Part 1 - Vegas Beckons and We Beckon Back

Royal Flusher:

Here's part 1 of the vintage 1999 Sonyc-Vysion(tm) Trip report.

Jimmy Poon has done the html coding to make this look as much like the original website as possible. That's why the posts for this report look so different.

It's kind of like a museum piece, without the interest or importance.

Boy have things changed on the web. You can ignore all the stuff about winamp and such. But other than that, here's a look back at Royal Flusher History - from a trip many, many years ago.

I think its kind of fun - and many or most of you will hear my actual recorded voice for the first time. I bet you thought I sounded like Sam Elliot... 

Enjoy!

Note: If you are on your smartphone, or small tablet, go for landscape mode. Because otherwise it looks like crap.

© 2000 Royal Flusher - All Rights Reserved

Royal Flusher's Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Trip Report by Royal Flusher Part 1 - Vegas Beckons and We Beckon Back We knew it was time to go to Las Vegas again. The callouses on our VP fingers had grown soft, we had lost weight from not eating buffet cheesecake three times a day, and, basically, we go just as often as we darn well can. Flights were on sale, and there were offers to be had in the post Comdex lull. I received both of the offers that we ended up using by email. One was from the Goldarn Nugget for $49 weekday and a bit more on the weekend (total $240 all in for three nights). We'd never stayed downtown, and thought it would be fun for a change. The other one was from T.I.T.I - The Island of Treasure Island, also $49 with two Spa passes. As if we would waste our time having hoidy toidy mudpacks and whirly-bird-baths when we could be breathing second and third hand smoke in the dusty casino. Welcome! Welcome to the first-on-the-web Sonyc-Vysion (tm) trip report. This account is the story of the mystic trip Mrs. Flusher and I took to Las Vegas in late 1999. You'll find pictures scattered throughout. Click on them to see 'em in full size, and in Sonyc-Vysion (tm)FULL COLOR. Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Rules, Regulations, Tips, Traps, and Hints Each installment of the trip report will come with a background sound file in MP3 format. It will be smallish, and should play automatically when the page is loaded. As well, there will be a library of additional Sonyc-Vysion (tm) MP3 files to go along with the story. These MP3 files are where the real fun is! Download 'em and play 'em while you read. Or just play 'em for fun. Race 'em! Collect 'em! Trade 'em! If you need an MP3 player, you can download a good one for free from www.winamp.com The Goldarn Nugget Saturday night rate of $120 concerned us not a bit, because once we knew the secrets of the Royal Flusher Secret Comp Trip Report (April '99) we knew that if we simply lost hundreds gambling, they would give us the room for free. Too simple to work? Read on. You may have noticed that this trip report is billed as being in 'Sonyc-Vysion'. I decided that instead of merely typing up a lengthy missive as usual, I would harness the modern technology whirlwind, if you will, to boldly bring the Royal Flusher trip reports into the 70's. I would add sound, and pictures. This is the heart of the Sonyc-Vision experience. Read its life-like prose! Listen to its life-like, sounds. Look at flat, two dimensional life-like still pictures. If this reminds you of those boring trip slide shows with your stuffy neighbors, well, be assured - Sonyc-Vision is all that and less! I used a soon-to-be-patented stealth audio harvesting technology (i.e. hidden microphone near my fly) to capture some of the sounds we experienced on the trip. When you listen to the recordings, I think you'll agree - if you could see that actual sites as well as hear the soundtrack, if you could feel what we felt, and smell what we smelt, and actually stand where we stood when the recordings were made, why you'd be there!   Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Clip: Mrs. Flusher and I discuss where to put the mic (158K) Link to the clip Now, I decided I was going to be very spiritual on this trip. Never mind odds, theories and logic. Never mind 'training' and 'experience'. I would appeal to the mystics, daemons and lucky charms (which if anything, are magically delicious) and let my chakras open up and flow all over the place like broken jars of honey. I will do anything to win, and in keeping with that sentiment, I donned (what would become my) lucky pendant and went to the money wheel. Which is actually a medicine wheel. You see, Mrs. Flusher has a thing for items South-Western and we have this medicine wheel hanging on the wall where normally a Picasso or paint-by-numbers Rembrandt would be. It's fashioned of hand tanned imitation buckskin, eagle feathers and rusty metal south-western coat hangers. Attached to it are pictures of slot machines, photos of Vegas, a fake $1,000,000 Bill, and a bunch of other greed/Vegas-related crap. The basic idea is that when we need cash, we rattle the wheel and it coughs up.  The night before the trip, I made the sacred pilgrimage to the wheel. I lit a smudge (White Owl cigar) and waved it around mystically. I concentrated. I held the pendant to the money wheel and shook it gently to get the attention of the Gods. A couple of things fell off the wheel to the floor, so I had to do it again. I put them back and they fell again. It had to be a sign. I figured I was screwed. The day of the trip, I had a bit of time on my hands so I fired up WinPoker.  I played a few hands and next thing I know, I'm dealt three to a Royal. In Spades. I hit 'Deal'. Boom Royal Flush. Now, I was really wondering. I hung my head in shame. All that money wheel mojo, all that tantra, karma, kismet and yahtzee gone to waste. It had been six months since my last Royal on a little hand held unit. It had been six consecutive trips to Vegas without a Royal. I felt like I had peaked a little early, to say the least. But the question remained - had the money wheel done its magic on WinPoker or not? What was the state of the lucky fucking  pendant now? "This is the hour when the roar of gambling reaches a fever pitch in the casino and fills everyone with adrenalin." Now, there were a couple of possibilities - maybe the pendant was super charged. Or maybe it was emptied. If I went back to the wheel, would it recharge it? Maybe it would drain the other way back into the wheel, if it was supercharged. Maybe it would short out and give me an afro. I gathered all the guts I had and hauled them back to the wheel. This time, I was very, very careful. I made some primal noises (Yo - leven -Yo - leven…) and carefully shook the money wheel. I gently touched the tips of the eagle feathers which hung from doeskin thongs onto my silver pendant. I could feel a tingling, a pulsating sensation in one of my better chakras. I concentrated on the feeling of winning and….BREAK! This time I could truly feel the power of the money wheel in my loins. Either that or I had a bad case of underwear scrunch and my nether regions was bein' pinched. Finally the appointed minute of the appointed hour of the appointed day in this waning Millenium arrived and we dropped the dogs off at the kennel, and headed off to the airport. I'd custom made a CD on my CD burner containing tunes that we associate with Vegas - like 'Viva Las Vegas' by Elvis, 'Viva Las Vegas' by ZZ Top, and 'The Election Special' by Monty Python. Actually, that one's there just for fun. I also included some tunes we'd heard the band at Luxor play one trip, and also some Frank, and some Tony B. Then we ate at Mickey D's. I had a McC, a medium F and a vanilla S. Then we both had a P. The flight was a comfortable one stopper (in Chicago's O'Hairport) and we were arriving in Vegas at a wonderful hour - 9:30pm. This is the magical time when the cocktail dress wearing ladies, bejeweled and bedazzling are escorted to the casino by their beaus. This is the hour when the roar of gambling reaches a fever pitch in the casino and fills everyone with adrenalin. This is the hour when they bring out the second tray of runny bread pudding for the dinner sitting at the Mirage buffet. Now, we've had simply horrible luck with taxi drivers - psychopathic drivers, drivers who splelunk in tunnels, etc. - so we decided to try Las Vegas Limo. We picked up our bags at the carousel (having avoided the urge to gamble on the airport slots, a display of self control which would disintegrate for the rest of the week in very short order). I had heard that Las Vegas Limo was at door 5 or some such thing, and there it was, right there next to our carousel. How convenient. I went outside and bought two 'tokens' for $5. Unfortunately, there was no limo to be seen, and we had to wait quite a while, watching the bizarre spectacle of a chain smoking attendant who had lost her voice and was working the crowd trying to grab customers with the gentile manner of a two dollar hooker - "Hey, buddy, WHERE YA GOIN'? Fix ya up with a LIMO?" - and her diminuative companion (think dwarf) who insisted on calling Mrs. Flusher 'Shorty'. Finally we were on our way after a 15 minute wait, along with three other groups of people. We hopped in, and the driver headed for the tunnel (no problem, since it was a flat fare) up to the Interstate. First stop, was Circus Circus (poor bastards). We took the back way in, and weaved this way and that. Finally we dropped the unsuspecting tourists off at the entrance. It was like scraping so much dung off our shoes into a field of cow pies, so distasteful is the CC. I take heart in knowing all of the world's ugliest pink pigment has been used to 'decorate' the vomit bag that is Circus Circus and I will never have to see that horrid color anywhere else. Next stop - Deserted Inn. Now we were just a short hop from downtown, right? Guess again. Next stop, the Hilton. Would we ever get to the G.D.? Finally - and by this time, I was literally falling asleep - we ended up at the Goldarn Nugget. The driver dropped us off and I tipped the SOB three bucks on a ten dollar fare - before finding out (the hard way) that he had dropped us at the South Entrance, instead of the Main Entrance. It was very convenient - for him. We had to haul our bags 198 yards to the front desk. I know it's that far because I made it up myself. So, gentle reader, I can't recommend Las Vegas Limo based upon our shitty treatment. It took an hour from start to finish to get to our hotel - a full 40 minutes gone from our gaming time. Maybe we could take it out of the meagre hours we'd allotted for sleep. Somehow, we'd cope. The Goldarn Nugget is s'posed to be the nicest hotel downtown. Okay. It probably is. It was all right, but the room for example, was the worst of any we've had in Vegas (by a very slight margin). It wasn't crappy or anything, just not as nice as most major strip hotels. We dumped our bags in our room and I launched into the carefully rehearsed speech to Mrs. Flusher. "Honey, why don't we just turn in early, right now, get a good night's sleep, and then tomorrow, when we are well rested, we can have a decent breakfast, and then get right down to gambling." When I caught up with Mrs. Flusher the elevator doors were just closing. I jammed my fist in between them and joined her on her ride to the riches that were waiting for us below.   Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Clip: Elevator down to south lobby of Goldarn Nuggett, casino sounds - ahhhh! (445K) Link to the clip Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Clip: We try to find a VP machine that makes sound (564K) Link to the clip There isn't a whole lot of full pay Video Poker at the Goldarn Nugget, but we did find a nice bank of 9/6 $1 Jacks or Better machines. They are located adjacent to the High Roller area, in the little hallway that leads to the Gold Nugget display. The first two machines had a double up option, which allows you to lose your money twice as fast as normal, as you can now lose on winning hands as well as losing hands. The other ones don't have this feature turned on, so that's where we headed. In addition, I wanted to find some machines that had clear sounds that I could record for this report. You'd think it would be easy... listen and find out! Sonyc-Vysion (tm) Clip: Elevator down to south lobby of Goldarn Nuggett, casino sounds - ahhhh! (445K) Sonyc-Vysion Clip: Find VP that makes sound (564K)     Finally it was time to test the voodoo spell empowered through my amulet in Casino conditions. Nervously I touched the piece of warm silver that hung from my neck, like some ancient uh…necklace, I guess. Anyway, we got creamed. Lost a lot of money and went to bed. G'night!  © 2000-2003 Royal Flusher - All Rights Reserved

And that's part 1. Lots more to come of this blast from the past trip report!