Jay Stor spirals into gambling madness

The adage goes: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

However, my buddy Jay had such an extraordinary time there recently that I fear the experience may have changed him — for the worse.  He had too good of a time.

Jay used to be a pretty boring guy, focused on his job doing academic research. Turns out, I love that guy! Of late, all he does is talk about his Vegas trip, and he's hanging out at the Commerce Casino, the Bike and even the Hawaiian Garbage Casino every single night.

"I don't see any problem with winning at gambling," Jay told me. "With all my research, I figured out how to win at craps, Blackjack and baccarat. Why is that wrong?"

Well, I'll tell you what's wrong. He's neglecting his database, JSTOR, and he's devoting his life to tomfoolery as opposed to compiling peer-reviewed Tier 1 academic sources.

Honestly, I blame myself and my Cal State University Long Beach student teacher. We thought it would be cool if we loosened Jay up a bit and took him to Vegas. But when we showed up at his place, he looked like this:

We were like, "Whoa, whoa, Jay, we're going to Vegas. You got to loosen up, buddy. Can you wear anything fun? Y'know, Vegas style?"

He went to a dressing room and returned looking like this:

So I vaguely feel culpable for Jay's decline into casino madness. However, honestly, I didn't see it coming. He was always such a staid, play-it-by-the-book type of guy. When he was winning at craps, Jay really looked as if he were having the time of his life.

I cannot even count the number of times I've told him, "No, Jay, I will not be meeting you at the Commerce Casino tonight. And, no, I won't be at the Bike either!"

I keep urging him to return to his normal Jay Stor self. What would the New England Journal of Medicine or Harvard Law Review think of this behavior? I am not liking his new methods one bit.

"Do you know what it's like to be me?" Jay once asked me. "Do you what all of the academic pressure is to have such an extensive database? Let me live, man. Let me live."

OK, I'll concede. I don't fully understand what it's like to be Jay Stor. It's hard for me to abstract what that's like; I haven't walked a mile in his database shoes. But for the sake of his wife, Julia Read, he needs to check himself before he wrecks himself. Please, Jay, please, stop going to the casinos!