More interesting things
I do not know how Pauly or Otis do it. They live this schedule for six weeks, and I am falling apart after four days. Half of my face comes off every time I wash it (it sort of resembles a piece of limestone right now) and I might lose a toe. I'm ready for my Stacy Adams shoes to be broken in; right now, all they're breaking are my feet. Even my daily workouts aren't helping my body recover from the poisoning it gets on a nightly basis. Here are a few more observations from the past few days that I found interesting. Also some pictures from the crappy camera I bought from Wal-Mart that I was warned sucked and does. Plus some camera phone pictures and video.
Here is a camera phone pic from the VooDoo Lounge where I was Thursday night, looking south:
And north:
Here is a video of Phil Hellmuth dancing at VooDoo Lounge. I don't know how I forgot about this, but I found the video in my phone and a note about it in my Moleskine.
The hallways are a fire hazard as there are thousands of spectators and players and they all want to be in the Amazon Room at the same time. Here is a video of the typical hallway outside:
Here is James Garner opening Day 1A of the Main Event with the "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" of the poker world, "Shuffle Up & Deal!"
He would probably appreciate if I stopped calling him Phil. Also, he's old. Very old. If you, like me, invest in deadpools, add Phil James to your list.
There is an enormous expo area with booths set up for major poker sites and other poker-related enterprises. One booth is a sports memorabilia store, and they brought in Pete Rose to sign (overpriced) autographs.
Except they brought him in when the Media/Celebrity tournament was scheduled.
So there I am, looking at Pete Rose, sitting forlornly by himself, wondering why nobody was around to talk to him. They were all inside the Amazon Room staring at Cindy Margolis' boobs or Shannon Elizabeth's makeup.
I've been hanging out with some Xavier grads, one of whom is playing tomorrow. He's a PokerStars qualifier and so we were lucky to get some early access to their suite and swag. I'm going to have to mail all this stuff home, unless some of you want it, I mean, I have all sorts of T-shirts, hats, gewgaws.
An Asian girl at VooDoo Lounge refused to believe that I am not myself Asian.
Johnny Chan cut in front of one of my Xavier friends at the Rio's fast food Chinese place. He got sweet and sour chicken, then ate it by himself in the Rio sports book. I meanwhile watched him eat and hit a 64:1 exacta.
Anna Benson hit on me. Well, if you call her walking up to me and saying "I just have to tell you, that's an awesome tie" hitting on me. I don't know why she's here, but she has a booth for her web site in the expo center.
Bodog has a booth where you can go into a "bedroom" and get into a pillow fight with promo models in lingerie. The line is very long and consists mostly of fat and pasty PokerStars qualifiers.
Johnny Chan later handed me a deck of cards, to which I responded, "Thanks, Champ." The world no longer comes to a stop when Johnny Chan is in the room. Then again, maybe it never did, and that's just a line in a movie. Nevertheless, Johnny Chan was the ugliest promo model in the expo center.
I met Louie Anderson as he was getting ready to take on Chris Moneymaker in sumo wrestling. Err, I mean, poker. Hachem and Raymer were there, too, for a PokerStars heads-up challenge on the computer. There is nothing more enticingly boring than watching the last two champions of the World Series of Poker Main Event play each other in computer poker.
Really, that's Joe Hachem and The Fossilman.
Louie Anderson is fantastically fat, moreso than nearly any person I have ever met. I don't know if they gave him a special chair or something for his seat in today's Main Event, because I haven't gone over there yet. He's not been busted yet, so I'll have my chance in an hour or so. He did get a ten minute penalty for dropping the f-bomb. There are only two things banned in the cardroom: smoking, the f-bomb, and dotcoms. Wait, that's three.
Chris Moneymaker is very quiet and not very attractive. He is fairly friendly, though, not as much as Raymer, but friendly.
She sat down next to me at the bar at the Scottish Pub, Tilted Kilt. "Where are you from?" I asked. She responded, "Uh, I'm from here." "That's not very interesting," I replied, and got up and left.
I found a VIP card for Club Rio on the ground the other day, so I stood in line for an hour (apparently not a big enough VIP to go to the front) and got in for free. I left after about 20 minutes because it was about the stupidest, worst club I'd ever been in. Maybe it gets better later, but at 1am on a Saturday night it sucked butt. There were, by a bouncer's estimate, five times the number of men in the room as women. The few girls that were there were fat and ugly. They looked nothing like the barely-dressed woman in the poster advertising Club Rio outside. If I'd paid $20 to get in I'd have to kick my own ass. I guess that's why VIP cards can be found abandoned on the ground. I left for the small lounge next to Club Rio. I saw the bartender flairing and flashed my L.A. Hangout VIP card.
"You know Alcohol Paul?" he asked.
"I'm his best customer," I lied. It's amazing how many people here that dude knows, and how many doors my L.A. Hangout VIP card opens. Greg knows Paul from his Kahunaville days.
I don't have much to say after that except I woke up this morning in my clothes on top of the bed and half a glass of Captain Morgan on the nightstand.
