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Finally I've returned from what felt like weeks of traveling.
The first was a five-day beating in Las Vegas for a conference where I presented in front of my largest crowd ever, 200. Fortunately it was well-received and people thought I was humorous.
The day before I returned home, I won $700 at Pai Gow with a mix of bonuses (quads was my best), which kind of saved me from my $1900 in losses.
I did have a glorious room there, at the #1 tripadvisor-rated hotel in Vegas, the MGM Signature. I lucked out with this room, which came with a full kitchen, a view of the Strip and pools, two-person Jacuzzi, a balcony and a pop-up TV in the separate bedroom. Costing $650k to purchase and $500 a night to rent, I scored with $175 a night from vrbo.com.
Penthouses covered the first two rows of elevator buttons. How can so many rooms be penthouses?
My friend got a room for another friend that was coming into town briefly. She booked IP's King suite with a LUV tub, mirrored ceilings, and wipe-clean sofas.
Upon returning home, I reluctantly visited HI-G (they've raised their rake to $5 for $4/8 limit on up) and early on flopped quad queens.
I was excited to see a Q and 10 of diamonds on the flop, and then a 9 of diamonds on the turn, especially when mister 6s kept raising me back and forth.
Straight flush, man, straight flush!
Eventually the remainder of the bettor's chips went into the pot when the 9 rivered.
Before I had a chance to flip up my cards, he showed his pocket 9's for quad 9's and I screamed and slapped down my quad queens, jackpot!
An hour late for the $100k jackpot, but a small jackpot nonetheless -- $19k total, $11,400 to him, $3,800 to me and $540 table share. My second one in a year, "the small end of the small one," as we like to say at HI-G.
Next on the work travel agenda was San Francisco and an undisclosed location. My itinerary was:
12:30pm Flight to Oakland
03:00pm Arrive at hotel after a $60 cab fare
03:15pm Checked in hotel, out the door and on the BART transit system to San Bruno
03:45pm Arrive in San Bruno, home of Artichoke Joe's. Wait and wait for a taxi.
04:15pm See an Artichoke Joe's shuttle drive by, call the casino and they send another.
04:30pm Arrive at Artichoke Joe's after being made fun of by the driver for not walking 3 blocks.
06:45pm Leave with an extra $240 in my pocket from $6/12, mostly from a kill pot where I had 10-2, flopped 10-2 and turned a 10 for a full house, while two other players both had trips. Take the free shuttle again back to the BART.
07:15pm Arrive back at hotel and attend a typical hobnobbing mixer with $6 domestic beers and lots of stinky cheese.
08:10pm Get back to room in time to see "American Idol" and the premiere of "Kitchen Nightmares."
Next day,
07:00am Pick up a tasteless bagel at "Barbary Coast" where I insisted my bagel not be toasted (it was toasted). The knife was so flimsy I couldn't spread cream cheese with it.
09:15am Give a work presentation.
10:10am Leave the conference early, catch a cab to the airport and get on an earlier than scheduled flight. Hear the funniest ever delivery of safety and airport regulations on the plane, "Please turn off your iPods, iPhones, uPhones, Blackberries and Halle Berrys." Also, "Should the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, put it over your face and breathe like you've never breathed before. Although your neighbor's bag will inflate, yours will not. If you're traveling with a small child, secure your mask before helping the child. If you're traveling with more than one child, pick the one with the most potential and secure his mask."
03:00pm Arrive in another state.
06:30pm Having lost all I won in San Francisco, met with five male "suits" for a pseudo-business meeting that turned into three hours of talking about sports, who's met who in first class and who knows who in related business. The dessert was a treat, heavily liquored chocolates served over a smoldering bowl of dry ice. A+ for presentation. Too bad the chocolates sucked.
Next day,
09:00am Wait for a suit to pick me up to go to a very large meeting where I was presenting.
10:00am Arrive at the state capital city. It looked more like the middle of nowhere.
02:00pm Give my presentation amid geriatric bigwigs that I didn't know and didn't care to know. The presentation was a favor for someone, as an aid to end a multiyear-long negotiation between two rival companies. I got a lot of laughs but honestly did not intend to be funny. Maybe because the presenter after me kept calling me the wrong name. Maybe because this wasn't a do or die presentation for me, it was just another notch on my Toastmaster's card.
03:00pm Vote taken, and the company I was presenting for won the contract. Two hours of backslapping ensue.
05:00pm Attend the obligatory post-contract winning happy hour. Drank a very large beer and was pummeled with three different organizations spilling out job offers. Fend off the sharks for now; it's not the right time.
08:00pm Finally arrive back at my hotel, desperate to get out of that city. A suit picks up my hotel bill and any future charges. I promptly try and charge a Quizno's sub, which doesn't take room charges, charge a pack of $8 cigarettes and $10 eggs benedict. I should have picked up a t-shirt or something, but I didn't want a souvenir to remember that town.
Two weeks later, I'm in Vegas again, staying at the 6-month old Venetian extension, the Palazzo. I had gotten a two-night comp.
I feel I've traveled long enough and stayed in a number of hotels to not see anything new anymore, but I'm always pleasantly surprised when I do find something different.
One of my favorite hotel experiences was receiving animals made out of towels, lovingly left by housekeepers in Mexico. Here at the Palazzo, it was fresh flowers, a brand new loofah in the shower and a toilet seat that softly closed by itself (along with the self-closing bathroom door). The room was spacious and looked over the Wynn golf course. Not bad for a first-time comp.
At Morel's Steakhouse in the Palazzo, I was offered a salt selection for the first time.
Doug and I were in Vegas this time to meet with our realtor and put an offer on a condo, which we did. We were rejected without a counter offer on the bank-owned condo. I suppose I should be disappointed, but there are always deals out there, it's just a matter of timing like everything else.
As I checked out of the Palazzo, my $300 in room charges consisted of a breakfast and a dinner. I had a "Club Grazie" person look up my comps and she said I had earned $175 in comps.
"Great, apply it to my room charges?"
To which I was told I was in the negative since my comps for the room itself started at --$400. To make any comps, I had to earn at least $400 to offset what they gave me for my room. I figured I'd never get another comp there again. Just as well, the Palazzo didn't even have a buffet!
Returning home, I had an offer in the mail for three comp'd nights at the Palazzo. I called and snagged Memorial Day weekend, gratis! So the Vegas trek is to be continued...
— —
Sunday, April 20, 2008
grubette's Big Event
The stoners are out in full force today at the poker tables. More than any other time, I'm noticing a lot of irritating raises with 420 chips. Whenever possible, I try to go over the top.
grubette's in Las Vegas right now and iPhoned a picture of her big win on the Press Your Luck Big Event slot machine.
In Big Event (which began a couple years ago with Monopoly Big Event), the more you bet and the faster you play, the higher your multiplier.
When the Big Event bonus goes off on the big screen, everyone eligible gets whatever is awarded times their multiplier.
That Big Event paid off 1280 credits to everyone who was playing with the Big Event feature, and she received 9 times that for 11520 credits (at a nickel denom).
grubette's had good luck with Big Event, being the only time I've ever seen the top moneybag prize awarded in Monopoly Big Event's free parking bonus (after the bonus, everyone on the bank at Harrah's Rincon had $1000+ win meters).
Me, I've been brutalized by the game. It's my favorite slot by far (even eclipsing Mr. Cashman) because of the random event and the excitement of everyone winning at the same time. Plus it does wonders with coin-in, if you're looking for a game to cycle through money for points.
But oh how Mr. Monopoly and Todd Newton (the Press Your Luck host shown on the big screen) have beaten me down. I don't know how much I've lost on these games, but it's enough to feed Sally Struthers' family.
grubette titled her email "Wish I had kept it," so her winnings must've gone back into the game.
Here's hoping she hits a jackpot on something else -- at the rate we play, someone in the grub household has got to hit sooner or later.
— —
Monday, March 31, 2008
Naked pillow fighting and Phantom poker
Played poker over the weekend at Donkey Puncher's, who now has a kegerator with two taps of unlimited homebrewed wheat and IPA.
I was pretty impressed with the contraption that he put together himself. If there were an M&Merator, I'd be all set.
Now having a taste for SoCo limes thanks to alcanthang, I brought over a bottle of SoCo but no grenadine or lime juice at the bar, so we couldn't make it right. Because of the kegerator and DP's whiskey that smelled of permanent magic marker, the SoCo was saved for another time.
We only played two games -- no-limit Hold'em and no-limit Omaha Hi, both with $0.25/0.50 blinds. And many straddles.
I got off to a good start, flopping back-to-back sets. One won, one lost.
Cracked AA with JJ when flopping another set. The deck was really hitting me, and entirely coincidentally, when I dealt.
Why can't these hands be online?
Online poker is rigged.
I didn't get into any hands with DP (unlike the Hammer vs. Hammer that I lost last time). DP raised a hand with the Hammer, flopped a set, then rivered the Hammer boat.
Later in the evening we switched to Omaha, where I flopped a flush draw and gutshot straight, turned a set of Queens, then rivered a full house. I bet out $40 on the river, then when I was put all-in, I thought I was up against a flopped set. As soon as I called, I said, "You don't have quads, do you?"
He apologized and said he did.
He had two 7s, indeed flopped a set... then rivered a 7.
Live poker is rigged.
Or Omaha anyway.
Just after DP dealt, we had a $1 game (that increased a buck each round) of reaching into the muck for high card. Next round was low card. Then I contributed a combination of two cards, so J-10 was equal to A-7, but it confused all of us in our drunken states and probably should've been simplified to blackjack hands.
Sensing a lull, DP and I lit up the table with gay duets from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, whose lyrics are universal enough that I claim can be used in response to any situation.
When the remote control was lost, for instance, DP could've said, "Where in the world have you been hiding?"
Phantom was on the brain because I'd just heard different lyrics from a Sydmonton workshop before it premiered, never knowing there were different lyrics. Same music with Sarah Brightman and Colm Wilkinson (before Michael Crawford), but weird-ass literary, laughable lyrics (so the current lyrics are laughable, but wait'll you hear the others). Here's a YouTube of "Angel of Music" to get you started. "These slaves of fashion/Screaming their vain praises." Bleah.
Ordering from Pete's Pizza was as delicious as usual, but the cheese caused some of us to fart uncontrollably ("help me make the music of the night" -- Phantom) and others to get so backed up that we ravaged our home toilets. One person had a vacation in DP's bathroom, saying he broke his record for longest continuous fart. The next person discovered that the farter's shit had come back in the toilet, it being so disgusting that the toilet rejected it. Or maybe it was like Lassie, trying to return to its owner.
The funniest moment of the night was still later in the evening, when I dealt hold'em and declared one unrevealed card from the second unshuffled deck acting as a wild card if anyone held that card.
It was revealed alongside the river card. One person bet hard, another called, then the first person threw his cards into the muck and said, "I fuckin' didn't understand the rules!" and ran to the bathroom.
He'd thought the card was wild in addition to board and held cards and kept his poker face till the end when he got called.
Alas, the guy who got drunk, donked $400, and pissed himself wasn't there, so we didn't have any wild hands and Mrs. DP didn't have to scrub urine from the hardwood floors. It's a tough call between the two, but one is almost worth the other. ("…the senses/Abandon their defenses" -- Phantom.)
When we became shorthanded and after the NCAA games, we ordered pay-per-view porn.
Playing cards is surprisingly relaxing while watching naked pillow fighting with busty blondes. ("What sweet seduction/lies before/us" -- Phantom.)
We bet on who would win, and contestants were shown in an extended montage in states of undress, 3-lb. free weights, and jump roping before entering the ring
That should've been the first warning. Anyone knows a pillow fight is on a bed. And of the four, only one was busty and one was not blonde -- not even "down there." We should've gotten our money back for the bait-and-switch, but felt compelled to see it to the end.
I picked Malibu who easily trounced her opponent by Round 2 against half-hearted throws. I kept yelling "the face! the face!" but realized that was probably against the rules.
I wasn't so lucky with my second choice of Cassidy, who practically threw in the towel when she was pinned in Round 4. The other girl from the streets grabbed both pillows and started whirlybirding my poor Cassidy with her unfair advantage of wearing tube socks. Apparently there were no judges, because any other nude pillowfighting contest would've called foul.
And just like the beginning of the poker evening, I won one pillow fight, lost one, and ultimately won $5 for the evening.
"Sometimes it seems/if I just dream" -- Phantom.
— —
Sunday, March 23, 2008
The farting Easter Bunny
This is a picture of me two years ago in bunny garb. I eventually won the little girl over with Hershey's miniatures.
I was at the radio station in Las Vegas, and the promotions director asked if I had any plans over Easter Weekend.
I quickly learned this is a leading question -- it means either they want you to work or they have extra concert tickets. If you say you're busy, you could be missing out on scoring Sting tickets and free dinners at Hooters.
Because radio doesn't pay very well outside of a top 10 market, its commodity is all in comps. There were always movie passes and Fatburger coupons available if you did a good job. And then there were the listeners -- topless women walking around the station at dawn certainly helped boost morale.
The barter system was also intact. If we needed something (like renting an Easter Bunny costume), we would contact the establishment and trade a week's worth of on-air plugs.
I said I wasn't doing anything for Easter Weekend.
"How'd you like to be the Easter Bunny?"
Uh...
"Oh come on, it'll be fun. Be the bunny! Be the bunny!"
Um...
"We'll pay you $100 for an hour."
Okay.
Some calls were made and I picked up the bunny suit at a costume rental shop around the corner from Scores. I expected an elaborate get-up, with fittings and measurement tape. Instead, it was one size fits all.
I carried my costume out of the store alongside two other people holding the same pink rabbit heads, thinking I was auditioning for some sort of sequel to Donnie Darko.
Pauly was out of town, so we didn't get into any mischief with the costume. It would've been fun strip club hoppin' and getting lapdances in the bunny suit. (The year before that, Pauly and I had visited Treasures on Easter Sunday, where he had "the single worst lapdance" he's ever had. The club was completely empty except for that drunk dancer -- I guess even strippers need to go to church one day a year.)
At home I tried on the costume and looked at myself in the mirror, contemplating the bad choices in life that led up to this moment.
One ear had stuffing coming out of it, one eyebrow was missing, and peering through the webbed eyes had a blinder effect -- I could only see if I turned my head and looked straight on.
Although it was one size fits all, it seemed sized to fit Shaq.
Not to mention the faint smell of the previous renter's sweat and a little vomit.
I sprawled the costume on the couch to air it out for the night, then went off to Sunset Station to play some slots, get my free Fatburger, and prepare for my humiliation.
GameWorks has an upstairs garage right off the Strip, but I can never find it. This was made even more difficult Saturday, with the Strip filled with traffic, detours, and construction.
My fallback was the MGM Grand parking garage, where I parked and walked through the casino carrying the costume broken down into plastic bags. I flashed back to the Bugsy Siegel days of similarly passing through the casino with bags, only full of something other than furry bunny parts.
GameWorks was a madhouse. We were broadcasting live, and everyone from the station was there, along with a long line of parents and kids.
We had a raffle going, with tons of tickets, dinners, spas, t-shirts, and candy being given away.
And you know how depraved Las Vegas locals are when you see parents open their purses and rake in as many pieces of chocolate as they can, in full view of their children.
We traded plugs for a Polaroid camera and enough film to be able to give free pictures of your child with the Easter Bunny.
That would be me.
I ducked into a backroom and changed into my costume, and it was instantly 110 degrees. Lowering the room temperature didn't seem to help.
A girl who dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog sympathized with me. Apparently the Sonic costume costs a couple thousand dollars because it has an air conditioning unit inside. Plus it puffs up.
I took a deep breath, held my basket of candy tightly in my right paw, then opened the door to the onslaught of my pint-sized fans.
And as the Easter Bunny, I went all-out. I'm not going to be a grizzled, hardened bunny stinking of booze, I'm going to be a happy bunny that the kids will remember fondly.
I exerted more energy than I should've because of my own personal sauna, waving and hopping and working the crowd by throwing candy around and petting kids' heads. My bunny had a good response, with no one throwing anything at me and only one baby crying.
That's not to say I didn't use the bunny to my advantage. I took the opportunity of anonymity to also brazenly hug a few Hooters girls.
Then back to my photo op room, where I would pose for 80 pictures.
I stood by the wall beneath our promo posters, with the Sonic girl leading a kid to me, my handing them candy, then waving at the Polaroid. Got a few hugs from the Sonic girl, too.
A couple of the kids weren't kids but teenaged girls who fondled the Easter Bunny where they shouldn't have. They got pictures, and would've gotten my phone number if they were older.
One reason I kept being animated and moving around was because I was especially gassy from the previous night's Fatburger. Thankfully, none of the kids seemed to complain about a smelly Easter Bunny, even the kid who slapped me on my ass when I was trying to hold in a fart.
The costume was insulated so well that I had to suffer my own stink, but I was comforted thinking of the next unsuspecting renter's reaction.
After the gig, I changed into my secret identity and roamed GameWorks incognito, then relaxed and played some uneventful poker at MGM, looking at the Studio 54 crowd that fit much better into their Playboy Bunny costumes.
Being the bunny was the turning point for me at the radio station, with people at the station showering accolades on my impersonation.
But I still had to get up for work at 4:15 a.m.
— —
Friday, March 21, 2008
Summer blogger tournament dates set
Falstaff, who lost a few kilt sizes when I saw him, just announced the next blogger tournamnet in Vegas will be June 6-10.
This is good news, because I'm trying to bilk as many advance free rooms out of Harrah's as I can (if you've seen my win/loss statements from last year, you'll know why), and while I can do it right now while in good standing, the offers will soon dry up in the next couple months.
Also, Southwest is running a $50 rebate off $250 or more tickets if you pay by PayPal.
I'm running to Harrah's and Southwest right now...
These dates again put us at the beginning of the ever-fishy cash games of the WSOP, with the ladies' tourney on Sunday.
Thanks again for organizing, Falstaff. The December tourney at Venetian was great (I came in 6th after a grueling 8.5 hours). Hope to continue the tradition of the secret Vegas Procedure with Pauly and BadBlood. I've kept mum about it, because I couldn't have explained it any better. Hot air balloon pilots, hepatitis B, and the Squirting Stripper... check out their stories.
— —
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Burritos in prison
I finally erased my dry erase board at work, and now it displays a funny caricature of me.
It started with a big, life-sized, startlingly realistic head and various "South Park" bodies, beginning with "Corporate Grubby" in a suit and tie.
Unfortunately, I don't have that one because the 1.1.4 update to my iPhone had an error and forced a system restore, which somehow also wiped the past 2 months of photos, texts, contacts, and calendar entries.
The corporate body was erased, and he did a Bear Stearns to became "Prison Grubby," complete with tattoos, paunch, and favorite food. The cigarette replaced the slot ticket.
I requested the appendix scar and a bit of manhood.
Someone asked how you can get a steak burrito in prison, and I said it was by playing cards for cigarettes, then trading them in for Chipotle. Naturally.
We have talented artists at work, some of whom have been with Warner Bros. and Disney, and I'm particularly flattered even though it looks uncomfortably like me.
And I mean the manhood part.
When we were submitting photos for our Pokerworks blog renderings, I wanted to use one of our artists. Prison Grubby wouldn't have gotten us canned.
Since the one drawing, other caricatures of coworkers have been added, each a faithful representation that also has each one's real-life counterpart cringing.
Someone else added red lips to Prison Grubby and erased the bulge, making him a eunuch. The artist responsible for the castration is female, so I don't know if I should be offended or... well, offended.
The only other drawing of me was the one The Poker Hermit (DailyGrinder) did for a few bloggers several years ago before any of us had met each other.
Hermit has long ago removed his blog, with his final 2004 post reading, "I completely hate poker."
I scrounged up the drawing below (click to enlarge). Like Prison Grubby, there's a lot of truth in it, right down to my blackjack problem.
— —
Sunday, March 16, 2008
"Lost" in Cherry Coke
One minute I was laughing and enjoying my third Cherry Coke (Coke with cherry vodka), the next minute I was passed out at the bar.
I've never passed out before, so why not have the first time be in public in front of a dozen coworkers?
Apparently I was only out for a minute, with my head slowly bobbing down and my straw poking into my nose.
I remember being at peace, instantly going into REM sleep. There was a feeling of warmness with a Flatliners-like dream I can't recall, except that the name Keely kept being repeated (I don't know any Keelys).
When I opened my eyes, everyone was looking at me and someone was hitting me on the back with his fist, thinking I was choking.
Definitely one of my more weirder experiences.
I set aside the rest of the Cherry Coke, went to a friend's and lost two $330+20 syndicate SnGs (three of us pulled money together), then played some more poker at home till late thinking there was a good chance I wouldn't wake up if I fell asleep.
As it is, I haven't been getting much sleep because of "Lost," watching 69 episodes (through Season 3) in 2 1/2 weeks. And poker too, but to a lesser extent. During the first couple episodes of the night, I'd play enough SnGs to get Iron Man for the day, then just concentrate on the show.
Up to this point, I'd never seen an episode of "Lost," wanting the series to end first so I could go through all of them without breaks. I shelve movies this way too, waiting for the right moment. I still haven't seen Jaws and I had the VHS, laserdisc, and DVD at one point.
But finding every "Lost" episode on ABC.com in free HD streaming had me watching them religiously just in case they took them down.
"Lost" also unwittingly gave me an in with the cute waitress at the bar who looks like Christina Ricci and Summer Glau. We had another server, but she came over and asked how I was doing in my "Lost" marathon.
She was only at the part when Michael and Walt got on the raft; I said she had to catch up. Though not as obsessed as I am, she may switch to "Heroes" (which I mentioned was also inspired by "Lost," even providing an homage to Jack's shaggy beard on future Nathan).
Season 1 turned my dreams into complete paranoia. Season 2 and 3 waned here and there, then something would bring me back and I was into it again.
But man, that Season 3 finale.
And I know this is all old and last year, but what a brilliant episode.
It opens up so much more possibility with future stories, just when I thought they were running out. I'd mentioned to a friend that I thought I now knew everything about the characters leading up to the plane crash, and where else could they go. She just nodded, knowing what was coming next.
The revelations were so well-timed with a Sixth Sense experience that also has the luxury of continuing. In a way I'm glad they have an endpoint of another two seasons, because they can now write toward that, rather than flailing around.
Already the show is a dream for a writer, favoring in-depth past and present character studies along with slow plot developments. Styles ranged and would be hinted at with a wink, such as reading Agatha Christie and having the episode be a murder mystery. Or someone reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret and having Sun hoping for her period. The Turn of the Screw and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge suggested more self-aware asides to the audience about what is and isn't reality.
Other times, probably based on fan reactions, the writers would point-blankly refute a popular theory. I like the postmodern moment when Libby tells Hurley that she's a real person, that he can't be imagining her because she has experiences he doesn't know about. This is directed at denying the idea that the series is all in one character's mind, that the characters are indeed real. Either way it's still fiction, but I wonder if we as the audience will ultimately be implicated in some way (like Michael Haneke's excellent Funny Games, which he recently did a shot-for-shot remake with American actors).
Before dipping into Season 4, I may revisit the earlier seasons' DVDs for deleted scenes and commentaries.
I want to savor and make this season last, like a piece of carrot cake.
by grubette
Grubby's Hands of the Week
What is The Hammer?
