veeRob’s Blog

Today I am in the process of performing “The Rollover,” as I have dubbed it.  I was out last night and was telling my new friend Buxx about how today I was planning The Rollover, and he asked me what it was.  I shall share with you my secrets, but first a little background.

I am an insomiac.  What is insomnia?  According to dictionary.com, it’s “[the] chronic inability to fall asleep or remain asleep for an adequate length of time.”  Oh boy do I have this problem.  Even if I’m tired, I have a hard time falling asleep once I get into bed.  I could be there for hours, turning on and off the TV for short periods of time, reading something, or just lying there thinking.  If I’m on a “normal” schedule where I wake up between 6am-12pm, it usually only lasts a few days before I’m going to bed at around 6am and waking up at 4pm.

Playing poker for a living, I don’t really care what times I am awake and what times I am asleep.  There’s always a game somewhere.  But sometimes real life events occur where I have to be up… a special tournament, a wedding, or just visiting with friends family for more than just a dinner engagement.  The latter is my current goal, as I’d like to go back to San Diego for the holidays.  But as of today/yesterday, I woke up at 9pm.

Now to get back on a normal schedule.  I can use the old school method of forcing myself to wake up at some ungodly early hour, feel tired throughout that whole day, and then be done.  Or I can use The Rollover.  In The Rollover, you lose a day, but you don’t feel tired or have to push yourself in any direction your body doesn’t want to go.  As I said, I woke up at 9pm.  It is now 10am, and I will be up until my assigned bedtime of around 5pm.  I go to sleep, and being up for 20 hours, I’ll sleep blissfully until I wake up around 6am tomorrow.

Tada, I’m on a “normal” schedule.  And all without having to wake myself up early.  Sure, you have to have no real obligations in the real world to make it work, but I luckily fulfull that prerequisite.  I just wanted to pass on my knowledge so future generations could use it to help themselves and others.  Enjoy The Rollover!

This past month has been completely crazy.  Rather than doing my normal thing of playing poker for virtually every waking minute, I have hardly played poker at all this past month.  For those of you that don’t know, I work for a company that runs the graphics for a few poker TV shows.  We don’t do the WSOP on ESPN, and we don’t do the WPT on the Travel Chanel, but we do a lot of the other shows… Poker Royale on the Game Show Network, Poker Superstars on Fox Sports, and a few other shows that aren’t part of a series.

So our company was hired to do a Full Tilt Invitational that would be live on Thanksgiving from Monte Carlo.  We’ve done a couple live shows before (which no other company is doing), but we had some new technology this time around.  Normally when the players get their hole cards, we have to wait until they look at the cards, and then we have people type in their cards into a computer.  If they can’t see the cards, or if the players haven’t looked at them yet, we don’t know what they have.  Well I spent a week in Toronto doing some programming, and we successfully used what’s called RFID Technology.  Basically, there’s a chip embedded in every card, and they get scanned by antennas underneath the table.  So as soon as a player is dealt a card, we know what it is before they even see it.  Pretty cool stuff.

So yeah… a week in Toronto doing development, and then a week in Monte Carlo setting up and doing testing, all culminating in the live show.  The flight home was a disaster, however, as Air France made us miss a connection and rerouted us through Washington D.C.  We missed another connection there and were stranded overnight, and then when I got home, they lost our bags.  I’ve now been home for a week and still don’t have my bags.

I got back to Vegas and came home to a bunch of other little problems (my car was in the shop but never got fixed, some bills went unpaid, etc.) and decided to get out of town for a pseudo vacation.  I drove to LA and hung out in Manhattan Beach all week — I haven’t been near the ocean for awhile and it was very therapeudic.  Since my luggage was lost, I spent a few days out shopping and got some new clothes.  I’m hoping Air France will reimburse me for that.

Last Friday I went down to San Diego for the night, and hung out with all of my friends for the first time in six months.  It was really great to see everyone again, and it made me miss living in San Diego somewhat.  I was at McKee’s until closing time, and then I spent the wee hours in the morning at my friend Jaime’s house, just talking about his band and a bunch of other stuff my other friend Jim.  Late nights at Jaime’s house are somewhat legendary… thanks, Jaime.

Saturday I got back to Vegas to celebrate my roommate Aaron’s birthday, and we hit up our favorite restaurant, Firefly.  My uncle was in town on business from Montreal, so he joined us along with a few local friends and Aaron’s girlfriend Lara.  Great food, and delicious sangria.

So last night was the night that was just ridiculous.  My friend Chet is in town for a week… he works for Camel Cigarettes and is working a bunch of promotions in town.  Anyway, Camel was sponsoring the Camp Freddy show at the Palms, so he got me a ticket.  If you don’t know about Camp Freddy (which I didn’t), it’s a supergroup that plays cover songs with a rotating guest line-up.  Here’s just a few of the people I saw perform: Dave Navarro, the drummer from Guns N Roses, the guitar player from the Cult, Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray, Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains, Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots, the guitar player from the Sex Pistols, some people from Rock Star INXS, and a few others I’m forgetting.  Oh yeah, and Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys opened up, and I had the chance to meet him before and after the show… what a nice guy.

After the show, there was an invite-only VIP party in the Real World Suite, so I headed up there with Chet and his friends from Arizona.  Wow, this place was ridiculous… packed in with beautiful people, open bar, gourmet hor d’rouves.  Just surreal.  I even met Carmen Electra!  The whole night was just amazing… thanks, Chet!

Well I’m off to go call Air France about my lost bag… word is it might show up in Vegas tonight.  That’d be sweet.  Chet and I are heading to some Billboard Music Awards party tonight at the Wynn, and another afterparty tomorrow night.  Wednesday’s my birthday, so if you’ve read this far, I hope you’ll all at least email me to wish me a happy birthday.  Celebrating your birthday in a town where you don’t know too many people is kind of a downer.  Oh well, I guess.  Lates.

This past month has been completely crazy. Rather than doing my normal thing of playing poker for virtually every waking minute, I have hardly played poker at all this past month. For those of you that don’t know, I work for a company that runs the graphics for a few poker TV shows. We don’t do the WSOP on ESPN, and we don’t do the WPT on the Travel Chanel, but we do a lot of the other shows… Poker Royale on the Game Show Network, Poker Superstars on Fox Sports, and a few other shows that aren’t part of a series.

So our company was hired to do a Full Tilt Invitational that would be live on Thanksgiving from Monte Carlo. We’ve done a couple live shows before (which no other company is doing), but we had some new technology this time around. Normally when the players get their hole cards, we have to wait until they look at the cards, and then we have people type in their cards into a computer. If they can’t see the cards, or if the players haven’t looked at them yet, we don’t know what they have. Well I spent a week in Toronto doing some programming, and we successfully used what’s called RFID Technology. Basically, there’s a chip embedded in every card, and they get scanned by antennas underneath the table. So as soon as a player is dealt a card, we know what it is before they even see it. Pretty cool stuff.

So yeah… a week in Toronto doing development, and then a week in Monte Carlo setting up and doing testing, all culminating in the live show. The flight home was a disaster, however, as Air France made us miss a connection and rerouted us through Washington D.C. We missed another connection there and were stranded overnight, and then when I got home, they lost our bags. I’ve now been home for a week and still don’t have my bags.

So yeah, not much poker to report on. In fact, I just took a look at my spreadsheet and I’ve only played a total of 32 hours in November. Pretty sad, I know. I hope to get back in the swing of things soon, but right now I still need a bit more time off.