Is that you in the MD-11 circling outside the building right now?

Went to B&N to get the Steele Preview, and for some reason the Atlanta addition has Eric Ainge front and center… so i thumbed through it and decided to wait until I go to T-town this weekend to get the proper “Alabama and Auburn hate each other”-cover edition.

I will be filling out Phil’s survey in the back and explaining that there is nevah, evah any reason to prominently feature a UT player on his cover unless he is being knocked sensless by a ravenous killing machine DE or SS.

edition… damn keyboard.

Had Cuddles gotten married on Wednesday, TCOANs probability lesson would have save me roughly…money….numbers….yeah….

this adds some teeth to the TCOAN “back off my man” warnings I think. Don’t tangle with the female of the species.

Dude, I learned that back when I was freakin’ 6. Her room in the morning was No Man’s Land.

(Nothing personal, TCOAN, just sayin’. Honest truth, none of us were early risers.)

Never really liked the Casino Royale, even though it has it’s own Denny’s. I much prefer O’Shea’s.

Any tips for a first timer going to Vegas this weekend?

Very fortunate you were on coach with the unwashed. It could have been worse, you could have been in front of the tube watching that last, crappy SOPRANOS episode. Man, that sucked. Almost as bad as the second to last season.

HBO made a huge turd sandwich and made all of its fans take a big, fat bite out of it.

As a poor, just out college student going to Vegas, these are some tips I learned, OrangeBlood. If you have money, then disregard everything I’m about to say:

1) Walk and Look around the nice casinos. Under no circumstances actually be money there. The only exception might be Poker, where it doesn’t really matter where you go.

2) If you want craps, Casino Royale is great. Cheap tables right next to the bar, so the cocktail waitresses are easily accessable

3) As for blackjack, the best time I had was at the craptastic Slots-O-Fun. $2 buck tables mean you can play all day long for next to no money, and you can continuously get drinks. Just don’t be a douchebag like the guy next to me and ask for a Mimosa (the response: “Honey, where do you think you are? This is Slots-O-Fun.”).

4) Do not try walking to In and Out burger. You will fail.

5) Annulments are alot harder to get than you think.

Regarding TCOAN: You ever see “The Long Kiss Goodnight?”

Yeah, but Harv Wireman – but what ending would you have gone “Damn, that was awesome” over and been something you remember for a long time?!?

Plus, how many universal remotes will be bought today to replace the ones broken last night when launched at the wall during the “Is my fucking DirecTV out?!?!?” part?

Damn – hit submit before I mean to- it would have been nice seeing the AR-10 in action though.

Casino Royale – where the cheapest on-strip blackjack tables come with the lowest quality drinks available on-strip – with a side of who/what are you and why do you smell/look like that…

ahhh, memories of being in LV before driving down to PHX for the title game…

The Squad Automatic Weapon is an outstanding light machine gun. I hope you fired from the prone position.

Orangeblood, make a gambling budget. Take the $$$ for wagering, rent a car and drive to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Visit Bright Angel Point and walk to Roaring Springs and back. Drive back to Vegas. Board a plane and fly home. If you have any money left over, just mail a check to the LV Chamber of Commerce.

Alternatively, you could stay home and just mail the check.

There’s something wonderful indeed about seeing the one you love, strapped to the chin with high-powered weapons.

Firearms cheesecake… does it get any better than that?

Thanks for the advice! I’m gonna find two waitresses and pull me a Fredo.

Don’t walk to In-n-Out? Is it in bat country?

Another helpful tip: Do not eat at Paco’s in the Sahara. I got food poisoning there.

1. Stay at the Wynn. However, make sure someone else pays for it. They charge you $20 a day, or $45 for a 3 day pass, to use the gym.

2. Go to the pool at the Wynn and rent a cabana. Again, have somebody else pay for it. They have a topless area that may or may not be reserved for guests. it is, um, awesome.

3. Go eat at the Country Club at the Wynn. I sat two tables from Trump and Wynn having dinner on a weekend in February. Trump is a surprisingly big guy. I would not have recognized Wynn, but the waiter told us who he was.

4. Blackjack, craps, and stay away from everything else.

I just got back from Vegas, and well, now I am poorer. If you are looking for cheap, the Casino to the Westin is the place to go. Mon-Thurs- $1 blackjack and craps. And they make good drinks. Tosuradar, O’shea’s just got beer pong tables put in their casino, so that is pretty rad too. I suggest going golfing for a day, if you like that, for $100 your outside, get to drink your ass off, play golf in the same time that I blew way more than that in a casino. We stayed at the Flamingo, which has pretty good location. Go to Bally’s or Ceaser’s for your sports betting and hugungous TV screens. I hope you have better luck than I did.

Oh, And I got really really drunk and crossed an 8 lane highway to get to In-N-out burger, and it is not worth it. I nearly got killed and the line was long anyway.

1) Wake up.
2) Go to any casino that makes you reminiscient of the movie Casino.
3) Find the cheapest blackjack table you can find.
4) Make friends with the dealer.
5) Play the table minimum strictly by the book. Bring 20x the table minimum in cash.
6) Make friends with the cocktail waitress.
7) Order liquor drinks with a cafeinnated mixer.
8) Remember, your goal is not to win money! It’s to lose less than you would have spent at a bar drinking the same amount.
9) Stay at the blackjack table all damn day.
10) Go eat a really big meal at a really crappy buffet. Unless you actually won a bit of money, in which case order the biggest freaking steak you can find on a menu.
11) Take a cab to Harrah’s. Begin immediately screaming at the cabbie upon entry to stop screwing you and just drive straight there.
12) Go to the Toby Keith restaurant in Harrah’s.
13) Order a liquor drink for $10 in a freaking mason jar.
14) Go to a bar. Not a club you have to wait in line for an hour and slip the bouncer a Ben Frankling to get into, but a bar you can just walk into (maybe pay a small cover).
15) Make friends with the bartender. Imply you are a bartender back home.
16) Take jager bombs.
17) Don’t bother with the lies. Just find the girl with an out of balance work/play ratio (just the opposite of when you’re not on vacation) trying to live out vacation fantasies and read from the script.
18) Go back to her place.
19) ……..
20) Leave immediately afterwards. Make the 1-2 hour walk from the strip back to your crappy hotel while enjoying the sunrise over the strip and admiring all the hooker ads covering the ground.
21) Get back to the hotel in time to catch breakfast as it’s being wheeled out.
22) Drink several cups of coffee despite the fact you’re about to pass out.
23) Retire to your room and pass the fuck out.
24) Wake up.
25) Repeat.

GainesvilleRamblings,

I have walked to the In N Out, from Barbary Coast I think. An epic voyage not to be undertaken by the feint of heart, but it is possible. Round trip is about an hour, but completely worth it.

Swindle & TCOAN- many congratulations on the renewal of you vows. Please tell me that one of you was in an Elvis costume. Actually both of you would be better.

Orangeblood: drink. gamble. observe hotness. rinse and repeat until you are broke, passed out, or coldcocked in the face by a jealous beefcake-type boyfriend. Then go sleep for 3 hours and rinse and repeat.

Fave high end casino to gamble in: Venetian
Fave used to be high end but not quite anymore casino to gamble in: Mirage
Fave “moderate” casino to gamble in: Barbary Coast- maybe it’s me, but the workers there all seem friendlier than most other places, maybe because they seem younger and haven’t gotten to that middle aged going through the motions zombie casino worker routine. Less fake ass glitz and glamor, and a bit more real/down to earth. And for some bizarre reason, I almost always have good luck there, esp, craps.

Have fun dude, and be safe.

Out of Conference – Regarding endings, I am going to remember being pissed off for a long time. HBO took its viewers for schmucks, schlemiels and schlomotzos. Or Wankers to switch the slang.

My ending? Meadow going TCOAN with guns and stuff at the end and taking over both NJ and NY. Tony would have ended up in jail, sort of like the Joker from Batman, ready to come out later and make a comeback.

Actually, I was about to smack the TV, when the credits came out. Series creator Chase gave the big "FU" at the bitter end.

Orangeblood: No bat country is out on the 15, especially the stretch between Bartsow and Baker. Lizards and moray eels are the big problem in town.

OOC: I’m with you on the Soprano’s finale. No resolution would have made everybody happy and they did a good job of building tension at the end. But that show was never about nice tidy resolutions and that’s one reason it was so great. This way it made for a more memorable finish than any of the alternatives they were setting up.

1. Don’t walk to In-n-Out? Is it in bat country?

No, its just nearly impossible to get to from the strip. I was staying at the Bellagio (remarkably cheap when your willing to cram 10 people into one room), and could see the place from my hotel window. So me and some friends decided we’d walk over there for lunch.

An hour later, we had gotten lost in the conference area of the Bellagio, gotten stopped trying to cut through the employee parking garage, been accosted by three Elvis impersonators, and finally saw a FatBurger and called it a day.

Craps only in LV…google “winning at craps” and figure two or three plays that you can understand…go to the cheapest table in a reasonable casino (not the old strip) and tell the stickman what you’re trying to do… as long as its not busy they’ll help you lose as much as you want, but then again you may win. All the while you’re at the table the wonderfully attired waitresses are providing you with worthwhile drinks or beer (heineken in my case). Also the longer you play the more comfortable you can get and the more successful you can become.

OCP: Godfather 1 ended well. Godfather 2 ended even better. But, Godfather 3 was mostly crap. I see the Sopranos as a sort of tv version of the Godfathers. A few good seasons, some great ones and the crapper G-3 type in the end. Well, it jumped the shark at the end. The last time I remember something this bad ending was the Seinfeld series finale. Or, any M. Night Shamalan-a-ding-dong movies, not counting his only hit.

OOC – If you look on a map of The Strip you think, “Oh, that doesn’t look so far away. I think I’ll walk”. And then you start walking and realize everything is muuuch farther away than it looks on a map. The blocks are not your normal city blocks and traffic on LV Blvd. sucks very much badly. Mandalay Bay is at the extreme south end and The Stratosphere is north and not really by anything.

There’s a monorail (Lyle Langley style) that goes from the MGM Grand to the LV Conference Center. Get the multi-day pass and ride it all the way to North Haverbrook!

My favorite place to hang out is O’Shea’s Casino. It’s a little cleaner than Casino Royale and they have a smokin’ 3-piece rock/funk/party band that plays evenings Thursday through Saturday. If you feel the need to pay for drinks, they’ve got stunt bartenders at Carnivale right in front of the Imperial Palace. Last but not least, the best steak dinner is at the Ellis Island Casino and Brewery – $4.95 24 hours a day! It’s a block east of the strip on Koval, adjacent to the Super 8. (head east where the Barbary Coast Casino is).

Oops, that was for Orangeblood, not OOC.

Man, Vegas is nothing compared to the boats we have here in Baton Rouge. The games, the waitresses, the clientelle, the smells. All way more much fun and soul enriching to partake of. Hell, Lake Charles and Shreveport are just as awesome. I only go every 5 years or so. More often and the massive rush of dopamine overwhelms my system.

I think I’d be better off going to Moab and just burning a few hundred bucks on arrival. Same net result financially, and less likely to need medical intervention afterwards. But then, I’m no fun at all.

I got food poisoning at some Asian place inside Harrah’s (i think it was there) when I was younger. Vegas for a 13 year old is pretty much a flat out waste. Oh, and don’t go to the Hoover dam. It’s stupid. The only cool part was going to circus circus and riding the roller coaster like 12 times in a row in about 1 hour because no one else was there.

RE: Sopranos ending

Heather Havrilesky of Salon has been doing weekly writeups of Sopranos for a while, and as usual her take on the finale is much better than anything that I have seen or heard anywhere else:

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2007/06/11/sopranos/

If you are a fan of the show {and already seen last night’s finale} then definitely check out that article.

Oh, and one more technicality:

Hating on HBO is misplaced, as they generally give producers/directors free license with their shows.

Re-focus your frustrations on Sopranos writer/creater/producer/director/mastermind David Chase, but not HBO, they just let him do his thing and profited enormously from it, but I doubt if any single exec had any input with Chase as to how the show would finish up.

Orson,

If you are ever in trouble with TCOAN, and she starts trying to pepper you, REMEMBER THE BELT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbf1HzQgHTs&mode=related&search=

Our man Orson is down in the Hot Blogger contest by about 30 votes. Come on ESDBS nation, Orson needs you:

http://texas-gal.com/hot/campbell2.html

Worst. Episode. Ending. Evar.

The In ’n Out burger by the Wild Wild West Hotel Casino (and truck stop) just across I-15?

Twice in college I stayed at that aforementioned casino ($2.99 off-the-menu steak and eggs special, $80 rooms, always available) just across the street from In n Out and never thought it was a problem making it to the Strip. There’s pedestrian access to cross I-15, and it’s about a 30-45 minute walk to New York New York. I didn’t think getting to and from the Strip was a big deal, but maybe I’m crazy.

BTW, I second Slots o Fun and their blackjack. Clearly, I am a man that lives large when in Vegas.

Wait why isn’t the Imperial Palace and its dealtainers getting any love? No better way drop back all your winnings then to Ray Charles at 4 a.m. on a Sunday with a flight in 2 hours.

If your looking for a great bar you can just walk into, theres a dueling piano bar in Harrah’s that is alot of fun. Small, and the drinks are only slightly outrageously overpriced. Just beware extremely drunk and rich 57-year-olds who are willing to drop $500 for the piano players to play all three Roy Orbinson songs they know over and over and over again.

I had a buddy in college pass out headfirst on a slot machine at the Slots O Fun. They drove him in a golf cart back to our hotel room. Gotta love that place.

I recommend going to the rooftop bar at the Rio(?). There probably will be a ridiculously long line but we were with some girl volleyball players that got us straight to the front of the line. Pretty cool bar to check out the Strip from the roof.

First: Barbary Coast is no more. It is now called Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon

 Boyd’s made a trade with Harrah’s; they gave them the Barbary Coast land rights in exchange for a piece of land adjoining where the Stardust used to be (Boyd’s is building Echelon Place there, and the adjoining land will allow any expansions they want).

 Second: If you’re going to In-N-Out, take a cab or drive a rental there.

 Third: I second the advice to go to Ellis Island Casino & Microbrewery; the $4.95 steak dinner is the best deal in Vegas.
 I was there over Memorial Day weekend, and we saw a hooker get thrown out of the casino, screaming the whole way. It was hilarious.

 My best advice to the Vegas novice is this:

 Know what your bankroll is. Have a win goal and a loss limit.
 If you win 50-75% of your buy-in, cash out and leave.
 If you lose 50% of your buy-in, cash out and leave.
 This way you always leave the table with money, and you still have money available to bet with later.

 I’d take whatever your bankroll is and divide it by how many days you’re staying there, and limit yourself to that.
 Under NO circumstances are you to reach into your pocket for more money after you’ve lost part of your bankroll at a table. That’s how they get you.
 Stick with your win goal and loss limit and you’ll be fine.

 If you want to go on the cheap, stay at Casino Royale. It’s selling point is its location near everything else on the North end of the Strip, and they know that.

 Other hotels I’d recommend if money is not a concern:

 Caesar’s is the best service on the Strip, imo.
 Flamingo is owned by the same company, so they train their people there before they send them to Caesar’s, so they have outstanding service, too.
Venetian is very nice, as is Paris.

 I wouldn’t stay at the Wynn, just b/c I don’t see how it is worth $400 a night.

 More advice:
 Wherever you play, get the players club card for that casino or company. It will earn you comps for later on, and will get you special treatment from the staff, depending on your level of play.
 Flamingo also has the best boards on any craps table in Vegas; Harrah’s has the worst.
 I always win at craps at Flamingo.

 If you want $5 tables, go to the South end of the Strip, and play at the Excalibur (best sports book on the Strip).

 orangeblood,

 Wherever you’re staying, go to the sportsbook and make a prop bet on texas winning the national championship. I believe they’re 15-1 right now, so an $11 bet would win you a nice $161 back.

Much appreciated, good sirs! A thousand cocktails to you all!

1. Agree 100% on the Ellis Island. Nice little local casino, cheap tables, good pizza by the slice, damn good chow, locally brewed beer while playing, and only $1 otherwise. A small casino so the drink gals make the rounds often. They also make their own root beer, which rocks.
   The babyback rib dinner is outstanding, and the pit boss will often comp dinner.