Happy Feet Know Where to Go When They Feel Low... Imperial Palace!

Thursday October 10, 2002

Sign at the shine stand, Imperial Palace Men's Room.

Awake at 6:00am. And meditated on winning until 6:30am. Packed.

Stupidly, I had set up a web-cam date - so that my Veeblefetzer buddies back in Flusherville could see me live in Vegas - for 10:00am on the morning I’m changing hotels. I could feel my meditative mojo fleeing already.

I had breakfast at the (I’ll never get used to this) Ca-Fae. Buffet, featuring grits! Hash browns. And two hard over eggs from the singing egg man (who, last night, was the singing Grubsteak Jamboree man).

I rounded out the meal with some sausage patties, biscuits and country throw-up gravy. Coffee. OK.

Checked out of the Westward Ho and played those 9/6 Jacks for half an hour. No quads.

In fact, I’d had only three quads so far this trip, but what quads, including 1200 and 600 quarters.

Bidding the ‘Ho (and it’s $1.49 Megadog) goodbye, I cabbed it south to a huge upgrade in hotels - the Imperial Palace, which was nestled firmly at the top of the ‘best of the worst’ strip hotel rankings.

What a place the IP was! It had escalators that went to upper floors that didn’t connect to other upper floors that had their own escalators. It had a hidden bank of elevators that could shorten your ele-wait by minutes - if you knew where they were.

There has always been a strange vibe about the IP. There’s no flow to it. It is oddly cobbled together with a strange semi-asian Chinese food take-out restaurant theme. It seems like everywhere I turned, the color scheme was close, but just off, as if the designer was constantly wearing a set of green eyeshades. Everywhere you look, there is something tacky and weird about it, even though they seem to be trying.

The Imperial Palace has all the panache of a too-tall woman wearing the wrong length of skirt, and dark hose with white open-toed sandals.

I had room 5154. It was about 70 yards down the hall, then turn and go to the end of the hall. In fact, it was as far as you could get from the elevators (hidden or apparent). I dumped my stuff in the room and went back down the hall, down the other hall, down the elevators, and through the entire casino to the lobby up at the front, to open a S.D.B. And, for that, I would need the registration card that…. I’d left in the Marathon Room.

I fumed a bit as I pondered the trek back to 5124 and then back to the lobby. Would I make it to the Hard Rock in time if I had to take this long detour? Would my pemmican hold out? Would the caches of fuel I’d left have evaporated by the time I reached them, stranding me to freeze to death in Nevada like some stranded Antarctic expedition member?

Fortunately, the front desk took pity on me and reproduced the needed registration card. I got my S.D.B., dumped my meagre stash of traveller’s checks and extra cash, and took braved a wait for a taxi in the sewer stench that permanently wafts through the corte portion of the old Iperooski. My destination (once I regained consciousness in the cab)? The Hard Rock Hotel. Because it has some user-controllable web cams that Jimmy Poon and the boys were going to use to see me live! in Vegas.

I love the Hard Rock! Why have I never been here before? It has great music and music memorabilia everywhere. The round motif in its structure is not lost on me. Circles and arcs are everywhere, as they should be, and the casino is, of course, a disc.

Disk.

I joined the slot club and still made it to the gift shop on time for my webcam appearance. I lost $20 on the slots visible to the webcam through the gift shop windows. Hopefully the boys had seen me. I grabbed a $3 latte at Starbucks and got it sugared up. That would be a cool $5 at home - it seemed a bargain. I sat and wrote in my notebook for a while and drank the latte down and enjoyed the eye candy. The women walking around were pretty nice too.

The HRH has just a ton of memorabilia. Guitars are everywhere you look. I went back into the foyer to pay homage to the Hendrix stuff. There is amazing use of color in the place, with hardwood floors ringing the casino. The place is thought out top to bottom.

Speaking of bottoms, the cocktail waitresses are stunning. Their uniforms? Knee-high black leather boots, dark stockings, skin-tight black leather mini skirts, laced along both thighs. A tight leather vest and low-cut leopard print bustier underneath. Heaven!

I had another webcam appearance for 11:00am in the store, so I headed in and did some shopping. I found some posters of a very enticing ad that the Hard Rock was running in all the magazines offering free dice, and picked one up for my nephew.

When I was all shopped out, I played some 9/6 Jacks and hit quad 8s. I made about $30. And later, I put it all back. I toured the place looking at guitars and taking lots of pictures until lunchtime.

Brooooce. Just a Tele though, obviously. Not The Esquire.

And where would you rather eat, then at Pink Taco (where there was yet another web cam…)

I sat at the bar and played Deuces Bonus. I was in for about $40 when I hit quad eights again. I cashed out $41.25. Lunch was a chicken burrito - pretty good.

One last stop at the gift shop to pick up a shot glass with the coupon I’d got at the slot club, and there was a guy in there buying the store out. He had tons of stuff at the counter including a $2400 leather jacket, a golf bag, and a customized $599 tricycle. There was a line of people waiting to buy their stuff and I joined and watched the fun. They opened a second cash and I told the cashier to make sure the guy got his free dice.

Cabbed it back to the IP, played the ancient 9/6 Jacks machine (Sigma, with the old graphics). Lost. I wasn’t doing well at all. Played some slots to no effect.

I decided to have dinner at the buffet. The prime rib was actually good enough to have seconds on. Had some salad, green beans, mashed ‘taters, milk, two chocolate eclairs, and decaf. I went back down to the casino but couldn’t get on the 9/6 Jacks - so hit my old friend White Hot Aces in the little alcove beside the men’s room.

On my 8th hand, I held 3 threes and… get the fourth. Quad 3s for 600 quarters! Then I doubled a $20 bill on Deuces with a wild Royal.

Tried the 9/6 dollars up at the front of the casino in the little high-limit area - put in $60 and got out $50. I put $5 on David Coulthard to win the Japanese Grand Prix at 15-1. Put $5 bets on the Leafs and the Senators to win the cup (20-1 for the Sens). Leafs for me, Sens for my father-in-law.

Back at the room, I had some free entertainment. My room looked onto the pool area and I could watch and listen to the Polynesian show. It seem fitting to have Survivor on the TV while this was going on.

I got a 6 spot Keno ticket - $1 a game for 10 games - nada. Played the Jacks for an hour on $60. Won $20 on dollar slots. Lost $50 on dollar Jacks. And $30 on White Hot Aceses yet again would not bail me out. Short losing session. Where are my quads now???

I think I had four quads on the day - two sets of eights at the Hard Rock, the threes for $150 and one set of deuces at Jacks.

FONZI! FONZI! FONZI!