The Arthur Murray Miller Death of a Salesman Gillies Dance Studio Saloon (Aug 31-2015)

On the way down to the casino to try to regroup, I was just about to steal one of those sleek metal pens from the table outside or door when an employee unexpectedly opened the doors at the end of the hall of many rooms to reveal... more hall of many rooms.

"I guess that's where the people with more money than us stay," I remarked.

He smiled and said, "It's no different really, some of the rooms are a bit bigger. But every guest here at Wynn is a VIP no matter which room they are enjoying."

That is the perfect response. What an amazing character. He made me feel important. He made me want to be a better man. He made me want to excel, just like him.

As soon as he was gone, I pocketed the pen, which I would use on my better man quest.

I'm tellin' ya, Wynn is the height of elegance and luxury. I swear, when I used the commode this morning, my turd had Steve Wynn's signature etched into it, and a little gold and red bow around it.

I wanted to grab a quick bite so I hit Zoozacrappers while the Quad Queen tried to turn her luck around on the machines. I ordered something called a Loaded Grilled Cheese. It arrived at table 25, which was mine for the next 7 minutes. The sandwich was pretty good, although it had no need to be a double decker. I took the middle slice of bread and chowed down on a delicious hand-held hot 'n cheesy bacon fest.

Zoozacrappers

This sandwich seemed undergarnished.

Back in the casino, I smoked my little cigar and enjoyed a Maker's Mark and some high stakes competitive gambling that would test the limit of any player's skill.

Oddly enough, I made $15 at video keno. Maybe I've found my new calling.

Back on the other bank of machines, QQ was finally hitting a bit better patch in the barren field of quadless video poker farming.

Yay! Four Pointies!

And I countered with these:

It was time for a mini-walkabout, which meant braving the 100 degree temperatures in search of a single pedestrian bridge escalator - up or down - that was actually working. In our travels on the way to T.I., we went zero for six.

With the heat, and half in the bag from a number of very stiff Makers', I didn't feel like going all up and down the strip, so we just checked out T.I. and had a couple of nice surprises.

The scent. Or lack of it.

T.I. has always been one of the most heavily scented properties, and the particular chemical stew they used caused both of us to feel the need to cough all the time. Being in the place felt like sticking your face into grandma's lavender and old perfume dresser drawers, leaving it there, and trying to play video poker while walking around with your face in a stinking drawer of worn out granny panties.

Yes, I'm certain it was exactly like that.

It's gone! The scent, if any, is light, almost undetectable. What a relief! Thank you Phil Ruffin for finally listening to the 9382 comment cards I've filled out on the subject over the years.

Now the second nice surprise. The full pay machines by the high limit room used to have stickers on them saying you only get one third points. Because full pay. But there was no such indication on the machines anymore. We had a good long play on them and built up 782 points.

Here's what happened in that play:

We didn't take any money out of T.I. this time, unfortunately. But it wasn't too costly to play.

I checked at the slot club booth and it is $4.50 a point on video poker. She told me that some machines, and the ones in the high limit room, cost $15 a point. I asked if they are clearly marked and she said that they were.

If it was $4.50 a point on our machines, we would have done $3500 coin in. Which seems about right for the time we were there, playing 50 cents and dollars. So it seems like those machines are now giving full points. And they are loaded with full pay Bonus Poker, 9/6 DDB, 8/6 Boner Deluxe, parlayable from 50 cents to $1, $2, $5 and $10 (YIKES).

We looked at the games in the high limit room and saw no stickers saying they weren't full points. We could see where stickers had been.

So is this a big change at T.I. we've detected? Perhaps!

We had thought about having a long pants dinner at Wynn, but we just weren't in the mood, so we went for something simple at T.I. along with a few (losing) Keno tickets.

Club Sanda-wich for the lady.

Wings 'n Waffle Fries with Vat o' Blue Fromage Dressing for the man.

I understand there is a relationship between Phil Ruffin (who owns T.I.) and Whazzizname Gillie but the presence of Gillies always seems like a very strange bed partner to T.I. It's like Joe DiMaggio dating, say, Marilyn Monroe. It's just never going to happen. Or Marilyn Monroe dating that dancing studio playwright guy Arthur Murray Miller, for that matter. That's never going to happen either.

The Arthur Murray Miller Death of a Salesman Gillies Dance Studio Saloon is every popular.

I picked up razor blades in CVS and we made our way back to win. The Quad Queen didn't want to go any deeper in the hole, so I took her by the hand, sat her down, and started feeding twenties into her machine for her. I told her they were from my stake and she needn't pay me back. I actually took them from our Admin money though.

We took our time, I had a couple of glasses of Pinocchio Noir, and we slow played and laughed our way through our troubles.

That's where I had my 21st chance from four-to-a-Royal... unsuccessful.

RF: Day: -$100 Trip: -$1660
QQ: Day: -$800 Trip: -$2440
Combined: (GULP.)