Mrs. Firenze's Karma Sauce

CW Photo Bomb

Yesterday when I was playing at Wynn, a woman sat down beside me, played five hands of video blackjack, putting money in three times, and then pounded the buttons while shouting angry Italian sounds. So it can always be worse.

She'd sat down and put $20 in for video blackjack. She hit the Deal button and won $40. She played two more hands, lost them both, and then wondered what was happening.

After some time, she put in $20 more and repeated the process. This time the wondering had blossomed into namecalling and mild cursing, along with bewilderment.

Then she put in $20 more, played one hand, lost, and that's when the molto voce started. The anger! The frustration! The smashing of both palms onto the machine!

I was watching out of the corner of my eye - actually, more the wall of my eye, with crown molding and a fresh coat of paint - and knew what was going on.

She put in a fourth $20 bill and taking my life in my hands, interrupted her. I held up one finger and said 'you want to bet just one?' and pointed to the BET ONE CREDIT button.

Mrs. Firenze had been mashing the DEAL button, which repeated the last bet, which was 20 credits, the machine's maximum.

The dim little light turned into a bright shining star and Mrs. Firenze all of a sudden got it.

"Thank you . Thank you. I puta money, not know why all gone, I bet one now ella bella cursa blackjack button vapor callenta more Italian words lotsa vowels - thank you. You are very kind person."

So, you see, I can be a very kind person. I'm still waiting for the karma for that little event to pay off.

As you'll know if you read the previous post, I had a rough ride, and while in my cups, had to resort to some fairly violent bankroll repair attempts in the late stages of the evening's gambling.

Per my plan, I played out my points, going for a five-spot ticket with 50 cents bet. I didn't hit.

Then I took the Savvy Donor Foundation's emergency reliefe check and played $100 on super volatile high stakes Buffalo. I got naught a sausage. Bugger all.

Then I hauled my fairly inebriated carcass to bed.

Today will be a better day. I have loads of coupons to use, I have a move downtown to the Cal, and I have tons of Mrs. Firenza's Karma Sauce in my corner, on my wall, and down the front of my shirt.

Yeah, it's gonna be a bitchin' day!

Flusherville, We Have a Problem. And Lunch.

I radioed Capcom that I had heard an explosion in my wallet. Accordingly, Capcom put out an A.P.B. (All Poon Bulletin) on luck. Last seen yesterday.

Today is Thursday, and I'm writing this on Thursday, and that can't be good news, now can it.

This has been a fairly reasonable trip so far, although video poker has been below average, I would say. The largest win I've had on the trip was the $350 some whatever on Buffalo at the Plaza, and three or four $200 ones.

The Quad Queen and I have a rough historical average figure in mind for what we are typically going to lose per person and I've been about $10 under that so far.

No longer.

The morning dawned hot and ready, like one of those mugshot schoolteachers in the news.
The morning dawned bright and ready, like one of those pencil sharpening accountants at the IRS.

I'm in a groove now, and it's great. Get up, fire up the Little Giant, get writing, drink coffee, make punishment breakfast, write as brilliantly as I can in the minimum amount of time, which means basically stooping to churn out a bunch of hackneyed half-formed ideas substituting for hand-crafted smashing prose.

I wanted to pick up where I left off last night, gambling-wise. I've been road testing a new video keno concoction where I take five numbers and bet on every four-spot possible (five of them). Think of it this way. I leave one number out and pick the other four. Then on another card, I leave the next number out and pick the other four. On top of that, I bet all five numbers on one card.

And, since I've been knocking out five out of fives like speeding tickets on the last day of the month this trip, I've been adding a second card with the five out of five, just like Max at the California taught me. So if I hit five, I'm in the money, baby.

The total bet is 7 quarters. Hitting any two numbers returns 6 quarters. Any three or more is a winner. Hit four numbers and it's about 34 bucks.

But the one I want is the all-you-can-eat five out of five, paying $170 for the five four out of fours, and about $420 for the two five out of fives. Grand total around six bills.

Well, it won't happen. I've lost it, if I ever had it.

First thing this morning, I played some video poker on a progressive, where the royal was up over $2,000. I managed to get one quad but about $65 disappeared in short order.

After that, I had a dip into the video keno lake with just a twenty. It went away. So I put in $100 and actually got a fair amount of play off of it.

The fours kept hitting to keep me in it, as planned. In fact, they hit about ten times. I stopped taking photos because silly. From $100 I slowly dropped to $25, then recovered up to $120, but then variance slo-mo kicked me in the keno balls, and that was that. I'd played about an hour and a half, but was still down almost $200 for the day.

Time to regroup and do some monkeying around. I had originally booked two nights at Wynn using gems from the Wynn Slots app, and booked Main Street Station for the next night. It turned out that I did get the third night at Wynn - which was double booked with MSS. But I kept the MSS reservation, intending to wallow in the $20 food and $10 freeplay..

So, I grabbed the car keys, and found the car, started it, and began the hot, tiresome, road journey to Tacos El Gordo, some 650 meters from the Wynn parking structure. Because lunch. Because tacos, baby.

I'm new to hand-held cuisine featuring staple grains and corn geometrically symetrically aligned in a two dimensional structure of deliciousness, and inter-dimensionally warped (or bent) so as to hold, for the eating, and a filling that will make your mouth scream for mother's hot fucking mercy, it tastes so good.

So, I ordered four al pastor tacos.

Miss McGee

I know it's hot, and I know you know it's hot, but the hot heat is so fucking hot, that one has to say my God is it hot. With the sun reflecting off pavement and cars, and the wind blowing, you're walking jerky in no time should you venture outside in the desert in August.

Which is what I did. I was kind of at one of those make or break junctures. I'd had a good lead today but had blown it and was now down maybe $100. If things went badly, I could end up down $300 or $400 today rather than eking out a win.

If you know me, and by now you should, you know that I like a good eke as much as anybody.

So, I hoofed it over to T.I. by way of Wynn, Inferno-land, the Venetian Maze of Shops, Blow Furnace-town, and finally to my destination.

I thought I had $5 of freeplay, but I didn't. Not sure when that stopped. I dropped $20 on dollar full pay jacks and got nowt. And I dropped another $20 on Buffalo, because the two blackjack tables open were completely full.

After a little wander and ponder, I re-checked and a spot at blackjack had opened up. The shoe was just finishing, and I bought in for $100.

My hope was that I could last two and three quarter hours and finish way up, upon which time I would hit up the pit boss for a coffee shop comp with which I would eat Kung Pao chicken the next day.

What happened was that I did indeed have a really solid run and after 40 minutes, found myself up $175. Play was for the most part uneventful, except for one hand where the guy at third base, inexplicably, stood on 12 to the dealer's face card, causing the entire table to lose. I might have muttered the word 'twat!'.

That was in the early going, though, and the session generally was smooth with three or four blackjacks coming my way.

When things turned a little, and I really started to think about protecting my win, rather than going for longevity. I really didn't like what I'd done at the Cal a few days ago, dumping a significant win so I could keep playing longer.