BJ Nemeth's Blog

I'm still working the World Poker Tour event in Biloxi. There are ten players remaining, and they will play down to six tonight. Those six will return tomorrow at 4:00 pm CT for the televised WPT final table.

There are also two big presentations tomorrow. One of them will be closely watched by analysts and regular people alike to see if they can look forward to a better future. The other will be the President's State of the Union speech.

I am definitely looking forward to Steve Jobs unveiling Apple's latest product tomorrow, because it has been such a closely-kept secret. The State of the Union will be far more predictable, and will likely have less of an effect on my life. (Yes, I know politics is important, blah, blah, blah, but seriously, tomorrow's speech to Congress won't really change anything.) Normally I'd watch the State of the Union (I love politics, just less than I love cool new Apple products), but I'll be working the final table so it's not an option. I'll catch up on Obama's legislative goals for 2010 on some of the podcasts I listen to while driving.

Two pieces of Rhapsody news -- (1) she has a vet appointment set for Thursday morning in Pensacola (she needs a certificate of good health to get into Alaska), and (2) she has a nice place to stay in the San Francisco area in March while I'm working the WPT Bay 101 tournament. Rhapsody will be staying with fellow poker writer Matt Waldron.

Hopefully the vet won't take long (or cost too much), because I'd like to reach New Orleans before the sun sets and reach St. Louis before stopping for the night. I'd like to photograph the St. Louis Arch on Friday morning and drive up to Minnesota and North Dakota where I will experience sub-freezing temperatures. I didn't think I'd need to break out the hard-core cold weather gear until I drove across the Rockies or hit Canada and Alaska, but there appears to be a cold wave in that part of the country. I'm a little nervous that if I stop my car for the night, I won't be able to restart it in the morning. (Which would screw up my schedule for the rest of the trip.)

In fun news, a small group of friends took Daniel Negreanu to Waffle House for the first time in his life. As a vegan, it's not really his style of restaurant, and he wasn't too excited about the salad he got. (Which was the only thing on the menu that didn't contain animal products -- and even with the salad we weren't certain.) But Daniel had a lot of fun with the staff, giving them a chance to win $100 each by successfully passing riddle games. Two out of three of them succeeded, though the third ended up getting a pretty huge tip from Daniel, so there were no jealous feelings. There was only one other customer in the restaurant, a guy in his 20s or 30s who actually recognized Daniel, saying, "You look like that famous poker player. David Negreanu." My friend Andy did a literal spit-take when he heard that, and I was barely able to keep my sweet tea in my mouth. Daniel assumed a fake identity for a few minutes before coming clean to the guy, who was a fan of Daniel's, saying his friends would never believe he was at a Waffle House with Negreanu. So Daniel sent out a tweet in a mock Southern accent identifying the guy by name (Will Shaw) so his friends would believe him.

After we finished eating, Daniel gave Andy a freeroll prop bet -- eat 10 saltine crackers in one minute and win $5,000. That is more than two months' salary for Andy, so he gave it his best shot but didn't even come close. That's Andy in the picture shoving the first five crackers in his mouth. He chewed up easily enough, but couldn't create enough saliva to swallow them -- they just lingered in his mouth, unable to go down no matter how hard he tried. It ended up taking him several minutes to finally do it.

That was yesterday. Earlier tonight we talked Daniel into visiting a highly-recommended BBQ restaurant a few town's over, The Shed. Once again, Daniel got the salad, but we had a limited dinner break due to the poker tournament, so there were no crazy prop bets -- just eating. (The meal was fantastic, by the way, with some of the best BBQ chicken and potato salad I've ever had.) Daniel was fascinated by the casual country atmosphere, and at one point said he felt like he was on a different planet. As a native of that planet, I told him that on average, BBQ restaurants were probably more "fun" than vegan restaurants.

It was a lot of fun seeing my usual type of hangouts through his eyes, and Daniel paid for dinner both times, which saved me valuable funds for the rest of my road trip. (So far, I've only spent $21 on food this trip.)

That's it for my Day 3 update. I'll do my damnedest to update this blog every day of the 80-day road trip through all 50 states, even if it's not a travel day.