Pieces of Mind

Selflessness

When I walked into the Sportsbook Bar at MGM on Friday night, I saw the usual assortment of faces, but one of them looked more freshly scrubbed and less disheveled than I remembered.

"Look at the new corporate Iggy!" I shouted to The Blogfather.
"I'm actually gonna cut my hair," he said.
"Yeah?"
"And donate it to cancer patients for wigs."
"Do you think it's right to give hair that smells like cigarette smoke to cancer patients?"

They Were Suited

Falstaff saw me sitting in a No Limit cash game with a beer in front of me. His eyes went big and round, his tongue involuntarily licked at the corners of his mouth. It was as if this were a Bugs Bunny cartoon and he saw me morph into a big piece of chocolate cake. Rubbing his hands together, he called for a table change, his memories of the summer's Execution at the Excalibur fresh in his mind.

I felted him in 20 minutes. 'Cause I WILL play 74s out of position. Yes, I will.

Fala Suiaunoa is Still on the Board

Bob: Christian Fauria
Me: Lofa Tutupu
Bob:Troy Polomalu
Me: Malaefou MacKenzie.
Someone: What are you idiots doing?
Bob: Pisa Tinoisamoa
Me: Manu Tuiasosopo
Bob: Fuck.

Water is Wet

After I arrived and checked in, I went to the poker room to see who I could see. Dawn and Karol were there. Imagine my surprise. Still trying to process the 48 oz. of coffee I inhaled on my drive out, I demured to a seat at the NL game they were playing and joined thg, Falstaff and Mrs. Falstaff at the 2/4 table. First hand I played, I limped UTG with A5s and flopped a straight. I was confused when a raising war broke out, but I ain't doin nuthin' but capping the second nuts here. Bets and raises on the turn got it heads up and the other aggressor ran plumb outta money. So he flipped over his aces.

Crack!

I had ordered a Chivas rocks to calm my jittery coffee blood and I apparently made it just in time for 2-for-1 drink day. As I grabbed a smoke with Karol and sipped my Chivas, SoxLover and GCox walked up. I had been loooking forward to meeting Gary's acquaintance and I was not disappointed. Can I get you a Chivas?" I asked. "Sure," he said. "Good, because I already bought it."

Roll On

When I finally headed for bed circa 6 ayem on Sunday, the Las Vegas half-marathon was underway on The Strip with the wheelchair racers bucking a nasty and frigid wind. I did not see drizz.

I'm Sorry....What?

This didn't actually happen in Vegas, but after mentioning it to a couple people upon my arrival, it grew legs, so much so that it was common knowledge by the time I got to the MGM two hours later. News travels fast in this group. As another example, I hadn't been on the IP property for 15 minutes when I'd heard a couple tales of my favorite bloggers going down to ignominious defeat to alchol the evening previous. Propriety being what it is, I was told I "didn't hear it from them."

Anyway, I'm at a local bar on Thursday night, my cell phone off to avoid tilty text messages from those already in Sin City, and I'm talking to a rather fetching young lady when the following conversation takes place.

"Do you like to shop?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, you're dressed nicely."
"I do like to dress well, but I don't necessarily like shopping."
"There's a word for that you know."
"Metrosexual?"
"No. 'Clothes Fag.'"

Holy Craps!

"They've lowered the limits at the craps table to $5" is what The Princess said and, on the scale of phrases that can quickly get me out of my stool at the Geisha Bar, that one's easily in the top 3 along with "Daddy's got his shirt off and is dancing on a Let It Ride table" and "SoxLover is on massive tilt in the poker room." And we grabbed Garth to come with us.

"I've never played craps before," he said.
"It's just like Pai Gow."
"Okay."

Agreeable chap that Garth. With StB, Princess, Garth and Dacia on my right, we had most of our half of the table covered. Sadly, we were a few people short of completely flooding the zone, which left space for the person on my left. Now, I have some experience with Vegas crack whores. But this is the first time one of them ever licked my shirt. "You're gorgeous," she said in an otherworldly voice. I'd have cast it as reverential is if weren't so goddamn creepy. And, just as I had earlier allowed a similar train wreck to run its course without intervention, my friends were of little help other than to simply enjoy the spectacle.

Dice were thrown, too. Poorly. We had a couple teaser shooters, one point and bets pressed before they stopped short of getting us over the hump. By the time the dice got back to me and I put out a round of minimum bets/odds, I had Zero of my $200 left on the rail.

"Don't talk to the shooter. Don't touch the shooter," I informed neophyte Garth. Somebody might have added, "Don't lick the shooter." It was not one of my epic rolls. I hit two points. I hit a fair share of numbers. I hit a hard 8 that I had a redbird on. But I had $225 back in front of me when it was over.

"If I was talking to Joe right now, I would say 'good roll,'" Garth loudly proclaimed a couple times (between shouts of "Pai Gow!" and attempts to make Dacia spit out up her greyhound).

Now that I'd crapped out, it meant my admirer got to throw. She put out $5 and rolled snake eyes. As the croupiers took the line away, she reached out for the dice. But she didn't replace her bet. They'd taken her last chip.

"You need money on the table to roll ma'am," they informed her. Her face went ashen (actually, I suppose it had been that way all along), she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of silver, furiously counting. But the game stops for nobody and the dice were pushed to the next player.

I did not offer to stake her. She doesn't have a blog.