how this guy rolls

Today, while walking from the parking lot into the casino, I was stopped and asked directions by a guy who was in driving in his car while clearly holding an an open 16 oz Budweiser in a crumpled brown paper bag. It didn't look like it was taking the edge off, either.

great acting

The main character in "In Between Days," this very indie Korean-American movie, does the most wonderful performance of being stoned that I've ever seen. She just shuts up and her eyes dart left and right and she looks completely out of her gourd.

thoughts on watching hobbits all day

The "Lord of the Rings" movies have not aged well in the, what, 3 years that they've aged. The whole trilogy was playing on cable the other day, and I was sitting there at work watching them, because that's what was on TV (all around the casino you could find players and dealers significantly distracted from their blackjack games, their eyes wandering off the money to be transfixed by the sight of slavering orcs.... it was really precious). Anyhoo, somewhere in the middle of the 17th hour of the Two Towers, I realized that I had no idea why the heros are fighting evil. It's not even clear why the Urukai/orcs are evil, except that they're, well....dark. It's also unclear what kind of higher ideal Aragorn & Co. are fighting to preserve, except that it has something to do with a White City where all Men of the West are brothers.

The whole story suffers when you don't care for the heroes, and I don't care for them because they come off as virtually indestructible, infinitely regenerating video game avatars, whose main purpose seems to be establishing order by whimsically slaughtering all the dark people with earrings and facial tattoos. Even compared to the Matrix, Star Wars, and the works of Jason Statham, I think LOR ends up the most Aryan and the least compelling.

Don't get me wrong, when you need to see a movie where a dude with bows and arrows fights a giant elephant, you really can't do better. But somehow the rest of it, just enh. I dunno, maybe I'd feel different if I lived on a Shire.

although the poker craze is fading....

....I think, given a little effort, I would be good at poker. I think the whole "tells" thing is totally overrated, and I believe that I could fool everyone. I believe this because in my experience, no one ever knows what the hell I am talking about, much less thinking.

dick's man

Today I played cards with an Armenian guy, maybe 60, wearing a Halliburton baseball cap. Who the hell does that?