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Monday, January 19, 2015

The Last of the Orthotic Insole Wine

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Sunday, January 18, 2015

Beauty - Skin Deep And a Foot Long

Friday January 16, 2015

The Final Day

As I woke up and realized how fucked my eye was, one thing and one thing only consumed me. It wasn't about a little old infected goobering eye dripping ooze down my shirt front as I lurched through the casino on a bum foot, one hand holding a cup of dishwater coffee out in front of me, as I moaned quietly from the various pains. It wasn't the fact that I was now the Walking Dead Broke, being chased by townspeople carrying torches.

It was the fact that many or most of you won't get why I dubbed the Chevy Impala Rentalmobile the 'Flying V'.

Here's why.

Flying V dashboard display.
Gibson Flying V guitar. Image courtesy Gibson
Oh yes, also, I probably wouldn't get a Royal this trip, was losing more every minute, was miserable, and was going home to White Icy Hell the next day.

Okay, so first things first. Squirt a little bit of that greasy old polysporin lube right into the ole eyeball. Feel the burn! AHHHHHHHHH! Check to see that toothpaste tube is somewhere else.

Now, the next question is, what do you do with a lucky goat?

How many of you savvy observers will have observated that we received two lucky goats from the Four Queens? And where is L.G. number two? Well, when we arrived at GVR, someone didn't want to cart it upstairs.

And never mentioned it again.

And then when we got to the Cal, someone again didn't take it upstairs or mention it.

And then when I took the Flying V back, I checked around the footwell in the someone side of the car for any forgotten items - none there. And since we never, ever, ever, ever used, accessed, looked in, farted towards, or otherwise utilized the forbidden back seat of the Flying V, I didn't need to look back there, now did I.

L.G. number two, still in its presentation box, was left behind in the Flying V at the Four Queens and has long since been dumped in the trash by the cleaners. Probably the same afternoon.

That leaves the primary Lucky Goat, now that the backup is out of the picture and gone for good.

The L.G. weighs what feels like about six pounds. (I carried it in my front right pocket a few times, just waiting for some hot I.S.G. to ask me "Is that a six pound Lucky Goat in your pocket or...")

With carry on, I really didn't want to take the L.G. all the way back to Flusherville. So, I presented it to Favorite Server Judy, along with a five-spot dollar Keno ticket featuring her favorite numbers.

"You have two choices with this goat. One. You can throw it in the trash, like right now, and I wouldn't be bothered. Or two, you can keep it and put it here at the bar, take it home, or otherwise use it in any way you want. But I bequeath you the bleating goat."

But she was already very happy with the level of detail that the goat featured, "Are these rhinestone casino chips?" and when I showed her how the goat opened and how creepy it looked that way, she was sold.

I listened closely as I walked away for the unmistakable 'thunk' of six pounds of rhinestoned goat hitting the bottom of the plastic trash bin, and didn't even hear it! So I think Goaty has a new home.

Judy served up my coffee and I set about to win me a fortune. I was down a sickening $4500 and I hadn't even played much. And maybe that was the problem... gambler's ruin. No playing enough to get through the down cycles. On the other hand, the previous stellar trip had done that for the sickening summer trip. If you gamble, I bet you love rollercoasters.

I figured I was short a dollar Royal, and for sure, Mrs. Flusher was short a dollar Royal. If I got one, that would shave $2800 (after taxes) off my losses. That would put me at a marginally sickening $1700, or $242 a day. Which isn't that bad when you take the comps into account.

All of this mental refiguring was contingent upon actually achieving a Royal Flush, something that seemed remote.

When I set out on this trip, I had no illusions that it would be anything like the stellar incredible anomaly win-fest that was the previous trip. But I wouldn't mind getting one fucking jackpot sometime during the week, yeah?

We did some play in the casino and I hit Aces. On Jacks. Wouldn't it be nice to hit Aces on some super mo-fo Aces premium quad game for a change?


QQ straight flush!
QQ Aces. Now we each have a set on the day. On Bonus and Jacks.

So, this is how I found myself at breakfast, down $300, kind of subdued and poking at my omelette (where 'poking at my omelette' means wolfing it down like the breakfast glutton I am).


I had to do some more Royal Canadian Veeblefetzer work for Norbert in the morning, so that kept me occupied while the 10K Queen finished her Cal $10K coin in.

She headed to Main Street and did some multiplay there.


In the afternoon, I joined her. I'd managed to finagle the afternoon off. I sat down and in a repeat of what happened at the Fremont, a casino host came by and greeted us. Just to be friendly. I guess. Just to be, you know, friends. Pals. Make nicey nicey. I think it's great, it shows we are on the radar, which makes everything flow.

After I dropped about $200, I decided to have lunch. Mrs. F wasn't hungry so I limped over to the Triple 7 Brewpub, and only bumped into two pillars on the way.

My table was a decent one (not a Single Lonely Diner table), next to a couple of attractive looking ladies.

After putting my order in (the amazing BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger and a set of their home-made rings) the women next to me offered me their fries.

"Excuse me, would you like some fries? We have way too many" said one of them, the one with the dark hair.

The attractive looking ladies just became super-hot super attractive ladies. Why? Because they actually spoke to me. And offered me fries.

I explained that I'd ordered rings, and thanks but I'd be okay without the fries. And just as I was explaining this, the server walked by bearing two orders of their foot-long hot dog, walking right between our table. She delivered them to a woman sitting by herself at the table behind me, to my left.

I actually kind of stopped mid-sentence and looked at the super-hot acknowledging ladies. They looked at me and smiled.

"Well," I said. "That's really... something. I didn't know they had foot-long hot dogs here."

"Definitely a full foot long. Each" the one with the dark hair said.

"Definitely a full - uh - meal," I said.

We all kind of giggled and looked around. My food arrived, thank God. It looked great!

The hot dogs were about double the diameter of a normal dog, pretty much a Turbo-dog sized dog.

"Those aren't just hot dogs, they really have some substantial - umm - girth to them..."

"To go with the length," said the other dark haired one that was now super-super-hot.

We all laughed a bit. I looked down at my meal, almost unable to contain myself.

"Reminds me of the old Mega-Dog. A buck fortynine. At the Westward Ho... " I said, "I'm sorry, we've only just met and this conversation is already completely perverted. I just came in for the onion rings, really. Have you tried them? They make them from scratch."

I ate a few, and they were hot, juicy and amazing.

"Actually, these rings would sort of go nicely with..." I indicated over my shoulder with a head motion. "You know... geometrically speaking."

This was met with super-hot laughter.

With that, I contained myself, not getting gross, not being obtuse, just being savvy enough to play along and not take things too far.

It was an incredibly rare occasion.

The burger was fantastic, hot, fresh, cooked the way I wanted, smothered in cheese, under which lay the burger and their home made barbeque sauce. Heaven.

I finished and the super-super-hot ladies made to leave. I glanced behind me to see how the recipient of the obscene Turbo-dogs had fared. She was gone.

"I was going to ask how she - uh - made out with the dogs," I said.

"She wanted them... to go, I guess" said the super-super-super-hot one with the dark hair.

"I think she wanted to enjoy them in the privacy of her room,"said the other super-super-super hot lady with the dark hair.

Single onion ring seeks hot single dog. Must measure up in imperial units.
After lunch, I bought a cigar at the gift shop using points, and settled in at the end of the Boar's Head Bar to play dollar Jacks and enjoy a couple of Maker's Marks on ice.

And guess what? I didn't lose! I broke even. I took the cigar outside and sat on a bench in the sun, by the valet pickup. It would be my last chance to do this for a long time. It was just warm enough and I sat and enjoyed the warmth and light, and a smoke, and played Steely Dan's Do It Again on my phone, just to be overly dramatic.

That done, it was back to triple play with the Queen. And that's where my luck seemed to take a turn.

Continued...




Ups and Downs and Ups and Downs

Thursday January 15, 2015

I woke up and thought, "This is a great morning for a $200 cup of coffee." And with that, I headed down where Favorite Server Judy brought me my morning styrofoam cup (number one).

While sipping, I played $100 in Bonus Porker. And lost. And moved.

And then I played $100 in Double Double Bonus. And got morning coffee (number two). And lost.

Then I played some more. And you know, I played two hours and only ever had one four-of-a-kind. This was getting to be the thorn in the trip's side. I was sometimes finding it impossible to hit any quads.

Meanwhile, my poor old savvy gambler's aching body was falling apart. The foot still hurt, although it was improving, and my eye was sore, red, and angry-looking. I put either some Polysporin or toothpaste in it - with my cyclops, teared over eye, it was hard to tell.

Either of them would have hurt like a sumbitch, so I'm pretty sure I must have hit the jackpot.

One reader of this blog reflected that I blanched at the idea of spending $70 on scientific insoles that might make my foot agony less, but 6 minutes later walked into Hole Foods and dropped $70 on one bottle of grape juice red wine.

I would like to point out that the red wine will provide significant medical comfort when taken internally.

In the morning goings-on, the Quad Queen did hit a nice set of Aces. Aces are great, especially when four of them appear at once.


One way or another, I was down $400 by breakfast. After breakfast we had a quick look at Treasure Chest. I lost another hundred but the Quad Queen got a quad and chose a $250 chest, a pretty rare occurrence.


While the Quad Queen was getting on a $6000 coin-in run in the alcove, I had to get running on with work. Today there was a lot of stuff to take care of as GrommetCon 2015 was winding to a close. Plus I had to take back the rental Flying V for noon.

I was shoving numbers around a spreadsheet on Jimmy Poon's loaner computer when I got a text from the Quad Queen. (She's sweet, she texts me pictures of the quads she hits while I'm stuck working. It's really nice to have a glimpse into the incredible fun someone else is having while you are stuck slaving for The Man.)

Anyway, the text read, "Can you spell me on hot machine?"

I went out the door, took the elevator down to the casino, and walked past the pit to the alcove. The Quad Queen was in need of bio-relief. I played for her and even won $60 or $70, taking her machine up over $350. She was indeed on a hot session.

She returned and I walked past the pit to the elevator, took it up to the 21st floor, unlocked the suite, and went in.

That's when I realized... the Flying V had to be back for 11:00am, not noon. We'd picked it up early and thus had an early return time. I had just enough time to gas up and get the car back to the Four Queens Avis desk.

That's when I realized the QQ had the key to the safe.

So, I locked up the suite, down the hall and around the corner, took the elevator down from the 21st floor to the casino, turned left, walked all the way along the pit, to the alcove, and got the key from the QQ.

"Gotta take the car back, gimme the key to the safe," I said, fairly intelligently.

I turned around, walked the length of the pit, elevated myself back to the 21st floor suite and went in. Opened the safe and... rummaged

No key.

I felt stupid. Must be in my pocket. Started searching... but no key. How was I going to pick the car up from valet without... the key.... shit.

Of course. The key was with the valet. So I closed the safe and locked it, closed up the suite, took the elevator down to the mezzanine level, took the escalator to the casino level so it would be at least a little different from the last 8 trips, walked the length of the pit to the alcove, confessed my stupidity to the QQ, and headed for the valet. I walked out the door by the big so-called lucky buddha, and retrieved the Flying V.

Consolation prize - the gas guage still read 'F' (for Flyable). So I could get away without buying gas. Biggest win of the day so far. I returned the car without incident.

On my way back through the casino, a dollar Boner Deluxe machine called my name. It ate $100 in 2 minutes. This was really getting old.

Most of the rest of my day was spent tapping keys on Jimmy Poon's loaner laptop while QQ had a winning session at Main Street. She'd finally crapped out on the alcove machine, and was over playing multiplay.

The waitress she'd perverted (the one known as Hot Towels) was very happy to see her, but this sad story was related to me by QQ herself.

Hot Towels spied her and came over and greeted her.

"Should we do it? Jameson and diet? Do it do it???" Hot Towels asked, in the lingo the Quad Queen had taught this poor innocent.

"Just diet Coke," said the Quad Queen.

Hot Towels looked crestfallen.

"No do it?..."

What a shame to let her down like that. She paid the price by eventually losing on the session.

When my day was done, I took a break and we went to the Fremont to play some Spinners.


Three minutes after we sat down, I heard someone behind me say, "Hi, welcome to the Fremont, thanks for stopping by."

I thought it was the chatty cocktail waitress who has a friendly way of addressing people, so I didn't turn around.

But she kept talking, and it turned out to be one of the casino hosts. Somehow she got notified I guess that there were a couple of savvy sucker gamblers in the joint, and she came over to pay her respects to The Flusher.

Long story short, I lost another $200. I had only played a couple of hours total and was down $800 on the day.
I went upstairs to the suite and took a long shower, the cranked open the $70 bottle of wine (for my foot) and spent quite a while getting some blogs out. Meanwhile, Flashy was paying out well, and the Quad Queen pulled to within $160 of even.

Dinner was at Redwood of course, and this time my entree was the lamb chops. And they were amazing. Every bit as flavorful as the rib eye steak, tender and juicy, and mild, not gamey like lamb can be after some knitted cap sheep herder has chased his low-end fly-blown herd up and down a bunch of rock strewn outcroppings. Or maybe I am thinking of goats?

In any case, this lamb was nothing like that lamb.

After dinner, we played some at Main Street Station. My first $100 did okay, but then I burned through $300 in 15 minutes. What was going on with me?

I couldn't take it and I went to bed early. There was no point playing anymore.

That's why I did a desperation $100 in Boner Deluxe at the Cal before heading upstairs. Of course, I got nowhere fast.

Meanwhile, my better half played for a couple of hours on $100. She did $20K coin in, and got $60 in scratch cards, so it cost her $40 for the couple of hours of play.

Something is clearly wrong with me. One observation I had was that I lose the most on the days I play the least. Because dumper.

Royal Flusher: Day -$1300 Trip $-4500
Quad Queen: Day -$200 Trip $-1700




Friday, January 16, 2015

A Good Banging at Luxor

Wednesday January 14, 2015

In a repeat of yesterday, I got up early and hit Starbucks just as they opened at 6:30am. (Tall skinny latte, no foam, with an Irish jig. They never actually do the Irish jig while the espresso is making, but I ask anyway. I guess I'm kind of an O'Toole.)

And indeed I did sneak down and played $100 in the GVR casino.


I played a $20, and another, and on the second I ran the machine up to $180. And... I lost it.  And the rest of my last hundred. And then, I was out of money.

This trip was not going that well, really.

In fact, I was getting my ass kicked. Quad Queen had been losing steadily also.

And, sadly, the Sexy Hair people were taking their heads and going home.


We had breakfast at the buffet. I probably should have known better. It seems like it should be good, but not much attention is being paid to ensure things are fresh.

Yummy mayonnaise.
Yummy vat o' cheese sauce.
Yummy "Oh look I left these overnight" Egg a'Muffins.
We managed to find enough calories to sustain us though.

I had some more GrommetCon junk to do so Mrs. Flusher kept herself busy playing nickels. Just for laughs.


Our host wasn't working, so I got a host on the Bat Phone from the slot club. She reviewed our play and picked up all charges. So the comps were the room for three nights ($75 a night maybe?) plus $175 in meals and $90 in remorse fees.

We also got $171 and $121 cashback, respectively.

Now for the nasty part. Quad Queen's coin in was $56,982 and coin out $55,933 for a loss of $1049.
My coin in was $41,632 and coin out $38,163 for a loss of $3,469. Think Green Valley Ranch will want us back?

At this point, the Quad Queen was doing all right, up $550 on the morning, and me down $100. And it was off... to Luxor.

We visited the High Limit Room bar to play dollar Jacks, both on my card. I wanted to put $10K coin in through and see what offers I might get. (I have already gotten a room offer with some freeplay from the last two visits to the bar, with much less coin in.)

The scene I'd seen and heard before was repeated - the bartender and the cocktail waitresses seemed to spend the majority of their time congregated at the pass, talking and gossiping. I suppose I don't really mind that much, it's none of my business as long as my needs are getting met - except these people were loud. I mean, really loud. So loud you could barely pay attention to what you were holding.

It reminded me of being on a red-eye trying to sleep when there is two or three people who yak it up all night long.

Add daytime TV to the big-screens - with the sound on, for the viewing comfort of the bartender - and you have a pretty annoying atmosphere.

So I was playing along, trying to concentrate, and I noticed that my card has stopped collecting point. For some reason, it's errored out for I don't know how long.

I tried to get some help. I figured I'd get the bartender to summon some slot techs to check it out. I really needed those points!

"Hello?"

"Excuse me? Over here?"

"Hello, I need some help here?..."

They were so busy laughing it up, talking about their kids, making stupid jokes, that I couldn't get through the din.

So, I simply started banging the bottom of my empty beer bottle on the marble bar. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

The bartender, startled, looked over.

"Can you call someone for me please, I need some help with my machine," I said.

"You could call my name you know, or call bartender if you need help," she said, copping an attitude.

"Well, I don't know your name, but I did call over and over but you were so busy talking you couldn't hear me."

Unreal.

The requisite people did come by and we figured out how long the card had been disabled. They promised to give me 100 points. Who knows if they ever did?

We finished our $10K coin in and lost $800. I didn't get a quad the whole time. I think the quad queen got one or two small ones.

What a disaster.

We hopped in the Flying V and headed down to the Cal and checked in. We had a nicer suite than last week, and I found out that there is only four Signature Suites, all on the top floor. It would explain why I never get one.

They had a gift waiting for Mrs. F - a $100 gift card for the logo shop.







I did some blogging for y'all, which took a while, and then joined the Quad Queen for dinner at the Redwood Grill. It was excellent - french onion soup, crab, filet, rib eye steak. Thank goodness for the Gold Card!

I'd brought the lucky Goat along, so we had some fun with that.




The Burning Itching 7s machine coughed up a $200 win and a $300 win, after each of which I shouted loudly, "GOAT POWER!"





We hit the uprights in the alcove (Flashy and Pinchy) and after $100, I actually got on a very satisfying run - the best play I'd had in quite some days. I got a ton of quads and cashed out $500.












Health Update:

The Quad Queen's stink-eye seems to be a non-issue. She was a good pupil of meye instructions. Iris I had the same luck - I've developed pink eye. Kind of a sympathy infection. If that doesn't put the lid on it.

My foot is marginally better. I'm treating it with alcohol.

Royal Flusher: Day $-200 Trip $-3200
Quad Queen: Day $-400 Trip $-1500

Welcome to Dumpersville, population This Trip!