random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Jump Off A Cliff

As of 930AM EST today, there are roughly 530 hours until I am sitting in the race book at the Excalibur, beer in hand, dissecting the first race or two at Aqueduct.

Ahhhh�

Here�s hoping America�s Wingman didn�t go through with his fantasy he�d been kicking around to me on the Instant Messenger all week by quitting his job. All I can say is that it�s unusual at best to be this late into a morning without a groggy and hung over Al bidding me good morning with an electronic ping.

Here�s my promise to Al. He and I have had a running joke lately about whether or not I have quit my job yet and bought myself some emus. Yes, you heard me. Emus. I told him I want to ditch my job and move up into the mountains and raise emus. If you�ve never eaten emu, you�re really missing out. I mean, not only are they tasty, but you get to tell people, �I�ve eaten emu.� Say that out loud a couple times, and see how fun it sounds rolling off the tongue. Now imagine if it were true.

Oh yeah, the promise. I�m convinced I�m sitting on the winning lottery ticket. Literally currently sitting on it. With a jackpot of $149M in the multi-state �Mega Millions� drawing Friday night, I promise that if I win the whole damn thing, Al gets a 1% stake in the jackpot. Friday�s drawing only.

Seriously, stay tuned. I�m going to win this thing. I mean it this time.

Do you think they�ll let me live blog from the $500/$1000 tables at the Bellagio?

I think if I gave Al $700k (roughly 1% of the after-tax jackpot), the chances of him quitting his job and opening a bar would be about 85%. The chances he and I would be first day casualties at next year�s WSOP main event? About 100%.

Back to the emu thing� I�m really only half kidding when I bring those birds up. I think if you put one of those tests that tell you what you should be when you grow up in front of me today, I would bet that somewhere high on the list you�d see �Shepherd.� It�s the anti-social part of me. Me, my dog, some grasslands, and Mother Nature would be a great mix. I could live in relative seclusion, which frankly isn�t too far off from what I�m doing now.

I�m curious though. If you�re a shepherd, and you want to go to Vegas for a week, do you have a substitute shepherd? Can you call a temp agency and have them find you a qualified herding professional? You can�t just let the emus run free or anything. Do you just call for a cowboy, or is there a special technique to herding emus that a cowboy is just too ill-equipped to handle? There�s got to be an answer to these questions. What do shepherds do when they want to get out of town for a little while?

It�s only 10AM, but I�ve got a multi-faceted lunch dilemma today. I saw the recent Subway commercial for their meatball sub and remembered how much I like that sandwich. There are two problems with just going to pick one up though. First, I don�t like eating at Subway on principle. It�s a chain restaurant with legitimate small business competition. You can�t really say that about most burger joints. I�ll eat at Wendy�s once a week with little guilt, but Subway takes business away from small delis and sandwich shops. The other thing holding me back from getting this sub today is that I don�t want to eat tomato sauce and mozzarella for lunch if I�m just going to get a pizza for dinner tonight. And that�s not the most unlikely scenario I�m facing.

Damn them for making that sandwich look so good in the commercials.

Speaking of looking good in the commercials, I was astounded to catch myself laughing at a trailer for the �Fat Albert� movie this morning. I thought it was a terrible idea, but damned if that trailer didn�t make me chuckle. There really only is a short list of movies (Sideways, The Life Aquatic, Meet the Fockers, Ocean�s Twelve) that I�m looking forward to seeing, and maybe I�ll toss that one on the pile as well.

By the way, I wanted to take the 530 hours between now and Vegas, and give you an idea as to how I�m likely to be spending them:

184 - Hours likely spent sleeping
150 - Hours spent at work
22 - Hours spent in the car
27 - Hours spent watching football on TV
15 - Hours spent in the morning dreading going into work
530 - Hours where Vegas is going to cross my mind

I couldn�t be more geeked for this trip. Can all of us going agree on one thing though? The first thing that�s likely to want to jump out of our mouths is �I love your blog,� or �I love your stuff.� I think if we all decide to get that part out of the way before we go, we can just get on with getting to know one another, right? So, for everyone that�s going, �I love your blog.�

There. I�ve said it.

I don�t know why, but I have always felt weird talking about my blog in public. I don�t think it�s just the (relative) anonymity thing either. Maybe it�s that I talk candidly enough on here that I really don�t want to get pulled into some sort of discussion regarding what my blog is �about,� because in my self-deprecating manner I�d probably just say, �Well, I talk about poker and I like to whine about girls I should have asked out fifteen years ago��

It�ll be interesting (and good � interesting can be good) to be around a group of people who do understand what it is I�m doing here, and aren�t going to judge me (more than they already have � WYSIWYG, trust me) as some Internet dork who pisses and moans about things he can�t do anything about.

No, instead I�m just dead money. Right? Don�t tap the glass? Heh heh heh�

[>>]posted at 6:33 PM by BG - click to email
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