Red carpet treatment...

"Yeah casinos are all the same. Room full of fake boobs and real assholes."
Ray, "Walking Tall".

It seems to be pretty popular among poker blogs to start a post with a quote. Rather than a quote from online play or some other post, I will be throwing in movie quotes and the like than interest me or have something vaguely to do with what I am writing about. The one above is from Johnny Knoxville's character in "Walking Tall", which I was very happy to see last night. I notice the critics don't like the movie all that much, mostly because it is just ass-whooping after ass-whooping and a few one liners thrown in for good measure. Screw the critics, I liked it!

First of all, let me tell you I was really happy to get a few free tickets to the premiere off a friend who works at a local radio station. The movie doesn't open in Australia until next week, so it is always great to be a part of that elitist group of people who see a movie before it opens. But best of all, when we got to Fox Studios to watch the movie, there was a pretty large crowd of fans and media surrounding a red carpet going into the cinemas. I started to laugh, and then looked around for where we could get in. We couldn't, they had the whole entrance blocked off. Hey, you know what this means? Yep, we flashed our tickets to one of the security guards and we were through to the red carpet! It was weird, having all these people waiting for the celebs and The Rock, and here I come with my girlfriend and two other girls, all still in our work clothes and eating subway sandwiches. Afterwards my younger brother said we should have gone in two at a time, with the other two waiting with the crowd asking us for autographs and so on. For the record, the carpet was really soft, and they have no security at the other end of it where we go into the cinema.

Since we wanted decent seats, we went in about 20 minutes before The Rock arrived, so we missed all the shenanigans going on outside when his limo pulled up (I'm presuming he was in a limo). He spoke briefly before the movie began and came out with this great quote:

"I'm just like a cow, I always say this: You feed me and keep me watered and I'm good to go."
The Rock, Sydney premier of "Walking Tall", 5th August 2004.

Ok, so the Rock likes to call himself a cow, I can deal with that. Johnny Knoxville is hilarious in this movie, and it looks like they would have had a blast behind the scenes. The fight scenes are done really well and look very realistic. The head make-up artist was Jeff Dawn, who does all of the Rock's movie and Arnold Schwarzenegger's too. Wow, I think that is the first time I have commented on how good a movie's make up artist was. Does this mean I am becoming a movie nerd?

I haven't had a chance to get back to the poker rooms since my last post, and I just know my massive $5 bank roll isn't going to collect any interest on it's own. With the weekend coming, and with my real bank account only marginally better than my online poker bank account, it looks like I will have plenty of time and opportunity to make some changes to both.

I have added two new poker blog links to the section on the side. Double A's poker blog is what I like about poker blogs. It tells his stories of poker while a little bit of strategy creeps in. There is nothing I hate more than reading a blog that is all "I do it this way, everyone should play poker like this, if you don't then you're shit." I like reading other people's strategies too, but only if they put it into a practical sense and make it interesting.

I have also been reading Bad Blood's blog, and I like that one also. It is well written and his poker and non-poker stories are worth a read. And I can certainly relate to both of the above mentioned blogs.

That will do for now, hopefully I will have more good news to post after the weekend.