How did I know up on waking that today would be a magical day?! How could I have known?!
I allot myself $100 to play nickel video poker, plus my $20 freeplay for the day.
When that is gone, I take a break.
Then I allot myself another $100.
When that is gone, I took a break.
Yes, it is one of those days. As great as the quad deluge had been the day before the quad drought I'm in is just as bad or worse.
Here's what I have to show for the day.
After hitting that last quad, I play 2,000 hands (400 hands of 5-play) without hitting a quad, or anything higher. It is definitely an outlier in terms of luck, but its effect is to eat all my credits.
The high point of the session is being dealt four-to-a-Royal. The low point of the session is not hitting any of them. That's five chances down the tubes.
I take another break. A long break.
At some point I have some sort of punishment breakfast in the room - the last bit of the Desperation Cookie, and some pocket lint, along with some delicious Little Giant Cheap Bastard coffee. I am saving my daily food comp dollars for the buffet for lunch.
After unsuccessfully fucking around looking for entertaining things to do in the room, I decide that it seems like a good time to do just that.
It was... okay. The little individual shepherd's pie is pretty good. Better than a sheep pie, I can assure you.
The dessert thing on the right is excellent. The cookie makes its way unscathed to my room - imagine that!
I take another long break. I don't really feel like going out and about - I've been pushing it, eating things I probably shouldn't - I'm still not feeling great. It's a drag, but not a deal-breaker. I know sooner or later I'll feel better.
 |
| In-room entertainment for the afternoon. |
In the casino, some jerk-face button masher is pounding hell out of my nickel machine. I make a couple of passes but he shows no sign of moving on.
His modus-annoyance-I is to hit Deal, survey the cards, and then as quickly as he can possibly manage, whack the hold buttons and immediately whack Draw. This is as stupid as it is annoying. The opportunities for finger-checks abound. I watch for a while, just off his shoulder.
He plays a hand and I notice something, something he didn't.
I loudly say, "Shoulda held the pair of sevens..." and stroll off, feeling smug.
Yep, playing fifty hands at a time, rushing, he missed seeing a pair and dumped them. I feel vindicated, but it doesn't get me onto my machine.
I decide to pluck at keno a quarter at a time and get a drink. It takes forever, and I end up leaving. Fifty paces away, I spot the CW with (I assume) my drink on board her tray. I chase her down and get my drink. Vodka soda. She asks me if I want a second one - there's another one on the tray. Hell yes I do.
Off to magic I go, double-fisting the drinks, which I know I won't be allowed to take into the venue.
I get a seat and after a while of watching the photo Sheila work the room, taking pics of groups to sell back to them later at some exhorbitant cost, the show starts.
There's a lot of smoke and flashy lights and shit. It looks pretty good.
I brazenly take some pics of David Goldrake, holding his arms out in that patented 'look what I just did!' way that magicians do, waiting for the long arm of the law to shut me down. It doesn't take long. The usher uses the 'shine a 60,000 candlepower highly focused white light beam at the perpetrator' method to get my attention. This has the desired effect, with the added bonus of embarrassing me as the entire room looks at the uber bright illumination.
Fair enough, I've got what I want.
Overall, I enjoyed the show. The production values are pretty good, and Goldrake is professional throughout. But it's tough when the room is only a third full.
A few of the illusions had me stumped, a few of them I've seen before (look, magician is over here at the side of the room all of a sudden!), and a couple I figured out how they were done.
It's tough to be critical on a guy who's had some terrible luck in life - his wife suffered a tragic accident on stage recently - and is not backing down from continuing with what he has dedicated his life to.
So my gentle observations are that there were too many - way too many - times when Goldrake was calling for a 'round of applause'. Every audience participant (multiple times), every member of the show, every trick. It seemed a bit much and I was really, really tired of clapping. "Our assistant lighting director's ex-partner's mother - let's give her a big round of applause!"
When you are having to drum up excitement, the chemistry isn't there yet. And perhaps this is attributable to the small crowd.
Secondly, there just wasn't enough content to make a show. There are a handful of big illusions, and a couple of long audience participation numbers, surrounded by billows of flashy smoky fill. I would say that the core of the show is barely an hour. The end of the show with all its introductions and rounds of applause seemed to take ten minutes on its own.
My wish for this show is that it catches on, and the audiences grow to fill the room. That would drive everything forward. The illusions are certainly good enough to do so and the visuals of the show look great.
After the show, I give Slutty Times Pay a try. Once again, the four-to-a-Royal draw eludes me. That's eight chances in one day, including three at 3x pay. All fails.
At this point in the day, I have my work cut out for me.
I spend some time thinking over if the contents of an emergency parmesan cheese packet would mix with the Smirnoff to make a good 'vodka smoothie'.
Fortunately, I think better of it, and go down and get a re-run of last night's cheeseburger.
My plan was to get soused in the room - I don't even do that. I have one stiff one and then crash.
Vegas has good days and not so good days. Today is a not so good day, but I am hopeful that tomorrow will be better. It's back to the Cal.
I have some freeplay there, and that's good, because I'm pretty much out of cash, and almost out of budget for the entire trip, with about five days to go.
Machines: Day -$300
Trip: -$941
RF
ReplyDeleteIt was announced in August that Imaginarium would end in Sep 2018.
Also the ad banner that shows up on your page for Inferno at Paris ... Inferno was also cancelled in August.
Hope the play in later days us better than this day.