I recently played poker for money for the first time, and I lost a lot of money: $6. (I actually ealier beat the money stealer at his favorite game of Scrabble, which to me is priceless, so I'm not too upset.) This combined with watching hours and hours of some poker tournament on ESPN at the various hotels I've stayed at has given me the idea to have my own poker tournament, and it would be entitled "World Class Poker." What would make this tournament "World Class" you must be thinking. Surely not the players, could he really afford ot bring in Chris Moneymaker or Eddie Lee? Of course not! What would make my tournament "world class" are the stakes. Each player would buy in for the world average weekly wage. The figure of $1 per day has been quoted to me by a fairly reliable source as the daily wage averaged over the entire world, and this would make for a buy in of $5. Look for this tournament to be hosted in an apartment near you sometime soon.
Tonight while I was with my family, including a host of cousins, a question came up to which no one had an answer: What does ESPN stand for? To be fair, my mom and one other male in the room were the only avid ESPN watchers there, but I just wonder who can post the answer the fastest.
Also, I think ESPN would make the cut for non-ridiculous channels that I would not ban if I were made dictator. Some channels just seem like vehicles for commercials, where the shows are less substantial than the advertisements. In any event, I would be happy with only maybe 10 channels: PBS, MTV, VH1, BET, CSPAN, Comedy Channel, maybe one local channel (AMN in Austin), maybe Bravo, maybe Sci-Fi (if they ever start showing stuff I'm a fan of again), and maybe the Weather Channel (though I do believe its function would be negated by simple internet access). So I could see how for some ESPN would be desirable for the same reason the music channels are for me. Also individuals would be free to substitute a channel of equivalent comedic value (e.g., Nick at Nite or TV Land) for The Comedy Channel. The crowning jewel of such a programming revolution would be that Discovery, Animal Planet, TLC, Food, Travel, etc., etc. would be eliminated, indeed, eradicated! Trent Ascendency!
Does anyone know what Bozeman, MT's chief export is? Well I have discovered that (in spite of what your encyclopedia might tell you) their main export is waitresses. Conversely, Wyoming's chief import is Montana waitresses. Yes, as I continue my journey into the "West" I am making amazing discoveries. One waitress from Bozeman even attends Andy Morrison's now Alma Mater UPS. Much to my family's disappointment, she'd never heard of Mr. Morrison, but she quickly regained our interest by proclaiming herself to be an aspiring hippoologist (someone who studies hippopotamedes, for the ignorant).
Also of note, I am reading a novel for the first time in perhaps three years. The book is "Heretics of Dune," fifth of six in the Dune series, and I'm almost done. For an avid Dune fan, the plot is very interesting and also appropriate for this time in my life (mainly in that it deals with one's larger/noble purpose as well as love, sex, and dependency). Hopefully this will lead to much more and varied summer reading, though I have the sixth Dune book ready and waiting to be read before I return from this trip.
For the past week I've been on the road with my family. We stopped in Denver to visit family, and I have to admit I was not impressed with the city. Luckily we got a chance to go down to Colorado Springs which improved my impression of the state. This all brought to mind something I said in the Summer of Flagstaff which became a point of contention among some. I don't really remember what I said, but I think it was something like "Denver is the Dallas of the West," which would be odd because I had never been to Denver. And Dallas isn't a very exciting town, and so the implication was not positive. If anyone recalls the exact events, please remind me and post them as I seem to remember them being pretty hilarious and/or ridiculous.
I would like to come up for a new saying that belittles the Rockies, because now that I have seen them I find them to be a rather pathetic mountain range. Maybe it's because they're so near Denver; I'm not sure.