It's the end of a work-week (for most people) and I thought I'd get a final post in before the weekend, thus fulfilling my committment to make a post everyday this week! For those of you who just don't get the post yesterday, just deal with it. I'm on about step 4 of a 38 step program to become a comic genious, the likes that would be comparable to Andy Kaufman or Mel Brooks. Whatever shows up in my blog the day after midnight bowling and $1 Bud Lights, just accept and move on.
In case anyone is wondering.....no, I did not pursue that temp job option. After talking it over with my co-dealers, it just sounds too shady. I guess you have to pay a certain % under the table to get the prime jobs that don't suck ass, like Joker's Wild, etc., which isn't something I'm willing to do!
And in case you're wondering what my schedule will be like this weekend, it will be the first time in about 2 months that I will NOT be working on Sunday morning. So with Saturday off as well, I can watch ALL the football I want! Wooohoooo! Give meaning to my boring and pointless life High Definition TV! I want those big games, like Cal and Oregon. But I also crave those other games, like Colorado St. vs TCU, and not just because I have a very small amount of $ riding on them! Go Buckeyes! Go Steelers! Go every team on my $2 lottery ticket, er, I mean 6-team parlay!
Oh and I might also go check out this place for the Ohio State vs. Minnesota game tomorrow night. http://www.boulevardbarandgrille.com/. It's not too far from where I live, and it would be nice to be around a throng of Buckeye fans out here in the desert, as opposed to my roommate who has openly rooted against them on a couple of occasions (go Stanford).
Have a great weekend! Go Football!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Loose ends on a lazy Friday
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The beauty in the world around us
Here is a ten pound log of ground beef, 90% lean and 10% fat, sitting on a homemade craps table!
And Joy is Everywhere;
It is in the Earth's green covering of grass;
In the blue serenity of the Sky;
In the reckless exuberance of Spring;
In the severe abstinence of grey Winter'
In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame'
In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright;
In Living;
In the exercise of all our powers;
In the acquisition of Knowledge;
in fighting evils...
Joy is there
Everywhere.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
Here is my buddy passed out on the floor with that same enormous ten pound meat log, 90% lean and 10% fat, positioned in a hilariously suggestive manner!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Seven Out!
Here's the entire, unabridged summary of my shift at the dice table this morning!
7 hours of sheer boredom standing at a dead table
3 minutes of terror as some jackass smoked through $11,000 not even winning one damn bet!!!
57 minutes of sheer boredom standing at a dead table
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A Failure Pile in a Sadness Bowl
There you have it. Kentucky Fried Chicken's most popular selling item ever! But don't let me tell you about it. Check out one of my favorite comedians of all-time, Patton Oswalt (safe video for work with a couple bleeps).
http://www.junkiness.com/?p=1173
In case you're not familiar with Patton's work, he may be best known for his role on the show "King of Queens". I never watch that show, but I am aware he's on it. I do know him better from his appearances on Reno 911, both the TV show and the movie. I own both of his cd's and highly recommend them (although they are extremely raunchy compared to his clean-cut image on King of Queens). Check out Patton's web site at www.pattonoswalt.com.
I am proud to admit that I've never dipped my face into a sadness bowl, and since his clip is from last year, I'm not even sure KFC offers this delicacy anymore. But if it was as popular as he mentioned, I'm sure it's still there. If I ever find myself living back in my parent's basement, watching Star Trek reruns and lip-syncing to Weird Al songs, I'm sure I'll splurg and try out this wonder of edible wonders.
Monday, September 24, 2007
They call me the workin' man
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Magic Bat
Another thanks goes out to my friend Tony for slacking off at work again and sending me this cool video (rated G).
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1775904/
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Whale Hunting
Not much happening these days around here, but I thought I better get a new post in sooner or later to try to capture any new readers I have out there (or any of Mikey's readers who may need their blog fix the next few days). Mikey is out of town until Wednesday, I think, so things are nice and quiet around here. As with any roommate situation, it's always nice to know anything common within the apartment (TV, stereo, cooking appliances, etc.) will be free whenever I feel like using them, without a roommate making wise cracks at my viewing of a Star Trek rerun or openly rooting against my favorite football team! :-) I will return the favor to him in about 3 weeks when I fly home to Ohio for the first time since moving out here in January. I'm REALLY looking forward to the trip. The highlight will be a road-trip that I'll be taking with some friends on that Saturday-Sunday to Indiana to catch the Buckeyes vs. Purdue game! Rumor has it we'll be deep frying a turkey during tailgate!
Another piece of good news this week is that I'm scheduled for a full five days at work for the first time since starting at my current casino! I severely doubt if I'll be getting 40 hours in, but it's still a good sign. The theory around the campire, I mean craps table, is that a very high-roller is in town and they need every dice dealer available on grave shift. This particular gentlemen prefers to have an end of a table all to himself, with nobody else at the table and the other end closed (which would require 3 dealers). If he shows up, another table must be open for live action (requiring 4 dealers). Since grave is a very small shift, that basically means that ALL dealers on the shift who can deal dice must be present, minus those who are on their weekend or on vacation. Good news for the extra-boards!!! :-)
Okay, I hope everyone is having a good start to their weeks. For the hell of it, I included a good football pic by way of "Double_Down" over at T2V. It made me laugh out loud!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
What were they thinking?
Thanks to my friend Tony for passing along this little gem! Some people are just a little oblivious I guess.
20 Questions!
Actually, more like 46! I fished these questions from my roommate's blog and thought it might be kind of fun to give everyone some insight on myself. I'm in the middle of a 2-day work-week right now, and nothing real exciting is going on, so this seemed like good blogging fodder.
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? When I have a few days off with nothing much to do, I turn into an apartment troll and rue the sight of natural light!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Dropping Anchor
When I moved out here with my then roommate, Chris, I only brought what I could fit in my 4-door Chevy Cavalier........which was a surprising amount. Chris did the same in his mid-sized Ford. Obviously there was NO room for any type of furniture. Upon moving into our first apartment in the NW area of Vegas (near, but NOT in Summerlin), we picked up a bunch of old furniture for $100 and we both slept, quite comfortably, on $16 air mattresses. My little 13" TV that made the trek was propped up on boxes for our viewing enjoyment, and even after our 6-month lease had expired, I still felt like I was living in an apartment-version of a MASH unit. Pretty much everything I owned, I could still fit into my 4-door Chevy Cavalier and quickly move to some other far-off exotic part of the country!!
This held true, even after moving into my new apartment with Mikey here in Henderson. Sure, I bought a new TV and TV stand, but the TV could still fit in the car if needed (sacraficing some clothes or other non-essentials) and the stand could be sold. Same goes with my new computer and the desk its sitting on. However, last week I FINALLY updgraded from my trusty old air mattress to a very nice queen sized bed! No longer will I be able to pick up at a moment's notice and move out of town. Any move now must involve a U-Haul! So it looks as though I'm committed to staying here in Sin City, at least for the time being.
The before picture. Now I must work on upgrading my fancy Dole Banana night stand!
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Wish that I was on ol' Rocky Top.......
I've been mentioned in many posts within my roommate's blog in the past, but until now, I've never been the sole subject.
http://www.hurricanemikey.blogspot.com/ (Sept. 7th entry)
I guess I should be honored, and also grateful for the link to this site. Instead of volleying back with some observances of my own, I just wish to say three things:
1. Rocky Top is, by a wide margin, one of the catchiest tunes known to man. Hit the following link, listen all the way through, and try not to hum it to yourself the rest of the whole damn day!
http://www.mamarocks.com/rocky_top.htm
2. I reserve the right to criticize any sport that I wish, ESPECIALLY SOCCER!!!!
3. Seven of Nine is HOT! 
Thursday, September 6, 2007
RIP WNBA?
Game one of the WNBA championship finals was played Wednesday night. I do know it was played in Detroit, but don't ask me what Detroit's team name is and don't even ask me who they were playing. I don't know, and I don't care.
Apparently I'm not the only one though. In an arena that seats over 20,000 people, the official attendance for the game was exactly 10,513. I believe it was reported somewhere on TV today (wish I could be more specific but my memory is gone right now) that the actual attendance by the end of the game was around 5,000, and the figures included at least a couple thousand free tickets that were given out. The report also mentioned that many free tickets went unused.
This is supposed to be the pinnacle of this sport, which every team strives to make, and at BEST, the arena was half-full. It was half-full in the middle of the week, when there was NO football on for competition, no other major sporting event on, and only a few baseball games here and there to capture America's sporting attention.
I think it's time to put this experiment out of its misery. Like Major League Soccer, there only seem to be a small percentage of "cult" fans following this league, and for the most part, America just doesn't care. Unlike soccer though, I'm sure the rest of the world could care less as well. The comparison to the MLS may be a little unfair I admit as the MLS does seem to have some place in the American sporting world, albeit on an infinitely smaller scale when compared to the major American sports. The WNBA just seems like the little league that couldn't.
It would seem to me that the main draw to a league like this is that it's something a whole family can attend without costing mom and dad a fortune in tickets, parking, food, etc. etc. But from what I saw during the Arena Football playoffs, the AFL has that market cornered at the moment. Sellouts aplenty over there! Factor in minor league sports like baseball and hockey, and local college and high school sports, and it would appear that the puzzle is complete without much use for the WNBA.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Under the Sea!
So I went to work this morning (I usually work the 3am-11am "moonlight" shift) with hopes that something crazy would happen in the casino, thus giving me blog fodder for all of my new loyal readers. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing to happen was having a stimulating conversation with a drunk for about 30 minutes on a craps table that was completely dead for about 70% of the shift. In other words, same ol' same ol'. However, I did receive one piece of extremely disturbing news. Every single "extra board" dealer on my shift was given ZERO hours on the schedule next week!
Let me back up. For those who don't know, almost every casino dealing job in Vegas that's worth it's salt is not attainable as a full-time position when starting. The usual progression for a dealer is to go to dealing school, find a "break-in" job, take some lumps for about 2-6 months working 40 hours per week for very little money at a piece of s**t joint, and then get into a better "mid-tier" dealing job which usually includes a better environment and much better pay. The better pay, of course, coming from tips (since just about every dealer in town makes around minimum wage base pay). The bad news is that when first starting this mid-tier job, almost everyone needs to go through a part-time "extra-board" period before becoming full-time. This is my current situation. While on extra-board (probably around 9 months), I am usually only scheduled 2 or 3 days a week at the most, and they can basically send me home on a whim, whenever they feel like it, even after a couple of hours if things are really dead.
Well, whoever is the power to be at this point (I have no idea who's really calling the shots) has decided that every single extra-board dealer will get NO hours next week on the schedule, and there's even some contradictory information floating around that we may even be banned from picking up shifts from full-time dealers who want to give them up. Bottom-line business I guess. What this does though is it puts me in a quandary, which as I see it, forces me to choose between the following scenerios:
1. The most obvious choice would be to, once again, pick up all of my belongings, move to Italy, and live in peace and harmony under the sea with those Italian divers mentioned in the story above.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oa8t-vVKUmk
2. Sit this storm out until better days hopefully appear. I have to think that once the weather gets cooler and football season gets in full gear, the business in the casino will pick up a bit and they'll throw us 2 or 3 shifts per week again, which in my situation is enough to live on. I do have rainy day money, but I get very agitated when my weekly expenses start eclipsing my income.
3. Find another part-time job. I doubt if I'd want to find a non-dealing job since that is the reason I moved to Vegas in the first place. However, finding another dealer job part-time is tricky. I would most likely be taking a step down, since many upper tier casinos force you to work ONLY for them with no other dealing jobs, or I would have to work "part-time" for them, such as O'Sheas on the Strip, who advertise the job as part-time but still work you 5 or 6 days a week (it's a benefits thing that gets confusing). What I would need is another part-time job like the one I have now, getting 2 or 3 days a week to suppliment the lousy hours at my current place AND who would be flexible in scheduling me around my other job.
4. Quit and find another job. Like I mentioned, there are jobs out there. For example, Imperial Palace is looking for a couple of dealers, and they even advertise it as starting "full-time". The problem with that scenerio is that I would most likely be taking a pay cut compared to what full-timers make at my current place, and it still seems worthwhile to wait it out for better money here, even if it still is months away! I have four months of seniority right now, and it would be a shame to give it up for a lower paying job elsewhere.
5. And finally, the option that I seem to be leaning toward right now. TEMP! There is a dealer's temp agency in town that supplies dealers to casinos that need them on short notice. Check out their info. at http://www.dealersemploymentagency.com/dealers.htm. There are a couple reasons why this appeals to me. I would be more in charge of deciding how many shifts per week I'd work and also where. If they wanted me to work on the extreme other side of town on a night when I actually do have regular moonlight shift scheduled, I could kindly say "no thanks." The other big reason is that it would allow me to get out to many different casinos and actually see what it's like out there. My current place, and Nevada Palace which was my break-in joint, are both locals casinos for the most part, and temping may introduce me to a wide array of places, some being mostly tourist spots with much different clientele. I would also be committed to nothing, not having to apply or audition at these places. I could possibly find out that there is greener pasture on the other side of a hill that I'm not even aware of yet.
We'll see. There's still a lot that I don't understand about the temping option, but it may be worth looking into. Until then, I guess it's back to peanut butter and jelly for me for a while.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Grand Opening!
Have you ever wondered why stores have "Grand Openings" days, if not months, after actually opening their establishment. Oh well, after creating this blog 6 days ago, I consider this post to be the grand opening of Flying Winnebago! Welcome!
I still haven't had the patience to fully explore this site yet, so I'm sure there's a whole bunch of crap that I could be doing with my blog that I'm still unaware of at the moment. In fact, the whole template is simply one of the several default settings that I had to choose from, but to be honest, I think it looks rather nice. However, I couldn't select my favorite as it looked too much like my roommate's blog, which would have appeared sad and pathetic on my part!
For those of you who aren't in the know, the title refers to two things: a famous quote from the great movie "This is Spinal Tap" and the fact that while dealing craps at the local casino, I must refer to the number 11 as "yo". The web address is derived from another classic cult hit, Spaceballs.
I'm still completely cautious in my optimism about this blog. I figure there may be three distinct groups of followers who could benefit/be entertained by this. The first would be all of my friends/family, most of whom live back in Ohio or interspersed at various places of higher education throughout the nation. The second would be the participants of the Travel2Vegas message board, in which I post as Falcon_Rob. The third may be random readers who just happen upon it by chance, thus insuring the possibility of weird lurking stalkers in my future. Whatever your reasons for visiting this site, I truly hope you enjoy it and return often. As I mentioned on T2V, I dont' think setting the goal of at LEAST 2 or 3 posts per week is too lofty.
So what can you expect? I think that I'll probably try to go about 50/50 in my posts, with half of them being simple and entertaining pictures and/or vidoes such as those that have already been posted. The other half could be whatever is on my mind during that particular day. I doubt if I'd be able to match the eloquence and content associated with my roommate's blog (who posts on T2V as Hurricane Mikey), but that should not be expected as, in many respects, we are two very different individuals! In case you are unware of his blog though, please feel free to check it out at hurricanemikey.blogspot.com. One aspect of Mikey's blog that I think I will follow will be the absence, for the most part, of posts heavy on politics or religion.
For those of you who are not in group #1 and do not know my life story, let's see if I can narrow it down to, say, five bullet points:
1. I was born and raised in Ohio
2. I've attended three different universities, spending three years at THE Ohio State University and eventually graduating from both Bowling Green State University and James Madison University in Virginia
3. I've only spent two stints outside of Ohio, the two years while in graduate school in Virginia and my current adventure in America's Playground, NV.
4. I spent five years behind a desk at Bowling Green before almost going "Office Space" on everyone and making the move to the Vegas area.
5. I'm currently working at a casino in the Vegas area as a craps/blackjack dealer, which I suspect will be the subject matter of many of my posts.
So thanks for visiting and come back soon. I don't see this blog as a "personal diary", so I doubt if I would have much motivitation to continue without visitors.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Schadenfreude
It only took a day for some priceless youtube videos to appear regarding the miracle in the Big House yesterday!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MOBjdka9uEw&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jePmKPEM0&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnAj5rtwag&NR=1
This next one had me rolling on the floor. It was probably my state of mind at the moment, but this gives us a pretty clear impression of the school that brought down the Wolverines yesterday!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=syweVqeYyJM&mode=related&search=
An even better one from Beaver Stadium!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R2U15C5Dhdc
