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Sunday, August 25, 2013

Table for One at the Jimmy Buffet

What a great feeling it is to awaken in Vegas at 7:00 am knowing you are up $50 on your trip! You have a wonderful day stretching out before you. You have devices, even if most of them are cheap knock-offs of Apple products. You have internet access. You are able to use the internet access to find out just how many Imodiums you are allowed to take, and how soon - how soon for the dear LOVE of GOD will they start to work?

Buffets.

Enough said.

I'd started my morning by pounding out a blog post for your entertainment and possibly, annoyance. Just remember, I call 'em as I see 'em, unless calling 'em a different way makes it funnier.

Today was Day 1 of the VP tournament at the Four Queens. It always starts the same - with a line-up at the single elevator used to haul carload after carload of anxious players up to the plush, chic Royal Pavilion Ultra-Lounge.3


Professional Video Poker Tournament Elite Athletes
I must have timed it right, because I got there about 8:15 and was only about 4 carloads away from getting upstairs and registering.

The reward for navigating all this administrivia is a breakfast buffet - I kept it simple with an extra, extra large helping of fruit salad - a little post-foreshadowing there - and half a bagel with cream cheese. And coffee. And another coffee, which I took back to the room, stopping at the booth on the way to get them to load my $50 QQQQ bonus freeplay.

That is when the buffet demons from hell did a fiery tapdance on my ass.

You see, this is the kind of sacrifice I make for you readers. I push myself to the absolute limit, just so that you can snicker at me.

Did I 'have' to eat all that Namasu salad? No.

Did I 'have' to have extra pickled jalapenos on every buffet item? No, I didn't.

But when it comes to blogging, there is no tomorrow.

There is only today. It's not like you can go back and read posts from yesterday or the day before. What counts is what I deliver Right NOW.

Unfortunately, it was being delivered in quite a torrent.

Okay, enough of this kind of humor. Nobody likes it. We move on.

On to the dollar 9/6 Jacks where I used my $50 freeplay to get - absolutely nothing, in about 2 minutes. So reloaded with a hundy of my own and got quad sevens for $125.


I cashed that hundy out after a good long play on dollars. I even was dealt 4-to-a-Royal. Believe me, you'd know if I got it.

On to the tournament for 11am. The game played in the tournament is Double Bonus, not one that I know. I played, I did average I guess. No royals, no Aces, one quad.

After the tourney I decided to see if I could get on a dollar play run on the Jacks. I put in a hundy and actually did pretty well, hammering that thing for an hour or so. I did $2500 coin-in and lost $100.

By now I was feeling pretty shite. I went back to the room and crashed for a while.

After that while had passed, I crashed for another while.

I felt crap but headed out anyway. I had one thing, and one thing only, on my mind.

Comfort food. I wanted a home-made grilled cheese sandwich and I knew where to get one - Du Pars.

I did, they did, and it didn't disappoint. Simple. Hot. Cheesy. With hash browns and milk. Ta-da.

The only thing was that, breaking the Cheapstravaganza theme of the trip, I paid for the meal. Worth it.

I went back to finish and ship a blog entry from yesterday and in the meantime, the 24 hour period on my internet expired.

(Does anyone know if I can tether to a Roam Mobility enable SIM on my piPhone 3.14???)

By the time I got it working again, which took about an hour, I found that my entire blog post (or poast, as they say in some circles), which I'd finished writing, was gone, gone, gone.

I could have cried.

I used my Roam Mobility cell plan to dial Jimmy Poon back in Flusherville.

"Jimmy Poon, I lost a blog post and my guts hurt."

"Royal Flusher... are you... are you crying?" asked Jimmy.

I thought I heard his little elfin hee hee laugh, and started to get a bit annoyed.

"Okay, sorry, tell me what happened," he said.

Well, it took a couple of freakin' hours but with Jimmy's guidance I found a raw XML copy of my blog post, almost complete, in a cached javascript file somewhere deep in the ass crack of my hard drive.

Jimmy Poon, you are a fucking genius, brother. Love you!

By now, my afternoon, and into the evening, was kinda shot.

I gambled some more, and I lost some more.

I played quite a bit of Double Double at the Four Queens and nothing much was really happening, other than I was getting frustrated at not hitting anything.

Tried out some things at The D, and did get some playing time on Bonus Poker and did get a quad.

I did some more stuff and tried to figure out what to have for dinner. And I kinda started wandering all over the place, looking at easy options. I was hungry but kinda sore. I didn't want to eat but I was really super hungry.
Everyone needs to eat, right?

I played Blue Skadoo's favorite frog game at The D. It ate my $20.


The Long Bar at the D. Why do they call it that???
I ended up eating, of all things, McDicks.

I'm actually pretty ashamed of this choice.

After floating around Fremont a bit more, I decided to give it one more try at the bar in the Four Queens, by Fremont, on DDB.


It was pretty unsatisfying play, with a few upticks, but generally, the day was in the dumper in all ways, including gambling.

I renewed acquaintances with a third Mike bartender, who amazed me. One trip about a year ago I tried Tito's Handmade Vodka for the very first time. I ordered it on two or three occasions.

So now, third Mike shakes my hand a year later and says, "Tito's on the rocks then???"

Amazing. Think of how many people these guys serve in a year. And he remembers my drink (never mind that I don't drink it anymore). Is this a testament to his memory, or a testament to how memorable I am as a degenerate gambler customer?

"How is your wife, she drinks Jameson right?"

Wow, he got that right too from those days.

But, the real highlight of the evening was watching a guy playing and singing air guitar using one of those guitar drinks.

Oh my God - he was actually pretty good, and everyone nearby was laughing their ass off. The guy was a born entertainer. He had some pretty nice looking ladies with him too - nice to see people dressed up downtown for a change.




I ended up losing $260 at the bar. Can you say 'chasing'?

Yeah, chasing and not catching.

So, the day ended up a loser, which was a shame, having clawed back to even and a bit more yesterday.

I lost $580 today and I'm down $530 on the trip.

(That's not counting the Andrea Hot Goddess $10 Paperweight Gaming Lucky Strike token I won, so really, things are looking up when you add that back!).

I need a change, and tomorrow I get it - I'm off to Encore to see Steve!

A special shout-out to my folks in Manitoba. HELLO MANITOBA! Thinking of you guys.





    4 comments:

    1. Fun read Flusher..get em tomorrow!!

      ReplyDelete
    2. Looking forward to tomorrow's read...

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    3. More pics of the ladies please!

      ReplyDelete
    4. Any server that remembers you and what you drink when you come back on a trip in Las Vegas is great! That's why my mom and I love MSS so much. There is a great cocktail waitress that works days there named Jennifer. We stayed at MSS the first time I went to Las Vegas and when we came back the next time as she walked by taking drink orders looked at me and said "Bud Light, right?". If I drank something different or out of the ordinary then maybe, but so many people drink Bud Light that I was shocked! The time that my mom went back without me, about 6 months after I had been with her, Jennifer remembered that my mom drinks gingerale and also asked my mom if her daughter was with her this trip as well. Amazing memory and it makes the place feel special to me. This past trip when we went, we spent a few nights on the strip (courtesy of MyVegas) before heading down to MSS and I remember saying when we walked into MSS 'it feels like coming home'.

      ReplyDelete

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