VEGAS SUNDAY

This day pretty much sums up how boring and lame I am. Vegas has a way of making me feel lonely when everywhere around me is bustling with activity and I'm alone in my room avoiding the crowd. It makes me happy that I have a swell family to get back to and I can't wait for our upcoming two weeks at Walt Disney World.

High above the Vegas strip, I decided I needed another post-Stamper day of recovery, so I stayed in my room pretty much all day. I did get down to the Rio casino for a couple of hours to give Esther a chance to make up my room. I played some video poker, caribbean stud, and blackjack to the tune of about $65. I had pre-registered for the 3PM Full Tilt event and the PokerRoom Grand Prix, both of which I busted out in the middle stages.

I caught up on email and boxscores, watched a lot of Fox News and poker and then busted out of the Long Kiss Goodnight. I am not managing many cashes lately. I think I'm due for another break, which I'm about to get. I will be in Orlando the entire back half of the month with the family, so there won't be much time for online poker. I will be recharged when the kids go back to school after Labor Day. I managed to make money the first half of the year even though I wasn't nuts about my game. I'll see what I can do about improving my take in the final quarter.

So, I ordered a pizza to my room since I am such a hermit, then I decided to watch a movie on my laptop. I had never seen FIVE EASY PIECES, but I know it is Jack Nicholson's breakthrough role. It is considered a great film, but really, it is not high on the watchability scale. It is basically a character piece - pretty European in tone. While it was not thrilling to watch, it is definitely the kind of story that stays with you once you've seen it, as it is easy to identify with the Nicholson character.

He comes from an intellectual/musical well-to-do family, but he never felt he belonged there, so he's been slumming it up with the blue collar class in Southern California. He doesn't feel he belongs there either, so he's always looking for an escape plan. His dimwit girlfriend is pregnant which is the ultimate ball and chain. In the end, he simply abandons her with his car and wallet and he hitches a ride to Canada to lose himself without so much as a jacket.

I think everyone can identify with the Nicholson loner character. Circa 1970, he wasn't a member of Nixon's so-called 'silent majority' nor was he a hippie. In our parlance, we call those people Generation X, of which I am a member. I still feel young in my thoughts, but I'm fairly old-fashioned in finding the nipple-pierced crowd of Gen Y kind of wierd. I also find the majority of Baby Boomers kind of wierd too since I have always held a conservative world view.

Tom and I were discussing how Boomers were shaped by the failure of Viet Nam into thinking that there is no higher motive than the avoidance of war. We were both born during Viet Nam and have known only good times, relatively speaking, so we see Iranian-backed Islamic fascism as a valid threat to democracy and western civilization and we can't fully understand why there are Americans who don't wish to engage the enemy.

We are inching headlong into WWIII and I just hope we manage to keep the fighting over in the Middle East as Bush has done. I also hope the Democrats can get behind a candidate who can see the conclusion of this conflict as more than a simple 'timetable of withdrawl.' Give us another Truman or another Kennedy, but I'm begging the Dems, please don't deliver us another LBJ or Carter. Lieberman, sure; Hillary, God no.

OK, there you have it - I am a Republican. Post angry comments below.