The Chicken Fried Steak BBQ

I wasn’t really planning on doing a post about the wonderful BBQ that the extremely generous Alysia Chang had last month.  I was hoping that my tweet about it (“The food was excellent. 2. Tony talked non-stop. 3. Vince didn't show up) would be sufficient—and prove, to the shock of you all, that I am indeed the master of brevity. 

Plus there was Alysia’s own version of the event, which for some reason appeared on Lightning’s blog (see here).  I guess it was best that her report appear on a “neutral” blog.  But I do wonder how Lightning became the unofficial home of Alysia’s blog posts, inasmuch as they have never actually met.

But…but….it seems that multitudes of my loyal readers were begging me for my version of the affair.  OK, to be honest, I think it was only one person.  But every reader is important to me.

And then also, I remembered a bunch of pictures I had taken.  No, I didn’t take pics of the participants, that would have been too obvious.  But I did take some pics that I want to post, so I might as well talk about the event.

The organization of this event was a lot of fun (tho perhaps not for Alysia).  She had already met Koala, the long-time reader (and commenter) on Tony’s blog. Koala was visiting Vegas from Australia. And so she decided to host a BBQ for Koala, Tony and myself. 

But Tony almost didn’t accept. The invitations and planning were all done thru Twitter.  When she was trying to come up with an acceptable day to have it, she asked everyone what their schedules were.  Tony tweeted back, “I don’t follow schedules and I never know I’ll be til the last minute,” (note: I corrected his typos). Alysia fired back that the rest of the western world follows a schedule.  Tony’s response: “to have the best odds of making money, u can’t do that.” AC asked him if the best money earners in poker managed without schedules?  Tony: “people don’t know how long they’ll play or what hours they’ll be awake the follow day. They play till the fish leaves or til they tire out.”  I tweeted out that if only the WSOP main event didn’t follow a schedule, Tony would play in it and win it every year.

But somehow, Tony agreed to break with his personal tradition and agreed to show up at Alysia’s at the scheduled time.  And there was a lot of great back and forth, with comments from the peanut gallery….Both Lightning and Pete Peters were kibitzing (via Twitter) from long distance. Obviously they were both jealous that they weren’t in town and couldn’t attend. The back and forth was highly amusing and folks, this is why I keep telling you that you have to get on Twitter.  Follower all the bloggers you read and see some of the back and forth.  Note:  Alysia has promised to organize another event in early December.  This time Lightning will be there, as will Nick.  I’m hoping that the one and only Prudence will be there too.  Although epic blog posts from many of us may follow, the concurrent Twitter feed before, during and after this event will be the next best thing to being there.  Even PPP, a long-time holdout from Twitter, has recently joined up.

As far as I knew, Tony was still a question mark for attending, when I got the following tweet from him, “Can u fix it so Vince is invited to AC barbeque.”

I asked how I could “fix” that.  I was informed, “u and Koala have her cell phone and I don’t. I meant explain I’d feel more comfortable at a stranger’s home if Vince along.”

I dunno about Koala, but I don’t have Alysia’s cell phone number. I told Tony that.  But Alysia saw Tony’s tweets and graciously invited Vince (Tony’s good friend that often puts him up) to join us. 

I asked Alysia what I could bring to the BBQ and she suggested salad.  I could do that.  So I brought salad.  Lots and lots of salad.  She asked Tony a few times what he was bringing and he did indeed bring several big bags of potato chips.  Koala brought fruit juice—though, of course, it would have more appropriate if he had brought the Koala Tea of Mercy (see here).

As it turned out, I was the last to arrive at Alysia’s luxurious condominium complex.  But there were only three people there. No Vince. Apparently he had to work.  So Tony made all that fuss about getting Vince invited, and then he didn’t even make it.

Readers will recall that the last time I saw Tony, I ended up giving him a ride, at approximately 2AM, to Summerlin where he was staying (with Vince).  That story is here.  Not long after that, I published a post here, and in a comment on that post, Tony—not once, but twice—said that I was “dumb as f***.” (note: of course he spelled out the f-word).

I only mention that because of the very first comment Tony made to when I arrived at the BBQ.  He said, “Pete Peters said you were offended when I called you ‘dumb as f***.’  But why would you be offended I called you ‘dumb as f***’ when you and I completely agree on the button straddle?”

It was pretty hard to argue with logic like that. 

Anyway, what is important here as that recently the Venetian started allowing the button straddle.  And more recently, according to Tony, they changed the way they do it, so it is now done the “right way.”  At least the right way according to us.  That is, first action is on the UTG player, not the small blind.  I offered Tony my theory as to why most rooms do it the wrong way.  The dealers—and perhaps the players too—are less likely to get confused doing it the wrong way.  Just a theory.

The food was excellent—BBQ ribs and mashed potatoes (Tony’s favorite).  Now, I’m not sure if Tony insisted on this or Alysia just did this out of the goodness of her heart, but instead of the ribs, she served Tony his favorite entrée—chicken fried steak.

The area near the pool was beautiful—as is everything about the place Alysia lives—and the weather was perfect.  This was late October but the temperature was still very mild. Perfect, in fact.

As for the conversation….well, initially, Tony was just talking and talking and talking.  He said he would like to live in this very same complex, and was sure that he could afford now that his roll was so big.  But he feared he wouldn’t be able to pass a credit check.

Then he talked about the possibility of his learning to drive a car.  But we all pointed out that he had no idea of the costs associated with owning a car.  He just wondered if he could find a driving instructor who would be able to teach him for a reasonable fee.

And then…well, it kind of turned into an intervention.  Alysia pressed Tony on why he had been banned from so many casinos.  She pointed out that the rest of us had never been banned from a casino, and wondered why that was. 

Tony went over his various bans and thought they were unjustified.  Throwing glasses at empty pit areas, talking and fighting (verbally) with hookers and yelling at people who were watching him play video blackjack were no big deals.  Some places he’s not even sure why he was banned.

He did make the point that he’s actually been banned from some casinos he’s never even been in.  Aria, for example.  Because he has a corporate-wide ban at all MGM properties, he was banned from Aria before they even opened.

Alysia asked Tony what he was doing to address his anger-management issues and he had no answer.

After we were all sufficiently stuffed, Alysia took us on a tour of her complex and it was very impressive to say the least.  There is a community room on the 38^th floor with a balcony that offers an incredible view of the Strip.  So I took a bunch of pics from there which I present below.

Later, in a blog post, Tony accused me of being “quick to leave.”  That is not true.  It was not my decision to call it an evening.  I departed when we all concurred we were all ready to go.

Thanks again to Alysia for hosting such a nice event.  Always good to see Koala, too.  And seeing Tony is always an interesting experience.