Superbowl XXLVMCXIII-whatever

Well another Superbowl has come and gone and once again I lost money! I think the only year I've ever won money betting on this game was in 2002 when the Patriots beat the Rams. It's been all downhill from there. This year, wisely, I didn't have very much action on the game. I had $105 on the Steelers to cover the spread of 7. That was actually looking OK for a while but once the 2nd half began it went to hell pretty quickly. The only other bets I had were four $10 parlays where I took 5 selections and had to win all 5 in order to get a payout of $200. I came within 1 pick on one of them, but I lost because I had the Steelers -7 on that one. So close!

Despite my losses it was a great game and fun to watch....

Speaking of drains on my bank account, I got a speeding ticket the other night. The funny thing is how it happened. I was sitting in the Taco Bell drive-thru waiting for my food and I noticed that there were 3 seperate cars that had been pulled over on the street in front of me. It was pretty obvious that the police were running a speeding crackdown on this street. When I got my food and pulled onto the street to drive home I saw two more cars pulled over! I started driving home, thinking how important it was not to speed on this road. Next thing I knew, I looked in my rear view and I was being pulled over by a motorcycle cop. He gave me a ticket for going 48 in a 35 zone. Wow....... part of me is mad at myself for being so stupid, but then again, I didn't feel like I was speeding. Technically I was, but when you are going 48 it doesn't feel like you are going fast. I didn't even know the street's speed limit was 35 either. I never noticed.

Luckily here in Vegas you can take traffic tickets to an attorney's office and they will go to court and get it reduced to a parking ticket for you. I did that today. In a few weeks I'll hear back from them and they'll tell me what I have to pay. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be less than the $300 I would normally have to pay, and I won't get points on my record.............

NYE in Vegas!

Happy 2009 everybody.

Unlike last year where I stayed home and watched TV, this year I decided to actually go down to the Strip just to experience the madness of New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

Cherise had to work at 6:00 so we left around 4:30 just in case there was a ton of traffic. Surprisingly the freeways weren't that bad and it was early enough that they weren't closing offramps, so we got off at Spring Mountain at parked at Treasure Island, figuring it would be easier to get out of there at 2:00 AM then it would be at Venetian.


I played poker at the Venetian until about 11:00..... I was down for most of the session but in the last half hour or so I finally got into the black and finished with a $125 profit, which also cemented my best poker month ever since I started keeping records. Woo hoooooo. I went outside a couple times to try to watch the son of Evil Knievel jump his motorcycle over the Mirage volcano but every time I went out they were still just getting everything set up. I later heard that he didn't actually jump over the volcano but in front of it. What is up with that!? Anybody can jump in front of a volcano, it's jumping over a volcano that truly makes you a daredevil. Later in the night another guy jumped a motorcycle onto the top of the Arc de Triumph in front of the Paris hotel, and then back down again. I saw that on TV and it was very impressive.



So anyway at about 11 I went out and decided to just start walking down the Strip to soak everything in. They had the Strip completely closed off to traffic and there was just a mass of people (many of them trashed) walking all over the place.

In front of Caesars Palace the Jesus freaks were out with their signs, and it was here that I saw the only altercation of the night as police took some guy down to the ground and were wrestling with him. Not sure if it had something to do with the Jesus people or it was unrelated.

I made it as far as the Bellagio when midnight started to approach so I stopped to await the fireworks. There was a countdown on the Planet Hollywood video screen, the anticipation built, the count reached 0, and then..... NOTHING! Some fireworks went off but they were way down on the other end of the Strip and it was hard to see them. Unlike in years past, this year they set the fireworks off from parking garages instead of from the roofs of the hotels. They said they did this out of safety precautions after the Monte Carlo fire earlier in the year. I've heard a lot of complaints about the show so maybe they'll change it back next year...



After the fireworks I started walking back toward the Venetian. I made it as far as Ceasars and then hit an absolute wall of people. Everybody was crammed shoulder to shoulder and you couldn't move more than a few inches at a time. For a while nobody could move at all. It probably took a half hour just to make it half a block. I was actually starting to feel claustrophobic at one point.

Finally made it back to the Palazzo where I waited about a half hour for Cherise to get off work and lost about $40 playing video poker in the process.

Anyway I hope everybody has a great 2009......... GO CHARGERS!!!!

Snow in Vegas

Here are some pictures of the Great Las Vegas Snowstory of '08. Compared to the kinds of storms I experienced in New Hampshire this really wasn't a lot of snow, but keep in mind, THIS IS VEGAS!!

This poor tree eventually collapsed under the weight of the snow:

Poker

Last night I participated in the infamous 3-6 mixed game at Imperial Palace with Las Vegas Michael and others from AllVegasPoker.com. Somehow I ended up drinking about 4 vodka tonics and 2 Jagger bombs. I hadn't planned on drinking any Jagger bombs and in fact I've never even had one before, but somebody at the table (I think Cindy) ordered them and so I really had no choice. My opinion -- it tastes like Red Bull. You don't taste the alcohol at all. It would be pretty easy to drink quite a few and not even realize you are getting drunk, but of course that is probably the point. I ended up losing $220 in the 6 or 7 hours that I played the game. There are so many crazy games that I am not very good at, in particular Badugi and Baduci. I really have to think about what is a good hand, what cards to discard, when the fold, etc etc. Sometimes I would figure out which card to discard but accidentally throw away the wrong one. I guess the alcohol can be blamed for some of that. Anyway, I had a good time, and my losses were offset a little by the $120 I won in about a half hour playing 1-2 NL while waiting to get seated in the mixed game.

Another one turns 30.....

I don't think I know anybody who is still in their 20's anymore. Well Cat's 30th birthday party was a huge success. The only thing missing was LeRoy walking around asking people if they wanted to do shots. Sadly I took very few pictures, but here are a few that I have...

Here's Bertha and the legs of some unknown people. As you can see Bertha was the life of the party:

Cat and some friends. She is so popular that I can't even keep track of who all her friends are:

Here's Dan before he got drunk and started throwing up on my mom's tomato plants:

This is me the next day between trips to the bathroom to throw up:

Cat with some of the abundant Chargers swag she got. Go LT.

Jersey Boys and a $1000 win at the Wynn

Cherise finally got her free tickets to see Jersey Boys at the Palazzo (pictured above), so we went last Saturday after having dinner at California Pizza Kitchen at the Mirage. I didn't have very high expectations going into the show and was actually fully expecting to fall asleep. I wanted to get coffee to keep me awake but instead I had wine at dinner and then we got more wine at the show before it started ($9 per glass or something ridiculous like that). Probably not too smart, but it turned out to not matter because the show was great and I didn't come close to falling asleep once. The show basically tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.... how the group came to be, how they broke up, all of the inner turmoil that went on in the band, etc.. I had no idea there was so much drama in that band but they could easily make a VH1 Behind the Music about them. The songs were good for the most part. The audience was into the show and there was a wide range of people, both young and old. I think the show might appeal more to people of our parent's generation but I still enjoyed it...

After this we went across the street to the Wynn to play some penny slots and get mojitos. Really the only reason to play at the Wynn is to get the mojitos..... other than the Bellagio I don't think there are too many casinos that comp them. I don't know how it happened but somehow I dropped $140 on a penny slot while Cherise was still on her original $10. I sometimes think I'm the unluckiest person in the world. Who else can lose $140 on a penny slot in under an hour. I'm also pretty stubborn because after we left those machines I decided to put another $100 into a triple play video poker machine just to lose it all or at least win my money back. I wouldn't have really cared if I lost that $100, I was more pissed about losing all that money on a penny slot. Anyway, it's funny how gambling works because one minute you can be the unluckiest person in the world and the next you are the luckiest. On like my 3rd or 4th hand on this machine I got dealt four cards to a royal flush. Since it was a triple play machine this meant that I would have 3 shots at hitting the royal. Sure enough I got dealt the Jack of spades on the 2nd hand which was good for a cool $1000! I was in shock for a minute and then elated. Not only had a I wiped out my losses on the penny machine but this gave me an overall profit of almost $900.

'Twas a good night.

more graph humor and song chart memes