A Not So Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Lunch Yesterday

So, I arrange to have lunch with friend and former co-worker Roger Hansen yesterday.  In order to avoid walking in this God-awful heat, we agree to meet at the Wheelhouse at the Rivers Casino.  After all, the parking is FREE, right?  I run an errand in the morning and arrive at the casino an hour early.  No problem, because I figure I can easily kill sixty minutes with sixty dollars at a five dollar black jack table.  Piece of cake.

Well, after about five minutes and seven or eight hands were dealt, I was down to only three five dollar chips.  Only on one hand did I beat the dealer. I felt like a high school quarterback after he just  faced Joe Greene and the Steel Curtain in their prime.  It was amazing.  I staggered away from the table with my three chips, and found myself looking at a roulette wheel.  What the hell, I think, so I put a chip on red.  You guessed it.  Black.  Did that two more times.  Five bucks on red.  Three straight times the ball lands on black.

Sixty bucks down the toilet in less than ten minutes.  Some days, it just ain't your day.

So now I had about fifty minutes to kill, and I spent it people watching, and let me tell you, you see all sorts of slices of life at a gambling casino, and I'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, had a great visit with Roger, and a great pastrami sandwich at the Wheelhouse, which, in the end, only cost me about seventy bucks, but, hey, the parking was free!

I love you, Roger, but next time, let's go back to SoHo for lunch!

A Trip to The Rivers Casino

We celebrated a non-Steeler Sunday today with a trip to The Rivers Casino.  

Marilyn had received a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from the Casino for her birthday earlier in the month for dinner at the Grand View Buffet in the Casino, so we decided to take advantage of that and head on down to the norsside.  Let me tell you, the food at that buffet is excellent, and there is plenty of it, and the twofer coupon made this a terrific dining option.  It also convinced me of a realization I came to when we first visited Las Vegas in 1992, and that is that excessive and opulent food buffets inside of gambling casinos may not be the main reason the rest of the world hates America, but it has to be very high on the list.

After dinner, of course, we tried our hand at the games of chance available to us.  Marilyn didn't do so well on the slot machines.  I, on the other hand, managed to turn a sixty percent profit at the black jack table in little more than a half an hour.  Before you get too excited about this, I started with $50 and left the table with $80.  I only wish that I had the stones to start our with $500 and try to turn it into $800.  That will probably never happen.  

Luck Be A Lady Tonight (or This Afternoon, Anyway)

After a nine month absence, Marilyn and I enjoyed a moderately successful day at the Rivers Casino this afternoon.

I sat at a $10 black jack table and purchased $60 worth of chips. Within 15 minutes, I had $200 in chips, which I then cashed out. I put the two $100 chips in my pocket and bought $40 more of chips (a hundred bucks being my usual stake when we go to a casino). It only took about a half dozen deals or so before all of those chips were gone, so I walked away. I then preceded to lose about $15 playing slot machines. Have I ever mentioned how I really dislike slot machines?

Another way of looking at my day is that I more than made up for the three bucks I lost at my home poker game last week!

Marilyn came close to breaking even while playing slots, which means she probably lost less than ten bucks overall.

Pretty good way to celebrate Mardi Gras, we figured.

On Girl Groups, Golf Outings, Harrison, Hines, Haddix, Virtual Chips and Other Matters

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box....

• Marilyn and I took in the show, "The Marvelous Wonderettes" at the CLO Cabaret yesterday. A terrific and fun show that featured much of the "girl group" music of the 1950's and 60's. The four young actresses who played the leads were delightful. It's amazing to see such talented people, especially when you have no such musical talent yourself!


• The show began as an Off-Broadway production, and as I understand it, has been and is being performed all over the country. I wonder if Loyal Reader and musical aficionado Big Poppy has seen a production. I know that he would enjoy it.


• Anyone can get a flavor for the show by going to YouTube and searching out "Marvelous Wonderettes."


• It has been a crazy eight days: I have driven into downtown Pittsburgh six of those eight days, including the last four days in a row. It's like I'm working again. Yikes!!


• But, of course, it's not like work at all. Four of those six days were comprised of two Pirates games, a trip to the Rivers Casino, and the Wonderettes show.


• Back in the Fall, I mentioned that if James Harrison played for any other team in the NFL, he would be one of the most despised men in Pittsburgh. Harrison's inane tweets this week over the NFL rules changes only further prove my point.


• And to all of the blind Steelers loyalists out there, if the NFL was really out to get the Steelers, then how go you explain Ben Roethlisberger's fumble-that-wasn't-a-fumble that enabled the Steelers to beat the Dolphins last season?


• Speaking of the Steelers, congrats to Hines Ward for winning the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars this week. Ward is one of my all-time favorite Steelers, but I confess to watching not a single minute of the show.


• Speaking of Ben Roethlisberger, assuming that they are invited, will King of All Creation Roger Goodell allow Steelers front office officials and members of the coaching staff to attend Big Ben's July wedding? Can't just see Roger hitting Dan Rooney with a $100,000 fine for going to his locked-out QB's wedding?


• Hope that all long-time Pirates fans paused to remember Harvey Haddix' 12 innings of perfect pitching on the 52nd anniversary of the event yesterday. SABR and Facebook friend Jim Haller admits to this being his biggest disappointment in the history of his Pirates Fandom. Yes, even more disappointing that Bob Moose's wild pitch or Francesco Cabrera's pinch hit.


• People will also recall that yesterday was also the 52nd Anniversary of the Minadeo Rodeo (pronounced row-day-o). (This is an inside joke among certain family members.)


• Great story by Dejan Kovacevic in the PG today about how the Pirates pitching staff has turned it around in comparison to last season.


• Now, when are these guys going to start hitting? Lots of great pitching going to waste due to guys who, in the immortal words of Munhall's Bill Madden, "can't hit an elephant in the ass with a handful of rice."


• The first St. John Neumann Golf Outing this past Monday was a huge success. So much so that I think we are safe in saying that it can be called the First Annual such outing. By some miracle, we avoided the rain that seemed like such a sure thing that day. We had 106 golfers play in the event. The final tally has not been completed but it looks like funds in the neighborhood of $13,000 were raised to benefit the parish's Youth Ministry programs.


• So, the Miami Lebrons will take on the Dallas Dirks in the NBA Finals this year. Yes, yet another set of predictions that I had wrong this year.


• Played blackjack at the Rivers on Tuesday night at a table that featured a video screen at each spot on the table. There was a scanner in the shoe that reads the card as it was dealt. You tapped the screen to indicate your bet, whether you wanted to stand, hit, double down etc. You were given real chips only when you cashed out; the only chips you got were virtual chips that appeared on your screen. I didn't like it. Half the fun of playing is experiencing the tactile feel of your chips and you stack them, play with them, and watch them grow when you win a hand.


• Only a few tables use these video screens, but I was told that the dealer can deal 30% more hands per hour under this system, so how long until ALL of the tables have this feature?


• For the record, I dropped fifty bucks playing that night.

Best wishes to all for a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend.