The Mechanical Dim Orchestra

My stake was recharged and it was a good thing. The day was still, well, maybe not young, but at least middle aged.

The mitigating factor in all this was that so far, the trip results, overall, stunk on hot ice. I'd lost roughly $2,745 and much of my sanity. And I was only about halfway done. A dollar royal would fix everything, and so, I headed to the dollar machines.

Next thing I knew, I was in for $300 and playing my third different dollar machine. Good God. I had a free ticket to a show later in the evening. Fortunately, I got a reprieve in the form of four Jacks.

And then for the umpteenth time, I was dealt four to a Royal. It was hard to get excited, I've failed at this so consistently.

All I needed was one little card and I'd hit for four grand. Just one little fucking Jack of spades.

Can you say cruel? Didn't even get a straight flush out of a bunch of high spades, let alone a Royal.

I had to laugh when the nine came up, it was pretty absurd. I kissed it goodbye and played on. Got another quad, lazarused, got a full house, and then went out. Intelligently, I then decided to try a dollar slot.

Shockingly, I won something. And I managed to cash out some profit.

I gave the Deuces progressive a bashing for about an hour, and the machine still wouldn't cough up the four ducks I needed. But I did get this!

At this point, I was down $700 on the day. Somehow. Jeez it was going badly this trip.

I took yet another hundred and went for the dollar Boner Deluxe hail Mary like I've done so many times before (sometimes with success, even).

$60 gone in a minute.

Change machines.

And...

Hell YES!!!!!! I don't care that it's Aces, that's $400 to me. I'd already clawed back $300 of my losses. $100 in, $400 out.

I went over to some multi-play game and punched up Boner Deluxe again. This is where you have to take my word for it...

I was dealt a quad for $300. Just as I was reaching for my phone, a really creepy looking guy sat down next to me and started farting around, paying more attention to me, than to his own screen.

This was the kind of situation that Jimmy Poon has trained me for. My Poony Danger Sense went off like handful of shotgun shells in a bonfire. I played one more hand, and punched the cash out button, and took off, keeping an eye out behind me. I could just tell it was gonna be another hard luck story, another touch, another hustle.

So no picture, but yay me, eh?!

I won some more on that slot, won a bit more here and there, and next thing I knew I had recovered my losses and was actually up $220 on the day! Wins are so much sweeter after a gambling ass-reaming, wouldn't you say?

I took a break in the room, stashed some cash (because degenerate) and caught an amazing sunset.

It was stunning, as you can see.

Next stop, Starship Binions, where I planned to try ribs at Benny's Smokin' BBQ and Brews for the first time.

The first time at Benny's Smokin' BBQ and Brews, not the first time I've had ribs.

I couldn't decide between a half rack and a full rack, so I opted for the full rack, because its better to have too much than not enough ribs, right.

Well that rack was so thick, so meaty, that the right amount for me would have been about 60% of a rack. Like the overstuffed glutton I am (when it comes to ribs), I polished off the whole rack, thus ensuring a couple of hours of shuffling around in a somewhat bowlegged manner, so as not to disturb the wide load now stretching my gut to capacity.

It was fucking great. And what was even better, I had enough comp dollars on my card to pay for the ribs. Happy saucy days!

Next on the agenda was a performance by a group called 'Orchestra', because if they called themselves the Electric Light Orchestra, they'd be sued by the people that own that name. But the point was, they played all ELO songs, they had a couple of original members of ELO in the band, including the violin guy, and I forget the third point. Oh yes, if they called themselves the Mechanical Dim Orchestra, it would be stupid.

Anyway, tickets to the show came with my offer, so I figured what the heck. I like music, and I like ELO okay.

I mean I like Orchestra ok.

I had some time to kill, so I played a bit and got myself a drink to enjoy during the show.

When it was time, with my drink, and a very satisfied tummy giving off those patented Benny's Smokin' BBQ Tasty-Burps (TM), I headed for the Nugget showroom.

I'd never been in the showroom before. It's quite a nice space. Very comfy seating, and it's what you'd call intimate. There's hardly a bad seat in the house. I did a quick calculation and though it might seat 500-600 or so.

Well, it was a fun show. The band was excellent, and they did about as good as you can do on ELO songs. If you listen to some of the ELO hits, the vocals are actually pitched quite high, with a lot of falsetto harmonies. This is difficult to do without clamping an anvil to your testicles, but the singers in the band pulled it off (or down) with aplomb.

Getting ready for the Orchestra.

I really enjoyed the show. It was interesting that, because this is a casino gig, they started almost exactly on time, and finished an hour and 35 minutes later, so that we could get back into the casino, pronto.

But I had other plans.

Which were to lock in a win for the day.

I managed to eat a huge neanderthal rack of ribs and win $100 on the day. And I wasn't going to give either of them up.

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