Season’s Greetings

Off to see family today. Like most of youse, I’d expect. ’Tis the season.

Vera Valmore got me a few neat presents. She fixed up a picture frame with various photos from my summer at the WSOP. There’s one of me in there stationed in the media box, intently hunched over my laptop in the foreground, with about a half-dozen other reporters to my right all lined up and doing the same. Very cool.

Vera also gave me a novel, Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. The posthumously-published work by the Spaniard was translated into English this year. Has received a ton of acclaim, inclusion on fiction of the year lists, etc. Looks like one of those mammoth, “tour de force”-type literary works (about 900 pages), with lots of different elements mixed in, including some “hard-boiled.” Will probably start this one right away. As I mentioned a little while back, I’ve been anxious to read some non-pokery stuff. And this looks like a perfect one with which to start doing that.

Meanwhile, I bought my brother a copy of a different kind of tour de force, The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World’s Greatest Human. He might finish his before I finish mine.

Good to take a break and see everybody, reconnect with family, watch some hoops and/or football, etc. Put all the applesauce aside for a couple of days and relax. Unless, of course, applesauce is being served with the ham, then you put it on your plate and eat it up.

Anyhow, if any of youse happened to check your blogs today and found mine, thanks again! And best wishes to you and yours.