Deep Beneath the Rolling Waves.....

...In Labyrinths of Coral Caves.

Danielle has asked me in the past if I'd ever be interested in taking a cruise at some point. I've always stated that I kind of doubt it but if I did, it would have to be a cruise up to Alaska as I get all of the sun and warm weather I'll ever need living here in the desert! However, I may have to rethink this position since a cruise like this now exists!!

The Great Gig in the Sea

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Well, its now 11am Vegas time and if I'd be called into work today, it would have already happened. So it looks like I actually have Thanksgiving off! The annoying thing about my schedule is that for the past couple of weeks, my days off have been lonely days off fit in-between a couple of days of work. I really can't remember the last time I had two off in a row. I know it hasn't been too long ago and I also know I shouldn't be complaining seeing as how business has dropped off and I should be thankful for all the shifts I'm getting. But most of the time it doesn't really feel like a day off when I go back to work, say, tomorrow on the dice table from 1-9. Oh well, I do have this Sunday and Monday to look forward to including a paid day off on Sunday to go see the Australian Pink Floyd Show at the Hard Rock casino!

So have a great Thanksgiving everyone! I hope your day is full of the four 'F's....friends, family, football and food!!!

Gold Pants Anyone???

Well, there certainly wasn't as much anticipation or hype over this year's Game as in the past couple of years, but Saturday was just as sweet as any other victory over the team up north for Buckeye fans everywhere! Ohio State has won five straight games over Michigan for the first time ever, and each and every 5-year senior now has 5 sets of gold pants to lay claim to! What an accomplishment!!!

Saturday just happened to be the first Saturday in about 3 months that I've gotten off, so Danielle and I woke up bright and early and headed over to BW3 on Eastern around 8:30am to stake out our seat at the bar. My usual place, the Boulevard Bar and Grill (a Buckeye backer bar) was kind of out of the question since you have to reserve a table in there months in advance and the only seats that we could hope to find would be in the very smokey bar area. Fortunately, BW3 is a smokeless facility.

We got there right at 8:30am and it was pretty empty. Come game time, there were about 4 or 5 couples in there all adorned in scarlet and gray. It certainly wasn't he madhouse that I'm sure the Boulevard was, but we had a great view of the big screen and once again, no smoke at all! Unfortunately though, I decided to celebrate the Buckeye victory with one too many tallboys and I was pretty much down and out for the count by the end of the game, which was around 12:30pm Vegas time!

Given that business is off at work and tokes are a little down, it seemed to be adding up to a pretty lean time of the year for me lately. However, I've picked up a couple shifts here and there and will actually have 9 days on my current paycheck as well as the one in two weeks right before Christmas. That is a very welcome sight indeed!! Today was a decent day at work. It was the first Sunday in a long time that I wasn't put on the dice table, which turned out to be a good thing for reasons I won't get into. My shift did allow me to work on the haunted Big Six wheel for two hours. I swear, every 4th spin or so would land on a number, and then magically reverse course one click and end up on what should have been the second to last number up there. One spin in particular ended on a 1, I picked up everyone's money and then I look in the mirror again to see it on the 10. The supervisor was called and the 10 was paid, but I had no idea how it ended up on the 10 until a few spins later when it did it again and I WATCHED it do it! Very weird........and a little fishy.

So with the moderate amount of spare money that I'll be seeing in my next two paychecks, it is now time to sit down and do some Christmas shopping. At some point this month, I'm going to give my future self a $2900 present as I'm going to max out my allowed contributions to my Roth IRA for this tax year. I know I don't HAVE to do it until tax day in April, but I don't want to procrastinate too much, get the Christmas bills and then get cold feet on it. It's something I really need to do since I've done next to nothing to save for retirement since leaving Bowling Green 2 years ago. Aside from that though, there's gifts to Danielle to think about as well as my sister, niece, nephew, parents, etc. One convenient aspect of my family is that my parents, sister and niece will be visiting me here in Vegas the second week of December, so most of the presents can be taken care of at that point. I'm thinking a really nice dinner and show for my parents will work for their presents. Locals are getting really nice discounts to some Cirque de Soleil (sp?) shows during that time period, so we might do that. BTW, I'm pretty sure my parents still do not know about this blog, so I think its safe to post this stuff! :-)

Well, have a happy Monday everyone! I hope the Buckeye win on Saturday will make it easier to get back into the grind during this holiday shortened week! My Monday will be spent getting the oil changed in the car, laundry, Christmas shopping online, and getting other odds and ends taken care of before heading to Monday night poker night!

Oh, one more thing. I was intending this post to go into great detail about where I think Ohio State will end up in the Bowl picture, but I browsed over the new BCS standings and my brain began to hurt! My gut tells me that they'll end up in the Capital One Bowl, which wouldn't be a bad bowl at all and will give them yet another shot at finally taking down a good SEC opponent! However, I think there's still a chance they could make it in as an at-large BCS team as long as Oregon State doesn't do something crazy like win the PAC-10! I do know that Orange Bowl representatives were in the stands during the OSU-Northwestern game. Just a note to those Orange Bowl guys.....that was a NORTHWESTERN home game! You might have been confused by all of the scarlet and gray in the stands, but that should tell you how well Ohio State fans travel. So as far as the $$$ factor is concerned, a Buckeye bid should do you very well!

One Sentence Movie Review

EAGLE EYE

The main character has a bank error in his favor before being arrested by the FBI and held hostage by a computer with advanced artificial intelligence who forces him, and Michelle Monaghan, to do its bidding while performing tasks such as re-routing subway lines and carrying out pre-meditated murder while Billy Bob Thorton follows hot on their trail but eventually gets blown up as he eliminates an un-manned military airplane flying through a highway tunnel prior to the thrarting of plans to blow up the Capitol Building during the State of the Union Address by means of a powerful explosive hidden in Monaghan's diamond necklace and triggered by a trumpet player while the computer is defeated by some chick who smacks it with an inanimate metal rod!

Oh yea, and Michael Chiklis almost becomes president.

I liked this movie!!

Launch into the new week

Just to get OSU/UM week started off right, here's an awesome video of the play-of-the-day from Saturday's college action! Any chance Beanie comes back for his senior year??? BTW, check out Pryor somehow getting in front of Wells to make a block at the end of the play. Good hustle by the freshman QB!

SUSHI !!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure what text I can write here but to acknowledge the obvious fact that I went to all-you-can-eat sushi, took pictures, and now have posted a bunch of raw fish on my blog! Enjoy!

T2V Extravaganza!

Last week "Jamie in PA" visited my dice table and this week saw two more visits from T2V'ers! "Jimbucc" and his wife showed up at my table on Tuesday, which means they hold the record at 3 for most amount of times I've personally dealt to somebody I know. In fact, I've dealt to them on 3 separate occasions at 3 DIFFERENT properties. I first dealt a little blackjack to them at Sunset Station, then some dice at Boulder Station when we ran across each other out of complete coincidence. Then the small dice session Tuesday at my current place on the Strip. Its always great to see them, although I wish they could catch a good roll now and then!

Yesterday saw "Illinois Marty" show up at the dice table about an hour after calling to make sure I was there. After a very quick beating on his initial buy-in, Marty caught a couple hot rolls and made it out of there with a very nice profit. He also became a dice crew favorite almost immediately due to his very generous dealer bets, which allowed us to turn a very dry day at the table into a day when many green found its way into the toke box!!! Thanks again Marty!!!

And in a week of coincidence, I actually dealt to a guy that I went to dealers school in Detroit with 2 years ago. I hadn't seen him since then and we almost didn't recognize each other. It was busy and I wasn't able to get his "story", but I guess he is actually dating one of the cocktail waitresses at my place, which meant the dice table got slightly better service for the time period he was in there!

In case anybody is wondering, I can pretty much deal to anyone that I know as long as it is not family. I'd say its an unspoken agreement that dealers also avoid dealing to extremely close friends or significant others.

Today (Thursday) was a day that I was supposed to have off. In fact, I stayed up last night trying to catch up on stuff on the DVR and was surfing the internet until around 5:30am. Well, at 10:20am work called asking if I'd like to come in at 12noon. I was tired as s**t and wasn't feeling too well, but I've NEVER turned down an extra shift since moving to Vegas and I wasn't about to do it today. After the 3-day work-week I had last week, this extra day made this week a 5-day week, which is extremely nice come paycheck time. Due to being very worn out and a little sick to my stomach, I was actually hoping to get an "easy" string instead of a dice or all blackjack string. I got my wish as they put me on the not-so-coveted single-deck BJ, War, Big Six Wheel string! Most dealers despise this string, but for me, it was right up my ally today! Although I must say it was a very weird shift which saw TWO 40-1 hits on the wheel in consecutive spins (the total payout for the two spins was $640) and black, table maximum action on the War table! It wasn't a bad shift, but it also wasn't the brainless yawnfest I was actually hoping for!

In case you're wondering what I'm doing for fun these days, it seems the Pinball Museum is becoming a semi-regular stop! Whenever Danielle and I go out there, it seems we can spend about 2 hours of delightful pinball entertainment on about $5 in quarters each! There's also a small $3 per movie, $1 per hot dog movie theater opening back up next to the Pinball place in a couple of days. So I can definitely see that getting into the regular rotation for Danielle and my "date night" every Wednesday! Who cares what movies are playing....its 3 freakin' dollars!!

Oh, and tomorrow night we are splurging and going out for some all-you-can-eat sushi! It'll be the second time we've done this together since the first time when it was her request. I was a little apprehensive the first time, but I'm wholly sold on the idea now! Bring on the raw fish!!!

Commercial Recreation

I'm assuming the only people who read this who have NOT seen the Nike commercial with Ladanian and Troy are non-football fans. But I've gotta think just about ANYONE love this commercial!!



Just a heads-up that the Chargers play the Steelers in a couple of weeks on the 16th, so I suppose there could be a nice little commercial call-back on the field during the game. Let's see who wins the "real" battle out there...and how many times we'll see that commercial during the airing of the game.

Speaking of special sports commercials though, I'll re-post the NHL Stanley Cup commercial from last spring for those who may have missed it. Nike came close this time, but this is definitely one of the coolest commercials I've ever seen!!

Odds 'n' Sods (another pizza post)

First off, I'd like to say that I had the great pleasure of meeting long-time reader of this blog and T2V member "Jamie in PA" and her husband at my craps table the other day. She was an absolute delight to deal to, was very generous in her dealer tips, and made my work-day much better than it had been going! Thanks again Jamie, come back anytime!!

Last Thursday Danielle and I decided to do something that we'd been putting off for months now but just needed to get done! She's lived here in Vegas for about 8 years now, but has NEVER been up to the top of the Stratosphere. So I decided to finally get her up that thing and we played tourist for the night. However, first we needed a place to eat. The night before, she mentioned something about feeling like some pizza and threw out the idea of going to someplace called the California Pizza Kitchen, or something like that. But the name itself immediately made me picture a bunch of surfers sitting around a table eating pizza made of wheat dough and topped with bean sprouts! So I talked her into trying out the Chicago Brewing Company seeing as how it is right near where she works near Summerlin and it has been extremely hyped up by Mikey as being the next best thing aside from Grimaldi's!

I drove up and met her there near the intersection of Sahara and Fort Apache. Below are a few pictures.

The atmosphere was pretty nice and not pictured was a great little outdoor patio area that we probably would have requested if we'd known about it ahead of time.

I purchased and imbibed one microbrew. This was blueberry-vanilla wheat. It was pretty good, but not the greatest. What I look for in a fruity microbrew is that the fruity sweetness doesn't knock my socks off right away, but only as a subtle aftertaste. This was a pretty decent attempt, but doesn't come close to Main Street Station's Strawberry Cream Ale. I wish I could give more insight on Chicago's other brews, but I was driving so I just had this one.

These are the garlic knots, or as Mikey has referred to them, "garlic donuts". They were awesome!

Chicago Brewing Company's attempt at deep-dish.

Amore's attempt at deep dish.

Overall, it was a pretty nice experience. The service was good. The atmosphere was nice. The beer was good. The pizza was good and the garlic knots were excellent. It was all just "pretty good", not great or amazing by any means. If I lived in that area of town I could definitely see myself frequenting it once every 2 months or so, but I can't bring myself to say I'd go out of my way and make a special trip when better pizza is found closer to home (I guess that's a little unfair seeing as how I live within WALKING DISTANCE to Grimaldi's).

I guess the small let-down for me was the pizza itself. That's why I included Amore's pie above because I simply like Amore's attempt way better than Chicago's. Since anyplace "worth its salt" that has the word "Chicago" in it BETTER make a good deep dish pie, that's what I went for. Like Amore's, I ordered the deep dish with only one topping, homemade sausage. The sausage was very good indeed, but Amore's sauce has a distinctive sweetness to it that I didn't find in the Chicago's sauce. It just seemed like Chicago's had a very small hint of "chain-pizza" to it....something I couldn't really put my finger on, but it was there.

In case you are not familiar with Amore's, click here to see my other pics of the place. It's located on Durango just north of Flamingo.

Anyway, after dinner we drove down to the Strat and went up to enjoy the view for an hour or two. Curiously, we got a $3 discount each for being Nevada residents, which I had not remembered seeing in my previous trips. Below are a couple pics from my camera phone. Obviously, the phone can't really do the view justice. But I seem to remember liking the view of the Strip better a few years ago when the Stardust was still around, the construction of the City Center wasn't there to be an eyesore, and that stuff being built to block the Venetian/Wynn area wasn't there. Maybe when all that construction is finished it'll be a much better view, but maybe I'm just jaded a little since I've been up there a few times now. Danielle, seeing it all for the first time, was obviously very impressed!!

Discover the Spirit........

..........of boring and unoriginal personalized license plates! This was spotted in Danielle's complex last night.