The Future Is Now, Bro

Can it really be 2016? How is that possible? I mean I can remember reading 1984 before it was 1984. And watching (and reading) 2001: A Space Odyssey way, way before that. When I read Stephen King’s The Stand (the original version, anyway), it was set in what seemed a distant future. The story began on June 16, 1985.

As my buddy Remko likes to say, the future is now, bro.

I mentioned yesterday how my first trip of 2016 will be a return to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Had the chance to go down there a couple of times last year -- once to St. Kitts, the other time to Nassau -- which was a nice, warm way to break up what was a pretty bitter winter for us on the farm, weather-wise.

This year has been markedly different, with temperatures in the low 70s just last week here. Believe it’s a touch warmer down south at the moment and will continue to be so for the first couple of weeks of the new year, so I’ll be packing lots of t-shirts. And a pair of swim trunks, too, for a return down a few of those water slides.

Last year while in Nassau I was writing here and on the PokerStars blog about the PCA having become kind of a central event on the poker calendar, including chatting with Jesse May about that idea. It’s not on everyone’s must-visit list, of course, although it does remain a kind of nexus for all the different tours.

It’s also been around since 2004, taking place on a cruise ship that first year, then at the Atlantis every year since. That’s long enough to give the PCA an especially lengthy history -- a tradition, even -- at least in poker terms.

I guess looking at it from this direction, 2004 doesn’t seem like the future at all, but rather a long time ago.

Photo: “Future,” Hartwig HKD. CC BY-ND 2.0.