Hash House a Hubcab Pork a Go Go

Day 3 - Monday - continued

There is a wall separating the bathroom sink area from the rest of the room. On the inside of this wall is a wall-mounted safe. It's wide, and tall, but as skinny as the wall.

My chromebook is stowed on its edge, and that's its orientation as it falls from the safe.

I stick a foot out and manage to break its fall on the way somewhat. I curse and feel ill as I pick up the computer. I take it to the desk and... it still lights up. In fact, it works flawlessly.

There is a little damage that I notice later - some bending of metal and splitting apart of panels. But the Chromebook shall live, which bodes well for the live updates I am putting out.

For some reason, perhaps it's because I'm downtown and feeling old, I play video keno at a dime a game. Somehow, I win at it. I get up to $140 or $150 and sit and drink beer and plunk away and watch people flit around from machine to machine, searching for one that will treat 'em right.

I seem to have gotten the numbers picked sideways. Maybe I'll get them right someday.

It's nice and relaxing and mindless and I cash out some profit. Not much, but some.

At video poker, I kill it in a short stint, hitting three quads in 15 minutes. I'm really on my quad A game this trip so far.

I am playing a game where there is a huge premium on four adjacent Aces. None of my quads are Aces. But all three are adjacent. Somehow I have missed out.

So, I find myself with a decent stake in my pocket, and head for blackjack. It's a good table, with four people I recognize from yesterday - couples who travel together. They play green, one or two chips, and know what they are doing. It's a pleasant time and I'm winning.

After half an hour, I'm up almost $100, and a group of Chinese people appear at the table. Two of them sit down and buy in, and three more stand behind, closely, watching.

The Chinese guys are the kind of guys that endlessly do perfectly executed tricks with their chips, splitting them, joining them, flipping them, tossing them, and landing them in little pagoda shapes. These are the same guys who, while reading, flip ballpoint pens around their knuckles in college, just to show that they can.

Initially, I'm concerned that I'm getting saddled with a couple of know-little knobs, but these guys are okay, if a little reckless. They know what they're doing at the table.

The Chinese guy immediately to my left buys in for $40. He plays $20 and loses. Next hand, same thing. He's out.

He buys in for another $20, and wins a hand. I'm just coasting at $5 a hand, watching out of the corner of my eye. It's getting more interesting.

Next hand, $20 bet and he has to double, so he's all in again. He wins.

A few hands go by and he bets $75 and has to double that. He wins that hand. His buddy is long busted, so now he has a cheering section of four.

Now he has $300 in chips and with huge clanging balls the size of a 16" properly-seasoned hot smoking carbon steel wok, he shoves them all into the betting circle.

He's dealt 19.

Not bad.

Not bad until the dealer pulls a five for 21. He's wiped out. I'm kind of sorry to see him go. He takes his posse with him. Talk about all or nothing balls to the wall aggressive on like Donkey Kong play!

When I'm done, I color $225. Somehow I am up $45 on the day.

I see an opportunity to grab what I hope will be a cool shot of my chips - and it works really nicely.

My new host, Curt, should be in, so I go and introduce myself. We have a nice chat, and he is set to pick up one of my two paid for nights based on my play. Excellent. He'll take a look the next day to see if he can do more.

Sounds fair to me.

After that, Beeefffalllooo!!! goes great and I get a bunch of bonus rounds, playing for a solid hour and cashing $60.

And at video poker, I promptly lose that same $60 playing half hour at full speed on Double Double Bonus.

It's time to get some grub, and there's a Hash House a Go Go sitting right there, so I get a table and check it out - my first time at this place. The portions will be huge, but I have a plan - eat half, and save the rest for Punishment Breakfast.

This is another terrible, terrible plan, in keeping with this being the worst-planned trip of all time.

One observation of the HHAG is they probably need to get someone to run the carpet sweeper around more than once a day - the carpet is somewhat unkempt.

For some stupid fucking reason, I order the special of the day, which is a double portion of hubcap-sized pork tenderloin, graced with two cups of - something. It's supposed to be sort of a country onion gravy, but it's not only oozy and gooey, it's sticky - and it's sweet.

The mashed underneath it all is fine. The pork hubcaps are sort of fine but overdone. I manage to eat one of them.

Thing is, my nether regions have been crampy, gassy, bloaty, flighty, tentative, irritable, irritated, irrigated, fumigated and fenestrated every since I ate that fucking sausage in YYZ two nights ago. So this is a huge (literally) mistake.

I feel ill just looking at that sickly sweet gravy. And you do too.

The service is good but I'm happy to get out of there - stupidly, carrying the leftovers, which consists of an entire pork hubcap, a lot of mash, and a lot of PL Premium Sick Gravy.

I play one more $20, lose that, and head up to the room, down not much on the day and plus a keno ticket that I forgot to check.

In spite of dinnertime fail, it's been a great day, a ton of fun, and I've saved lots of calories by getting ripped off on that quarter order of Brightside fries.

Day - Machines: -$168
Day - Blackjack: +$125
Day - Keno: -$19 (as it turns out)

Trip: -$252

I've done three days and my budget is on track. I can't wait for tomorrow - moving day!