Blogosaurus Vex

July 12th, 2009

Okay, I am feeling better now.  Firefox is still on strike but I am trying to keep in mind that the loss of tabs is a painfully first world problem and I should try to get a grip until, say, my access to fresh water or food or shelter or life is threatened.  We all know internet explorer sucks but it is hardly worth having a melt down over.  Though that probably tells you something about how I lose control of my faculties when I am tired from travelling!   

So Husband and I just got back from The Amaz!ng Meeting, a science education and critical thinking conference put on by the James Randi Educational Foundation.  It’s basically a meetup for skeptics, where we meet and hear our heroes speak, then retire to the bar for drinks and nerdy mayhem (if even one of the attendess secured the services of a lady of the night, I would be shocked. At one point we assembled all the iPhones and iTouches on the table and ended up with more of these than individuals.  Nerds: we’re them.). 

First, the highlights: Randi spoke and was on a couple of panels, and I always love hearing him.  I hope I am as clear and sharp as he is when I’m in my eighties.  I also hope he gets well from what I assume is cancer, as he discussed a recent surgery to remove something and ongoing treatment precluding him from shaking hands.  We speculate he’s getting chemotherapy and therefore has a suppressed immune system, and can’t risk catching something from profligate handshaking.

Being in a big group of as least superficially like minded folks was awesome, though I have been stewing on some surprisingly self-referential problems in the skeptical movement that I hope to propose here and elicit your feedback.  In any case I found the people overwhelmingly friendly and open to striking up a conversation.  Which is a huge relief to me!  Big groups always send me mentally back to high school and I start to sweat imagining my impending exclusion from the conversation… but it didn’t happen and I am happy about that.  We spent a lot of time with two friends, John and Jesse of InFlatusVeritas, and though we don’t know each other super well yet we did have some good laughs and good talks.  So, in short, the company was grand.  Drunk voice: I love you man!

Also, I ate like a fucking hog and drank all day long.  I am not going to weigh myself for the first two weeks of my begins-tomorrow diet because I basically did not stop putting calories in my mouth from the time I woke up until bedtime.  And pina coladas have coconut milk in them, so…!  Holy flapjacks I drank a lot this trip.  It was morning to night, seriously.  I only suffered one hangover, which I caught in time with an application of gravol and so was spared vomiting, but I must confess that there was indeed vomiting to be had on this trip…

One night Husband won the TAM group poker tournament.  He was thrilled beyond words with the glory, of course, but also the purse, which paid for most of our non-hotel expenses all week!  I am so proud of him!  But here the story grows grim: on the night of the win, Husband had gone about 12 hours without food and the only open restaurant in the hotel was the seafood joint, which had nothing on the menu without seafood in it.  I admit I talked him into eating a seafood pasta on the grounds of exhaustion and hunger, and how one slip in two years of perfect vegan adherance was minor and in this case justified.  He was drunk and malleable and trusted me, his loving wife, to not lead hims astray.  (Which clearly I did.)  So we ordered the dish, ate it, and promptly became seriously ill. 

Husband described eating the fish as “eating salty rubber bands” and I concur.  You know how they say once you’ve left home you can never go back?  Yeah.  It’s true with fish too. I always like a good puke (cleans you out, cuts short the queasy period), so I marched grimly back to our hotel room to enact the deed.  Husband, because he loves me, cheered me on through the bathroom door, causing me to laugh and snort fish vomit up my nose (hint: don’t vomit and laugh simultaneously).  Then all I had to do to keep the puke train rolling was tip my head back, which significantly increased the smell of the fish, and set off a whole new round of purging. 

And you know, Husband is not given to praise lightly, nor to being a cheering section.  But when he does it, you know he bloody well means it.  And he was really encouraging and proud of me for getting that horrible fish flesh out of my body!  Ho ho!  Which of course I did, meaning I had a good night’s sleep while he (who never vomits – it’s one of Husband’s Rules), felt cruddy all night.  I wouldn’t presume to judge which of us came up with the better strategy, but I certainly came up with more… if you know what I mean!  Ho ho ho!

Also, I gambled!  I put two dollars into a slot machine called Kitty Glitter, and ended up with 5!  SUCK MY DICK, VEGAS!  I WON YOUR MONEY!  HA!  Also, not to brag, but Husband won just under 800 bucks playing poker in a few cash games.  Oh heck.  I’m bragging.  He’s amazing!  He also got us lots of free drinks because I gather that’s what they do for players.  I felt so cool.

And, we did take some time to check out the World Series of Poker games at the Rio.  We watched the feature table and you may hear our clapping if they televise the portion when ElkY lost his AA to Scott’s KK when a K came down on the turn.  We saw Joe Hachem, but no other poker professionals that we could recognize.  I was on the lookout for Hellmuth, who is my favourite player and (I think) greatly misunderstood.  I totally would have asked for a picture!  But since he never showed up I consoled myself by buying my only souvenir from the trip, a WSOP zip up hoodie in black.  I was tempted by the tank tops for women with the word “STACKED” across the breasts but I decided that was a bit vulgar.  If you are, you don’t need to tell anyone.  And if you’re not, it’s just sad.  Am I right?

The only tricky part for me was appearing in a bikini, which I was distressed to discover upon arrival was (feel embarassed with me, won’t you?) not a good fit any more.  Because I am fatter.  So you would think it would be easy to find a bathing suit in Las Vegas but we only found one store that sold them, and they were all super fancy types that only made me look worse, and the shopping trip ended with me crying on a bench in the middle of a Las Vegas mall.  Turns out I am only okay with how I look when I am in my street clothes disguise.  Sigh!  So I had to just tolerate constantly activated embarassment about my lardy body when at the pool, but at least it didn’t stop me from swimming and lazing on the pool deck.  Where I got a wicked sunburn in my part (part of the hair on my head), because I didn’t think to put sunblock up there.

Anyway, the pool could only be enjoyed for snippets of time because it was over forty degrees celsius!  It’s brain-frying hot there.  It actually melted the glue out of my book binding and all the pages fell out!  That’s fucking hot!  Then a wind would spring up and it would actually feel worse, as though being blown on by an industrial sized hairdryer.  Damn, it was hot.  Outside.  Inside, the AC was jacked up so high I spent the entire trip negotiating with Husband for the use of his sweater.  I wore pants and a sweater all day, every day, and could have used socks and closed shoes too.  Someone asked us, Don’t Canadians like it cold?  No, we do not.  It is cold in Canada and as a result we installed central heating in all of our buildings.  We like it cozy and toasty inside!  Not cold.  Cold belongs outside.   Right?  Right. 

Anyway, more tomorrow.  I hope you’ve been having a great week.  I have!

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