I Hate Las Vegas

The Top 3 reasons why I hate the Strip:

1. The Temperature Problem
It's 100 degrees everyday here but it's always 65 in the casinos. This means that if you walk outside for more than a minute or two during the day you've got to wear shorts and shortsleeves or pay a heavy price. But inside the casinos it's too cold for anything but long sleeves, especially if you're sitting down (eating a meal or playing poker). There's really no way to get around this problem in the summer other than taking cabs everywhere which isn't economical since it takes twenty minutes to drive three blocks because of

2. The Traffic
The foot traffic on the Strip is ridiculous at times and the car traffic is worse. My celebrated "fear of crowds" is prominently on display on those nights when I walk down the strip, ducking in between the 8-member Korean family photographing the 12-man NBDL team while the pack of drunken WASPs steamrolls by. When I take these walks I try to listen to my discman to isolate myself from the madness and drown out

3. The Music
In a span of 24 hours two days ago I heard "Pour Some Sugar on Me" three separate times. This is part of the ever-present Strip Soundtrack which consists only of "I Love Rock and Roll", that new Backstreet Boys song, "I Love Rock and Roll", Maroon 5 (I heard them a ton during the maiden voyage in December and sadly nothing has changed), the ironic "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "I Love Rock and Roll."

Despite these problems I am starting to feel settled here. When I'm not playing I get pretty bored (early this afternoon I watched back to back episodes of "Yes, Dear" (or was it "Still Standing"? I really don't know) since I'm alone and I still don't have my laptop. But I just bought about 15 CDs (by the way there is not a single CD/record store on the Strip, believe me I checked) and the first Harry Potter book which I will soon be the last person on Earth to have read.

Yesterday I built up a big stack very early in the 5k NL (an event I never should have been playing because of the sharkishness of the event). I then didn't win a pot for 2 hours, made two huge mistakes, and went out less than three hours in. I also crapped out quickly from the Palms two nights ago and the 2k PLHE a few days ago. Right now I'm playing poorly and not seeing much in terms of cards. This is always a fatal combination.

However, the 1.5k NLHE Shootout is on Friday. I have great confidence in this event since I have a lot of experience playing one-table tournaments online and this event is really just a series of one-table tourneys. I think this could be the tournament that turns everything around for me.