Tao of Pauly

Blue Flowers and Purple Grass

It's February already? I lost the first four weeks of this year. The first two were caught up in a writing project where I lost myself for 14 days and re-discovered the joy of writing for myself and stepping away from the rollercoaster of my life. The last two were dedicated to working for the Borgata in one of the best assignments of my short career. As this month begins, I realize that the last two weeks of February will have me in Los Angeles for 14 days and nights. I am heading to La-La land with one thought on my mind, "I'm seeking out the reasoning behind Snakes on a Plane."

I lose all touch with reality the more time I spend inside casinos. It's the pure oxygen that makes me go crazy. I force myself to step outside at least twice a day.

The personal writing slowed down as the grind of covering 10 straight poker tournaments got to me. I'd fall alseep exhausted and not jump out of bed to write. I blame the beds at the Borgata. They have some of the softest and most comfotable that I experienced. Aside from a few instances, I slept more than the average here. I know I had a decent night of sleep when a wake-up call gets me out of bed.

The food situation has been excellent the last three days. I had two buffets and a dinner at the swanky Old Homestead steakhouse, courtesy of the Borgata of course. I had the filet mignon in a bernaise sauce with garlic mashed potatoes. The two trips to the buffet were nice as well and I stuffed myself. I'm sure I put on like 10 pounds in the last two weeks. No exercise and pasta everyday will do that to a body.

I'm trying to do that ten minute exercise where I just ramble on incessantly for ten minutes in order to keep up my blog and not feel like I'm ignoring my first and original blog.

I haven't read many blogs this past month. It feels good. For a while I lost sanity after reading hundreds of awful crap out there. I don't expect people to write like Ken Kesey or Anne Rice, but you have to be interesting and original at least 10% of the time. Reading some poker blogs is very tough. There were a few that I want to give them advice... most of those are the ones that look nice but have zero substance. Their writing sucks and their lives are fairly boring but they try to go for the flash instead of substance. I skim more and more of those every day. I'm a skimmer. If there was better content, I'd slow down and digest every word.

There was a mix up with my room and they had me leaving today. Even with a "Tied Up" sign on my door, I still had the housekeeping staff popping in ever 15 minutes this morning. Yikes. A very large woman with a Russian accent was banging on my door and telling me I had to vacate my room. I cleared everything up and I get to keep my swanky room for one more day.

Frank, the in-house photographer from the Borgata hooked me up with some local Philadelphia hip hop and a ton of other cool music last night. My iPod digs the variety.

Recent Writing Music...
1. Widespread Panic
2. Jedi Mind Tricks
3. The Beatles
4. John Coltrane
5. A Tribe Called Quest