The Plan!

Danielle and I are flying to Ohio tomorrow morning. Here's the deal:

Thursday: Fly to Columbus, Ohio and eat dinner with my family at Olive Garden.

Friday: Spend all day with my parents and my sister (who has taken the day off). We don't really know what we're going to do yet. Maybe just hang around the house playing scrabble and going out to eat again. Friday night Danielle and I will be dropped off at Matt's.

Saturday: ROAD TRIP! Get up bright and early to drive in a 4 or 5 car caravan to Bloomington, Indiana for the OSU vs. Hoosier game. It's a 7pm kickoff, which will give us plenty of time to become "spirited" prior to the game!

Sunday: Drive back to Columbus and spend some more time with my family. Drive back to my parent's house in Sandusky.

Monday-Friday: Not really sure what the plans are for the week. On Tuesday we have to drive Danielle back to Columbus to catch a flight back to Vegas. Her Ohio excursion won't be as long as mine since she hasn't built up any vacation time yet at work. Any time off she takes right now is unpaid. On Friday, my parents will probably take me back down to Columbus (possibly back to Matt's house) because I will be attending the OSU vs. Wisconsin game on Saturday.

Saturday: Ohio State vs. Wisconsin at the Shoe. This will be my first trip back into Ohio Stadium since before I moved to Vegas. I paid a little more than I wanted for the single ticket off ebay, but I think it'll be worth it. Matt has mentioned that his work will have an RV and big tailgate setup, so I might catch a ride down to the Stadium with him. I have been to one of their tailgates before and the only thing I remember about it is the ENORMOUS SHRIMP cocktail.......the biggest I've ever seen!

Sunday: Fly back to Vegas.

This'll be my longest trip back to Ohio and longest vacation of any kind since moving to Vegas in January of '07. I kind of like the fact that I have no hard and set plans for the entire week sandwiched in-between the Buckeye games. I'm also glad to hear the weather is a little cooler these days. In fact, the roadtrip gameday forecast at the moment is calling for a high in the mid-50's and possible rain. Wooohooooo!!!!!!

Have a good week everyone!

The twelve days of Christmas!!

Well, its not Christmas but it feels like I got a Christmas present at 8pm last night. That's when I punched out of the casino to begin my TWELVE day respit from the noise of the slots, the NOISE OF THE LIVE MUSIC, the chain-smoking douchebag retard $5 blackjack minimum playing stiffs and the mysery meat surprises of the employee dining room!!!

With my work-week beginning on Fridays and ending on Thursdays, my original two days off this week were supposed to be Monday and Thursday, with Thursday (tomorrow) being my travel day back to Ohio. However, for the first (and possibly last) time in my casino history, I traded my dice shift today for a non-dice shift on Monday so that I could extend my vacation by a day. It feels pretty good to be off this morning, but I do kind of regret the trade since I was stuck on 2 god-awful $5 blackjack games Monday and the tokes that day were a pitiful $69! Oh well.

Maybe I'll post once more later tonight with my plans for the vacation, but if I don't get around to it, I'll probably be away for the next 12 days or so.

Iowa goes Plaid!!!

A few thoughts on the new AP college football poll that came out on Sunday:

1. Of course Ohio State is first on my mind. #9 in the new poll. The good news is that they didn't throw ONE single passing yard in the first half Saturday and still shutout Illinois 30-0. The bad news is that they didn't throw ONE single passing yard in the first half Saturday. Prior still looks very shaky at times with some questionable decision-making and just doesn't set his feet for an accurate passing stance most of the time. It's like he HAS to always be moving while throwing even if he's out in the open and not pressured. For those of you who thought the Buckeye's chances for the national title were completely gone after losing to #3 USC, think again. There are exactly two teams right now that can control their own destiny into the championship game: Texas and an undefeated SEC team. Aside from them, there are another 15 or so teams that could possibly worm their way in someway, sometime, somehow. Ohio State is in that 15. Don't get me wrong though, if they can't reign in Prior and get a good consistent running game going, they will NOT make it through the Big Ten schedule unscathed.

By the way, WTF is going on with OSU's rankings the past two weeks?? They blowout AND shutout a Toledo team that was supposed to have an explosive offense but dropped two spots in the polls?? They then shutout Illinois and vault back to #9?? Are Toledo and Illinois really that much different???

I will be personally attending Ohio State's next two games, including the roadtrip with the gang to Bloomington this Saturday. I CAN'T WAIT!! For any Columbus buddy reading this.......I NEED A VACATION! Comfest in June wet my whistle a little bit, but this vacation will be 12 whole days away from the madness. Oops, let's get back on track!

2. Holy Crap, where did Iowa come from?!?! The last time I saw them on TV they were almost getting upset by the lower division Northern Iowa (it took TWO missed field goals). Now they've SCREAMED into the 13th spot. We'll see if they are deserving in the weeks to come. If they are, Ohio State's schedule will look even more brutal the last three games (Iowa at home, Penn St. and Michigan away).

3. Look out for Cincy! Why is nobody talking about this team??? People talk about the Big Ten's weak schedule but don't mention the fact that Cincy is the ONLY Big East team in the top 25. An undefeated season by Cincy is not unreasonable to fathom. Screw the Boise, Houston and TCU talk. A true BCS buster would be a BCS conference team going undefeated and not making it in.

HELL, how about this scenario! LSU, Kansas, Iowa, Boise, Houston, TCU and Cincy ALL go undefeated!!! I'd love to see those computers explode!

4. Is Oregon the best team in the PAC 10?? I really think they are. Their only loss so far was a close game to Boise (can't remember Boise's ranking at the time of that game, but I know they were in the top 25). So was Cal just ridiculously overrated? Was the Washington game just a one-time fluke for USC and their backup QB?

5. In my mind, the PAC 10 is a question mark....a conference that I'm still on the fence about. The ACC on the other hand, yuck! Good job to the lower ranked Virginia Tech Hokies for knocking off Miami. Now we just need William and Mary or whatever to beat the Hokies so we can officially stop talking about the ACC for good! The fact that spot #25 was given to Georgia Tech and not someone like South Carolina or Mizzou is kind of insulting.

6. I love college football!!!

Nerd Alert

Sometimes I come across stuff on the internet that just floors me. I consider myself somewhat of a nerd. I have seen every episode of Star Trek Voyager multiple times, I can still recite entire Weird Al Yankovic songs after memorizing them in middle school (21 years ago), and I've actually sat and watched my roommate Chris play World of Warcraft for hours on end when we first moved to Vegas and I had NO money to go out and do anything else!

However, here are just a sampling of the countless number of internet videos that I've come across that show just how far I have to go to be considered a true nerd! Don't feel the need to watch them all the way through, but I have a feeling some of you will! This first one is short through....and it just completely boggles my mind!!!!!

Oh, a couple more things. The Angry Nerd or whatever has some language, so don't watch it at work or anything. And the Star Trek clip at the end is nerdy enough, but please click on it to go to the youtube screen so you can read all of the comments that serious geeks leave! Unbelievable!

Say hello to my big pink friend!

I don't really want to get into a full on review, but here are some of the highlights of the Aussie Floyd show last night:

1. The new Joint at the Hard Rock was an excellent venue for these guys. I searched some info today and realized the capacity of the place is around 3,000, which was nearly full last night! I had my doubts due to the fact that I was able to get two seats 7 rows from the stage one week prior to the concert. Fortunately, they were able to nearly fill the place!

2. Seeing some Floyd tunes performed live for the first time, including Welcome to the Machine, Pigs, One of These Days (I'm going to cut you into little pieces), The Gunner's Dream (off Final Cut, probably the most surprising song of the night) and Astronomy Donime. Seeing Sheep live was also cool, although Roger played that on his tour a couple of years ago, so it wasn't a first live experience for me.

3. I could tell there were MANY Floyd newbies in the crowd, who I am sure were very impressed! Some douchebag kept yelling out "Play Is There Anybody Out There" the entire concert. It was obvious he wanted to hear Comfortably Numb, which he did at the end of the concert with its awesome solo. As good as that solo was, I'd have to say my main highlight of the whole night was the ending solo and sequence to Pigs!! Truly powerfull stuff!!!

4. Of course, their big pink friend shown in the picture above. I guess fans of the band call him "Skippy". I commented to Danielle before the show started that the stage still didn't look big enough for any inflatables. So it was a great surprise when they blew him up during One of These Days. Despite his size, they also made him dance up and down to the beat of the music as well! Really cool stuff!!

5. Despite the excellence of the show, there were a few VERY MINOR downers. I could have done without Run Like Hell as the encore. For some reason, that song has never sat very well with me over the years. I would have much rather heard a song like Have a Cigar or Fat Old Sun instead. The show was basically a "greatest hits" type of show and they pulled songs from the majority of Floyd's catalogue. However, a couple albums that weren't represented were Atom Heart Mother, UmmaGumma, More, and Division Bell. Also, no Echoes, which I'm aware they can play and have played in the past. Dogs was not played, but with Pigs and Sheep in the lineup, I can't complain about that!

I really hope the Aussies make Vegas a regular tour stop in years to come. Especially with the renovated Joint, I can't wait to hear them again down the road.

Very Advanced Buckeye Quiz

Without looking it up, name both of the people in this picture. One of them is easy, the other will only be named by the ultimate Buckeye historians! If you don't know, scroll down some for a hint.

















Okay, a hint: zone blitz!

Weekend Checklist

No, NOT your weekend.....my weekend. My weekend consists of Monday and Tuesday this week, so when I go to work on Sunday (dressed in my fancy Santonio Holmes football jersey), it'll be my Friday. Got that?

It should be a fun couple of days. I was able to get an 11am-7pm shift at work on Sunday so that I can punch out and quickly hurry over to the Hard Rock Casino to see The Australian Pink Floyd Show perform again. If you remember, I saw them for the first time last November when they were on their Wall tour and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again! I think they'll be rehashing some of the hits off the Wall again, but the rest of the setlist consists of Floyd favorites such as Money, Wish You Were Here, etc. I believe they also will be playing a couple songs off the Animals album, which should be a treat!

Since Danielle started her new job, her normal weekend days are Monday and Tuesday, so this will be an extremely rare instance where our weekend matches up. Because of this, she'll be joining me for the Aussies and we've planned a little one-night getaway up at Mount Charleston. The Resort on Mt. Charleston still has its $19.99 midweek special going, so we'll be checking into the hotel up there Monday night for a grand total of $21.89!! It's a pretty decent hotel, especially for that price, although they must be hitting up the ditz factory whenever they hire front desk personnel. Every time I go up there, the nice ladies behind the desk usually can't figure out my booking, can't figure out the damn wakeup call machine, and have once given me keys to an already occupied room!

Our plan is to wake up extremely early on Tuesday, check out of the hotel, and drive over to the South Loop Trailhead where I'll be making my second attempt at Griffith Peak. I successfully climbed to the top of the third highest mountain in southern Nevada a few weeks ago, and now Danielle won't be left out!

Building on my experience from last time, there will be a couple challenges associated with this hike. First off, I'm not in any better shape than I was last month, so Danielle will have to expect to see a pathetic blob of a boyfriend going up....especially that final 400 ft. push to the peak! I have no solution to the soreness I'm sure I'll encounter on the descent. I try to use my hiking pole, but by the end of the hike last time, my knees and ankles were hurtin' big time! The other challenge though will be the weather. I hope to get on the trail by dawn, but the temperatures up there get into the mid-40's at night, so it'll be quite cool starting off and it'll also probably be pretty chilly on the peak as well. However, the highs will be in the upper 70's on Tuesday and I remember sweatin' up a storm on my ascent last month. Taking this stuff into account on an 8 hour hike means that a BUNCH of stuff will be going in the backpack, making it all that much harder! Wish us luck.

An Argent Message to Buckeye Fans.....

Hold your heads up!

It is NOT the end of the world!! It might have something to do with the fact that I was working while the game was on and I didn't get the full effect of the disappointment, but I am definitely not crying in my beer after this loss. The Bucks did way better than most of the "experts" predicted and didn't embarrass themselves like last year. After the first game against Navy, I was extremely apprehensive about the season as whole, let alone having any chance against the #3 team in the country! That has completely changed now!

Kudos to the defense for controlling the field for the most part in the second half, with the obvious exception at the end. But if the offense had just been able to capitalize on the opportunities it was presented with, the D wouldn't have had to carry the game on its back like it did! Prior had some happy feet and a few pretty bad decisions throughout the game.

Regardless, playing USC to a 3-point loss bodes well for the upcoming weeks. It's ironic that I'm much more optimistic about the rest of the season after this week's loss than I was after last week's win!!! Although watch out for Toledo next week at the "neutral site". They put an asswhippin' on Colorado Friday night!!!

I'm also cautiously optimistic that the Big Ten is becoming competitive again after the first two weeks of play. If it wasn't for Sparty taking a diarrhea dump against Central, I would have said the day was pretty damn good for the Big Ten. But with three legitimately competitive top teams this year, we officially have three more than the ACC right now. The Big 12 has turned out to be overrated and I'm not really sure what to make of the Big East. Can't really gauge them this week with Cincy beating SEMO by like 90 points and Pitt beating up on Buffalo. The SEC is still the king with Florida on top, but who knows what will happen the rest of the season. I just know that NOTHING can be counted out yet. They'd need to run the table and get some big help, but Ohio State is NOT out of the national championship hunt just yet! They do have to travel to Penn State and Michigan though, so let's not get ahead of ourselves yet. Let's just see how everything pans out in the end.

Oh, by the way, CRAP ON A STICK for Bowling Green not pulling out the win at Mizzou and James Madison not finishing the job against one of the pitiful ACC teams at their house! It was close call losses for all three of my schools Saturday!! :-(

First Reaction

This is only for the Columbus gang. Since when did Jamie O'Connor take up the guitar and start touring as the lead in this band???

Bee Gees + Beatles + Pink Floyd

Somebody had way too much time on their hands! Check it out.

Sad News

I just wanted to acknowledge some very sad news that I received yesterday. Brandt, a guy that I dealt dice with over at Sunset Station passed away last week at the age of 37. Unfortunately, I really can't call him my friend.....more of an acquaintance. That's unfortunate because he really was an awesome guy to work with for those 7 months or so and I really wish I'd have gotten to know him better. But when Sunset decided my services were no longer needed, I pretty much lost touch with my graveyard dealing buddies over there. He was, by a wide margin, my favorite guy to deal craps with! He had a great sense of humor and I remember trading recipe ideas, science fiction theories, and stories about a guy named George....our common enemy on graveyard! It made those slow nights pass a little more quickly! I also learned a ton from him, mostly about dealing craps, but some other industry tips as well!

I haven't run into him in person in well over a year, but we've emailed each other about once every 3 months or so (mostly so I can feed my evil curiosity on the state of Station Casinos). And every once in a while he'd make an appearance on this blog with comments written under the name "Javier". You may also remember that I had his blog linked over to the right for a while until he lost interest in it. Feel free to go visit it though. The old movie reviews might give you a chuckle or two!

He was married with three kids.

TBDBITL Answer

Courtesy of Michele (with one L) and her friend who is an Ohio State band alumnus, here is the answer to the question I posed a few days ago about the band going all-brass!

The answer to your question, straight out of my Script Ohio yearbook: October 6, 1934, OSU vs. Indiana was the first game with only brass and percussion. I believe the switch was “cold turkey”. It became the first all-brass college band and the largest in the world (at that time, don’t know if it’s still true) However, in 1944 during World War II, numbers were down because of the war and at that time there were no women in the band, so woodwinds and even singers were recruited to fill needed positions. It is the WW II era woodwinds that we tend to see now in the Alumni band. Not sure if the next and final change to all brass (after the war, don’t know what year) allowed men to grandfather in or if the change was like the original.

Thanks a ton for the info! I guess there are still some things the internet can't answer!

Old SNL

There are some memories of old TV that completely escape out of your head, until you just happen to come across them on the wonderful internet. I honestly thought I'd never see this again!


Watch The Party in Comedy  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

TBDBITL homework

Really quick post before I head off to work. Whenever I attended an alumni band game at Ohio State, one thing that always caught my eye was a few old geezers in the band with woodwind instruments (flutes, clarinets, etc.). For as long as I know, the band has been a completely brass band, the largest of its kind in the world according to wiki. So you're homework assignment is to find out exactly when the OSU marching band went from accepting woodwinds to being a completely brass band. My little five minutes of searching produced no results. I'd also be interested in knowing if they made the switch cold-turkey, or did they grandfather in the woodwind members until they all eventually left. Hmmmm, I guess an even higher level question would be who, if the grandfather case is true, was the last woodwind holdouts and what instruments did they play.

Good luck!

Happy Birthday George

To be honest, I haven't kept up on Roger in the past couple of years. He might have put out a single or two without me even noticing, but it seems he's gone into 3/4 retirement and the chances of a new album from him are growing very very small. When Rick died last year (wow, it's been almost a year already!!), he put out a statement on his site and after a while it just turned into an eerie satellite image. Well, at any rate, I hope he's enjoying whatever projects are taking up his time these days.

Happy Birthday Roger!

IT'S HERE!!!!!!!

The bad news is that I have to work on Saturday. The good news is that the Ohio State game is a 9am pacific nationally televised kickoff and I don't have to work 'till 2pm!!! Of course, my paranoia has started bright and early this year! Navy is usually a solid team with a triple-option offense that is pretty difficult to prepare for. I know the line is like 22 points, but I remember Ohio State getting out of the blocks slowly last year against Ohio University, so I'm constantly worried about a trip-up to start the new season.

For the Columbus gang, it is now LESS THAN A MONTH until the Bloomington roadtrip!!!! I cannot wait!!!!!! Hopefully the weather will treat us a little better than it did the last time we made a trip to Indiana. For anyone who has forgotten, it was 85 frickin' degrees in the shade for the Purdue trip. I'd much rather see snow, but will be happy with lower 60's and overcast!

On another Ohio State note, I am still in need of one ticket for the Ohio State/Wisconsin game. Danielle will be with us on the trip, but she'll need to go back to Vegas before the home game the following Saturday, so I only need one ticket. I will have two Iowa tickets coming my way through the lottery, so I'd definitely be open to trading one ticket and selling the other in return for cash and one Wisconsin ticket. I just can't afford to pay the $150 per ticket which seems to be the going rate right now on ebay! :-(

Oh, and just a small shout out to Bowling Green for winning on opening night against the men of Troy. They'll be going to Missouri and playing Boise State at home, so the going will be getting tough in the next couple of weeks!

And finally, what's the deal with that complete fu**ing idiot from Oregon taking that cheap shot after the Boise game?????? It appeared the Boise State player tapped him on the shoulder and said something, but WTF!!! He responded with a right cross to his chin which, in a just world, should have landed him in jail for the rest of the weekend!!! I sincerely hope the Oregon coach will immediately eject that idiot from the team. Some deserve second chances.....that moron does not!