Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Beds, Scales, Bagels, and Suicide Girls

I like my new bed after securing 8 hours of sleep inside of a nine hour period. That's about 2x as much as I normally get which is outstanding. I've only logged 8 hours three other times this year. Once at the Borgata, once in LA last month, and in NYC the day after I finished writing the Las Vegas book for 14 days straight.

I was exhausted from several days of gambling with Senor in Las Vegas last week, plus the travel to and from Vegas-LA, and all the partying I did at the Playboy Mansion... my body was spent. It felt good to catch up on a normal night of sleep. I envy people who can sleep for 6 hours wthout any complications. Right away the bed is 150x more comfortable than my bed at the Redneck Riviera last summer and I hope that can score me an extra 30 minutes of slumber a night.

Grubby suggested that I buy sheets with a 400 thread count. I have no idea about those sorts of things. Domestic things like that do not register with me. In the past, I purchased sheets based on color. Grubby explained that the high end casinos like the Bellagio or the Borgata have 400 thread counts in their sheets which is why the beds are so comfortable. The Redneck Riviera had 100 count, much like hospitals. I went the cheap route and bout a 220 count. The 400 or 300 count was just too expensive. I refuse to pay $90 for a set of queen size sheets. I washed them last night before I threw them on the new bed. I'm pleased with my bed and linen purchase. Oh and I bought two pillows too. I like one and I'm on the fence about the other one.

For fuck's sake, I've spent almost $1300 in the past week buying one shirt, a belt, a pair of pants, a bed, sheets, pillows, a flight from LA to Vegas, and a really crazy trip to a strip club with Senor, Joe Speaker, Grubby, and Change100. I look at the strip club as an entertainment expense, I'll do my best to write it off on next year's taxes. Uncle Sam recognizes lapdances as a legit expense, right? My counter argument is that it's research for my Las Vegas book.

At least I feel much better about the purchase of my bed. I don't normally spend money on material items. Usually I'm dropping cash on plane tickets and on travel, which is something I have no problem doing. Buying a camera or laptop is a necessity for me for work (plus those were paid by poker winnings). The bed was something I needed during an exhausting 2 month stretch of work, were I expect to log 16-18 hour days, seven days a week for 6 weeks straight. But that hipster shirt I bought for the Mansion has been bugging me. Especially since I stained it with cocktail sauce just an hour into my journey at Hef's.

* * * * *

Grubby has a scale in his bathroom and I weigh myself from time to time. Last summer, I put on nearly twenty pounds after no exercise and living next door to a Wendy's and In & Out Burger. I get a lot of exercise when I'm in NYC because I don't have a car and walk everywhere. By August 2005, I flirted with being 200 pounds, which is not too bad for someone who's six feet tall. Even in December my weight had slipped a bit, but I was still hovered around 190.

As of this morning, I weigh 181 pounds and I'm back to a size 34 waist. I can think of one reason why that is so... The Charlie Diet.

170-175 is my comfortable weight and I'd like to get down to that before the WSOP start since I know I'll balloon 15 more pounds.

* * * * *

I walked across the street to the strip mall that houses a Brooklyn Bagels next to a Subway. A buttered bagel is just $1.07 which is a lot cheaper than what I'm used to in NYC. The quality is not as good, but as far as non-NYC bagels go, they are up there with Noah's Bagels (in Seattle). The 20-something girl behind the counter commented on my Grateful Dead "steal your face" hat. I forgot I had it on. She said she remembered me at the other store (a few minutes away down the road) that I used to eat at when I lived in Las Vegas during October and December of last year.

"You want it toasted?" she asked.

"Nope."

"You must be from New York, right? Real New Yorkers don't get their bagels toasted."

"Really?" I answered.

She told me she was from the Albany area. She looked like one of those Suicide Girls in a dirty, yet sensuous kinda way. She had too many tattoos on her neck and arms for my tastes and her face looked like a pin cushion. She gave me extra butter on my Everything bagel, which I like. I tipped her $1.38 thinking that a huge tip from an internet celebrity like myself might get be a handjob behind the dumpster out back.

No such luck for me. Wheaton would have nailed her for sure.

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