The Dirty Lowdown

You ain't got to be so bad, got to be so cold.
This dog eat dog existence sure is getting old.
Got to have a Jones for this
Jones for that.
This runnin' with the Joneses, boy, just ain't where it's at, no, no.
You gonna come back around.
To the sad, sad truth, the dirty lowdown.

- Boz Scaggs, Lowdown

Somewhere along the line yesterday I heard Lowdown and it stuck in my head as a groovacious R&B lament perfect to capture the feel of a stroll in downtown Las Vegas in the summer. Those people sleeping and living out on the street are in very tough circumstances and it's heartbreaking to see their physical condition in some cases.

I still like the song though.

When I woke up, I was refreshed of mindset, and vigorous of vim, ready to take on the casinos once more, and after a couple of hours of in-room activity such as Little Gianting and blogging, I headed down to do just that.

It occurred to me that I had not yet even gotten one scratchcard from Main Street Station, so I set about to rectify that.

Morning video poker - I hoped it would be a good start, and not one of those dumper starts.

Main Street was almost deserted at this early hour (I'd gotten up at 5:00 AM) and I got busy.

First $20, second $20, third $20, fourth $20 all on different machines and different games and all dumperized. Man I hate that. It happens so often on the newer machines, you lose the first six, seven or eight hands in a row and by the time you get a paying pair, you are playing with $10 or less, not $20.

I finally hit something on Aces no Faces and had a fairly decent little play on that. My scratcher was $3, too, which was an auspicious start.

Having played that out, I tried this and that. One excitement highlight came when I accidentally pressed BET MAX on a video keno machine, with a 16 quarter bet ensuing, instead of 4. Good golly. Got nuthin'

I was down $180 when I checked the kiosk to see what I'd won.

Host: "Tell him what he's won, Johnny!"

Johnny: "All right, Johnny... he's won... A NEW BUFFET THE SIZE OF A CAR!"

<ding ding ding ding ding>

At least I had earned enough truth tier points to get a free consequences brunch buffet, a $17 value. Next move, call Global.

Adrift in a carrot cake sea...

I ate a bunch of stuff that really wasn't that good. My meal had no focus. Usually I take more care in assembling a culinary feed trough. I would say that the tastiest thing this day was the fairly fresh portuguese sausage. Those Porties know their tubular meats!

The best part of the morning was a run on Treasure Chest.

I played for almost an hour on $20, getting three more scratchcards.

I also got a number of Royal Fake-out Annoyance Hands.

Done with Main Street, I headed back to the Cal to continue losing.

Before too very long, I found myself back in the room with a stomach full of carrot cake and a wallet empty of $300.

What a shitty, shitty start. Man I felt bad. Piled onto the debacle of the day before which was such a disappointment as compared to the sky-high win of the day before that, it felt like I was climbing Shit Mountain without Shit Climbing Boots or even a Shit Shovel, or some Shit Carabiners.

It was probably just as well that I had a bunch of chores to take care of, specifically, hauling my arse down to Luxor and checking in there. I was double booked to take advantage of the same offer I'd used at the start of the trip - one bedroom suite, $100 food, $75 freeplay, and no resort fees. Besides the goodies, the other advantage is that Luxor is quite close to the airport, which could be important, given that my flight out leaves at 7:00 AM on Tuesday.

I took an additional $200 out of the safe, checked the WAX bus time, and struck out for the pyramid. I just hoped that when I returned back to the Cal I wouldn't have struck out on gambling and be down $500 for the day.