StonerVision

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend, especially those readers who happened to be in Labor at some point over the past few days. Mine was dull dull dull. I worked, slept, and bitched about tokes with my co-workers. Seriously, it's getting so bad. I think we only made $120 on Saturday night, and $138 on Sunday night. That still works out to around $48,000 a year, but that's not enough. for me. I'm getting pretty fed up, and have decided to look for a new job as soon as I get back from Tennessee in a couple of weeks. Second job, part-time job, unrelated to casino biz job, or a totally-new full-time job? I don't know. All I know is that I need more income and/or a change of scenery or I'm going to eventually snap. I like dealing. I'm just sick of seeing the same old fleas every day, and busting my ass for crappy money.

I still haven't gotten used to the fact that everyone else's weekend is winding down and you're all shuffling off to work, and my weekend is just beginning. So I hope y'all have a good, if shortened, work week. I've got a lot planned for my days off, most of it doing with organizing my life a little better. I'm going to do a lot of cleaning and scrubbing, and start tackling all those little things that I've been jotting down on post-it notes for the past several months. I think I might also find my way back down to poker-dealing school at some point. I'm also going to wash, fold, hang up, or stow every piece of clothing I own, so that I'm not living out of laundry baskets like I have been for the last three lazy weeks.

At some point, after my chores are done of course, I have to catch up on my tv-watching. Since we got the HDTV, there have been tons of programs I want to watch, but just don't have the time to sit through them. And our DVR memory is about 80% full already, so it's time to clean house there, too.

Some things will stay--several weeks ago Rob recorded the 2007 Fiesta Bowl off of ESPN Classic, and it was a mainstay last week while we were preparing for the college football season to kick off. That game (the one between Oklahoma and Boise State, where Boise ran all those trick plays and won in overtime) is one of the most enjoyable games to watch, and maybe even one of the all-time greatest bowl games. It's so good, and almost inspiring to watch, that it's like watching Rocky all over again. And the stunned look on all the old grouchy Oklahoma fans faces at the end is just priceless.

But since yesterday was the unofficial end of summer, the Discovery HD Theatre channel was teasing us with nothing but beach programming all day long. When I got home from work early in the morning, they were showing another episode of my new favorite way to unwind after a shiatty night in the casino-- Sunrise Earth. I don't know if any of you folks have ever watched it, but it's the epitome of stoner tv. It's all nature scenes and sounds in glorious high-definition and digital surround sound. And yesterday's version was just waves crashing on a beach after a storm-- for an hour straight. It's even better than the Shark Reef aquarium channel on the room tv's at Mandalay Bay.

I swear, if I would've had this available to me back in college, I would've hit the bong every day and sat around watching it for hours on end, failing out of school at least three or four years earlier and thereby saving myself thousands of dollars and several years in student loan payments.

Damn you, technology!

Anyhow, after scanning the day's offerings on that channel, I set several programs to record, and went about my business. Currently, I'm also recording a show called 'The Beauty of Snakes', which should be pretty spiffy in HD. And I just finished watching 'Fighter Pilot - Operation Red Flag' which I saw two years ago at the IMAX. And it's just as cool in my living room as it was at the Luxor.

There was also an Anthony Bourdain marathon on the travel channel, and I would've loved to record all of that, but that was just overkill. As much as I love his show, and his commentary, it's all pretty much the same--only the scenery changes. He travels to an exotic locale, meets a lot of 'salt of the earth' type folks, smokes, comments, and then eats a bunch of weird food. But the formula works for me! I'm all about food and exotic locales, and on occasion I'll even eat the weird stuff. But the bottom line is that I didn't record any of it, because the travel channel being the travel channel, they will re-air it again and again until the disc is worn out. So it's not like I really missed anything.

But tv-watching is pretty far down on the list of priorities, so it might be awhile before I get the recorded list pared down to a respectable level.

I've also got a few other stories to tell, er, write up, but that takes a Herculean effort on my part. And after the Dalmation story from last week, I'm afraid that anything I post might fall flat. That story is certainly a tough act to follow, as I re-read it last night and it still cracked me up. So you'll probably get nothing but rants and drivel for a few days. And you'll like it!

Oh, before I go--I have a little hard-luck story to tell. College football started this past weekend, and it provided a helluva good time. I opted out of my college fantasy league that I was in last year--just got sick of all the damn emails. But I still did my traditional weekly five-dollar weekly sucker-bet parlay card.

I had the following teams covering:

Wisconsin
Oregon
Nebraska
Mizzou
Georgia
Auburn

An hour before I left for work on Saturday night, I was Five-and-Oh, just waiting for Auburn to hang two touchdowns, at home, on K-State.

Of course they farked me by barely squeaking by. Bastards. So instead of cashing in a $260 winning ticket and dining on all the best food and wine this weekend, I'll be snacking on peanuts and drinking cheap beer again on Saturday. What made it even worse, is that on Friday night I was agonizing over taking Georgia Tech over Notre Dame, but I got scared by the fact that it was a road game. Clearly, I am an idiot.

Oh well. At least my team didn't lose to Appalachian State.

Mikey