Pattern-ity tests

Good morning, everyone. Before I launch into any story or thoughts, I first have to announce something that I should've announced a week or two ago but didn't want the media frenzy: I am baby Dannielynn's mother. There, I finally got that off my chest. Oh, they already have proof that Anna Nicole was the mom? Nevermind then. In all seriousness though, why do so many people care about that story? I guess when "news" has elements of sex, betrayal, drugs, and rich people, it's bound to be a hit. Yay, America!

And now, today's top stories. Guess what, everyone? I'm a strange person and I do strange things from time to time. If I haven't illustrated that enough in this space yet, maybe this story will help. I look for patterns in the universe. I want to discover some if-then statement in our existence that is accurate 100% of the time. What do I mean by that? I'll tell ya. (Fade out)

(Fade back in) I can trace it all back to me shooting baskets at home as a kid. I'd make a shot, and then I would try to replicate the exact situation and try it again. If my tongue was in a certain spot in my mouth when I made the first one, it would be there again for the next attempt. If I had a particular line of a song in my head when the ball went through the hoop, I'd go right back to that line. I wasn't looking for "lucky" things that equaled more made baskets; I was looking for a pattern. Therefore, if I missed the second shot, I didn't try that method again. 100% or nothing.

Years later, I remember being at a blackjack table in Vegas with some friends. I had picked up one of my $5 chips and noticed I was rubbing it with my thumb as the dealer busted and I won the hand. The next hand, I stayed in the same exact position and rubbed the chip the same exact way. I won again. Next hand yielded the same result. And the next, and the next. This went on for eight straight hands, and I didn't change a single thing about my approach. Then I lost the next hand, and that was that. I know that might seem ridiculous to give up on that method when it was working so well, but I'm not looking for something that works 88.89% of the time.

During the Laker run of championships, I thought I had found one. For big games, the following things would have to happen: I would wear certain boxers, I would watch the game with Dusty, and we would drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Go ahead and laugh, but we were victorious the first ten times we did that. We really believed in that combo's power, so we didn't over-use it. Only for very big games did we bust it out, lest we would appear greedy. Then, against the Pistons, it came up well short. There was no pattern there after all, so there was no need to try that again.

My attempts nowadays are generally unnoticed, but they still happen. If I hear a bird chirp right as I lift my arm, I'll lift it again a second later to test it out. If I bowl a strike with a song in my head, that song's staying in my head until I leave a pin standing. These aren't superstitions but rather attempts to figure something out about the way things are interconnected in the world.

Whenever this comes up, my wife tells me that she doesn't think the world works that way. "But what if I found one?" I ask her. She agrees that it would be groundbreaking and shake the very fabric of everything we know to be true. So if I repeat a sentence because a car backfired the first time I said it, so what? That's not too large an impact on my life, and the potential far outweighs the minor inconvenience. I don't expect to find anything, but could you imagine if I did? Seriously, how cool would that be? I'd share it with you all, of course (once the proper paperwork was filed).

I thought of sharing my quest for patterns with you all because I need to give an overdue shoutout to my sister-in-law, Weezie. She won the Klein Invitational College Basketball Pick 'Em Tournament Bracket Game this year. She doesn't regularly read UOPTA, but she still feels like she deserves a mention in cyberspace. We had 12 people in the "league," and Weezie ended up in the 99th percentile of the 2 million plus brackets on Yahoo's site. The thing is, she knows nothing about college basketball. More impressively, she won the previous year also. The year before that? Dead last.

At the time of her first victory, I thought the "worst to first" storyline was poetic and I openly rooted for her (once my bracket was all red-lined out). After that first win though, she was like the Yankees, and espn.com's Bill Simmons says that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack. But she won again. This time, she even started talking shit to the rest of us, suggesting that we do this for money next time. I'm publishing this prediction on the internets for all to see (or the 8-10 of you who read this at least): Weezie will not win next year. How can I be so sure? We found her secret, and for the first time, I'm trying to prove that a pattern doesn't exist.

This year and last year, Weezie named her team after her son (and official UOPTA nephew) Shawn. That has spelled victory 100% of the time for her. So normally I'd be encouraging her to do it again and see if the magic holds up. This time though, I want to see how the universe will cope with two teams named after the Shawny Man. What about 5 teams? We have to wait until March 08 to see how that will play out, and I can't wait. By the way, if every team named after Shawn ties for first place, I'm pretty sure my head would explode.

I turn to you, gentle readers. Do you ever search for these patterns of which I speak? Found any yet? While the gambling one or basket-shooting one surely would've had its benefits, I'll gladly take any pattern I find. (Actually, I did notice recently that every time I push the center of my steering wheel, I hear a car honk. Do you think that counts?)

One final note before I depart this glorious Thursday: Happy Anniversary to our good friends Lisa and Paul. They have about a year on us in wedded tenure, but we have a taller Average Couple Height, so there. Our ACH is about 5'8 and a half, which is pretty solid.

Just like a bicycle

...I'm two-tired. Word to the wise, people: if you are coming back Sunday from a couple of days in Vegas, don't schedule anything at 8:30am on Monday. It's just a stupid thing to do. Here's how sleepy I am: my alarm went off this morning. That might not sound like much, but it's the first time it's gone off in over a month. I have some weird time issues, and I wake up before my alarm, completely convinced that it's not going to go off and that will cause the world to end. I fight with myself every morning on whether it's too early to get up or not. Another problem that exacerbates that one is that my half-awake math is horrendous. I'll look at the clock and think, "Oh, I still have 45 minutes before my alarm, but maybe I should get up now anyway." Then, right before I start to sit up, I realize that instead of 45 minutes, I actually have 2 hours and 20 minutes. Yes, it's that bad. Sometimes I even make things up, like "Oh, the 3 in front of those numbers is for how many hours I have left." No, it stands for "3 o-clock" actually. It all makes sense until it doesn't, if that makes sense.

Vegas recap: Lots of fun. I came back losing only $15 or $20 from gambling, so I consider that a victory. After all the drinks at the tables (and tips), paying 20 bucks for hours and hours of card-playing entertainment is a steal. Of course, being paid to play cards is even better, but I can't really complain at all.

In my previous post, I talked about how we now like to have one nicer meal during our Vegas trips. This time, it's a toss-up as to whether that "nicer meal" was Panda Express or the corned beef sandwich I ate at the poker table in MGM. Tough call, especially since they cost about the same. All I know is that I ate so unhealthfully over the weekend that my body made me crave vegetables last night. I ate my wife's leftover salad from lunch as my dinner, and it didn't even occur to me to have a quesadilla, which is a Klein staple.

Anyway, there is a lot more I'd like to write about the trip, but I have to do actual work. Sucks, I know.

Join the blog parade

The comments are coming, the comments are coming! Well, from only one person, but that counts, right? I don't know if he's intentionally trying to prove my point or not, but so far Dave is epitomizing his role as "the contrarian of the group." He's the Javert to my Valjean, following my trail and systematically trying to destroy it. The Gerard to my Kimble. The Hedwig to my Tommy Gnosis. Yeah, I'll stick with that one. Dave's just like Hedwig.

In the immortal words of Priscilla in Not Another Teen Movie, "Oh it's already been brought-en." (I would've spelled it differently, but I don't argue with wikiquote.com.)

This is going to be a relatively short post since I'm only going to be a work for a few hours this morning. No tears though, gentle readers, for this is a happy occasion. Las Vegas, which translates to The Vegas, is a glorious place and will be a good home for me over the next two days. I feel like "Vegas, baby, Vegas" may be the most quoted movie line of the 90s. A lot of people would point to "Show me the money" as their frontrunner. Don't get me wrong, that's said an awful lot. But "V,b,V" is said not only by every single person going to Vegas, but probably said anywhere between 3 and 100 times. Like the humidity in Florida, it's the repetition that'll get ya every time. And the rhythm.

I realized after my post yesterday that talked about our grown-up Vegas trips that I still do two childish things there that probably still make people refer to me as a stupid, drunk kid. First, I have this special edition $5 chip from Imperial Palace. It has the former owner named Ralph on it. If the stories are true, this guy was a horrible person who even collected Nazi memorabilia. So while gambling at IP when Ralph still owned the joint, I used to stand that chip up so he was facing the dealer. "Do well," I'd warn them, "Ralph is watching you." This actually worked for the first few times, so a tradition was born and the legend grew. Now, regardless of the casino, I'll have Ralph with me, waiting in my pocket for me to call upon his power. I was once scoffed at by a dealer who insisted Ralph had no say over the cards. That led to the creation of a song:

"If you doubt the power of Ralph/You're gonna find yourself in a world of hurt."

Sure, it seems ridiculous, but when the tide turned and I started winning, those who had been nay-sayers at my table were suddenly asking to touch the chip, and some even started to sing along. I think it's safe to assume that they wanted to avoid the world of hurt at all costs, and can you blame them? Even though I think the Ralph chip is a true factor in the gambling world, I can understand if some would label that as immature or just plain stupid.

My other "stupid, drunk kid" thing also has a legendary track record. Some years back, I was bored at work and kept putting masking tape around the tip of my index finger. After some repositioning and stylistic changes, it looked like some kind of bandage. The divine inspiration hit: If I wear this on my finger yet still hit the table with that finger to take another card in blackjack, people won't know what to make of it. The dealer will inevitably think, "If that finger's injured, why does he keep hitting it on the table?" And that, my friends, would be my advantage over the dealers. How could they possibly draw to 21 when they're busy contemplating the status of my finger? Needless to say, it worked. Yes, again, people scoffed and asked what happened. My standard response became, "Actually, I'm not legally allowed to discuss it." That got in their heads even more! I'd move it around in a circle and say to the dealer, "It's the circle of life, Magdalena. Don't get caught up in the circle of life." Yes, I know, it's silly. But let me assure you that once again, after a few winning hands, the others at the table start doing the same circle motion they had just been mocking mere minutes earlier.

I learned a lesson as a child: "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys." The constant stress on the tip of the "bandage" started to cause it to wear, and the inside got nastier every trip. So the sad day eventually came when I was forced to retire what I'd been calling FingerBanger. And introduce FingerBanger 2K4! This newer model blew the original one out of the water. I had steel enforced sides (more specifically, paperclip-enforced sides) and a folded up Post-It note buried at the tip for increased stability. So far the success of the original FB hasn't been replicated, but it's just a matter of time.

So, my grown up Vegas trip starts in a few hours. I'll be there with my buddies Dusty, Dave, Ralph, and FingerBanger 2K4. I'm pretty sure that's all I'll need.

(So much for the relatively short post...)

Think we'll get there by midnight?

"Baby, we're gonna be up five hundy by midnight!" A quality line from a quality flick. A word to the wise though: if you're ever looking for a picture of the Swingers movie poster, don't just type in "Swingers" on Google's image search. Yikes.

So I'm going to Vegas this weekend with two (possibly three) friends. I'm very much looking forward to it, mainly because I don't see these guys as often as I'd like to and it's a chance for us to spend hours and hours being stupid together. Our trips have evolved over the years (as I'll explain), but they're always comprised of three basic elements: drinking, gambling, and ridiculous conversations. Sounds great to me.

From age 21 to 25 or so, our group of guys would go to Vegas two to four times a year. Those trips would be planned a couple of weeks in advance, and we'd get one room regardless of how many of us were going. Sometimes we'd fly, sometimes we'd drive. We'd eat only the least expensive food (when we remembered to eat). I'd drink a lot of Bud Light. I'd fro out my hair, wear "cool" sunglasses and beads, and turn to complete strangers to ask if they could "dig it."

My first two or three trips were mainly spent at nickel or (if I felt bold) quarter video poker machines, and I vaguely recall my face hitting one of them when my blood alcohol level defeated the part of my brain in charge of muscle control.

I gradually worked my confidence up to playing five dollar blackjack when we could find it and a lot of Let it Ride, which really wasn't my fault. You see, the first time I played it, I won about $750 on two hands within 15 minutes. Then on a cruise ship with my wife, I won over $800 within about 10 minutes. I was obviously hooked, and even though I've only lost at that game for the past three or four years, it still calls to me.

Our recent trips have been about once a year, and sometimes prompted only because one of us is getting married. Bill Simmons of espn.com talks about how great it is to see an email from a friend with the subject "Vegas?" I couldn't agree more. Someone will start that email, and then we'll have a reservation months later. As we now have actual lives, a lot of times aren't good for us and it takes that long to find a date to build around. It's always worth it though. We drive every time, and if there are more than five people, we may even get a second room. We play blackjack at $10 or $15 tables. When really crowded, I've been known to sit at a $25 for a little while. We play poker often, and our inside jokes bug other tablemates enough that we've been threatened. I make some sports wagers, including a couple parlays from time to time, and even sit and watch the games sometimes instead of only being at the tables.

I still get my drink on, but it's rare to get to the point where I feel like I'm floating to the bathroom instead of walking. I'll still have some Bud Lights, but more often it's a Captain Morgan and Coke or a Bailey's and coffee. We try to have one nice meal per trip, preferably some big steaks and big glasses of red wine. We answer work emails on our phones and (gasp) actuall try to get some sleep sometimes. Basically, our trips have grown up a little as we have. People probably refer to us as "those weird drunk guys" instead of "those stupid drunk kids," and I think that's an important distinction.

Regardless of the changes from early 20s to late 20s and beyond (Dusty), I love these trips. I still have some of that 21 year-old in me, and while he's dormant most of the year, it's great to get reacquainted from time to time. I know that once we start having kids and getting even older, Vegas will happen less and less frequently. So when I got that "Vegas?" email months ago from Dusty, I knew it might be the last of its kind for a while. Wish me luck today and tomorrow getting work done, because I have hours of stupid conversation waiting for me.