Par for the course

This was probably the 237th weirdest thing to happen in Vegas yesterday.

Naked Man Steals Bus

By the way, who actually wrote up that story?

The story seems fragmented.

The story has sentences that start with the same first two words.

The story looks like it was written by a 4th grade remedial English student.

The story was obviously written by a drunk intern.

Don't be afraid to laugh!

I don't care how politically incorrect this is, Norm Macdonald is the man! Jon Stewart knows he shouldn't be laughing, but can do nothing about it!

Norm McDonald on Steve Irwin - Watch the best video clips here

Careful what you ask for!

Sorry for the glut of video clips lately, but this gem came to me via Javier. Hilarious!!

Having fun with The Onion!

There's a reason why I have The Onion linked on my page! It's pure comedy gold that just seems to be getting better. Now they have their radio and news updates. For an explanation of the above image, click here.

For tips on making a tasty breakfast treat, watch the video below.


Chef Cooks 'Dream Omelet' From Recipe That Came To Him In A Dream

....and if the band you're in starts playin' different tunes

No doubt anyone still checking in here lately (there were 132 of you yesterday) has noticed that I really haven't had much to blog about. I'm still getting 4 or 5 days a week at work (with a 6-day week thrown in there) and they're all starting to blur together at this point. Dice has its moments, but I'm now to the point where I really need some extra motivation to re-hash the daily stories on the blog. I'm sure every single person reading this has some interesting moments from their work-day that they could share, but how many really want to write about them after spending 8 hours in the office?

So when I don't feel like writing about the adventures behind the felt, I normally make simple posts that include pictures or youtube clips, this post being no different. One thing that I've always wondered about, really for the past 20 years or so (when I first started listening to classic rock stations on a regular basis), is if there are rules pertaining to royalties that prevent stations from playing a band's lesser known stuff. For example, does a station pay a standard fee for playing "song x" from a band, whether they play it once or 10,000 times? Can "song x" cost more to the station than "song y"? Does it matter which album its from? Does "song x" cost more to play if its off a live album as opposed to the studio album?

Why do I ask these questions? The reason is that I have finally found myself turned off from listening to FM radio! I am pretty much only interested in classic rock, and there are two stations here in Vegas that I have programmed in the car (97.1 and 96.3 for those who might happen to live here). The problem is that 96.3 changed its format slightly a few months after I moved here. It wasn't a complete change (from rock to country for example), but I think they went from a "classic rock" station to a station that plays "classic hits" or "rock 'n' roll oldies" or some horses**t description like that. So now instead of hearing some pretty cool Led Zep song you don't hear much or a King Crimson song that most stations are afraid to play, now I hear the same Steely Dan, Boston or Kansas tune over and over and over again!!

So let's go back to my original question. Do stations buy in bulk? Why do classic rock stations play the same tunes over and over again? Does it cost them more to play the live version of Comfortably Numb off the Pulse album than the studio version that's been played to absolute death?

This practice has not only turned me off certain overplayed songs, but some bands as a whole! I can't listen to ANY Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steely Dan, Boston, (etc. there are others) anymore. It's just the same 4 or 5 songs over and over again from these bands. YES has a TON of great stuff from the past, but the closest 96.3 would probably get to playing Yes is, of course, "Owner of a Lonely Heart". Ugh! Did Peter Frampton decide to retire for some reason after recording only those three songs (don't make me list them!)? Is "Dreamweaver" really classic rock??

Well, I'll wrap up the post by embedding a couple more youtube clips. These are songs that some fine folks have uploaded from three of my favorite bands. They are songs that you probably have never heard before, but to me they are just as enjoyable to listen to than the "big hits" from the bands. Instead of "Stairway", you'll get "Down by the Seaside". No "Money", try "Wots.....uh, the Deal", and let's go with something besides "Pinball Wizard". Let's try "Heaven and Hell". Enjoy!






So would it really kill a station to play songs like these three every once in a long while instead of f*****g Free Bird 20 times a day?

And then there's Maude!

I may be drunk on Main Street Station Microbrew, but this clip is causing myself to LMAO!!!!!

Perhaps I should watch a little more Family Guy!

Good Deed Rewarded

If you happen to remember my posting about a month ago concerning finding the $100 chip on the floor at the Venetian, last night was the moment of truth to see if it had been "claimed" by anyone. To be honest, I agree with Javier, Big Tips and others in that I just should have walked away with the cash. But Danielle and my moral compass kicked into gear and we turned it into security.

I didn't really expect the money to still be there, but wouldn't you know it, I'm now $102 richer after stopping by the Venetian security desk after my shift on Tuesday. Actually, its just $100 since I left the extra singles with the friendly cashier lady. It's nice to know the security staff at the Venetian are as honest of folks as we are!

As to what to do with the money. Basically, I just put it in my wallet and whenever Danielle and I do something small for a while (see a movie, go bowling, etc.), we'll just say its courtesy of Mr. Mystery Man at the Venetian.

More Floyd Odds 'n' Sods

I was a little surprised to get a couple nice emails and a great comment after posting the Comfortably Numb clip last week. Stuff like Floyd, Buckeye football, etc. is basically on here because its my blog dammit, and I just post what I feel like. But if anyone gets anything out of it, big bonus!

So here's another Gilmour solo of note from their 1977 tour in May of that year in Oakland. Its from my most prized bootleg that I own (and I own a lot!) and now someone has kindly uploaded it onto youtube. It's the 2nd half of Pigs and only the diehards would probably want to sit through the first few minutes of the clip. But feel free to jump to the 4:40 mark to here some antics that Roger used to do (that have pretty much turned his voice to s**t) and then David's extremely powerful solo from 4:58-6:30.


The 1977 tour saw a TON of turmoil and problems behind the scenes, but my only exposure to it before reading the book and researching a little more was of this one bootleg. The band was just ON that particular night, and almost as important, the crowd behaved themselves beautifully! Because of this, they were treated to an extra encore song that was not on the playlist and would be the very last time anyone would here Careful with that Axe, Eugene live! Unknown to me was how crappy the band sounded during other venues of the tour, particularly in Montreal when Gilmour left the stage area before the encores and just mingled into the crowd, unnoticed. He watched the encores as Snowy White covered for him on lead guitar. I believe the clip below is also taken from that same concert, which ended the '77 tour, and shows how absolutely fed up Roger Waters was with playing in big stadiums with "the great unwashed". Fortunately for the rock world, this would lead to his first inspirations for The Wall, and the beginning of the end for the band in the early '80s.

Careful if playing this clip at work. Roger is clearly unhappy with the firecrackers in the crowd and reacts in a very un-English way!

One and Done

The title just refers to the fact that this is another one of those solo days off in the middle of a hot work-week. My casino seems to be giving me split days off lately, which is kind of annoying. Its also curious since the first month or so saw me getting consecutive days off on a consistent basis, usually the actual weekend! I can only guess that its due to the combined facts that I am the "new guy" on day shift AND we seem to be short dice dealers. I am on-call on Friday, which means if I'm called in I will be working another 6 days in a row before my next day off a week from now.

That means I should probably be making the best of this day off, shouldn't it? Well, the "best" consists of getting odds and ends done apparently. I just sent a couple letters out to Mikey and my voter registration address change, singed/scanned/sent the necessary documents for my renter's insurance, put a load of laundry in, will be calling my dad in a few minutes to wish him a happy birthday and will be putting a $16 hunk of pork loin in the crockpot a little later to enjoy some pork bbq sandwiches in 5-6 hours (set a low).

Just a few tidbits before I sign off again. First, despite my "hot work-week" comment above, it is actually downright pleasant out here in the desert today. The current temperature is 77 degrees with a brisk breeze and mostly cloudy skies! The humidity is actually above 50% as well, which always reminds me of being home in Ohio during the summer. Don't laugh if you're in Ohio and reading this, 58 % humidity is downright muggy out here!!

The second tidbit? As of yesterday, there are only 2 months until Ohio State invades Trojan country!!! In fact, its only 6 weeks before their first home game! It seems I'm getting the college football itch just a tad early this year!!!

A message to Yahoo

I always have yahoo.com as my homepage since I check my email first thing whenever I log onto the internet. However Yahoo, I would sincerely like to say that I no longer give a s**t about:

-how to save a couple extra pennies on my gas mileage
-how to find a date or how to tell if I'm on a good first date
or
-what are the top ten energy boosting foods to eat on a diet

I just don't care anymore. Please stop running these same things into the ground!!!!

That's all. Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend!

I did absolutely nothing

I'm at the end of my first day off in a while with nothing much to report. Sorry for everyone that has been checking in here recently expecting some crazy insane Las Vegas stories, but my "new" job on the Strip has been keeping me mighty busy these days with no real time for shenanigans! As I've mentioned in a couple previous posts, I just got done with a pretty crazy stretch of shifts that saw me working 11 out of the last 12 days. So once again, any worries that I might have had about getting fewer days/shifts by moving to day shift have been squashed for the time being. I just spent today sleeping in, playing some playstation, eating pizza with Danielle and generally being a bum. The only light of day I saw was when I walked down to check the mail!

On the work front, the tips were a little above average over July 4th weekend, but nothing to knock your socks off. We're still struggling to post numbers above $100, and the last couple of days (holiday weekend hangover days) were in the dreadful $70s! Despite that fact, the number of shifts I've worked recently just resulted in the biggest single paycheck that I have ever earned since moving to Vegas 16 months ago!! So yes, I think I deserved to lounge around being a bum all day!

As hard as it is to find a dealing job in Vegas these days, it does seem like my casino is a little light on the personnel, which would explain the number of days I've worked recently. On Tuesday, for the first time ever, I was on the dice table when a group of aspiring dealers were auditioning for jobs. Only one of the four actually auditioned on the dice table though. She tapped in at stick and on her first three rolls she proceeded to sweep the dice back toward the center of the table BEFORE making any kind of stick call at all. One of the first things taught in school is make the call, then bring the dice back to the center. I was on 2nd base at the time, so I knew they were gonna have her tap me out, which happened after a few more rolls. As soon as she stepped in, a couple guys threw in some money for place bets that weren't really "usual", at least not to someone brand new. I think the first bet was $17 on the even numbers, which I could tell confused the hell out of her. The second was $24 total on the six and eight and $5 each on the five and nine. I was guiding her over her shoulder, but before I could even say anything I watched as she picked up BOTH of the player's bets and then tried to set them up! After floundering for a while, I just had to step in, say "stop", and set up the bets for her. Honestly, I come from an educationally based background and you won't find many people more patient than me, but this wasn't dealer school and I knew that whatever disaster she was making would be inherited by me in about 5 minutes. So I wasn't exactly feeling patient at that point and just kind of barked at her what to do each roll. In hindsight it was a little harsh, but the supervisors afterwards told me I did a "good job" in keeping everything from getting out of hand. As you might guess, she and I probably won't be working together anytime soon. But I always have to give respect to someone, as green as they are, auditioning on dice when the other 3 people didn't have the guts to do so!

What's on tap for tomorrow? Same as today....a whole lot of nothing!

comfortably mum

Even though I had a day off today (for the first time in 9 days), I haven't really felt much like blogging. So here's just another Pink Floyd clip from 1994. It might be the best version of Comfortably Numb I've heard. David's solo begins at the 4:52 mark.

The Spirit of Independence!

I found this video in my inbox via Javier a couple of days ago and finally got around to watching it. I know its a couple days late, but if this doesn't get you in the July 4th spirit, nothing will!



America Rules England Sucks - Watch more free videos

The Dime Tour

Since I haven't been posting much lately, I thought I'd take some time out tonight and fill you in on why I've been so busy. Aside from working 8 days straight (got done with day #6 today), this past week has obviously been dominated by the move into the rental house. Just to summarize, I've now moved in with Chris (the guy I moved out here with and lived with for the first six months) and Jeff, who is a friend that lived with Chris in the meantime. Since Chris and I have the same employer, there are times when we can carpool, which is a major convenience. We did just that today.

Monday was the last day of the lease at the apartment, and I met with the maintenance guy and did the "walk through" that morning. That's when I turned in the keys and said goodbye to the place forever! The apartment was pretty nice and was located in a nice area in Henderson, but to put it simply, it was TOO SMALL....especially for the price that Mikey and I were paying for it! I believe the square footage was listed around 1000, but its even difficult to believe that. I know very well that the cost of living in Bowling Green, Ohio and Las Vegas, NV is very different, but regardless, I was paying more per month for the right to squeeze into a small apartment in Henderson with Mikey than I was paying for an entire place to myself in Bowling Green!! As I think you're about to see, I've pretty much corrected that situation!

Our new place is listed at just a little under 3000 square feet, but it seems so spacious to me that sharing it with two other guys seems like nothing compared to sharing the pad in Henderson with just one! Just a couple of perks of renting a house compared to the apartment is a very small backyard in which we can grill out and a nice garage to get the car out of the sun (at least 2/3 of the time).

Below is the picture tour of the place. To give you insight on our agreements, Jeff and I pay the same in rent, while Chris pays a little more. This is because he bartered for rights to the master bedroom upstairs. But aside from paying a higher rent, he also springs for the entire Direct TV bill every month as well. So for at least this entire year, I will not be paying any cable at all, yet enjoying all that Direct TV has to offer in nice high definition via my entertainment center! Jeff has a regular bedroom upstairs and his own full bathroom. I took the small bedroom downstairs with the 3/4 bathroom down there. However, I also pretty much have complete control of the entire first level of the house, as well as use of the extra spare bedroom upstairs! Another plus is that my rent is around $75 LESS per month than the apartment, yet the quality of living shot way up by moving in here! Yes, the utilities will be higher, but will be split three-ways, so it'll be close to a wash I think.

Here's a picture of the garage. I've seen bigger, but it's fairly spacious. My car is on the right while Chris' blue car is on the left. Jeff's is obviously not pictured. Each of us have an opener now, so basically if there's a open spot in the garage when we get home, we take it. If not, there's parking on the street out front.

This is the little laundry room off the garage. I've taken over half of it (the right side of the pic) as an extension to my bedroom closet.

Here's the storage area underneath the stairs. It's pretty big and actually extends to the left back there where all of my boxes are sitting. Even though the house is a little too big for us, its nice to have this space so we didn't have to just ditch the stuff in the dining room or someplace tacky like that.

Once you walk up the stairs, you can get a bird's eye view into the living room where my entertainment center is hooked up and my old sh***y furniture from the apartment is located.

This is an area that kind of confuses us. It's in the hallway area upstairs, but we're not quite sure what to do with it. I guess if a whole family was living here, it could be used for a desk/computer or maybe a little play area or homework area for the kids. For three dudes renting, its a mystery area that probably will be wasted.

This is just a view looking out of Chris' room upstairs. The view is had by looking over the edge there, the mystery area is to the right and Jeff's bedroom is in the upper left of the pic. That other door to the right of Jeff's is a very nice/large linen closet that Jeff has claiming rights.

Here's the main part of Chris' gigantic master bedroom. That's him sitting at the computer and that's my computer chair in the foreground pointed at his enormous big screen HDTV! The reason my chair is in here is due to the fact that the playstation is hooked up to the monster and I've been known to use it every so often.

This is the "sitting area" of the master bedroom. Chris just put his bed in there. That's my chair in the foreground.

This is looking into Chris' bathroom from his bedroom. I guess that would be me in the mirror, ha ha.

As you turn left in his bathroom, you come upon that separate little toilet room and then the walk-in closet.

And here's his walk-in closet.

Here's Jeff in his bedroom. It's a pretty nice sized room, but obviously not nearly as big as Chris'.

Across the hall from Jeff's room is his full bathroom. Pretty nice.

Okay, now on to my stuff. Here's a picture I took of my bedroom while I was basically standing inside of my closet. Mind you that my closet is NOT a walk-in closet. As you can see, the room is pretty tiny compared to the others, but its just big enough to fit my queen-sized bed, nightstand and computer desk. As you can see, I've prioritized my computer chair upstairs while the cheap piece of plastic lawn chair is being used in my bedroom. I'm sitting on it right now as a matter of fact! I might switch the two, but for now the plastic chair actually fits better in here.

As you walk out of my bedroom, there is a very small hallway as you pass the laundry room on the right and come to this 3/4 bathroom that I have sole use of. The stand-up shower is just off to the right of the picture. Once again, its a very small bathroom but it'll do.

So if you happen to be feeling sorry for me for getting the smallest bedroom and smallest bathroom of the three, here begins the compensation. In addition to the fact that I pay less rent than Chris and get free cable, I also have complete use of this spare bedroom, which is located right next to Jeff's room. I guess I could have used this as my bedroom, but the three of us put heavy importance on each of us getting our own bathroom, so that's why I'm holed up downstairs. As you can see, I just have some pictures laying around in here that I haven't gotten around to hanging up yet. If anyone has any ideas on how I should use this room, let me know. I'm pretty much stumped. It's just one example of the place being just a tad too big for only the three of us.

This is the walk-in closet for that spare room. I just have some luggage and a bunch of random stuff stored in here since I couldn't fit it in my closet in the bedroom. However, I WAS able to get all of my clothes hung up in my bedroom closet and/or the half of the laundry room that I've claimed. So I won't be having to walk upstairs to fetch any clothes.

Here's the pretty awesome kitchen. The kitchen at the apartment was TINY!!!! Seriously, Mikey and I could NOT be in the kitchen at the same time! This one is a significant upgrade!!!

This is the formal dining room. It falls within the area downstairs that I have control over, but it also falls under the category of "what the f**k do I do with it" space! If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

This is the major perk of my end of the agreement. It's the main living room of the house where my entertainment/surround sound/furniture is set up. In the old apartment, I'm willing to bet that Mikey used all of this stuff more than I did. It wasn't a big deal, but now I have it all to myself!!! My area downstairs is basically an apartment within the house. Its made possible by the fact that both Jeff and Chris are basically hermits who hardly ever leave the comforts of their respective bedrooms. In case you're wondering, that white couch is not mine, but Chris is keeping down here for the time being while he decides if he's gonna buy a new couch for his bedroom/TV room upstairs.

Here's just a different view of the downstairs. It's taken from the front door as you'd see it when you first enter the house. The neglected dining room is straight ahead, my stuff is on the left, the kitchen is in the background and the stairs going up are on the right.