Shopping.

I'm sitting here at Panera Bread while Ms. Brick shops. I reminded her again about how her lack of a driver's license causes me pain. I could be at home playing poker right now, except she needed a ride to the mall. That's the way relationships work, I guess. You give a little, you give a little.

"Well, you're sitting there blogging, which means you have a computer, why can't you play poker, then?" you ask? Well, apparently Panera Bread has taken a Nazi-like stance on free internet access. All poker sites are blocked. The 2+2 forums are blocked. Pokersourceonline.com is blocked. Cardplayer.com is blocked. They've got complete blockage on anything poker related. I find it interesting that Panera Bread has ten times the net blockage that my job does.

At work I can pretty much do anything except porn. I also can't actually play poker at work, although I did bang out a blackjack bonus there a couple months ago. I really don't think anyone is monitoring web use, because I would have gotten a verbal warning a long time ago.

My original intention here at Panera Bread was to sign up at Titan Poker through Pokersourceonline (9000 PSO points!) and start working on another bonus to help pay for the wedding. I haven't done anything in that regard for about a month. So far I have delivered $4,500 to the wedding bank account through my bonus whoring efforts, and have $400 in the wedding Neteller account to work with, for a total of $4,900.

I was at a high point of $5,300 last month, lost a chunk, got discouraged, cashed out most of what I had made into US dollars, leaving myself with $400. I'm going to do Titan and next month's monthly blackjack bonuses and be done with wedding whoring. What's left of the monthly blackjack bonuses anyway. Those are disappearring fast. I think the only ones left are Intercasino, William Hill, Cherry and CasinoEuro. Eurobet banned the United States, while Totalbet and UKBetting quit offering bonuses. I don't know what the deal with Littlewoods is. I've heard conflicting reports. I know there are others that are +EV, but they're not worth my time.

So we're out shopping. Right now. I dropped Ms. Brick off at the mall and then went to Old Navy to look at pants. I got a pair of jeans for $25. They are "painter's" jeans. That means they have a goofy pocket on the back for a paint brush or something. I actually called Ms. Brick from the dressing room to ask if this style of jeans was acceptable. She told me I could make my own decisions. I decided the paint brush pocket would be handy for cell phone containment.

Ms. Brick just called. I gotta go.

---

Okay, it's Wednesday morning now. At the time I felt like I had a lot more to add to this, but it took me three days to get back to it and that train of thought is long gone. Sorry. Bye.

The 'rents.

"What's this? A poker video game?"
-Mama Brick, 8/20/06

Yeah, Mom, it's a poker video game. I'm quad-tabling 2-4 against the computer. You know damn well I'm playing for actual US dollars but if you want to convince yourself I'm playing a poker video game go right ahead. I told her I play online poker "for real money" a long time ago.

Parents are goofy. They know what goes on but don't want to think about it or acknowledge it. Like when your daughter goes away to college or your son tells you he's gay. That first Saturday your nubile, 18-year-old daughter is gone you know she's out there getting wasted and blowing five guys, but since it's not right in front of you can convice yourself it's not really happening. When your son tells you he's a homo, your mind is just programmed to never acknowledge that he likes dicks in his butt, but you know what's going up there.

If my son ever tells me he's gay I'm going to say: "So, you like dicks up your butt, huh? Please be careful and use lots of condoms and lube. A lot of the gay guys I met growing up had the hiv. What? Stfu and listen to me, dumbass. It's a common fact that all men are sluts, and that butt sex has a higher rate of hiv transmission than regular sex. So you get a bunch of sluts having butt sex and a lot of scary shit is going to get spread around. So be careful and don't be stupid. Huh? No, I don't consider butt sex "regular" sex. Oral sex isn't "regular" sex either. Please shut up. This has nothing to do with prejudice against gays or any of that liberal hippie bullshit. I like gay guys as much as anyone. Saying gay men are sluts with the hiv isn't prejudice. It's just the facts. Be careful out there."

My son would probably hate me after that, because I imagine he would be about 17 at the time. That's when you're in that retarded stage where you don't know shit about shit, but have somehow convinced yourself that you are this fountain of wisdom and have learned all of life's lessons and your parents are useless amoebas good for nothing but cash distribution.

Wow, this blog post sure took a disturbing turn.

So yeah, my parents visited. My dad was in town for some astronomy club reunion and his mom (who lives 15 miles away from me) turned 100 last Thursday. So they made it a reunion/100th birthday party/visit Brick trifecta vacation.

My Grandma's 100. Holy shit. You know what happens when you get to be 100? You get your own personal podiatrist to come to your house and clip your toenails for you.

"They don't want me clipping my own toenails," she said.

I don't know why you need a full-fledged doctor to clip your toenails, but then again, I'm not a 100-year-old toenail clipping specialist. I wonder how much that costs. Grandma claimed to not know. I have no idea how the conversation turned towards Grandma not knowing how much her personal toenail clipper costs, but all I could think was: "quit wasting our money."

My parents were cool. Their presence was only somewhat annoying. My dad had the pleasant habit of leaving the air conditioner in the spare bedroom running while we weren't in the house. You think electricity grows on trees, Dad?

We went to the museum on Friday and went out for pizza. There was an exhibit about Leonardo Da Vinci. It did nothing to enhance my view of him as a genius. What I took away from the exhibit was:

Leo liked to dick around with lots of different things and had lots of different ideas for wacky machines and drew really pretty, detailed pictures and plans of these ideas. He was also a genius self-promoter. Yay.

The pizza was underwhelming. We got a thin crust supreme and a deep dish sausage. The sausage was really good (due to the deep-dishedness) but the supreme was blah. I don't get why thin crust pizza in this city sucks so much ass and is so expensive. And why do they have to cut it in squares? Cut it in wedges for crissakes. It's not cute, it's just annoying. The pizza at Sam's Club could kick this pizza's ass, and also costs 1/3 as much. I did enjoy the deep dish, though. The crust was excellent. It was like sourdough with a hint of beer. That doesn't sound good but it is.

Saturday we sat around and fought about the rehearsal dinner I was supposed to plan. Ms. Brick was mad because I was supposed to plan it and have done nothing. I'm not good at doing stuff. My mom wanted to get it figured out so she wouldn't have to worry about it and could invite her family.

I wanted to have pizza for the rehearsal, so Mom started calling the places I had listed. None of them would work. Then Ms. Brick started yelling at me. I walked out, got a Coke at the corner convenience store, grabbed the latest Onion from the newsstand, and went and sat on a bench at the train stop and drank my Coke and read my Onion. The Onion is funny. I think Ms. Brick should just chill the fuck out because we have a whole month and just because every place we called is already booked is no reason to worry. I also have to figure out the damn tuxes and figure out the damn cake. I've decided I'm going to hide in the corner under a pile of coats and hope everything works out.

I eventually went home. My parents then went for a walk in order to get away from us. The Bricks fought for awhile and then somehow weren't mad at each other an hour later. We are an interesting duo. We can have a full-blown land/air/sea battle during the ride home from the grocery store but then leave it all in the car and unload the groceries in harmony.

That evening we took the train downtown to see my cousin play violin in her orchestra and then Sunday was my Grandma's birthday party.

I have nothing more to add.

Yapping interns.

I just moved into a new building at work. Actually, it’s not a new buillding. It’s the old building. I used to be in the new building. My back was to a floor-to-ceiling window on the 22nd floor. Now I’m on the 10th floor in the old building and my back is to a wall. I no-longer have unlimited web-surfing capability because my new boss is right across the aisle. It’s really fucked up, too, because my job is exactly the same. My boss’s boss’s boss decided that my resposibilties should be shifted to a different part of the group and I should have a new boss that would now be responsible for my responsibilities.

However, nothing has changed. My new boss goes home before 6PM. I stay and correspond with my old boss (who is still in the other building) via e-mail and telephone doing work-like stuff. Awesome. It’s exactly the same as before except now I don’t get a free sandwich because my boss leaves before he can buy me a sandwich. My old boss would gladly buy me a sandwich but she is now six blocks away. At least this building has free soda. That’s going to save me about $3 a day in soda fees.

Her: "Does he buy you dinner?"
Me: "No, he goes home."

So, even though I need to pay for my own sandwich when I work late, at least there are a lot of sandwich options nearby. There's a Subway and a Potbelly's across the street, a Quizno's a block east, and you've got Uncle Steve's Deli two blocks west. One time a long time ago, back before I even moved into the new building, I walked into Uncle Steve's deli to check it out. There was an old, white, mean-looking guy standing behind the counter. "This must be Uncle Steve," I thought. I ordered a turkey sandwich. Uncle Steve stared blankly at me. I added: "...on wheat," and he proceeded to make my sandwich. I got my sandwich to go and got the hell out of there because I was scared of Uncle Steve. He didn't say a damn thing the whole time I was in there. Actually, I'm afraid of all humans. Uncle Steve was no exception.

So, while I don't like having to pay for my own working-late sandwiches, I do enjoy the free pop. Also, the free pop is on the 20th floor, and I'm on the 10th floor. It's very convenient because there is no way in hell I'm going to pay for soda when I know it is free on the 20th floor, but I don't always feel like going up to the 20th floor to get it. You see, you have to do this little elevator dance to get up there. There's no direct route to the 20th floor. You have to transfer on 14. It's annoying. So, I'm saving money and drinking less soda. Not too much less, just a little less.

Right now there is a crowd of 21-year-old interns yapping nearby. I don’t know why they chose to yap near me, but that’s how it goes. I guess this building just has roaming packs of yapping interns. Listening to them talk makes me want to gouge out my eardrums with fondue forks. The conversation is going something like this:

“OMG I’m flying tomorrow and can’t bring lip gloss on the plane”
“I lost 20 pounds. I'm awesome.”
“OMG once I lost a half pound in a day.”
“Does this hair clip make my ankles look fat?”

Did I sound this annoying when I was 21? Did I ever cause anyone to shove fondue forks in their ears? Is this how I sound to 35-year-olds? Also, did you know that you can lose a half pound in ten seconds by pissing out eight ounces of piss?

That is all.

I'm back.

"come on, Brick. There's been a lot of eventful events in your life lately and I'm sure readers want to know about them. If there any left besides me and brick2b, that is"

I have no idea when Scotty Win wrote this. I haven't been here for a few weeks. I will say that he is not incorrect. Lots of blogworthy things have happened to me during the past 1.5 months.

It's just that the Vegas trip report caused me to retire. I had this grand plan for this huge trip report. I was going to update the picture of me on the right each day, ending with this:



It's just that I hate writing trip reports. They take forever to write and I feel like they always end up being: "Then I did this. Then I did this. Then I did this." So when it came to continuing the Vegas report I just put it off because I didn't want to do it. Then I just quit writing because I hadn't done it for awhile. Kind of like going to the gym. You go for a while, then something comes up where you can't go for a week, and you quit going all together. That's how it is with me, anyway.

So, here are the edited highlights of the rest of the Vegas trip, if anyone cares:

- Scott and I made the retarded decision to meet at the Venetian, which was about 2 miles away. We walked there separately, played at separate tables, and left separately. It was all very pointless. I did make $74, though. The two choices for limit hold 'em were 3-6 and 40-80. I was slightly under rolled for the latter. Also, the Venetian does not smell as bad as everyone says it does. I caught a faint wiff of vanilla air freshener. I was not overpowered by the stench. The Venetian also earned 2nd place in the category of: "Ugliest, Most Disturbing Cocktail Waitress Uniforms."

- Cilarus owned the NL game at the Tropicana for the rest of the trip and didn't fucking play anywhere else. That's right. The Tropicana. Cilarus is gay.

- We played $5 blackjack. Every single dealer was Ethiopian. I lost $50 and somehow managed to leave and not play blackjack for the rest of the trip. Also, we didn't tip the dealers because we are stiffs.

- Alex and I went to Denny's. Alex actually asked the waiter for recommendations. At a Denny's. He decided on the Moons Over My Hammy. The waiter was also way too fucking happy, muscular, and shaved. It looked like he shaved his whole body because he had no arm hair or head hair. Did I mention he was muscular? He was built like a homo. He also danced around and was super nice and quick with the refills. My guess is that he was an underpaid dancer in one of the various stage productions around town. We left him a $10 tip on the $18 tab and were scared that the Mexican bus boy was going to take it. Speaking of Mexicans...

- Baldo showed up. He stupidly told the cab driver to take him to Paris, even though we were at Excalibur. He had to walk. He said he liked the porno cards, though. He said they were like his prizes for walking. He said he also pretended he was in a video game and they were like power-ups. That sounds like an awesome video game. "'Walk the Strip'...coming this summer for Xbox 360 and PS2."

- We played all night at Luxor. That was my only losing session. I sat in the same seat from 2AM to 9AM and lost $100. Luxor had the worst, most redneckish players I encountered the whole trip. Unfortunately I couldn't capitalize because I was fucking tired and playing horribly. I would have walked away several hours earlier about even except Alex and Scott didn't want to leave because there was this dumb high-hand promotion. The best five hands from 5AM to 9AM got a cash prize. The best hand ended up being quad fives and the guy won $500. I also felt like I couldn't leave because of the dumb high-hand promotion.

In regards to the high-hand promotion: Some red-faced guy with a Southern accent (a "redneck", if you will) to my immediate left was asking about it and the dealer and regular players covered the rules with him. The best five hands between 5AM and 9AM get a cash prize. As much as $500 or as little as $100. You have to use both cards in your hand, and the pot has to have $10 in it. They pointed out that on four-of-a-kind, the kicker plays, so if you have Q5 in your hand, and the board comes 5J558, your hand counts for the promotion, because your hand is: 5555Q, however, if the board is 5A558, your hand doesn't count because your hand is A5555 and your Q doesn't play. They also covered some of the unwritten stuff. Like if you have a huge hand and the pot doesn't have enough money in it, say something like: "How much money is in the pot?" to indicate you need a call to make the pot $10.

A little later the board comes 333TJ and the redneck has Q3. That's right, the gay waiter (or is it the San Francisco busboy? All I know is, the moron played Q3. Maybe he just likes queens with treys). The pot had $9 in it. He bet and everyone folded. He flipped his hand over. He thought his hand didn't count for the promotion because he didn't make his quads with a pocket pair. His hand didn't count for the promotion because of the $9 pot. Why was the pot only $9 you ask? The idiot felt like slow playing his monster. You know, it's always a good idea to slow play in a game where no one folds. This was after everything was explicitly covered with him. He would have won $300. So slow-playing cost him $300 plus whatever additional calls he would have surely received from flop or turn bets, had he made them. The worst thing is I had to listen to him bitch for the rest of the night. Those crazy rednecks with their limited learning, paying attention, and poker playing capacity. Gotta love 'em.

- Baldo, Scott, and I squeezed some buffet comps out of the Luxor poker room manager and went to the Pharoah's Pheast buffet. It was underwhelming. I ate lots of sausage.

- At this point I had been up for about 24 hours. Instead of taking a nap we went to play 2-4 at Monte Carlo for the last couple hours before we went home. This game is completely retarded. That is to say the game is "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress." The rake destroys any possibility of making a profit. I actually walked away with more money than I walked in there with. I have no idea how. I was basically a zombie:

-Scott had aces cracked at Monte Carlo a couple of hours before our flight home for the second year in a row. It wouldn't be a trip to Vegas without Scott getting aces cracked at Monte Carlo a couple of hours before our flight home.

- We went home, except for Scott and Baldo. They headed off to the World Cup.

- Scott lost a lot money in Vegas.

- Everyone (Slim, Cilarus, Alex, Scott, me, Baldo) left Vegas ahead except for Scott and Baldo. Baldo didn't lose nearly as much as Scott.

- I finished the trip ahead about $200.

- You know those candies that are like a yellow ball of sugar in the shape of a chicken? Scott likes those.

Wow. That was way longer than I wanted it to be. I actually came back because I had something else to write about. I felt that an explanation for my disappearance was required, though, and that turned into the above.

Like Scott said, lots of stuff has been going on that I have been avoiding writing about. Most importantly is the impending wedding, which I haven't written about because there is so much shit to cover (pre-cana class, reception bullshit, my future in-laws' antics, getting yelled at because I haven't done anything to help, almost breaking up seven times; you know the usual stuff). That said, you might not get much coverage of the wedding because I am lazy.

Well, I did have something else to write about today but we can save that for later. Don't worry, I already have it written, so it will be less than six weeks before you hear from me again.