Phil Laak, 336 Hours Later

I received a real nice complimentary email from poker star Phil Laak last week about my coverage of his 115-hour stint at a Bellagio poker table in pursuit of a Guinness record. So I wrote back to ask how his recovery was going and, uh, here's some of his staccato response, showing he's not just an amusing rambler when he's overtired. To summarize the scattered musings below, the stunt has improved his racquetball and poker games, given him the ability to see the future and helped him weep more and easier at bad movies.

Here's an edited (for comprehensibility) version:

i should be tested. i am very sure that i have improved in many ways as a human:

confidence - mega high
love for all of mankind - mega high
poker game - improved greatly
empathy levels - higher than ever
patience - off the charts
ability to hold many floating thoughts together in suspension - higher
ability to play backgammon has improved

it is truly amazing. i have been DESTROYING them in cards since the enduro challenge. here's my racquetball scores against a guy i never got more than 7 or 8 points:

15 - 11 him
15 - 13 him
15 - 12 me!!!

i beat him, and before i beat him, i told him that this was the game where it would all change.

i now officially have DTP -- defocused temporal perception. i can see 2 to 4 seconds into the future. Half-kidding here, but it seems true to me. i feel like kung fu. i walk with excellent posture effortlessly.

i am hungry for everything now. At the gym, i don't want to stop. i schedule for 24 mins on Stairmaster, i go 40. i am a cyborg of unlimited potential and more human than ever before. it is great.

This week i saw the new karate kid. had i seen this movie a month ago, i might have slightly teared up at the appropriate moment. now, the newly improved, sensitive-yet-strong phil teared up and cried over 4 times!!!

if i were a shrink and had a depressed patient, i would heavily encourage him to stay awake for 5 days. nothing else i have ever done in my life comes close to what i have been living and feeling over the past two weeks. i submit to the universe.

i will the effects from this enduro experience to stay with me till i die. it would be the greatest gift the universe could hand me next to immortality, but i have more or less given up on that which is a shame as i think i would get great value out of it.

anyway buddy, stay well, cheers and do yourself a favor. Stay awake somehow for 5 days. it is magic. truly magic!

Cuckoo! But funny cuckoo, no?