Holy shit, it’s really happening:

Mr. Wil Wheaton,
Congratulations! The World Series of Poker is the most prestigious Poker event
in the World. This is your receipt for $10,000 for your deposit for WSOP Event #42. Your randomly assigned, computer generated first day of play is Thursday, July 7, 2005 at 11:00 a.m.
Upon your arrival at The RIO, to finalize your reservation and to receive your table and seat assignment, please visit the “Will Call” window located in the Tournament Area. You must complete your tournament registration at least one hour prior to your event. Please be prepared to provide proof of identity via a Drivers License, Passport or Military I.D.
This year’s WSOP events will no doubt be the largest and the most exciting Poker Event in history. Harrah’s continues to lead the industry in creating an innovative gaming experience for valued guests. Harrah’s and the Tournament Staff sincerely wish you “GOOD LUCK” and we look forward to seeing you at the final table.
Robert Daily
Manager, Tournament Poker

Dan Harrington won the WSOP in 1995, and made back-to-back final tables in 2003 and 2004. His two books are the best guides to tournament play I’ve ever read, and by studying them, my game has improved tremendously. I’ve learned so much from him, I’ve got a lot of excitement to go along with the terror about playing in the WSOP.
I listened to the Lord Admiral podcast this afternoon while I mowed the backyard, and found out that Barry Greenstein has a website, where he ranks several of the top players, as well as some celebrities who he’s played with. At the end of each player ranking, he shares an anecdote about the player.
They’re all great, but I absolutely loved this anecdote about “Action Dan”:

When Dan made it to the final table of the 1995 World Series of Poker, he proposed a nine-way settlement to the other players. He explained how they would each get enough money that they could invest it and be rich. Chuck Thompson, one of the players and a friend of mine, rejected the idea and told the other players that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a million dollars. One by one, as each player got knocked out, Dan tried to sell the idea, even offering investment counseling. There were no takers and eventually Dan came away with the full million.

Big news coming to this space, in the next 24 hours.
Update: . . . and deal.
This is so awesome, and I’m so excited, I don’t know where to begin. I’ll have to write more about it tomorrow, though. I’ve been writing without a break for almost twelve hours, and I seriously need to get away from the damn computer.

Back when I installed Debian, I backed up my entire old /home directory into /home/oldmachine/ and promised myself I’d get to it later.
Well, today, apparently, was later. I cleaned up a ton of duplicate and out-dated files (I had WWdN backed up in four different places. Yeah, that makes sense . . . thank god I know how to use diff) and felt very satisfied when I was done. I suddenly found myself with a nice, organized filesystem. No more chasing those goddamn rabbits with locate for me, George!
I guess it felt really good to clean up the virtual workspace, because before I even realized I was doing it, I had pulled four of my five desk drawers out, and started cleaning them up. Holy crap, did I have a lot of stuff in there that I don’t even know why I saved . . . there were a few bittersweet items in there, which I will hopefully be able to turn into a nice bit of writing.
In my second drawer, all the way in the back beneath a stack of Obey Giant stickers, I found one of those two-sided CD sleeves, and it had three CDs in it: on one side, I had an early draft of Just A Geek in .sxw format, and in the other side I had Bob Marley’s Exodus and Primus’ Pork Soda.
Though it’s been all REM all the time for the last 36 hours, I’ve been listening to Pork Soda today . . . and I forgot what a fucking brilliant album this is. Now I have to go dig through all my CDs (I never get rid of them, so I’ve accumulated about 10,000 since I bought Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me back in the 1990) and find Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Man, Primus sucks!

Perhaps we’ll have some fun tonight so stick around and take a bite of life
We don’t need feebleness in this proximity . . .

Anne is spending the day with her friend and her friend’s daughter, out at some health club that’s allegedly got a really nice set of swimming pools. She just called me and said, “I know you’re writing, but I just had to tell you — I’m sitting here between a little kid pool, and the regular pool, and there are these two little girls in the little kid pool. One of them just said to the other, ‘Well, I don’t want to pee in this pool. Let’s go into the big people pool.’ And they did.”
“So I guess you’re not swimming today?” I said.
“Probably not.” She said.
“Unless you go in the little kid ool,” I said. “I hear that there’s no ‘P’ in it.”
“You did not just say that,” She said.
“Hey, they don’t swim in your toilet . . .”
“I’m hanging up now,” she said. I could hear a smile in her voice. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”