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Friday, December 16, 2022

QOVID Queen

Last Day - The white lightning, momentary, fleeting, triumphs of life are what nourishes us through the slog.

This is probably why we keep gambling - trying to find that next hit, that next win, that next confirmation that for a moment, we are champions of the game.

Take Keno, for example. It's awful. It's boring. It's extremely interesting from a mathematical and probability standpoint, which is awful and boring. But when all the numbers hit - WHAM! Dopamine, Serotonin, Adrenaline, Complete Brain Orgasm.

The shape of this trip was unique in some ways, typical in others. I would say it is one of the most extreme in shifts of luck we've had.

Between us we had three Royal Flushes for $1000 each, Pointies with Kicker for $1000, threes with kicker for $500, two five out of five keno hits within 2 minutes for $250 each, and various and sundry other $400, $300, and $200 wins.

And yet the last two days were brutal. We lost and lost and lost. Why did we keep at it?

See above. And there's always that carrot in the gambler's mind that yes I've lost x amount of dollars - but the only way to turn it around?... is to gamble more. And sometimes it does. Certainly, eventually it does, to some degree. That's just the shape of variance.

We had all those hits and still lost a fairly substantial sum of money. Before I apply the 'feel-good accounting spin on that', there are still a few adventures to relate about our last morning in Vegas and the trip back to the Greacey Palms Senior Putt Putt Trailer Park in Florida.

Let's see now... Wednesday morning... 

There was enough prime rib left over for both of us to make breakfast out of. We still had some rolls and butter from the Bellagio Room Service Debacle, and I considered a prime rib sandwich, but finally we both opted to just heat up the beef in the HotDoggitPocketRocketLogic Travel Oven and have it for breakfast.

By the Geez it turned out just fine, quite delicious in fact. I even assuaged my Vitamin Brocolli deficit as part of breakfast!

Left over prime rib with brocolli, pretzel roll, butter, and rare packet of A1 sauce.

I pounded down everything, along with coffee from the Little Mini Giant cone-o-coffee maker, while I made typey typey on the previous days events, including soaking $150 worth of good clothing in Chevron gasoline.

The worse it gets, the better it reads, folks. This is what I tell myself.

We had a roughly noon-ish departure, so we got packed up and ready, more or less, to get out the door and say goodbye to the Cal.

I still had unfinished business in the video Keno department. Where, for trip after trip, I've won and won and won on five spot tickets (both video keno and live keno), this trip, save for 2 minutes at South Point, it had been nothing but a DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING bust.

(That's twenty DINGs, people, one for each losing number in each losing game.)

I decided that I would venture down to the casino, completely under the radar and off the books. I would risk One Hundred of your Earth Dollars in the pursuit of a 3 quarter a spin video keno win with a five spot ticket. I would use currency from the normal funds part of my stash. Not gambling money. Nobody, but nobody would know about this.

Oh come on, you degenerates, who here hasn't got a few bills of 'mad money' or 'tip money' or 'expense money' or 'administration money' that isn't exactly tallied up and your partner or colleagues don't know about, and it somehow gets played in the machines and somehow you don't include it in the massive tailings pile of your monumental, tragic, losses??

As Kodidog would have put it, I may - or may not - have fallen into this category.

I knew just where I wanted to play, but when I approached the machine, it was a mess. Just a disgusting mess. Some combination of pipe dottle, napkins, spilled drink, ashes everywhere, a couple of pennies, cocktail detritus, sticky ooze... it was disgusting, and I high-tailed it out of there.

No photo exists as I could not bear to ever see this sullied, disgraced, noble machine, ashtray whipped and left for dead ever again. These Game Kings are our friends, and deserve to be treated with respect and fed money regularly.

As I've often pointed out (to the Game King) when I'm losing and almost out of funds, no slot machine is really loved unless somebody is playing it.

I circled around to my back-up machine... and found it in a similar state, but not as bad. What was going on in this casino last night???


I sacrificed a Kleenex and wiped the poor girl down as best I could. I would have powdered her bottom if I'd only known how soiled she was.

Somehow 400 credits appeared in the forlorn Game King. Perhaps someone inserted some special ducat of some sort. I really don't know, and I really can't say how my Admin money got in there how this happened. But with only 15 or 20 minutes available, I punched in some numbers and got to Keno ding-spinning.

Ding-spinning, I think I like that. (Jimmy Poon, file that away to be re-used.)

There were a couple of times when I had four hits out of five early on in the cycle and got all tense and hopeful, shrieking at the machine like a soccer Mom. But my credits dwindled down and when I got to about $20, again, I was thinking about Neil Armstrong trying to get the moon landing done before the fuel ran out in the LEM.

What would Neil Armstrong do in this gambling moonar situation??? He'd push those throttles to the firewall, balls out, and go hell bent for leather, at extreme velocity, at Tranquility Fucking Base.

Accordingly, I increased my bet from three quarters per ding-spin, to four quarters per ding-spin.

37 seconds later I crashed head on into the cold, airless, moonar surface, kicking up a plume of one-sixth gravity moonar dust that has yet to settle even to this day.

Out.

Done.

Finished.

My gambling was done. I went back up to the room, and we packed up, and headed for the airport, where we dropped off the rental car, without incident - unlike some people.

Note: Photo take on 12/14. Thank you Dear Lord, for once, this wasn't ME. Bwaaaaaahahahahahaha.

I can tell you, as a matter of useful information and general interest, that if you encounter the worst case scenario on the rental car shuttle bus, that is, an accident in the tunnel blocking all lanes but one, it takes 45 minutes from the time the rental car guy uses his fancy iPhonePadDroid Device to confirm that you gassed up the vehicle (and a few other things) to get to the drop off point at Terminal 1.

Fortunately - for once - I was on top of it all with a decent travel time margin, and - for once - no drama ensued.

We had Pre-Check again and breezed through security. They called me by name, and smiled sweetly, helped with our luggage, offered espressos and these little hand-crafted biscotti that they do such a nice job of at the TSA.

"Let me get you some new biscotti, Mr. Flusher, these ones are cold. I have some fresh out of the TSA ovens! Un momento!"

Pre-check is so great, I am still glowing from the compliments lavished upon me as we passed through the scanner.

"Royal Flusher! Is that you? Have you lost weight? You look... FABULOUS! Now, just step right through, ignore those flashing red lights and sirens. I've got you, sir. I've got you."

The espresso was excellent, as were the warm cookies, and before long, we were nearing our gate. I took a moment to dock at the Port of Subs. The Quad Queen had nothing to eat as she wasn't feeling quite right.

Pretty delish for a $13 sub. Salty as a the language spouting from a whaler's yapper, though.


I can't imagine navigating Harry Reid as a small private plane pilot!

Everything, generally speaking, went to plan as far as the trip back goes. We took off more or less on time.

We get higher and Lake Mead gets drier.

I grabbed a quarter pounder with cheese at our stopover in Dallas for just $5.88 - no charge for extra pickle. Compare that to the $14.99 egg, ham and cheese croissant at 7-Eleven.

I wasn't hungry, but I wasn't going to go hungry either. I also brought some left over punishment cheese sticks, and added them to the feast.


We got back to the Greacey Palms around midnight local time, another great Vegas trip in the books.

We had had an absolute blast. In spite of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory, we'd had so much fun! The Quad Queen was thrilled to have three Royal Flushes in three days, and I was thrilled to hit Aces Kicker and so many other hands.

We'd met up with friends, new and old, which always enriches our trips.

Looking at the final tally, we have:

Quad Queen -$780
Royal Flusher -$690

Trip combined -$1470

We'd had four nights at Bellagio for an average of $75 each, and three nights at the Cal completely comped.

We had $50 freeplay at Bellagio and $50 resort credit, plus $40 MGM Rewards fun-bux.
We had $20 freeplay at the Cal and $20 in food, plus about $100 in meals covered by Boyd points.

That's probably a total of $100 a night at the Cal, so $300 plus $280 in meals and freeplay, total $580 in comps.

The car was about $300.

Looking at the gambling, we have found over many many trips that we average a loss of $150 each per day. On this trip we lost $100 a day each, and that is the cost of many, many hours of entertainment, and more jackpots than we deserved, I would say.

I also had the pleasure of writing up the trip exploits for all of you to enjoy. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is out there reading this, but then I get a comment, or a message on Facebook or Twitter or Vegas Fanatics that someone found this entertaining, engaging, or funny.

We're not quite done with the narrative yet, though.

The Quad Queen felt pretty bad by the time we got home, and had a rough night. The next day, she tested positive for Las Covid.

The Quad Queen's "You're Fucked" stripe showed up in 15 seconds.

As of this writing, I am still negative, with no symptoms showing.

She's doing okay so far, and the various pills, sprays, potions, lotions, and preparations I've been running around procuring are keeping her comfortable. The main issue has been a cough, and that's being managed well for now. She hasn't gotten much sleep lately (45 minutes Wednesday night!) but that's improving as well, so I am hoping this will pass without complication.

What a trip! What a return for the Quad Queen after 3 years away from Vegas! What price increases!

I hope you enjoyed reading all this. I enjoyed typing it up and trying to be entertaining.

Royal Flusher Vegas has removed all the advertising it once had. It makes for a better experience for the reader (you) and I feel better about it. I do have expenses that I try to sneak onto Jimmy Poon's debit card, like the website registration, storage costs for photos and the like, that sort of thing.

So if you enjoyed reading the blog, please consider throwing a cup of coffee my way. Well, maybe not throwing, but purchasing. Or donating some currency. You get the idea. 'Preciate you!














Cheers, and see you... soon.

R.F.





    8 comments:

    1. Great trip report. I found it to be "entertaining, engaging, and funny".

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    2. Enjoyed the trip report. You appeared to handle the gasoline mishap waaaayyyy better than I would have.

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    3. As always, I eagerly await the daily updates from your trip and would love to see more of your entertaining style in between. Here in Florida, you should find plenty of inspiration for your sardonic wit! Wishing a speedy recovery to QQ, so maybe an update on her later?

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      Replies
      1. She had a pretty good night last night and is feeling much improved today. Still no sign of fever returning. Meanwhile, I am A-OK for now.

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      2. Glad to hear. Now on to your new blog: Royal Florida Man!

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    4. How is the ‘QQ feeling, and you too? Best to you both, Bluekitty

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      Replies
      1. Thanks Bluekitty. She is feeling much much better and over the worst of it. I am still A-OK.

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    5. Just catching up now....will continue to read (Out Loud) to Tom, between naps. It's not the trip that puts him into a coma, it's my monotone voice. Does the same thing in bed at night....when I'm trying to discuss important things before we fall asleep. Ding-spinning! Mind if I borrow that? I'll find out more about the Las Covid update when I rouse Tom and read further, later today.

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