog onto which he has just uploaded the first, of what will hopefully be many, mixes. Check it out on the link below:-

http://superstar-dj.blogspot.com/

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I woke up at 8AM on the Tuesday after a good nights sleep to prepare me for the mammoth journey ahead of us back over the Atlantic. I had 2 hours to get a bite to eat, scour the strip for some gifts for the 'folks back home', and grab as many packs of Oreo cookies as I could get through US customs. There were also some amazing tasting 'pork rinds' (pork scratchings, english language fans) that could be purchased from the vending machine opposite our room. I preceded to empty the machine with my remaining American change.

Once out on the strip, I crossed the road from our hotel to the souvineer T-Shirt shop, where I wished to purchase a 'Richard Simmons' golf T-shirt that I had seen the previous day. To my horror, the T-shirt shop was shut at 8:30AM. I cursed to myself and then turned to walk to the 7-11 a few shops down. In the opposite direction walked a 30-something year old woman with a mangy little dog that resembled a Jack Russell. Upon walking past the woman, the dog took it upon itself to sink it's teeth into my leg. Despite my obvious shock, I managed to shake the mutt off in what would appear to be a scene from a comedy for anyone who was watching.

"For f*ck's sake, your dog bit me" I yelled; "can you not walk down the f*cking street in safety here? F*cking hell..."

The woman, now petrified, retorted; "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.. you scared him"

I cursed again while turning to continue my journey. While contemplating that this could end up as a case on 'Judge Judy', I was approached by a tramp outside the 7-11.

"Dude, that dog bit you man.....Did it pierce the flesh?"

I rolled up my trouser leg to reveal a bite mark similar to that of a rat. Thank god I had my jeans on or Trampy may have been interviewed on an episode of the Jerry Springer Show entitled:- "Your Dog Tried To Sever My Leg - How Can I Forgive You?"

On to the return journey, and there were three main annoyances with the journey back to the UK:-

• The taxi driver who took us to McCarran International airport managed to drop us off at the wrong terminal, prompting ten minutes of confusion as to why we could only fly to Dubai before a fifteen minute walk in the baking heat to the correct terminal.

• My seat on the plane was directly behind a 30+ stone Texan who was constantly reclining his seat, both crushing my legs and causing the VDU on the back of his seat to buckle and nearly shatter half way through the screening of 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'. Upon complaining to the stewardess, I was politely informed that he was perfectly within his rights to do this. Luckily, fatty eventually took the hint and eased his seat forward.

• Karl managed to beat my record on 'Bejeweled' one hour into the flight. His constant goading was ignored by me, as I pretended I could not hear him over my in-flight headphones. This actually seemed to anger him more than me.

And so the Vegas adventure was over. I hope to return to Sin City in a couple of years, but this year is all about seeking out a new destination. I have never experienced one of these 18-30 type holidays, so I suppose I need to do that before I hit the big 3-0 and it is too late.

For now though, it is back to regular blogging, and in my next post I will update you as to what has been happening in the last couple of months.

Jackson Fives, Baby

I arrived at the Golden Nugget at 10:00 AM with my Oakleys wrapped around my neck and clasping a can of 'Sobe Energy Rush' in my right hand. I was determined to leave Vegas with at least one winning poker session under my belt.

'You should have bought wake up drinks for everybody!'; enthused the cardroom manager as I strode purpousefully into the cardroom. He sat Karl and myself at the same table, I was sat next to a middle aged Asian woman and Karl was to my left, sat next to what appeared to be a member of the Pouges circa 1980. The first hand saw me aggressively betting my Ace high on a low board, only to be called down by the Asian on my right who showed a pair of 3's to scoop the pot. Yet again, you can't bluff a beginner. $10 down already.

The cocktail waitress came to take our order, and Ireland steriotypically ordered an Irish Coffee with Baileys. 10:15 was obviously too early for a Guinness, and this was his wake up drink. Karl ordered a blackcurrant juice, only to be looked at in complete bewilderment by the waitress and informed by Ireland that they don't have blackcurrant juice in the US. The concept that you could make juice out of blackcurrants looked to have fried the waitresses' brain, and she walked back over to the bar to get Karl a mineral water.

I asked Ireland if he was on vacation, and he snapped at me telling me that he was a gypsy and had no house. I decided silence was the best policy from here on in. Ireland luckily busted out before his coffee was served, and his seat was taken by a genial Vegas native who was in his sixties. He told us that he now played poker for a living, and had a $400,000 apartment off the strip. He also let us know that dealers are paid minimum wage, $5 an hour (£2.50!) but earn approximately $100,000 per year through tips! It is always etiquette to throw the dealer a chip if you win a pot. It is also etiquette to tip the waitress a few bucks for fetching your complementary drinks, and our old pal told us these girls can earn in excess of $100,000. 'You boys want to find yourself a cocktail waitress and live here'.

The guy was a good player, but he was subject to some horrific bad beats over the next hour. I was still about ten bucks down at this point, when I was dealt JK and hit top pair jacks on the flop. I had two callers and hit a further jack on the turn! Deja vu from day one, but this time it was me with the King kicker. I was going to play it slow but saw the old guy with chips in his hand ready to play, so I bet out. The river was no danger, and knowing he would bet I played a sly check raise and scooped a big pot to put me $25 up. The old guy had been holding two pair. Of all the people on the table, I didn't want to do it to him, but that's life. He had clearly had enough and walked off, leaving his phone and chips. We hope he didn't top himself. After a satisfying check raise with a straight on Karlos, I walked off in the black.

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing, with a final trip to the Bellagio buffet and a trip to the top of the Stratosphere thrown in for good measure. The Strat viewing tower is the tallest structure in Vegas, and although my non-existent head for hights prevented me from going on the rides like Karl, I took a few photos. The photo above is taken from ground level on the walk north from Circus Circus to the Strat, a walk littered with Hobos who obviously took one too many bad beats. My last poker playing experience of the tour ended in a disaster when beaten by a sharp talking 40 year old african-american who got two pair by playing his favourite hand, J5. 'Jackson fives, baby, Jackson fives', he proclaimed while scooping my loot. A handicap win on the Monday night football gave me enough to stock up on souvenirs (and afford breakfast) the following day, and for once we got an early night ahead of the long-haul flight back home.