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.