MacPhoenix: WebSpaceVia Wired News, we learn of a new form of superoxygenated water that destroys single-celled organisms, but is harmless to plants and animals. The stuff is called Microcyn, and it is a perfect example of science at its best. This is why I lament at the Kansas within each of us and worry what effects this anti-scientific culture will have on our future.
On the second night of our week in Vegas, Kathy and I were already exhausted from the amount of walking we were doing. We were at the end of The Strip, staying at the Mandalay Bay hotel, so there was a lot of distance between us and anywhere else, but that wasn’t that big of a deal, really. We had a car, there is plenty of transportation between the hotels, and The Strip itself is only a couple of miles long. But just to get out of the hotel meant walking great distances. Obviously, they want us to spend as much time in the casino areas, and everything connects to the casino in some way or another, and to catch a tram or go to the valet, we had to walk through the huge casino. Then, if we drove, The Strip is quite like driving in rush hour traffic on the LIE, as in we didn’t get anywhere fast, or slow. On average, it would take us about an hour to get from one end of The Strip to the other.
So we tended to walk most places.
Anyway, as I said, we were tired out the second night, and retired fairly early to our room, fairly early being about 11pm. Relaxing for a bit, I was anxious to go down back into the casino, since I had caught the video poker bug. Kathy had purchased the Fodor’s 2005 guide to Vegas, and it gave the impression that video poker machines gave basically the best odds of any game in Vegas. They were specific, in that we had to play the 9-6 machines, meaning that a full house paid back 9 to 1 and a flush paid back 6 to 1. These machines were relatively hard to find in Mandalay Bay, especially in quarter or nickle bets. Most machines were 8-5, and a few were 7-5. Do not play these machines. Finding a 9-6 machine, according to Fodor’s, pretty much guaranteed that we’d break even over the long run. In all, I think we did pretty much break even on video poker, not so much on table games, but that’s not the point here.
So, Kathy was ready to go to bed, but she didn’t mind me going down to the casino floor. I promised myself that I would only feed $40 into the machines, and I would avoid the dollar video poker. And, I had a mission. I was going to get a free drink while playing. The first day we were there, we made a costly mistake: We paid for 2 drinks at a bar. After we did, a nice older gentleman leaned over to Kathy and said, “If you put $10 into the video poker machine,” which were set into the bar face, “you’d get your drinks for free. My wife and I spend an hour or two here, and we don’t spend much that way.” Kathy and I looked at each other with disappointment and embarrasment, since we both knew that’s what we were supposed to do, we just weren’t thinking of it at the time. But from that moment, I swore that I would get as many comped drinks as I could get.
When I went down to the casino on the second night, therefore, I was determined to get my comped drink. This never happened. Mandalay Bay’s servers were few and far between in the slots and video poker areas. I kept moving from machine to machine, another mistake, and I would inevitably see the one server working the slot area ask people if they needed anything in the area that I just left.
It was also very, very slow that night. This was Monday night/Tuesday morning, and the casino was dead. No other night was as slow. So I sat in rows of empty machines no matter where I went. Occasionally, another player would sit within the same area, but they usually played for a couple of minutes and left thereafter.
I did only play quarter machines, but I went through my original $40 pretty quickly. I was still determined to get a “free” drink, but it was becoming more expensive by the moment. I moved to a progressive payout machine, called “Bonus Jacks or Better,” which paid the correct 9-6, but also only paid 1 to 1 on two pair. Normally, the machines paid 2 to 1 on the two pair, but the “bonus” aspect of this machine payed higher on specific 4 of a kinds. Four 2s or 3s or 4s, for instance, paid back a minimum of $100, where as normally they’d pay back 250 to 1, or $62.50 on the quarter machines. Getting 4 aces was even better, paying back over $250. The progressive nature of these machines meant that the more people played them, the more these bonus payouts would actually payout. But these are hands I’d never hit. I sat there because it looked like a good place to be seen playing, and therefore I’d get my damned drink.
Alas, that wasn’t to be. Instead, I blew through $10 pretty quickly, and only had $5 left in my pocket. Reluctantly, I put in the last bill. A few hands in, I had gotten 2 aces and 2 fives, when it occured to me that keeping the fives was useless. Like draw poker in real life, I could throw back cards after the first deal. Video poker let me throw back every card, too if I wanted to. But at the time, I realized that it’d be better to keep the 2 aces, which paid the same as the two pair, and throw back the fives in order to better my chances for 3 of a kind, more likely to hit than a full house. I didn’t get anything but 2 aces on that hand, so the strategy didn’t work, but I felt like I actually learned some strategy.
Then I hit 4 aces on my next hand.
I stared slackjawed as the machine made dinging noises as it counted my winnings. For the first time, I actually paid attention to the payout for the 4 of a kinds, and realized that I hit a hand that paid better than a straight flush on this particular machine. Then I thought, breifly, damn I wish I was playing the dollar machines. That washed away quickly, though, and I suddenly got the adrenaline surge of a winner. I made some sort of yahoo yelp, and looked to my left to share in my elation, but no one was there. I looked to my right, and no one was there either. I looked at the machine, and punched the button to get my payout and laughed and laughed and laughed.
Most of the casinos now print up a ticket with the amount left on the machine, rather than spill thousands of quarters or what have you. Some still payout in hard cash, but that’s the minority now. I grabbed my ticket, and debated breifly to cash it in or show Kathy, and showing Kathy won out. I ran to the elevators, ran to the room, tried to be quiet as I entered, but I was too excited, and woke Kathy up to show her. She was groggy at first but eventually shared my elation. It was the most money I had ever won.
Still, and all, as I said, we just about broke even on video poker over the week we were there. A couple of times, I was satified when we drank for free, or close to it, because we would only lose $2 or $3 while playing at a bar. At the MGM we broke even, at the Las Vegas Hilton, we won $40, and downtown at the 4 Queens, we lost $40. The best video poker machines were at the Excalibur, because they had the right 9-6 odds at nickle bets. We could play for hours there, if we didn’t get bored quicker than that. Excalibur servers weren’t impossible to find either.
So that’s the story on video poker in Las Vegas. I’ll be teaching a seminar about it at a vocational school annex. Look for it in the future.
Be gone for a week. Please do not spam my comment section until I get back.
Here’s a parody sticker I came up with, expressing my feelings about the next 4 years.
The sticker is available from Cafepress if you really want to piss your neighbors off, if they ever notice the difference.
Update: Hmm… a better idea has struck me. Put this sticker over your neighbor’s Hummer, and see how long it takes him to notice. Yeah. That’s the stuff.
Recently seen bumper sticker:
Jesus is coming!
WZXV
99.7 fm
The frequency of Heaven
Kathy: You can be surprisingly awkward in social situations.
Me: I wouldn’t say “surprisingly.”
A view from our library of the blizzard.
I’m a coffee wimp. My coffee has to be flavored, sweeter than rock candy, and lighter than a glass of milk. But still, there are things I cannot abide by. For instance, Blueberry Creme flavored coffee. I mean, ugh!
(Aside: Creme as a label on food or drink means there is no milk or milk product involved. This is true. Compare and contrast to cream.)
So I accidently found myself drinking Blueberry Creme coffee, after an inept 7-11 employee found he couldn’t read the word “Hazelnut.” Yes, I like hazelnut flavored coffee. As I said, I am a coffee wimp.
But the perfume of the Blueberry Creme should have given it away. I failed to notice this. The coffee, itself, tasted like I lightened it with the left over milk from my BooBerry cereal. This might sound tasty to some of you, but I can assure you, it was as disgusting as most of us believe.
I happened to find myself in Lawrence, today. Lawrence is a busy little hamlet tucked away in between Rockville Center, Valley Stream, and Long Beach, not too far from where Nassau County turns into Queens. This area reminds me of a couple of my college suitemates, who, being from Queens, were pretty disdainful toward Long Islanders. And though Queens is physically part of Long Island, they insisted that they were not in anyway shape or form, Long Islanders. They called us FLIDs. Since this is a family show, I can’t tell you what the F stands for. Or for that matter the D. Rest assured, the LI in FLIDs stood for Long Island. And while they may have had a point about what suburbia does to young person, fresh out of high school and attending a local college on Long Island, I still think that they were understating the fact that the line between Queens and Nassau can be very blurry.
So whenever I am out in Lawrence, or any place west of Baldwin, let’s say, I am reminded of my Queens suitemates, because I begin to believe that I am actually in Queens, except we can still turn right on red. But everything is closer together, the shops, the cars on the roads, the insane amount of traffic lights, and the neighborhoods, themselves. I mention the neighborhoods, because I think I was in Lawrence, but I may have been in Hewett, or Hewett Park, or Hewett Place, or Hewett Packard. (I’m only making one of those up.)
At any rate, I stopped for gas, and ran into the convenience store attached to the station in Lawrence or Hewitt, or whatever, and got a cup of coffee and the absolute best prepackaged-bagel-that-had-been-sitting-there-for-hours ever. (You knew I’d be talking about food or some-such eventually, right?) The everything bagel was soft and moist, with just the right snap on the outside, and it had an onion and oil spread in the middle that was savory and complemented the bagel perfectly. I knew I was getting something good because it was wrapped with a seal that said, “Important Notice: Not responsible for Kashrus if packaging is not intact.”
I assumed, rightly it turned out after I checked on Google, that Kashrus was some sort of Kosher terminology. Well, actually, Kashrus is the actual state of being Kosher. But I was still impressed that they were so worried about someone sneaking a shrimp into the bagel as it was sitting in the gas station, they’d seal it with this warning.
And I did mention it was delicious, right? Damned gas stations in Suffolk don’t have anywhere near that quality of quick food. Stupid FLIDs.
The van that I drive for my dad’s business is a decent ride. It’s got a lot of pickup and the braking is good and it isn’t difficult to control, so I can’t complain about it much. But I keep flattening the rear driver’s side tire. 4 times in 6 months!
The first time was totally my fault. I rubbed the tire on a curb while making a tight turn. I’ve done this many times in many cars, and when I did it last spring, my time was due—I ripped the side-wall of the tire. Fine. But then I discovered a funny little thing about the rear driver’s side tire. When I put the jack in the recommended place, I lifted the entire van, but the tire stayed put. The strut wouldn’t lift. So I jacked it up higher, and higher until the strut reached its maximum stretch and began to lift up, too. I swear the front tire on the same side was lifted off the ground. The 3 ton van was being held up by a tiny jack and the passenger side tires. The spare tire barely fit in place, but I dared not raise the van up more. It was ridiculous.
I hoped never to have to change that tire again, but the night that I got the new tire put on (okay, new used tire), all the air leaked out of it. The next day, I cursed to the heavens, got in the van, and, yes, drove the van on the flat tire to the nearest tire place. It wasn’t far, but it was a real risk. The tire wasn’t that mangled, though, and it was repaired in minutes.
But not repaired well. There was a slow leak in it. I wasn’t really surprised at this, since I didn’t treat it at all well. So I kept filling it up with air every week, telling myself that I should just get a new one, until I ran over a pothole in early September, and Blammo! there went the tire. O accursed tire! Why dost thou trouble me so?
Well, I had to stick the spare on, this time. There was just no way to get it to a tire place. I thought back to the first attempt at changing the tire, and attempted to put my dinky jack (no jokes!) on the strut, but it just wouldn’t fit. I had to get my father’s bottle jack to do the job right. So again, the spare and another trip to a tire place.
Each time I had to change a tire, and other tires went flat, just not with the same frequency as the rear driver’s side, I told myself, I’ve got to get one of those X-shaped tire-irons, because each time I had to change a tire that the tire guys replaced, the nuts were put on too tightly with their pneumatic drills. I would watch these guys tighten them, and then hammer them in for another 3 or 4 bursts and think, “Great, but where will you be when I have to put the damned spare on?” And I would also think that I wanted one of those cool hydraulic floor jacks that quickly lifted the van up. Ah, to dream.
So tonight, with a couple of flat tire free months behind me, the first thing that I thought when I hit another pothole is, “What’s that hissing sound?” And then, “It better not be that same stupid, fucking tire!” which, of course, it was. A gas station just up the block would be my base of operations for the next two and-a-half hours. First off, I could not get the lug nuts off with the standard issue tire iron. I wrenched and torqued and struggled for naught. I tried pipe wrenches and ratchet wrenches, and nothing worked. I had to call Katherine to rescue me with an X-shaped tire iron. Blessed be to the inventor, Saint X-shaped Tire Iron Guy. I still had to struggle to get those damned lug nuts off, but I did, with the right tool.
But then, my job was only partial finished. I still had to get the tire off the ground. And I tried to sneak the dinky jack under the strut, which was totally out of reach, and nearly lost my hand when the jack shot out from beneath the van. Luckily, the tire was still on. But enough was enough. I stopped everything, went to Sears, and gots myself a hydraulic jack. Yeah.
In minutes, the job was over. As Katherine said, “With that jack you can do this in just a half-an-hour, instead of just over two!” True, indeed. So, now seriously, if anyone needs a good jack, let me know. That thing was expensive as hell, and if I don’t put it to use, it’ll just be a waste, because, dammit, I ain’t gonna be poppin’ no more goldurn tires! Sheesh.