Nothing says modern travel like a gut-bomb airport burger

Mon April 30th, 2012 - Toronto.

Well, lucky for me, Counter Attendant Sledge is having a good day, or maybe she's already gotten her yayas out hassling the poor dumbass hairdressing school students.

She lets it slide even though my luggage is 3.2 pounds over the limit. I thank her and go on my way through security at Flusherville Regional Aerodrome, which consists of a mall rent-a-cop giving us the once over as we pass through a cardboard 'gate'.

I hear they may buy one of those wand metal detectors sometime in 2014.

I hold my breath as the AeroCrashSpatiale Beechditch 6900 Whimperfan engined Turbodump (model 'D') bumped across the fresh green grass of the Regional Aerodrome, it's Whimperfan 55 cranking out every single one of its 55 horses and launching us skyward with all the elan of a spoonful of Jello pudding being catapulted through the air after you hit the spoon with your fist.

A fairly uneventful hop - although I do need to clean my goggles a few times, since YYZ was all but socked in with drizzle - and we are in Toronto.

I lay eyes on my first ever Airbus A380, showing the Emirates livery. Man that thing is HUGE. (This is something I hear quite often, but usually not from my own lips.) I think the Beechditch 6900 could take off and land inside her spacious cabin. Lovely swoop to the wings when viewed from behind, too. Reminds me of a woman's bottom. Not just a woman's bottom that you might see walking down the street, but a really nice woman's bottom, that could have some engines attached to it, and it could fly, and it would be a double-decker woman's bottom.

Yes, the A380 is that majestic, it inspires poetry.

I haul ass off the plane and walk through Pearson and face the gauntlet of American. Customs. Agent.

I always get nervous to some degree, but this time is a breeze. Two questions and I am through.

I grab a horrible dinner at the Molson Pub - a gut-bomb over-cooked gray leather cheeseburger and refried roof tile fries. No time to make a fuss, need that protein no matter how much it is going to sit in my gut like a lump of cement. I really hope that is not my last meal.

I get the necessary overpriced accessories - bottle of water, Dairy Milk bar, and some Mentos (the Freshmaker!).

And now I wait for my (so-far) on time flight to Vegas. Flight 593.

There's not much more I can do now until I get to McCarran to secure my $120 in freeplay and chips.

It all happens in the hour and a half  after I (hopefully) land, later tonight.

God Love You Jimmy Poon!

No matter how carefully I plan, I end up rushing. I'd worked a swap with Jimmy Poon who was on nights at North American Veeblefetzer so I could do a short shift today at the plant, where I pound out millions of size 7 grommets on the line.

I had done most of my preparation - I thought - and would have a few hours to spare before making the run to Flusherville Regional Aerodrome.

Had one eye on the clock all day and of course just as I am about to slip out the door, with Jimmy Poon covering for me, here comes Norbert, decked out in pink pants, a khaki golf shirt that looks like its made of some sort of kevlar weather balloon material, and white patent leather shoes. Norbert wants to go over some numbers with me to figure out why the matrixed veeblepounder is sometimes missing every 382,000th grommet. I can imagine my flight leaving without me, just like that...

Norbert starts going on in his lispy German accent about how is wife isn't happy with the veeblepounding she's getting.

"Turn her over to me, Norbert, I'll show her a veeblepounding she'll never forget," I mumble under my breath.

"What did you say?"

"I said fuck you Norbert." The grommet line is a very loud place.

"What???!!!"

Just as Norbert is going for his clipboard and motioning me to come with him to the office, which will put the Norbert kiss of death on my flight out of the Aerodrome, Jimmy Poon makes a move, climbing high on the line, near the hopper and deftly kicking over a big bucket of grommet releaser fluid, which resembles whale semen (so I'm told), right down the back of Norberts pink pants.

Norbert looks up at Jimmy, screaming like, well, a freshly whale-jismed asshole. Jimmy puts on a show like he is about to fall, making it clear to Norbert that it had to be pure accident.

I could kiss Jimmy Poon as Norbert is running for the executive washroom, covered in whale load, crying like a 10 year old girl and desperately fishing for the special gold executive washroom key he carries.

And just like that I'm past the crew, who are in stitches, I'm out the door, in a flash, a quick wink to Jimmy Poon, and a big thumbs up from him to me to wish me luck on the trip.

So I get home and I'm trying to cram all my life-sustaining and important equipment, supplies, chargers, cables, fuck me does it ever end??? Ah yes, and the "Day 5 change of underwear" underwear. I think I've got it all together when I realize... my carry-on rolly bag seems pretty heavy. A little worry starts in the back of my head.

I've got a box of freeze dried moose meat that I've got to get sent off to Momma Flusher. It means an extra stop on the way to the Aerodrome and an interlude with Canada Post, which means that pretty much any kind of a cluster fuck might happen.

Finally, after checking everything in the house 3 times, driving 50 feet down the road, driving back, going in, checking some other shit some more and closing the living room curtains, I'm out. Traffic woes. People in front of me. Red lights. The stress is building. I do NOT want to miss that flight, with the promise of $120 in April freeplay at the end of it all.

Canada Post at Shoppers Thug Mart does their job surprisingly well this day, making only one mistake - marking the bill for the moose meat shipping as debit instead of credit. Whatever. I'm out of there and at the Aerodrome at last, with a little time to spare!

I'm still a little nervous about my rolly. It seems really heavy. Like there are scuba weights in there. I walk up to the the counter and the first thing I see are a couple of dumb students from the Flusherville hairdressing school, heading home after the semester. They have luggage. And boxes. And carry-ons. And they are going through EVERYTHING, setting aside this and that.

One look and I know what's happened. They are overweight. WAY overweight for what the AeroCrashSpatiale Beechditch 6900 Whimperfan engined Turbodump we're all flying on can carry.

And they are frantically looking for items to ditch. Poor dumbass hairdressing students!

At the counter, the moment comes when Counter Attendant Sledge says to me "Put your rolly on for weighing."

I do.

And sure enough, with a hard limit of 22 pounds, my rolly checks in at 25.2 pounds.

Carry on my wayward Vegas Revenge son!

Do you have any idea how small a fucking carry-on bag really is? One thing for sure, I will NOT be taking my K-cup maker to Vegas as I had planned. That's gonna save about a cubic foot and 17 pounds right there.

Here's what's in the rolly carry-on right now:

I have in there 1 pants,  5 pr. gotch, 5 pr. socks, 5 shirts, toiletries. There is probably room for my laptop power supply, phones, chargers

By my passengerial rights as bestowed by Air FU Canada, I'm allowed one (1) carry-on bag of dimensions 3"x7"x1".

At least that's what it seems like when you try to cram everything you need in there.

Okay, I have one of those airline sized rolly carry-on bags and it is going to be bulging. (How I am going to have room for all the stolen things of jam and peanut butter I collect each morning at breakfast in there, I just don't know.)

I'm allowed a second 'personal' item. My usual carry-on is about 3" too deep to qualify. And I have my CPAP that has to go too. I'm trying to figure all this out and my brain hurts. The CPAP is allowed as a second item ONLY if it is battery powered. So if I try to take the rolly, the hand carry-on, AND the CPAP, I'm out of compliance with AFUC.

I can cram the CPAP into the carry-on but that uses virtually all the room and anyway, the hand carry-on is too big.

In all of this, somewhere, a laptop has to go, so that I can continue to entertain you fine readers throughout my Revenge trip.

There is a wildcard... I'm allowed a purse.

Do you think a laptop would fit in a purse?

How badly am I likely to get beaten up by the other guys on the flight???

Plan your trip. Trip your plan!

The watchwords of scuba divers are 'plan your dive, dive your plan'.

A savvy gambler like me takes heed and when it comes to a Vegas Vacation and Gambling Extravaganza, I've adapted those wise words for my own betterment:

Plan your trip.
Trip your plan.

Tomorrow evening I'll be winging my way to Vegas and I'm tellin' ya, I'm on a mission. And to be successful, I've had to plan carefully.

First of all, let's talk about wonderful freeplay. I have a bunch of offers I've gotten and have planned this trip to take place at the end of one month and the beginning of another. That way I can double-dip on the monthly freeplay.

I didn't have enough points to fly for free on Air (FU) Canada so I had to actually pony up cash - and I didn't want some crap-ass flights with 7 stops that would take me from Flusherville to Newark to Denver to San Francisco and on and on before getting to LAS.

Anyway, I got pretty much the best possible booking - Flusherville to Toronto, then non-stop to Vegas, same on the return except its a red-eye. Cost only $59 return, and with taxes and gas surcharges added in, $900 return. Clearly I already have some financial ground to make up when I get to town.

One of the situations that is really causing me some concern is my sweet-ass freeplay offer from the Four Queens (where I'll be staying, initially). They are going to lay on $60 of freeplay AND $60 in chips in the month of April, just for showing my pasty mug at the slot club.

My flight arrives at 10:15pm. Monday night. April 30th. Last day of the month. When I first realized this I pretty much crapped a roulette wheel. A quick call to Jay at the player's club confirmed that they are open until midnight. But its going to be close. I've got to get there within an hour and 45 minutes of touching down in order to get my $120 in freeplay and chips.

One little weather delay, and I'm screwed. And Air (FU) Canada has recently taken to having all of their pilots call in sick on the same day just to 'subtly make a point'. If that happens, I won't even get there till the next day or the day after.

So I'm kinda stressed about this but... I have a plan.

First of all, the entire trip will have to be done with a carry on. This means I can bring a meagre assortment of clothing. I'll be asking some hard questions. Is it more important to have a change of pants than 2 extra shirts? How long before a casino sock goes rancid? Do I really need that extravagant second pair of underwear for this trip?

Second, when I get to McCarran, I've got to get to the ground transportation immediately. I'm arriving at Terminal 1 though, the puny side terminal, not the main one.  I'm thinking of just picking up a limo there, instead of booking one - but will there be any around at 10:30pm on a Monday night? If I book one, I'm still taking a chance because I've had limo drivers show up 20 or 30 minutes late. And I've had them not be able to find me.

I may have to suck it up and take a taxi much as I hate to support those long-hauling crash-bandits.

Once I get to the Four Queens, its straight to the players club, with luggage, before even checking in. Nothing like a race against time for $120 to get the Vegas adrenaline going!

I've got a bunch of goodies and things waiting for me and a whole bunch of stuff I plan to do while in town.

Here's a list of the goodies:

Four Queens April Freeplay $60
Four Queens April Chips $60
Four Queens May Freeplay $80
Excalibur Freeplay $50
MLIFE Pointsplay $40
ElCo credits $10
Excalibur comps $75
Slot Tournament Food $20
MLIFE Comps $50
Total Rewards RC $10

I'd say I'm off to a pretty good start there. I'll also get some sort of cheesy free gifts for some slot tournaments I'm in.

The main goal of this trip though, and my plan, is simple.

Get. Royals. Flush.

I need to get a number of Royals Flush and win cash and take home cash and end up with more cash than I came with. As you may recall, in the last trip in November, I got my ass kicked from here to Vegas to Vancouver and back. No Royals in 2 weeks of play, and probably the biggest single trip loss I've ever had. Not very fucking savvy.

That's going to change, I hope. So I am going to plan my trip. Trip my plan. And the plan is...

"Win."

Ride-along with me over the next little while. I'll be posting here pretty much as it happens.

And if I can find the ever-elusive camera battery fucking charger, I might post photographic evidence, too.

Time to do a test-pack of my carry on!!!!

Riviera Buffet Techniques

When you are a savvy Las Vegas gambler like The Flusher, part of it all is doing things the Royal Flusher Way.

And part of the Royal Flusher Way, besides traveling with the scientifically proven minimum possible (but still biologically safe) number of pairs of underpants for the trip, is to enjoy what has to be Las Vegas' biggest draw - low end, inexpensive buffets which surf the fine line between potato and ptomaine.

I had been pondering various professional buffet techniques, and what should fall out of my research portfolio but a very handy reservation card from the somewhat decrepit yet classy Riviera Hotel and Casino. And on the back of said reservation card are what every buffetnomist needs - a ready to roll set of buffet tips. I hesitate to say 'rules' because for me, anything goes at the buffet, including my soon-to-be-patent-pending office chair 'rolling trough' technique for which you never need carry food to your table.

The Riviera, for me, is immortalized in a couple of ways. For one, it is the only hotel still open that was hit by Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra and those other possum pack guys in the original 1960 classic movie Ocean's Eleven. The line-up was the Sahara, the Sands, the Riviera, the Dunes, and the Flamingo. And they hit the buffets in every one of 'em. They even cut the line.

Secondly, the Riviera figures prominently in a more modern movie, Casino, with Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci. There's a great scene by the Riviera pool and some other ones where they walk in the south doors. They are probably headed straight for the buffet.

So let's get down to business here and take a look at the savvy advice from the Riviera Reservation Card Production Team.

Side 1:

The World's Fare Buffet is a self serving restaurant. When you reach the top of the escalator:

Locate a table and place this reserved sign and receipt on the table.

Beverages are also self-serve for your convenience.

Thank you for dining with us.

RESERVED

Please do not remove any food or beverage from the buffet.

Let's break it down. Side 1 does indeed set the stage for a successful buffet - or should I say - self serving restaurant! I've known many people to be self serving, like that coy, mewling so-and-so Norbert at North American Veeblefetzer, where I pump out a steady stream of size 7 grommets. But a self serving restaurant is a first. Does it tell you how good it is as you leave?

Now, when you locate a table, can you just pick any table you like, or should you choose one that isn't occupied? I do like to meet people, so I will probably seek further clarification on this.

I love the 'convenience' of getting my own beverage. It's also convenient to get my own food.

Wouldn't it be even more convenient to be able to place the various hot food selections into the self serving restaurant steam tables? Hell, for more convenience, why don't they let me go in the back and conveniently cook my own goddamned meal. I could even conveniently order the fucking ingredients from the convenient office that is no doubt conveniently placed behind the greasy walls of the World's Fare buffet.

Thank you for dining with us. When I read this, I feel like I've received an insincere thank you from the Riviera Reservation Card Production Team! I believe this is exactly what they intended.

Finally, the admonishment not to remove food or beverage from the buffet puzzles me. Because whatever I eat and drink is coming with me - unless I am required to sit quietly with a book and digest the stuff for 4-6 hours.

Side 2:

HELPFUL DINING TIPS
To better enhance your dining experience, we suggest the following:

Right out of the gate, the Riviera World's Fare reservation card delivers. They tell you what they are going to do. Be Helpful with Dining Tips. Then they punch it up by using the words 'enhance' and 'experience'. And then they bring on the Dining Tips.

Wow.

Just... WOW.

1. Visit the beverage station first. Your server may assist you with your beverage, time permitting.

You know, today's self serve restaurant server is a busy animal, There is slop food to be removed from tables, tips to pick up, cigarettes to smoke, keno tickets to surreptitiously check. You should really know how to make what we called  'swamp water' as kids (which is a carefully crafted mixture of every type of beverage available in the soda fountain), but it's nice to know that if you get stumped, you have a pretty good shot at getting some professional beverage station assistance.

I know that on my next trip, I am going to enquire about beverage station assistance before I commit to dining at any particular buffet.

2. View all food selections and make your choice prior to plating your meal. This will help the food remain hot.

What a classic piece of advice. It is standard operating procedure to carefully survey the buffet top to bottom, front to back, before digging in. There is no sense in loading up a plate with six pounds of cream cheese only to stupidly find out on the way back to the table (where a family of 9 from Iowa awaits, because you carefully chose an already occupied table, because the rules didn't say not to) that there are BAGELS available.

This has never happened to me at the Fremont buffet, or the Main St. Station buffet, last trip.

3. Select and enjoy your cold foods first. Make a second trip for your hot selection.

I suppose you should not mix hot and cold foods. I've heard that your teeth could shatter. To prevent this, I will load up with - sorry, plate - cold cuts, ham hocks, pigs feet, egg salad and ice cream before heading back for a luke-warm slice of bloody utility grade roast 'beef' - which probably finished in last place.

4. If you desire to make one trip, plate your cold items first, then your hot items.

The essence of a good set of buffet techniques is flexibility. Like, on a Saturday night, when I am hoping for some 'action', I could ply Mrs. Flusher with Champale, or I could switch it up and ply her with beer. Flexibility, that's the R.F.W.!

5. Stir hot items and dish up from the bottom of the container. This is where the selections are hottest.

I can't help but wonder, now that the World has read Royal Flusher's Savvy Riviera Buffet Techniques, how this will play out. Surely everyone will be stirring (for their convenience) the hot items. That means when I get there, the cold part of the 'selections' could very well have been just stirred to the bottom of the container by the previous savvy self serving restaurant patron. This is really troubling me and I think the way to go may be to conveniently make the food myself (see technique 2 above).

Also, I got in trouble once for stirring the pan of eggs benedict. Who knew they would combine into a runny yellow mass topped with lonely looking english muffin halves???

6. When you visit the carving station, do so prior to plating any hot selection.

So you can make a cold trip, then a hot trip as long as you hit the carving station first, or if you prefer one trip, you can plate some cold ham hocks first and 6 pounds of cream cheese, then get your hot items, off to one side, if there is room on your plate, and as long as you hit the utility beef station first, then plate your other hot items.

Got it.

THANK YOU FOR DINING WITH US

Gratuities are greatly appreciated.

I'd rather wait and see if the beverage station server has time to assist me, if you don't mind.

I'll wrap up with a Royal Flusher Way Advanced Tip: Cargo pants have lots of pockets which can hold bananas, corn bread, and sausages.

I'm just sayin'.

Postscript: The World's Fare Buffet is now closed. The Riviera offers 'The Riv' for a convenient self -serve restaurant experience.

Post-Postscript: The Riviera is now closed. Riviera customers are referred to Circus Circus across the street, for a convenient self serve restaurant experience.
 

El Cortez, Let's Elope!

That mewling sycophant Norbert strolled through the lunch room again today. He wore his racing car driver knock-off sunglasses, and had two more pairs perched on his $48 baseball cap - one of them facing forward, and one of them facing backwards.

I saw him coming with his Magnum P.I. mustache and his beltless too-tight jeans. He wears those ones that women like that end two inches below the top of where their pubic hair would be except that they pluck or trim or weed whack or something.

Was that disgusting? Sorry. I'll rephrase.

They pluck or trim or string trimmer or something.

Sadly, Norbert doesn't, so it's not really a sight you want to see in the lunch room after having wolfed down three greasy but cold pulled pork bun-wiches, a pint of chocolate milk, three Ding Dongs, and three quarters of a bag of Fritos.

And that's when I asked myself this question.

How important is it all, really?

I've poured my heart and soul into the size 7 grommet line and it's given me a decent enough living such that I can go to Vegas a couple times a year and write about my debaucherous, degenerate, drunk, and somewhat lame adventures here on Las Vegas: The Royal Flusher Way.

The thing is, I bring it. Because I love it. When the tough orders come in, I'm there, I'm the first one in line for paid overtime, as long as it isn't on American Idol night, and doesn't go too much past say nine or nine thirty.

When we ran out of releaser compound, and we had an important grommet production run on the go to provide grommets for a leading office furniture parts supply warehouse jobber shipper, who was the first one who whipped it out and peed in the releaser reservoir?

Royal Flusher, that's who.

Just like the first world war vets who used urine to cool the barrels of their death-spewing machine guns when the water ran out, I was there with my willy and a bladder-full.

And who offered to park cars when Norbert got married, at the reception, in lot A?

Royal Flusher, that's who.

(Never mind that I hid a salmon in Norbert's Corvette while no one was looking.)

I want to make the best size 7 grommets you've ever seen, better even than the 87% 'acceptable' rating percentage we've been hitting. I want to strive for 88% or even 89%.

I really need to forget about anything other than making grommets, and then getting home to my cold 8-pak of Champale.

And I need to find some other things that interest me.

Maybe write a book that, like this blog, only degenerates will read.

And I need to let go my anger over that sniveling sycophant Norbert and how he gets all the breaks and I get schtupped.

Well, maybe it's my turn. Maybe Royal Flusher will get some breaks, eh?

And indeed, guess what?

The email which I wrote to the El Cortez read like this:

From: Royal Flusher
To:  clubcortez

I don't know if anyone will see this but a lot of people out there including myself don't understand why you are stiffing us on our offers.

After years of getting comp room offers, and actually increasing my play, now I'm at casino rate.

Next month I'll be staying at Four Queens, or MSS/Cal/Fremont where I am comped.

Fuck You Yours truly,

Royal Flusher

Well guess what happened?

The head of Club Cortez and Player Development at the El Co phoned me. He must have dug up my info on the El Cortez Super-Computer and seen that I am a Savvy Gamblester.

And he told me he would comp my room nights and all I had to do was phone him and let him know when I was coming in!

I LOVE THE AWESOME EL CORTEZ AGAIN!!!!!!!!!

There is some justice in the world

There really is!

Sometimes the little guy gets a break.

Sometimes dicks like Norbert swing their girly hips towards your last few mouthfuls of Fritos.

And sometimes, dicks like Royal Flusher deftly stick their foot out so the sunglasses-blind Norbert can take a fucking nose dive.

I think he hit a few spots of my cold pulled pork bun-wich BBQ sauce.

Jilted by the El Cortez

Things have been pretty busy in Flusherville and in particular at North American Veeblefetzer, where, for now, I work churning out rubbery size 7 grommets on the rubbery size 7 grommet line.

I thought I was doing pretty good since the big order of red grommets for the mainland China-based Muy Whang.

Every production run of size 7 grommets that I've overseen with has been very close to 'on time' and with 87% overall acceptable quality. And only a very few disfiguring accidents have occurred on my watch (none of them above the elbow) in well over a year.

Norbert, who is about six foot 4 and wears two sets of sunglasses on his designer baseball cap, wears jeans so tight it makes his ass have a girlish wiggle when he strolls importantly around the factory floor. He acts like he runs the place because, well, he does run the place. Fringe benefit for banging the owner's daughter. And, in fact, entering holy matrimony with her as a side business.

The other day, Norbert sashayed over to our lunchroom. First thing he does is dip into my Fritos without even asking. Then he announces that the size 6 and size 7 grommet line crews will be combined into one team and both lines will be used to make both sizes of grommet, depending on the order volume.

Norbert says this move is needed because a PowerPoint someone in marketing made told him so.

This is madness. How can people who know how to make size 6 grommets immediately be expected to perform on the size 7 line??? What if we accidentally turn out a few thousand gross of size 6 1/2 grommets???

This is only the start of my troubles - it gets worse. The El Cortez has clipped my offers lately.

I've written about this before and after qualifying for years for a comped room offer, and staying at the El Co a number of times, all of a sudden, I'm cut back to 'offers' which spout casino rate as if it is some amazing wonderful deal.

And after checking around, it seems there are a large number of us in the same boat.

To add insult to injury, I upped my play last trip.

Don't get me wrong... I love the ElCo. I absolutely love the place.

I was so mad, I replied to the email-bot that sent the Email crap offer to me and let them know how I felt about it.

Now that I think about it, I feel about as jilted by the El Cortez as I do by Norbert and Company.

They are both ready to bust your balls and fake you out of a comped room.

The good news is... my next trip to Vegas in the works and is being planned right now. C'mon back for details!

Read more about the insulting El Cortez Offers on Royal Flusher World.