Pinchy and Flashy Battle Royale

I closed my eyes and opened them 8 hours later and had one though - I had to take advantage of a shower with a view.

Theoretically, you can see out of the odd window in the El Cortez tub/shower while you get clean 'n dandy.

The Cal.

It was Thursday, Day 5, and the shower was sadly inadequate in comparison to Mandalay Bay. The water was hot, but there was so little of it dripping down that I couldn't get warm. It was one of those deals where the longer you stay in, the more you don't want to get out because you're not warm yet.

I felt like a rotisserie chicken in there, constantly turning to get an even roast.

Presumably, I got the casino scum off of me, and then after a cup o' the Lil' Giant, I went down to blog. Of course, this required keno tickets, so I got that going, and then hunkered down in the empty Parlour Bar.

I've noticed that the bar has much fewer customers then before. Maybe it's because they hosed the Bonus Poker? Live and learn, El Bitches! Don't take my VP away from me.

After carefully hand-crafting yet another stellar blog post, I craved breakfast. Time to nip over to Siegel's 1941. It's a stupid name, if you ask me. I like the tie in to Bugsy, but why not call it Bugsy's? Or just 1941? Or maybe Shot Through The Eye From Behind's, if you want to be historically accurate?

I opted for the Scrambled Egg, Sausage & Onion Skillet (13).

The waitress took my order.

"Coffee?"

I gave her the stink-eye. "No. Coffee."

And then something caught my eyeball - an ILLY logo next to a list of espresso-based drinks.

Cappuccino is only $0.55 more than the Goathoof Reserve swill. So I shouted out an order for one of those.

Here's lead in your eye.

Hey, guess what? It was excellent!

So, armed with that knowledge, now you too can be a savvy coffee-orderer at Flamingo-boi's 1941.

The breakfast arrived and it looked amazing! It was pretty damn tasty, too, but the whole thing rested on a bed of three of those triangular death-to-hearts hash brown slabs. This thing would be untouchable if they just fried up some taters and peppers and served the real thing with breakfast, instead of those factory line potato pucks.

The onions look unappetizing - but in real life, they looked and tasted great.

I think there were 3 eggs - I couldn't finish it all. Me!

We'd each gotten a $10 voucher from the swipe 'n spin promo and I thought I'd see if I could use those. The problem was that only one of 'em was in my name.

Not an issue at all. The bill came to just under $20, so that's $20 more gambling money for me. Love me the free breakfast!

We got packed up and had a few minutes to fuck around on the coin droppers.

This is so typically me. I put $20 in Double Double Bonus and within 2 minutes it was gone.

OK do the smart thing, change machines, try the Double Deuces.

Within one minute I get four Aces. FUCK.

And to add insult to injury, the woman next to me hits four deuces from one on the Loose Doose for $625.

I gave her the Smiley Stinkeye congratulations. The one that says "Wow, look at you go, I appreciate you - BITCH!"

Then, after playing a while, I get dealt three deuces.

I held the three ducks and ended up with a fake straight flush. 55 quarters instead of 2000. I was in a ducking fury.

Out of credits, and deciding to quit while I was behind, I headed off the check my keno tickets ($7) and stop and see if a host was around.

One wasn't but the boothling called Marty the shift mangler and he came over and I said, "Did we lose enough to get the room comped?"

Much typey typey and then the sign you love to see - Marty picked up the phone and called the desk. "Wipe 1112." Or similar words. Our two night stay, picked up. So that's a $110 win just for the asking.

We hauled our shit out into the brilliantly sunny, but bracingly cold day, and did the Homeless Perp Walk through the back alleys and parking garages until we arrived in no style at the California Hotel and Casino, which I love.

The room wasn't ready, so we checked our bags and hunkered down on Pinchy and Flashy for what would be a semi-epic residency for me and a full-epic residency for the Quad Queen.


We bashed on those mothers for two solid hours while Maria sang 'cocktails! drinks!' and brought us, well, cocktails and drinks.

Within my first ten hands, this:

Lower volatility stuff wasn't working and after an hour we'd had no quads. So we started to push a bit and I got one.

And another.

And the Quad Queen finally got going.

With her last $5:

Somewhere in there, I took a break to get the room keys, get the bags delivered to the room, load up the safe with goodies and the fridge with Mandalay Bay cream cheese (which may be destined for consumption at Wynn), and $30 freeplay loaded onto my card.

I blew through that in no time, and $40 more.

We were still struggling somewhat, but pounding those buttons!

I cashed a $100 ticket (!) and went up to the room to finish blogging yesterday's events.

After about an hour, finally, the Quad Queen had had enough. She'd played a solid four hours. You have to respect that!

Time for a break in the room, then a meet up, dinner, and some surprises.