Part III...

This is the last attention you're going to get on this matter, so soak it up and enjoy dude.

I pulled up my email this morning and the status bar read "Downloading Message 1 of 114." Okay... Apparently, I've been signed up for a wide variety of mailing lists, ranging from porn (gay, fetish, standard, etc) to my favorite, "The Social Anxiety Mailing List" from the "Social Anxiety Institute." The registrations are still pouring in too.

Congrats my man, you're making me consider changing my email address. Terrific...

After yesterday afternoon's post about the small smattering of emails I got from "Rachel's Assistant" and "Rachel's Assistant's Assistant" and such, I got this one this morning... The header is fundamentally the same as the others, so those of you who figured out it's a Gmail spoof, thanks. This one was waiting for me this morning, spoofed from "admin@gamblingblues.com." Wait, now I'm sending myself emails? Nice...

BG,

Way to go smart guy, you figured out the email was fake! How long did it take you? Twenty minutes? An hour? I'm sure someone smarter than you had to help clue you in on that right?

You should sack up and be a man for once instead of whining like a preschool girl all the time. It would be a lot easier to take you seriously when you try to take another blogger behind the woodshed if you didn't spend so much time griping about bullshit nobody else cares about. No wonder they took you off of Oddjack-I was bored there and I'm bored here too.

Maybe next time you try to speak for all the poker bloggers you'll think twice about it because not everybody agrees with you all the time.

I hope your ass rots and falls off next time so no one else wastes their money on another pity party for poor Boy "Genius."

No signature, naturally. Nothing says "asshole troll" like an unsigned screed, but at least dude kept it short and sweet. And yes, I do whine a little or lot bit around here. So. Fucking. What? If this started as an April Fool's joke, fine. The rest of this is excessive and time consuming for me to untangle. If you're just having fun with me, I'd like an apology. Otherwise, fuck you too.

Found Items

YOU’VE BEEN HIT BY THE

|^^^^^^^^^^^^^|
|Truck full of Mexicans| ‘|”"”;.., ___.
|_…_…______====|= _|__|…, ] |
“(@ )’(@ )”"”"*|(@ )(@ )*****(@)

Sorry they have no insurance )-=

~~

Via the comments of a post at The Fat Guy

Okay. Yes, We Get It...

You're clever. I know. You can spoof an email address. Congratulations Mr/Mrs-Sending-These-From-Your-Gmail-Account. I may not be an Intranet Jeenius or anything, but with some help I figured out this much.

Anyway, if you're getting a kick out of this - fine. But there's chord you're not quite hitting through your last couple protestations. That chord, my friend, is a sense of humor.

Sending an email from "Rachel's Assistant Rita?" Not funny. Now, had the email come from "Bob Harper-Collins, President of Harper Collins Publishing," that's funny. Putting in the text of the email that Rachel can't accept my returned emails right now because she's not set up in the HC system yet? Okay, you had to figure I was going to click "reply" to see if it was, in fact, a valid email. But who gets permission to send outbound email from (obviously not "from") the company's accounts without getting setup with an inbox?

Here's what you try next time to make this joke more effective: pick a semi-known quantity with a semi-complicated name who works in a position to help a struggling writer out. Let's say Mark Napolitano from Poker Pages. Get a gmail address for that name, name drop running into Jason Kirk in Reno (entirely plausible), and that you're inaccessible until Monday but want to talk about an ongoing assignment.

On that hook, perhaps I bite.

While the first email was well-crafted, the follow-up from "Rita" and the follow-follow-ups from the others just weren't fucking funny. "Lame" and "desperate" are two adjectives that pop into mind. Look, if you're smart enough to toss that first email my way, "pushing the right buttons" and all, you should be smart enough to be fucking funny when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Otherwise, let the joke go. It almost worked. I'll give you credit for that. The rest of this?

Now you're just annoying me. Congratulations.

By the way? It's not a long enough list that you're going to be able to stay in the shadows very long CHRISTOPHER HANEL (or Maudie, or Byron, Alan, or AJ among others). You've got to be a hell of a geek to spoof like that, so says Al.

Hmm... Al?

Seriously, if you're going to keep hitting me with emails, please for the love of god bring the funny. We've already passed "tedious."

Ha Ha Very Funny

I don't know who's got the time and skills to think up something like this, taunt me with it, and somehow fake the emailed address from which this came, but bravo dickhead. You can't just send something like this on April Fools' Day Eve and expect to get me all worked up...

Return-Path:
Delivery-Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:42:06 -0500
Received-SPF: pass (mxus1: domain of harpercollins.com designates 64.233.162.195 as permitted sender) client-ip=64.233.162.195; envelope-from=rstein2@harpercollins.com; helo=zproxy.harpercollins.com;
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s=beta; d=harpercollins.com;
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Message-ID: <610857830603310642y71e1bfa6t556a74c9d6cb388a@mail.harpercollins.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:42:05 -0500
From: "Rachel Stein"
To: "bg@gamblingblues.com"
Subject: Avon Trade Publishing
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_Part_5876_30537135.1143816125733"
Envelope-To: bg@gamblingblues.com

[Message Text Below:]

BG,

My name is Rachel Stein and I represent Avon Trade Publishing, which is an arm of Harper Collins. Avon Trade is the home to the brightest new voices in contemporary women's fiction, which means you're probably wondering why we're contacting you. One of our agents is an associate of a former colleague of yours at Gawker Media, and in pursuit of some new talent to contribute to a new project for Avon Trade, it was recommended that we contact you.

The project is a book featuring short stories, either fiction or non-fiction, on the topic of failed relationships told from a male perspective. I had been tasked to read through your archives by our editorial staff, and feel that you have some strong topical content that our editors could help you shape into something that might fit nicely within the scope of our project.

I'd like to schedule some time to talk with you early next week. Please contact my office through the switchboard at [Number Redacted] on Monday. I look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Rachel Stein
Development Assistant
Avon Trade - a Division of Harper Collins

Not funny guys. Not funny.

Lines For April 1

In regards to what might happen next in the supposed dust-up between G-Rob and Otis:

· There's an ounce of truth to any of this - 250/1

· Otis wakes up this morning and says, "Huh?" - EVEN

· G-Rob and Blood spend countless hours on the girly IM chat thing over the next few days deflecting the protestations of the rest of us and insisting there's actually some "bad blood" brewing - 3/5

· G-Rob goes so far as to trash Otis on the air - 25/1

· G-Rob and Blood loop G-Vegas' other bloggerati into the fray to try and lend the story some legitimacy - 5/2

· Odds that these guys think they're being really clever - 1/9

· Maudie gets concerned and/or deeply saddened and begs us all not to take sides - 4/1

· There's an ugly public custody battle over Wil - 7/2

· There's an ugly public custody battle over CJ - 50/1

· Odds these guys refuse to drop the veil on the joke within 30 days, simply to drag it out past the point people stop accusing them of making all this crap up - 7/1

· They realize their attempt at an April Fool's gag has fallen flat and abandon the joke with a marginal apology before Saturday morning hits - 3/1

God Bless YouTube

I finally found the glory that is Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonight" video online. If he wasn't gay, his director, choreographer, set designer and wardrobe guy have a lot of questions to answer...

We Interrupt These Trip Reports...

Dispatch Four is here. We had our first real celebrity sighting, and I get to relay the Al Can't Hang bartender bribery story in the immediate wake. Whee.

I had a really rough day yesterday, for no reason at all in particular.

Generally speaking, I'd probably be diagnosed as borderline-depressed, were I to sit through enough sessions with a shrink. What goes on in my head is an odd balance of the acute self-awareness of reality mixed with the slightly nagging feeling that everything I think I know is clouded by erroneous perception.

Is that clear enough for you?

What I mean is that I'm both a realist and a pessimist, but with enough of a doom-and-gloom predilection towards panic tossed on top that I'm constantly thinking three steps ahead to the bottom of the cliff. Whether or not the plummet is imminent or imaginary, I can still envision the edge and know at my most fundamental level that I'm somehow going to be challenged to keep my balance and not topple to my demise.

To flip that old truism on its head to suit my purposes: it's not the landing that gets you, it's the stress of projecting the fall.

This has always been how I filter the world. This isn't new, this isn't random kvetching, this is just me. 99 days out of 100 it's not a big deal. I live a life that doesn't seem to allow for the manifestation of peaks and valleys, which makes sense if you're doing what you can to keep everything in your own head on the same plane. At a basic level, I don't want to feel. I mean, technically I do. I want a lot of things that are within my grasp that would bring me satisfaction or pleasure, and yes, I do work towards realizing these things.

I'm not as bad as you're thinking, really. I don't torpedo my own possibilities. Usually.

But there is that small nagging pain in my skull that throws "If/Then" into the conversation, always shrouded with imminent failure or embarrassment - and then what? I play through these self-doubts all the time. They're minor, they don't cripple me, and when faced with the reality of a choice, I'm able to make the right one, even if that's not the safe, easy or lazy one.

Problem is, I've never been one to remember my dreams until lately. I can't define what "lately" means, but I can tell you that the volume of dreams I awake from with a vivid remembrance has gone way, way up lately. And there's been a common theme in many of these - I'm on the verge of being assaulted in some way (home invasion, mugging, car jacking, whatever). I try to run but it's like I'm stuck in quicksand. I try to yell but all I can produce is a panicked laryngitis sound. There isn't a goddamn thing I can do to prevent whatever is going to happen from happening.

I know what these mean, ultimately. With everything that has happened to me in the past three months, combined with everything that is on the verge of coming to fruition, I'm fearful that my little scope of control I thought I had on this life of mine is fluttering away - and fast.

I wake up to reality again, every day, and I can assure you I'm excited for and happily in anticipation of the good things that are on my horizon.

I just want these dreams, the ones I sometimes can't shake until the following night's rest, to just fucking go away already.

Gold Club

Dispatch Three Here.

I got fucking screwed last night trying to order a pizza. I could have waited in (a long-ass) line at Dulles to grab a sandwich (or Wendy's or whatever), but no. I chose to hold out and grab food once I got to the hotel in Allentown.

I settle in and call the pizza joint across the street (a busy street, and it's a drive, not a walk) and eschew pickup for delivery. Why not? Company's paying. That's 730PM. 8PM passes, then 820PM and then we hit 830PM before I realize I'm really fucking hungry. I hadn't had a meal since half a burger on Friday night in Vegas, and somehow they lost the fucking order between the phone and the kitchen. The pizza never even made it to the oven, and by now I'd be getting it ten minutes after I need to go to sleep. See, I was working on two hours of sleep and all (Chad snores like a motherfucker when drunk), and had shifted from simply "hungry" to "profoundly emptified." But I wasn't going to make it to 10PM either way. Fuck.

I had the cafeteria's flank steak with chimichurri (or something like that) sauce, couscous and broccoli for lunch. And I'm still fucking starving. FUCKING STARVING. Mean Gene would have given you 2000 words on how good lunch was (pretty darn, if you're checking), but I'm weary and wheezy and just wanted to get part III of the above up for you, as the Al/Negreanu story is already circulating.

I wish I had done a better job with these, but whatever. I'll write something of substance about this later. I just don't have it in me right now.

Thank fucking god I don't have to come back to Pennsyl next week, I need at least three straight nights in my own bed to recover. Bleh.

732PM, Dispatch Two

They have faces? Shit, I was fixated on the bunny outfit and totally missed getting to meet my favorite Playmate, Miss November 1998 Tiffany Taylor (NSFW by a mile). Ava Fabian (according to Speaks) was in the other bunny suit, and if you add Julie McCullough (of Growing Pains fame) to the mix, that completes your set of Playmates we accounted for on Saturday.

Dispatch Two comes from a quick survey of the scene from an elevated patio overlooking the bulk of the party. The LA celebrities weren't quite in the house, but pro poker players have a tough time ignoring an open bar. I do recount my best celebrity sighting of the weekend, though it came at the bell desk at the Excalibur.

Oh, and I have not uploaded any other dispatches, so don't bother trying to get ahead of the pack with changing the digits on the URL. I'm on to you.

Support the Urban Health Institute, who were responsible for getting us into the Mansion in the first place.

Dispatches From The Celebrity Poker Front

Was there a point in bringing our laptops? Nope. No signal, no power outlets, no "media" table... But the appetizers were good. I had:

· Salmon sushi rolls
· Tuna sushi rolls
· Beef with horseradish sauce
· Chicken satay
· Won-tons (a huge hit)
· Chicken sausage (disappeared way too early)
· Coconut shrimp
· Cocoa covered fudge balls
· Lemon cookies

I'm probably leaving something out, but rest assured that I had no more than two pieces of each, no thanks to the roving tray bastards figuring our crew out pretty quick. Celebrities first? Bah. Eff them, I'm hungry.

Until then, be sated by the first of eleven audio posts I've got from the Mansion. They're not spectacular, but fuck it. Here you go.