Vegas Baby: Part 4 - Let it Ride

We’ve talked travel. We’ve talked lodging. We’ve talked eating. NOW, comes the biggie. This is what Vegas is all about. Gambling.

OK, I am no big gambler by any means. I rarely stop by anything more than a $5.00 Black Jack table and the penny slots are where you will find me on a casino floor. That being said, there is something alluring about the idea of hitting it big in Vegas.

You hear the sounds, you see the lights. Is it any wonder that the digital sounds of someone cashing out or winning is slightly louder than anything else. You usually do not hear a sound when you do not hit any lines on a slot machine.

Working for four years in Amusement Park environments teaches you a lot about the art of the sell. You want to draw in people so you emphasize a big win, no matter how mundane or impossible it be to actually win.

I have been to six casinos in my life. Two in Niagara Falls, The Rivers in Pittsburgh and now The Mirage, The Bellagio, and The Venetian. Out of all of them, I actually prefer Pittsburgh. That sounds biased being in my area but if your sole purpose for going to Las Vegas, beyond shows, food, experience, or sightseeing, is to gamble then don’t go. Go to a place more local to you. When I went to The Rivers after it first opened all they had was slot machines and it was still fun. When they introduced table games in the last year or so, I was excited because I like a good game of Black Jack.

Still, I was a just a bit disappointed at the lack of actual tables on the casino floor and the fact that the casino only covered one level. The ones in Niagara Falls had a couple. This was in 2004. They had one level that was smoking and one, non smoking.

But, going to Vegas, my expectations were high in the amount of actual tables and variety of machines and the number of available floors to gamble on and after visiting all three of those afore mentioned casinos, I saw no distinct difference in actual gambling experience.

In fact, I found the offerings of slot machines to be very repetitive. I saw the same machines over and over again, throughout the Mirage floor. It makes it easy for someone to find the machine they like, but I spent a lot of time going over the floor looking to find ones that I enjoyed and kept seeing the same stupid ones. In the end, I kept coming back to the same one, which was a plus to the casino for dragging me into that world of fail since I spent close to $50 on it. 

It was right next to the restrooms and the Cirque du Soleil ‘Beatles’ Love show. There were times that you could really go up a lot if you could get the ‘Battle for Gotham’ bonus which is a four part race that is AI Controlled that racks up bonus credits for you. I think the most I ever got was around $30 and I ended up putting that back into the machine anyway. I found a video of it from a different casino on YouTube. It’s very fun.

The Dark Knight Slot Machine

Granted, in that video, the player bet probably the max bet which would have been like $0.80 and multiplied 12 times which is $9.60. But the payout was 213.36 so, that was good. I usually did the $0.80 single multiplier and on very rare occasions did I splurge and do 2x multipliers. I’m such a cheap ass.

Yep, I only ended up gambling $120 and I lost all of that. I gained a little back playing an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade slot machine in the airport before our flight home. Then I lost it again.

Now, once again, I should stress that I only went to three casinos, on the strip and didn’t venture downtown, but you’d think that it would be a better experience in the newer area.

So, in all, if you have a casino near where you live and have some grand scheme of going to Vegas to hit it big… stay home. Save the money you would have blown on travel and do something else with it. Go to the local joint and spend the original gambling fund there. Might as well help your area over someone else’s, right?

Also, decide how much you actually want to spend on gambling and don’t go beyond that. If you go up, fine. If you can remove your original amount and just gamble on the house money, do so. That way, when you eventually lose it all, you end up even. This is not the economy to be losing your shirt in.

Next up is my monthly WUMF post and then some final thoughts on Vegas.

Vegas Baby: Part 3 - What Happens In Vegas Stays in the Colon

Whenever you mention Vegas to someone, the first thought in their head is gambling. Usually, the second or third thought is the food, more specifically, the buffets. As I lead you by the brain and tasted buds through the Vegas experience, remember, I only stayed in the Strip. I did not venture downtown.

I can tell you, right now, the notion that you can gamble big and eat big on little money is long gone. There are plenty of places to dine inside the Mirage and I took advantage of three of them. Of course, there is a Starbucks. I’m sure there is one in most every Casino in Vegas. There is also the standard buffet, called Cravings. There is a frozen yogurt place, which was neat. They have B.B King’s Blues Club for some great pork and music. There is also a Carnegie’s Deli, like the one in New York. And finally, we sampled some of the room service provided by the Mirage.

On our first night, we checked into the hotel and went down to B.B. King’s, We had already missed the buffet which closed. The Blues Club was shrouded in darkness and looked much like a Ruby Tuesday’s or other chain restaurant. The difference is the wall art which is mostly Rhythm and Blues giants like Muddy Waters or Clapton. Looking over the menu, we both got BBQ pulled pork. I went the sandwich route, while my wife went with the full meal. Food was excellent.

After eating we were treated to a live performance by a band called PJ Barth. I was unfamiliar with the band and the lead singer/guitarist was this skinny little white dude who looked like a kid who dressed up as Stevie Ray Vaughn for Halloween. He was accompanied by a bassist and drummer and that was all he needed. Here’s a video of him doing an awesome cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing


The next morning… well around 10 or 11 am, we went to eat lunch at The Carnegie Deli. Now, I’ve never been there but I hear Bowser from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli eat there together.
Looking over the menu I can tell you one thing, they like their tongue. Every other item on the menu had tongue in it. We stayed away from that and went for a club sandwich, which we shared. Why? It was about a foot tall. They must have used a pound of turkey and a pound of bacon. I ended up making three sandwiches out of it. But it was yummy.

That night we went to the buffet, geared up for some great eating. I was thoroughly unimpressed with Cravings. It had a sort of Art Deco cafeteria look to it. The offerings were a bit meager. The crab legs were split down the middle. That must be a Vegas thing because the Bellagio was the same way. I’ve never seen crab legs done like that. You’d think it would be easier to eat them that way but it was not. Whatever those things, that run down the middle of a crab leg, are called they held onto the meat with a deathlike grip.

We should have started with dessert because that was the best part of it. Everything else was a bit off and the choices were a bit weird. For what it cost to eat there, $30 bucks a piece, I tried to make up for it with desserts and crab legs.

The next day, our last full day, we tried room service for breakfast. We both ordered a triple breakfast combo consisting of waffles, pancakes, and French toast. Now before you say, “Ooh, have another, fatty” realize that for the total cost of $22.00 each, we got a single plate with three silver dollar pancakes, an equally sized waffle which looked to be ripped from the other three mini waffles in an Eggo pack, and a block of French toast the size of a pack of cigarettes. All of this was drizzled over by fruit compote. That was room service. While it was pretty good tasting, the idea that, for $40.00, I can take my wife, kid, and father-in-law to Cheddar’s in Wheeling and have a Monte Cristo, a burger, a shrimp platter, a grilled cheese, two sodas, a chocolate milk, and two draft beers makes me a bit queasy.

That afternoon we had the Blizz frozen yogurt snack, which was nice. You grab a cup, fill it with various flavors, add toppings and spend like $0.50 an ounce. It was pretty good for getting frozen yogurt. I think it ended up being like $12 all said and done.

However, that night I was bound and determined to eat a good buffet dinner in Vegas. We walked from the Mirage down to the Bellagio so I could see the fountains. We decided to eat there with a little apprehension at dropping another $60.00 for crap food.

Mission accomplished. The buffet was much, much better, though they do their crab legs the same way. But I found what I really liked which was the four or five different pasta dishes that were just phenomenal. I was ready for a nap after that.

After all of that eating I realized we spent a hell of a lot of money, just on food. In fact, we spent more money on food that we did on gambling. Hey, why not? At least I get something for my money with the food. I can’t enjoy losing $120 on slots and blackjack, but I’ll have this fat forever.

And for all that, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Vegas of old, with the cheap prime rib buffets and free drinks, is either a myth or was ruined by something else. Everything there costs money. Now, had I dropped a grand in the casino, they might have comped me a meal or two but you’re basically spending that money anyways. Hell, a 32 oz. Diet Coke, by the pool was $8.00. WTF!?!?

Although, directly across the street from the Mirage was both a Denny’s and a McDonald’s. But that would have been wrong. That’s like going to China and eating at a Manchu Wok or going to Manhattan and getting pizza at a Sbarro. You just don’t do that shit.

Next up, gambling and the Vegas experience.

Vegas Baby: Part 2 - Room With a View

I’m taking you on the tour of Vegas through the point of view of the angry traveler. We talked about flying and we talked about checking in, too. Let’s talk about the accommodations.

OK, so getting into the hotel was half of the fun, right? Now, that I’m checked into the Mirage, what is there to do?

Well, first of all, the room was pretty nice. The furnishings were sort of modern but not extremely cold. The room was pretty big with a nice desk for the computer that sort of came out from the wall so you could see the TV. The bathroom was rather nice with a huge mirror with these very bright lights around it. It didn’t lie to you whatsoever. 

There was a mini fridge which I didn’t dare bump for fear it would spit something out at me, charging me a gazillion dollars for a small bag of raisins or something.

Now, our room was facing the pool which was kind of nice. We could see Caesar’s directly across from us, Harrah’s to our left and way down towards the mountains, I could make out The Rio, which made for a real nice sunset picture.

Oh, and the funny thing about our room was that not only did it face the main pool, it also faced the dolphin habitat and BARE. If you don’t know what BARE is, it’s exactly what you think it is. The Mirage has a secluded pool area that is geared towards those wishing to go topless. I believe women get in for free and men have to pay. Not sure what the purpose of that is. So, the idea is to get women to take off their tops and get men to pay money to come ogle them. What other reason is there?

Unfortunately, the weather was a bit nippy and windy so nobody wanted to be brave. Believe me, my wife kept saying, “nobody’s there.” She seemed more interested in looking than I was. I guess because it’s something we’ve never been exposed to. (No pun intended.)

The only real issue I had with the room was that it was so far from everything. If the argument for hotels in Vegas is that the restrict the amount of amenities you have in the room which forces you to go to the casino then I counter with, “Fine, don’t put it so effing far away, then.” I had a couple of issues with room keys that caused me multiple trips to the front desk which was down the long ass hall, down the elevator, through the casino, through the jungle dome thingy, and over to the desk. If they wanted me to leave my room, they would have simply made the commute easier. I will say that after feeling cooped up and bored in my room made me want to just go gamble to waste time. Point to Vegas, this round.

Vegas Baby: Part 1 - First Impressions

I’m splitting these posts up because there is just way too much to discuss. Your brains will be mush and eyes will be crossed and I will lose half of my readership which will leave me with 2 ¼ readers. So, deal with it.

As I said before, I was supposed to go to Las Vegas on business but that the conference had been cancelled. Since I already had charged the room and airfare to my credit card and had not submitted an expense for them, I merely decided… with the help of my wife, to just continue to go to Las Vegas as a sort of second honeymoon. Our first one was wrought the black death as my wife was seriously ill while we were in Niagara Falls in November of 2004.

We always said we’d have a “real” honeymoon but after two years of being married we were blessed with a child and things just sort of got put on hold. Spontaneity has never been our forte as we’ve experienced nothing but trouble in the past on various trips. Still, it was an adventure to be had. My wife had never flown and neither of us had ever been to Vegas.

After our flight we arrived at LAS we made plans to get to The Mirage. I was planning to rent a car as my original itinerary was solely based in The Mirage. A shuttle or taxi would be sufficient.

Shuttle from LAS to The Mirage = $7.00 each. / $14 for both and it takes about 45 minutes to get there, depending on how many stops.

Taxi from the airport = Less than $20 and you get there a hell of a lot quicker.

Is the shuttle cheaper? Yes. Look, if you have no problem standing outside the airport for an hour waiting for the right shuttle to show up, save the $5.00. However, if you’ve just gotten done travelling for five hours and want to GET THERE, take a cab. In the end, you’ll be better off spending the extra money.

Now, all my built up expectations of Las Vegas were generated by the Ocean’s movies, the television show Las Vegas, and the old 70s show Vega$. I had no concept of geography. I basically thought that Las Vegas was this big huge city out in the desert that was wall to wall casinos and hookers. You could basically walk from one end to other and see it all. I had no idea that there was a downtown area (Old Las Vegas in my mind) where places like the Freemont Street Experience and the Golden Nugget resided along with one of the more iconic figures, Vegas Vic… the cowboy who looks to be hitchhiking. This is separate from “The Strip” which is where places like The Mirage, The Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace, New York New York, The Luxor, Treasure Island, MGM Grand. These are the more opulent casinos and hotels. I had no clue.

So, on to the Mirage. From the outside The Mirage doesn’t have any other discernible features that set apart. Caesar’s has the whole Roman motif, The Bellagio has the fountain, The Luxor is the pyramid, etc. Once you get closer, though, you see that the Mirage has this huge rock formation out front that serves as a nightly Volcano show, which is cool.

I found this on YouTube because my own video was lame.

Once you walk into The Mirage you have the check in desk to your right, some of the casino floor to your left and directly ahead is a dome with a wooden bridge and various flora and waterfalls which was very pretty.

After checking in we had to drag ourselves and luggage (one rolling bag, one purse, one laptop bag) through the casino towards the middle of the hotel where the elevators were located. The amount of traffic on a Tuesday evening was ridiculous. There were people everywhere. Old, young, kids, adults alike just jamming the pathways through the bleep bloop of slot machines with their digital clinking of credits being paid out, the sporadic cheers from a craps table, and occasional song playing over the loud speakers.

When we finally reached the elevators we were whooped. I was so looking forward to just falling face first on the bed. But first, we had to get to our room, 20123. You step off of the elevator and enter one of the three wings of the guest room floors. The design of the interior was a perspective Inception mind screw. The hallway looked longer than it actually was and it was still a hell of a walk.

Talk about perspective

Next time, we’ll discuss the finer points of Mongo in hotel rooms and, later, the food which is what the real attraction for me to Las Vegas was.

US Scareways and the City of Brotherly Meh

We arrived at the airport around 11:15 for our 2:35 flight to Philly. We walked in the front door of LAS and that’s where the problems started. The check in kiosk right inside the door was hard to use because it would not take my card. After a few tries, I moved to another machine and checked my wife and I in and printed out boarding passes. We then headed over to check our bag at the US Airways desk. Some older blond lady, named Michelle, started barking at all of us to use the kiosks to check in. I held up my boarding passes and bag receipt and she dismissed that, saying simply, “Use the kiosk to check in.” I said, “But we…” “USE THE KIOSK TO CHECK IN” This burned my ass. I walked over to the kiosk and started to go through the motions. It was the exact same process I just did.

As Michelle barked at a group of foreign travelers, not well versed in English, repeatedly telling them to “USE THE KIOSK” I became a little incensed. “What if we used the kiosk over there to check in?”

“Well, you need to use this one for your bag.” She sniped.

“What if it printed me a receipt?” I sniped back.

“You need to use this one.” She chirped.

“WHY?!”

“Because THAT one (pointing towards door) doesn’t print the sticker on THAT side of the counter (pointing at the counter).”

“Why didn’t you say THAT, first?” I said and then asked why the hell do they let people check in over there.

Then, as she walked away I said, “Someone needs to learn some customer service skills.”

After that issue, we moved into the security line, which did not require a backscatter search, simply a metal detector search. Honestly, what’s the point of having backscatter machines at only certain airports? I would figure Vegas would be a bigger hub for travel than Pittsburgh. In any case, we were through. Now, we play the waiting game.

After winning back $20 from an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade slot machine near our departure gate we were informed that our flight was delayed. This reduced our already slim connection time from 30 minutes.

We boarded and departed around 3:07. This was after we taxied all the way to the other side of the airport. Now, we were in the air with a four and a half hour flight. We didn’t have the option of choosing two seats together. It was three or nothing. I was on the aisle and my wife was in the middle. Originally, there was supposed to be this older lady in the window seat but she claimed she did not want to sit next to the bathroom, which our seats were in front of, and made another guy in her row move. So, my wife was stuck next to a 61 year old grizzled Vietnam Vet retiree from New Jersey who had a case of Tourette’s and a gaping wound on his right arm which shared space with my wife’s left.

Of course then it became a four hour conversation about everything from the country to the construction company he worked for which also employed Franco Harris in the 70s. He said Franco had a very high pitched voice and was pretty worthless because he knew he was going to be making a lot of money in the NFL. He had a lot of opinions and a couple of off color remarks about hookers in Vegas. “Oh, that’s just grandpa.”

The flight crew was a bit cold and unfeeling and while they did pass out two rounds of complimentary drinks, of which Grizzled Vet had four bottles of vodka to go with his two cans of cranberry soda, there were no snacks unless you were willing to pay $5.00 for a bag of peanuts.

Also, while the captain was able to communicate to us the score of Game 7 of the World Series, no one had any information about connecting flights, whether they were on time or not. Apparently, the tower could only get ESPN and not a schedule of other flights.

Around 10:10PM, I walked back to the flight attendants to ask them about the other flights and they repeated that they did not have any information about the anything else other than the fact that we were still 30 minutes out and there would be a representative on the ground waiting to discuss our options. “Uh oh.” My wife and I began to make plans to either wait it out or get a rental car, at the airline’s expense, and drive the five and a half hours to Pittsburgh.

As we sat and wondered, worrying about our chances of making it from our landing gate to our departure gate inside the ever shrinking window of time, we received another update from the World Series game. I became even more angry at the lack of empathy or “owning the fire” as the customer service text books will tell you.

We landed right around 10:39, giving us about five minutes to deplane and race to the gate. By a stroke of luck, our landing gate had changed from a different terminal all together to seven gates over. Things were looking up a little. The flight crew came on and said that the ground was aware of our lateness and that there would be someone there to help. In the meantime, she asked passengers that did not have a connecting flight or a shortened connection time to stay out of the aisle and let the rest of us go. At that point, everyone stood up. So much for the City of Brotherly Love.

I was a bit of a prick to some folks who just meandered out in the aisle, enforcing the idea that I now had three minutes to run seven gates. Eventually, we got off and there was a Pamplona themed running of the passengers to the various gates. As I rounded the corner towards Gate 8, I saw the trailing line of people that gave me some hope. We were going to make it. My wife was nowhere in sight. Apparently, she stayed behind to talk with the representative at the other gate. I would do what I could to hold up the flight, but she better get her butt moving.

I got to the desk and noticed some of the people from our previous flight standing in line. They didn’t look happy. I looked out the window and saw no plane sitting at the gate. My heart sank. “Did we miss it?” I asked. One guy who was there with his family said, “It isn’t here yet.”

Unbelievable. I worried. I became unruly towards other passengers in my way. I RAN! I never run anymore. All for nothing because the flight scheduled for an 10:45 departure was going to be another two hours late. One of the other passengers said, “Oh, you didn’t know. It’s kind of an understood thing. The US Airways flight from Philly to Pittsburgh is never on time.”

At this point, my wife came walking up the hall, looking distraught that I was kind of just standing there. I told her the news and she was visibly upset. And to make matters worse, all of the nearby shops had closed down for the night. We hadn’t eaten in almost 12 hours and here we were stuck in Philly for another two.

It was the lesser of two evils I guess. Still, had the damn flight crew been more concerned about their passengers who were travelling, instead of those who were baseball fans then maybe we could have been more cordial to the other folks lollygagging in the aisle. They stood there, yanking on their stuck luggage that had become lodged in the overhead bins because the flight attendants slam them in there in order to get the lid closed. Not to mention half of the people who had luggage stowed in the overheads were miles away from their seats because you sort of just look for open space because there is never room for three pieces of luggage up top.

In all the airports I’ve been in over the years, Philly ranks at the very bottom. It’s dilapidated, crumbling, dirty and the staff just don’t really care. I attempted to plug in my wife’s laptop and let some friends know we were alive but stuck. After locating an open outlet, finding it with no power and trying several others at a different gate, I was able to finally charge up my battery that had been depleted from usage on the plane.

On the flights to Atlanta and Vegas, the Delta gates had various stands in between the rows of seats with outlets available. Once again, Delta gets it. Most people travel with electronic devices and need to plug in once in awhile during layovers.

I will never fly US Airways again, never. Their planes reminded me of old emergency rooms or the elementary school nurse’s office. The old and worn material covering the seats looked uncomfortable and somewhat icky. The flight crew was drab and zombielike in there demeanor. The amount of “warm and fuzzy” customer service experiences have diminished in the 20 years since my first flight on a plane, which was with US Air back in the early 90s.

Everyone raves about Southwest but I’d rather go Delta and I’d rather have a nonstop flight and never have to go through Philly International Airport ever again.

Next up, I'll give you my assessment of Las Vegas itself and why I'll never order room service from the Mirage again.

Delta Went Down To Georgia

In a prelude to my thoughts on the Vegas trip, I wanted to put up a separate post about air travel and the huge differences between two airlines running the same flight and the airports that were running them.

Because my trip was supposed to be a business one, I tried to keep the cost low by taking the lower priced tickets that included at least one stop and was not first class. Also, because I was using a third party site for booking the trip, my options were limited to what they suggested and I had to be at a particular place at a particular time due to the conference schedule.

Since the conference was cancelled, I had already book the flight and thought, “What the hell?” I booked my wife a ticket and we did Vegas as a second honeymoon. I booked her tickets right alongside my seats to ease her fears of flying for the first time.

I booked a flight from Pittsburgh International which included one stop in Atlanta. There was an hour layover between the flights which were one terminal apart. I went with Delta because they had the most direct flight at the time I wanted. 2:41pm – 7:15pm. Walking up to the counter to check my bag and print out my boarding passes was simple.

Going through security was simple, although I was subjected to my first back scatter scan. Hopefully, I don’t look silly on their monitors. Still, the process was rather simple and as much as I object to the security theater that this country has employed since 9/11, I wasn’t about to be one of those nuts with the 4th amendment tattooed on my chest in protest. As it is, I could probably print the entire Constitution.

Boarding was a snap, though I don’t understand the process. At first, I was thinking that planes board all first class and special needs flyers, then Zones 1-? front to back. At least, when you get on the plane and everyone in the front of economy is seated and you are stuck in a line with people waiting to get to the back of the plane. Then, I saw this site and take it for what it’s worth. Why don’t planes board from back to front? Add more zones, each with just a few rows and board them in reverse from back to front.

Now, once we got moving, it was all good. Delta offered us a drink, which for an hour flight isn’t necessary, I think. We landed in Atlanta and made our way to the next gate. No problems. We boarded our next flight, the long one, and settled in for a five hour trek to Vegas.

First of all, I understand that the economy has been rough. Airlines have had it especially rough since 9/11. But, beyond TSA antics and fears about another incident, airlines really need to figure out a better way to attract customers. Charging them for checked bags, acting like pricks, and losing shit isn’t the way to do it. Is air travel necessary? Yes, for some. But it’s the new customers you need to get hooked on your product. You want to keep the regulars happy with repeat incentives, improvements. But you need to do something right for the new customer to keep him from going with a different airline or not flying at all. Delta, is getting the message. At least, I feel that they are.

The flight from Atlanta was exceptional. It was a pretty big plane to start. 2x3x2 rows. We had a 2 seat row which was nice and in the back of every seat was this little monitor. At first, it showed the safety video, which honestly is ridiculously laughable, anymore. Who really follows along with the fold out insert tucked inside the seat back in front of you? If you’ve never flown and seen the spiel once, or you’ve seen every reused joke about airlines in movies, then you know what’s going on in terms of plane safety. Besides, if the plane is upside down on fire and going down over the Atlantic, are you really worried about whether or not your mask is inflating? No, you’re thinking about all those bad things you did recently and asking for forgiveness. So, after we get a goofy video from the CEO of Delta, we get the option of playing around with these monitors. They displayed flight information like an overhead map, distance travelled, speed, time remaining, temperature, etc. Then, given the fact that you’ve bought headphones, you can listen to music or purchase movies to watch and games to play. (Here’s a secret. My Dollar Store Ear Buds worked just fine. No need to purchase their headphones.) But beyond that, they had access to a lot of television stations. We watched the Halloween marathon on AMC for most of the trip there.

Now, here’s where I get shamed. In the middle seats next to us, a family of four settled in for the trip. There was both parents, a four year old boy and a seven month old. I wholeheartedly expected those kids to be fussy or rambunctious, making a ton of noise. As a parent, I take that as a given and accept it. I don’t judge. But the four year old made nary a peep the whole trip, playing with his little hand held game console. The seven month old was a little doll. Hardly fussed or caused problems at all. My wife and I sat in awe of this couple, who we found out travelled a lot. I guess the kids are used to it, but man I was floored.

Flight attendants were spectacular, offering us two rounds of drinks and two snacks consisting of either two packs of peanuts, pretzels or a two pack of cookies. In all, this was probably my most enjoyable flight, ever.

Coming back was a totally different story.

WUMF: October Edition

Happy Halloween to you all and to all another edition of What’s Up, My Friends? The popular game show with no prizes and very little game.

Octobeerfest
We had another round of beer swapping at work this month and the theme was, of course, Octoberfest. One of the big rules was to avoid getting Pumpkin Beers because that’s too easy. My selection was Victory Festbier.

My overall thoughts? Meh. While, I have gotten into drinking more craft beers than the regular water based ones like your big three brands, I still cannot get over the taste of some of the more hoppy or bitter beers. Not that there’s anything wrong with bitter beers, in fact, I’m pretty sure most beer aficionados will tell you that those commercials for bitter beer face are proof that most beer drinkers are wusses and can’t handle real beer.

However, not all the beer was bad, although my selection of Victory Festbier tasted like skunk piss. The Great Lakes Oktoberfest was pretty decent. Leinenkugel wasn’t that bad. And even the Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale, which not only smelled like ass and was not supposed to be included, tasted OK. Maybe I’m a beer wuss but I don’t drink beer to be a beer drinker. I drink beer that tastes good. I’m not opposed to trying a new kind, but I won’t buy it again if I don’t like it.

Vegas Baby!
Last week my wife and I took a trip to Vegas. It was basically a second honeymoon since the first one was a bit awful. It wasn’t awful to be at Niagara Falls and it wasn’t awful to stay in the Embassy Suites Falls view deluxe sweet or eat at the Keg restaurant. It was just awful that my new bride was sick as a dog with pneumonia. So, when an opportunity to go on business arrived, and then fell apart, I decided to go anyway and include her.

I not a big gambler and I didn’t plan on doing a lot of sightseeing. There was no plan to go out to Hoover Dam or walk on into the desert and say, “Hey, I bet some guy from the 50s is buried over there.” I just want to go and sleep in, do some gambling, eat good and relax.

I'll give a more in depth update on the trip because, oh boy, was there some great stuff to rant and rave about on the way to and from Vegas.  Stay tuned.

Shit My Kid Says
A while back I told you about my kid saying the Pledge of Allegiance as a blessing for dinner, one night. She has some other great insights. “I’m beautiful, because I’m a girl. Boys are ugly.”

Digital Cameras for Dumbasses.

Sometimes, I can be a total idiot. I got into a debate at work once while discussing geography. The topic had to do with Dallas, the 80's television show, not the city in Texas. I was adamant that the shooting location for Southfork was in Nevada instead of Dallas, the city, not the 80's television show. Everyone looked at me as if I had just grown a third arm out of my neck. Of course, being the kind of person that has to settle the dispute by going to a higher power for clarification, I searched my old standby, Wikipedia, for the answer. I was shocked. Southfork Ranch was not in Nevada as I had been led to believe. Then my whole world suddenly crashed as if I was Keanu Reeves finding out I was in The Matrix. "Gambling in Casablanca? Soylent Green is people? Dil was a man? Whoa!"

Actually, I blame my parents for the geographical faux pas. Not directly of course, but still, it's because of them that I am unable to correctly use a digital camera without issues. You see, when I was a child, I liked looking watching home movies and seeing photos of my family from before I was born. Being the youngest of three there was a lot of history to catch up on and this was the best way to do it. Once I flipped through a pack of pictures that included shots of my Dad in the dessert outside of Vegas as well as shots of Southfork Ranch. Being that they were from the same roll and all together in the same envelope, I assumed that Southfork was outside of Las Vegas. I realized later, after being laughed at by my coworkers, what had happened. One year there was a Lions trip to Dallas, the next year was a State Farm trip to Vegas. It took two years to fill up one roll film. This is something that even plagues me now in the world of digital photography.

While growing up, I used to love taking pictures on vacation. I had my little Instamatic camera with the four side flash bulbs and barbell shaped film all ready for each trip to the beach or camping. Then, I would get the pictures developed and find that half were either too dark or of someone's ear. Then came my 35 millimeter and I was able to take more pictures with an instant built in flash. I snapped pictures of my bedroom and of my yard and got really handy with being able to capture the quintessence of man's struggle against nature and machine by taking a picture of myself running into a tree while cutting grass with the riding mower. Still, I fell victim to the same folly as my parents. I never could use an entire roll on one trip. I would get pictures back years later that encompassed a trip to Myrtle Beach book ended with Christmas pictures from before and after the vacation. To make matters worse, I can look at pictures taken from 3 different decades and not be able to tell you exactly which one came first because my parents have the same furniture in all three. They aren't exactly ahead of the curve when it comes to furniture buying. They've lived in two houses in my 33 years of life, the most recent one they've lived for over 20 years. The only change to the carpeting was in the basement was due to flooding from Hurricane Ivan in 2004, yet all the carpeting looks as if it was just laid yesterday. What can I say? I am my parents' son. Currently, I probably have 6 undeveloped disposable cameras, somewhere in my house, with pictures that range from 1999-2005 and one picture to take on each roll.

Cameras and photo taking have now become the bane of my existence since having a child. I recently got a Canon Powershot digital camera a couple Christmas' ago and I must say I am hooked. Now, I don't have to worry about fifteen wasted pictures of the inside of a lens cap when I get my prints back. I don't have the hang up of being able to capture the perfect moment only to be crushed by the fact that I forgot to advance the film. I also get the ability to instantly share my daughter's newest tricks with my friends and family without having to lug around a photo album. My only issue is that I am just as laxed now in downloading pictures as I was two years ago in developing film from a 35mm disposable. Since my daughter was born we've been snapping pictures almost everyday to capture each smile, creep, crawl, and clap. I've downloaded the pictures probably 3 times since last July. I have a 2GB memory card and only ran out of space this past week when I attempted to use the movie feature to capture her first attempt at pulling herself up into a standing position. I had to quickly scan and delete some bad pictures of us blinking.

Now in order to keep free space available and a constantly updated library I ordered an external hard drive to hold all of my pictures. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep ahead of the times unlike my parents. I'm currently in the process of trying to scan pages from their photo albums into my computer in hopes of preserving memories of our past forever. Because who wants to lose classic shots of us in Washington DC which, according to my wife was in Washington State until about 10 years ago. Apparently, someone in her family didn't finish a roll fast enough and the rest is photographic history.

Oh, and just for the record, South Fork is not located in Dallas. It's near Plano, in a community called Parker. So, pffft, I was half right.

So wait? There was a writer's strike? Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?

A long time ago, my parents tried to instill in me the importance of balancing a checkbook. You see, you put in the amount you have in the bank, here. Now, anytime you write a check or use your debit card, you mark it here, and write down the difference on this line. That way you'll always know how much you have available. Subsequently, I bounced three checks. Of course, the punchline to this is a part of an old email forward asking why a bank would charge you money for insufficient funds when you don't have enough to cover the original check, anyways? Needless to say, I never caught onto the whole balancing my checkbook idea. In fact, I decided to just not pay attention to it and just pay attention to my bank statement and life was much sweeter. I never bounced another check, ever.

With the advent of the ability to use the internet to manage my expenses, I've freed up a lot of time, saved on checks, and hardly have any reason to use stamps. See, all my bills, ranging from utilities to credit cards are managed online. Most of my expenses are set to automatically debit my account on a certain day, just like my paycheck is automatically deposited into my checking account every other Friday. It's a wonderful setup. Every month, I get an email update that my account will draft a payment to the Cable Company or Gas Company and I just make sure I always have enough to cover everything until payday. I no longer have to worry about writing checks or balancing books because I always keep an eye on my bank statements and constantly check my account online to see what is available and what is going in or out.

I have adopted the same sort of logic with my television viewing habits. It used to be that I had two VCRs in house at all times and a revolving slew of 6 hour tapes being recorded and erased at a frequency that was more than my attempts at an extended absence greeting for my voicemail. I rotated tapes once a day and kept a system by which the tape on the top of the pile was ready to watch and must be done by the end of the week. You see, you put that tape here which is what you have available to watch. Now, anytime you decide to watch something you back up and only record that much space as to.......you get the point, right? By the way, who killed Laura Palmer?

I realized that the Digital Age was catching up to my viewing habits and the fact that I needed to smoke a fat joint to be in sync with the constant speeding up and slowing down of my degrading VHS tapes was not something I wanted to invest money into on a regular basis. I opted to buy a DVD recorder because I didn't want to pay a monthly fee to TiVo. However, I would have been able to make the payments automatic. So, I spent almost $200 on a DVD recorder and a few rewritable discs. Everything seemed to be working fine, but some programs never recorded because of copyright issues and others were cutoff because there's some new trend with having shows go over a couple minutes from their regularly scheduled time. By the way, what was in that Hatch on LOST?

Then a breath of hope came my way in the guise of my cable provider. I could bundle my phone, internet, and cable into one package and get a dual channel DVR. Ooooh, yummy. Soon, I was using VHS tapes to balance my entertainment center while I zipped through commercials and paused live broadcasts. I kept my queue to about 20% full and regularly watched my favorite shows. Last season (2006-2007) in particular offered a lot of new shows which I would give a passing glance, possibly setting for RECORD ALL EPISODES. If I didn't really care for them, delete the show, delete the scheduled recording. Gotta love it. But then I started to notice that a lot of my newly scheduled to record shows began getting cancelled. Smith, gone. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, gone. Yet, American Idol and Wife Swap, and all manner of reality television trucked along at a steady pace. Soon, I became disgusted by the lack of quality shows on television and used my DVR and Cable box to seek out shows on cable channels that I always wanted to watch......oh look, Spaced is on BBC1. Must see television became must see by the end of the week.....or maybe next. I was so disgusted with the networks and producers that I wanted to go to my window and do my best Peter Finch impersonation. Unfortunately, I have glass block windows in my family room and very small windows that open only about three inches.

Once the season ended an amazing event happened during the summer. I had a daughter. Soon, my television remote gathered dust and I didn't get to watch my shows. It wasn't that I didn't have time. I can always juggle a remote with a bottle and burp cloth. It's not hard to learn. It's just that we kept mostly to one floor of my house with the newborn and I didn't have the DVR attached to that floor's television set. When the fall season rolled around, I already had built up a good 50% queue that I swore I would during 2 hour naps and before she awoke in the morning. By December, I had close to 80% and saw no end in sight. I began to whittle down what I could, but my wife threw up a dastardly roadblock.

"What are you watching, dear?"

"Las Vegas, honey."

"Oh, I like that show. Hold off and we'll watch it together."

"Ok."

And just like that my DVR nearly exploded. I couldn't get to shows that I watched alone fast enough and began fast forwarding through the Crime Lab musical montages on CSI: New York just so I could get all the dialogue and get rid of the episode.4 or 5 weeks of episodes began to pile up. I tried to think of ingenious ways to trap my wife in the room while I stated to watch a show she liked, drawing her into the drama onscreen and allowing me to delete the episode.

"Oh the baby's crying."

"No, that's on the television, our baby's fine."

"Ok."

As of February, I had all aired episodes of some show called Moonlight still queued up, unwatched. I had planned on watching one episode, declaring the show dumb (I liked it better when it was called Angel), and removing it from my recording schedule. Unfortunately, my wife wanted to watch it as well and the shows piled up in my queue and started to stagnate. We managed to catch an episode one night at someone else's house and both agreed it was dumb. I deleted all the episodes and my DVR sighed in relief as if it had undid it's belt after Thanksgiving dinner.

I also noticed something else. My DVR queue was going down and I wasn't watching nearly enough of my shows to affect it in such a way. New shows weren't being recorded. I checked the recording schedule and there were no shows slated to record. What had happened? Did I miss the apocalypse? Were brain hungry zombies wandering around my yard and I didn't notice them? DID THE GODDAMN NETWORK CANCEL ALL MY SHOWS? None of the above, although there is some weirdo wandering around my yard in a bathrobe. I think he may be looking for his newspaper, though. Can't be too careful. BANG!

Apparently, there had been a writer's strike and all of this season's shows depleted their completed scripts and reality television took over in the absence. How the hell did I miss this? I'm usually up to date on these newsworthy items......oh that's right, the baby. I delegated new technology in the form of my DVR to pick up the slack. See, while I had continued to record the shows I liked, I just kept an eye on my queue and didn't notice whether or not they had been adding new shows. As long as I never went over my DVR space, I knew I could watch them whenever. Since I had become so disenchanted with television, anyway, I failed to pay attention to what was happening. I simply started living in my life. I was actually, happy that the strike took place because it gave me some breathing room in my life to allow things to happen in a more relaxed manner. The funny thing about the strike and unions for that matter is that even though about a half of the shows and movies out there were worth watching, when the WGA went on strike, even the piss poor writers got to picket for more money. I think the strike should have been performance based. Granted, these are only my opinions. Still, why should some hack that writes crap for a show that somehow stays on the air get the same residuals as a good writer who has to go through three or four cancelled shows or pilots that were never picked up because the networks and producers go with the lowest common denominator in terms of talent?

Now that the strike is over, and everyone is back at work, I will have to start watching all those shows, because apparently it ended in time to churn out more episodes this season for all my shows, currently in my DVR queue. Now, if only I could get my wife to look at the television.

"Look, Honey. Sawyer has his shirt off." I would say hitting pause.


While I wait for her to close her mouth and settle on the couch for the next 2 hours, I think I'll check my bank account.