Beginning of the End

I've posted some of the pictures from L.A. We found Houdini's star, but it was blank when we went back an hour later to take a picture. We drove from Hollywood to Albuquerque yesterday. The drive was largely uneventful. We did see a trucker wearing a bright green shirt and matching shoes. He was like the Sergio Garcia of trucking. Driving through Arizona last night, we saw a strange light in the sky. It moved across the windshield at a very high speed and disappeared. It might have been a shooting star, but it looked freaky.

New Mexico at night looks a lot like North Carolina when it's dark. Driving into Albuquerque was cool, because it lies in a slight valley. I've never dropped into a city that large at night (other than from a plane). The lights seemed to go on forever.

Today we continue east.

Later,
Matt









Somebody who doesn't deserve a star

It's Jimmy Kimmel Live!

First, a follow up to the $10,000 pot limit holdem event at the World Series. Andy Bloch came in second, and that earned him a cold $488,048. The final table was impressive, but it had to be in that field.

Today we went to Pink's famous hot dog stand for lunch. We were both really excited, because it's been featured on tv shows and is considered one of the premiere hot dog stands in the country. The Oxygen network is doing some promotion for "Tori and Dean," so the owner of Pink's gave 100 guests free hot dogs. That was a relief considering we waited in line for a half hour, but it would be a short-lived relief. We both agreed that it was the worst hot dog we've ever eaten. If you're ever in Hollywood, you can go ahead and mark that one off the list. At least it was free.

Jimmy Kimmel was a better experience. It was a little disjointed, because they were filming for four different shows. He is going to be doing a half hour show before each game of the NBA Finals. The first one will be airing at 8pm in the east on Thursday. Magic Johnson was on, and he will air on the 8th. Liv Tyler was the other guest, and her segment will be before game four on the 12th. Jimmy also had the spelling bee champion and challenged him to a duel. That will go to air on the 5th. Coldplay was the musical guest, and that will air on Wednesday night at the regular time of 12:06 am. We had to go outside for the Coldplay mini-concert. I only recently found out that I'm the only person who thinks Coldplay is the worst band on the planet. Just to be clear, I always knew I didn't like them. It's the part about everybody else liking them that was the realization. Other than that, the show was great (and we hit the exits so it's all good).

I have a few pictures of stars and various other pictures from Hollywood. I haven't loaded them yet, but I'll probably put them up tomorrow night.

A few notes now on things not trip-related. The French Open is shaping up nicely. I'm picking Almagro to take out Nadal. Then, I'm going with a Federer-Djokovic final. On the women's side, I liked Safina before the tournament started. It would be a huge step forward for her, but she's playing well enough to really make on impression on the 'ova's and 'vic's. I think in the end that Ivanovic will be too much, and she's my pick to take the title. If it does come down to Fed and The Prick, I'll have to wait to see how much the previous matches have taken out of them.

In a final note, I found out that Butch Taylor has left Dave Matthews Band. He was the keyboardist, and though never an official member, he was largely considered the sixth member of the band. He filled the void left by Peter Griesar who left the band just before they soared to popularity. While I do not care much for the keys, it will be strange to see stage right with no Butch for the first time in 10 years. The good news is that Timmy Reynolds is touring with them all summer. "All good things must come to an end sometime."

Later,
Matt

Vegas, Part II

Our stay in Vegas ended up lasting a solid week. Overall things went pretty well. I've talked about the poker a fair amount, so I will spare you the details of our play for the second half of the week. We had a setback on Saturday, but we still finished up $1050 combined in all the casinos we walked into between Indiana and Vegas. That's pretty solid stuff considering our bankroll and the stakes we're playing. Yesterday, however, was like being hit in the head with a shovel repeatedly. We played at the Rio in between watching the $10,000 pot limit holdem event. The people we played with were terrible, but it was one of those days where nothing went right.

Anyway...The World Series is an incredible experience. I've never seen that many people playing poker at one time. Sunday was the second day of the pot limit tournament, and it was also day one of the first $1500 no limit event. There were about 2,000 players. Over the two days we saw: Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Mike Sexton, Andy Bloch, Chad Brown, Humberto Brenes, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Vanessa Russo, Jennifer Tilly, Phil Laak, Andy Black, Michael Mizrachi, Eli Elezra, David Benyamine, Jennifer Harmon, and many others. Jacob was dealt to at one table by a dealer who worked at the first World Series almost 40 years ago. I was playing at another table at the time, and somebody at Jacob's table had too much to drink and got upset. I ran over to help Jacob get his chips off the table. He had too many to carry in his hands and there were no racks around. We didn't want any part of a fight, but it seemed to resolve itself without a further altercation. My favorite moment at the Rio was when Jake made $230 playing pot limit omaha. He had almost a full rack of red chips ($5 chips) and he came out and found me on a bench in the hallway. Some random spectator walked by while we were sitting there and stared for about 30 seconds at Jake's chips. He obviously didn't know they were $5s. I guess he thought Jake had just made about $100,000.

As for the spectating, the best part was watching Andy Bloch, Mike Sexton, and Dewey Tomko at the same table. You would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive final table and it was the first day of the event. For those of you who don't know, Andy Bloch was part of the MIT blackjack school. He probably can't even make it to a blackjack table in Vegas without being asked to leave. Incidentally, he also received an engineering degree from MIT and a law degree from Harvard. He's one of those rare people who know they're the smartest person in the room and pull it off without being smug. Jake was surprised how aggressively he played at the table with Sexton and Tomko. Bloch was low on chips after the first break, but he made a nice rally and was relatively deep by the second break.

Okay, no more poker talk. We also saw KA while we were in Vegas. It is a cirque de soleil show that we have always wanted to see. The show was entertaining, but I probably wouldn't do it again. If you're in Vegas and want to see a show, I would recommend it over about anything else. Most of the shows are second-rate, because the casinos know most people just want to see a show. Vegas is an enigma in that way. It has a reputation for being awesome, so they can put out junk and people will pay a fortune. In summary, don't go see Vegas shows. If you do, go to KA or another high quality cirque de soleil production.

We drove from Vegas to L.A. on Sunday morning (and into the afternoon). We headed to Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Jimmy Kimmel building. The walk of fame lines the streets on both sides of the boulevard, and I've never even heard of most of the people who have stars. In fact, I kept expecting to see my own name in the sidewalk, because I'm pretty sure my career is just as impressive as most of the people who have stars. It is somehow ironic to see the stars whose owners are worth millions surrounded by countless homeless and/or street performers without a penny to their name (or no more than the dollar just thrown into the guitar case). All the "super heroes" line up along the road, and I guess they are trying to get people to pay them to take pictures. I just found it really annoying when Captain Jack Sparrow wouldn't get out of my way. One positive is that the trip from Vegas to California seems to have reintroduced the laid back southern feel I' m used to. People tend to hold the door for you here, which is something that was lacking in the second half of the trip. Still no sweet tea, but the search goes on. Tomorrow we see Jimmy Kimmel, and Tuesday we find the road that leads home (that would be I-40).

Later,
Matt