New T-Shirt?

Not that I want to go out of my way to piss off any of the Kool-Aid drinkers on the left, but I saw this picture today and thought it might make a great t-shirt:



Oh hell, what am I saying? Nobody likes Hillary Clinton. All the cool kids are voting for the Obamessiah this year!


Since my guy Fred pulled out of the race, my vote is going to Jules Winfield:


I'd like to see a Jules Winfield/Jason Bourne ticket. Nobody would fark with us. Oh, and Steve Forbes could be Secretary of the Treasury. I'd kinda like to see that whole flat-tax thing get done.

Ok, no more politics.

Mikey

Hump Day Blahs

Hey gang.

My regular, ongoing goal which I always seem to fall short of is to post updates early in the morning, because most of my readers seem to be east-coasters. If I post late in the day, nobody reads it until the next day. The problem is, today, I just don't have much to say. Well, that, and I slept in late.

Sadly, I don't have much going on in the way of Vegas-style adventures lately, but with the axe still falling at work, I don't feel much like being frivolous. Word around the campfire, however, is that one total asshat dealer on my shift got the boot this week, which is good news. All the other dealers hated the guy, and he cost us plenty of money over the past several months, so he won't be missed.

Oh, I've got chores to do, DVDs to watch, books to read, but right now I just don't feel like doing much. Hell, I'm not even up for kitchen buffoonery today. And I'm usually *always* up for a little time at the stove. The weather is finally nice again, I think winter is thankfully behind us once and for all, but it's windy as hell outside, as usual. I know that Chicago is supposed to be the Windy City, but Vegas could sure give it a run for it's money.

I'm supposed to meet up with the Hoyas tonight, but I haven't heard from them yet today. Of course, they're working their convention right now, so I guess I shouldn't expect a call until after five or so. But it'll be nice to get out of the house and be a tourist for a few hours tonight down on the Strip. I even made sure I have two crispy $1 bills in my wallet, just for the valet.

I guess I'll be spending the balance of my afternoon seeking inspiration for something to write about. Because right now, I got nuthin'.

Mikey

Nooner

Happy Tuesday, everybody.

I was meaning to make a post when I got home from work last night, but I was just too damn tired. All I did was take a quick shower and go straight to bed--no stopping for dilly-dally in front of the tv or computer screen. I was even considering a jaunt down to the hot tub, but I lost my motivation as soon as I kicked my shoes off.

As far as life in the casino goes, I have to say that so far I am impressed with the changes they're making. Now that they've scaled back the weekend hours for the part-timers, keeping one entire pit closed (thereby de facto raising the table limits), I've noticed quite a difference in our daily tokes--mine are up almost $300 this pay period, compared to what they were a few weeks back. On the downside, I'm working much harder--my games are busier later into the evening, and there are fewer empty seats. Granted, my tables are generally always busy--there are a group of regulars who seem to follow me around to whatever game I'm dealing, and if there is a row of four dead games, and I'm in the middle of them, my table will usually be the first one where somebody will come along and sit down. I can't explain it, I think I have some sort of casino tractor-beam thing going on.

That's no moon...

Anyhow, usually on Mondays, for example, I don't even sign the Early Out list anymore, just because I know the bosses will start coming around about 11:00 pm or so, looking to 'dispose of a body'. And since it's my Friday night, they know darn well that if they just keep asking, they'll grind me down and I'll take off a couple of hours early. Well, last night, we were busy the entire time and the boss didn't come by until after 1:00 am, asking me if I wanted to go at 1:20, giving me an hour and a half of early out time, yet still giving me seven full hours worth of tokes. Seeing that I was down to just one player on my game at the time, and my next (and last) table on my string was already closed, and I took them up on their offer.

Besides, I don't want to make waves or be seen as 'difficult' right now--word is that more layoffs are coming, and I'd like to avoid that hassle this time around. Brothaman is being a model employee these days. But I'm pretty sure I'm safe, and I think Falcon Rob's job is secure, also. Both of us deal dice, which is always a useful tool to have in the arsenal, and I've kinda helped him learn to deal Pai Gow and all the carnival games too, so he's made himself more valuable.

Anyhow, enough talk about work--it's my weekend! I don't have much going on today as far as plans are concerned, unless 'relaxing' is a plan. Tomorrow night is cocktails and dinner with Hoya and Dane, and I think we're going to Dick's Last Resort over at the Trashy Castle. So before we set foot in that joint, we're gonna get good and liquored up first. Rumor has it that they might have a bottle or two up in their room...

Later,

Mikey

Mistakes

Good morning, everyone--I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was ok--busy at work, relaxing at home. Otherwise, kinda dull, now that I think about it.

First things first, I want to go ahead and offer a public service by giving a big 'thumbs down' to Cool Mint Creme Double Stuft Oreos. They are not very good at all. I like mint, and I like Oreos, but if I want mint cookies, I'll call up the Girl Scouts. Mint cream Oreos are too sweet and kinda taste like ass. And not that good ass you see in high heels carrying drinks in the casino, either. More like the white-trash ghetto booty ass you see at WalMart that ought not to be wearing spandex.

Even if they're on sale, stick with the original flavor Oreos. Trust me on this.

My last couple of nights at the casino have been somewhat interesting--I was lucky enough to be dealing my favorite games, but I was in dealer hell for a couple of hours. What is dealer hell? That's when you're busting your good players, but the jerkoffs and stiffs keep winning hand after hand. And it drives you nuts when that happens, because you know it's costing you money.

Other than that, I had an interesting thing happen on Saturday night. I was deep into my second hour of Pai Gow, and still had yet to drop a single dollar in tokes. I was striking out big time. I was really getting bummed because I had dealt one lady about four bonus hands in a row, and she wouldn't even cough up a dollar. I told myself that if I went five more minutes and nobody toked me, the 'show' would be over, I'd stop talking completely, and just dummy up and deal for the rest of the night, going as fast as I could, and letting the house edge work it's magic.

Just as I was thinking this to myself while riffling the deck before loading it into the Shufflemaster, I saw the lady on seat seven--who I'd just given a full house to--drop a nickel for me out in front of her Fortune Bonus bet.

Normally I bet the nickels on the main hand, and the dollars on the bonus hand whenever I'm dealing Pai Gow, so I just reached over and pushed it out from in front of the bonus and into the space in front of the main bet. (We've got a much better chance of winning the main hand, truth be told, so I figured, after two hours into my shift and not dropping a dime into the toke box, I'd take a chance on making ten bucks) The player was talking to the cocktail waitress at the time, so she didn't notice my little act of subterfuge.

So, the cards come out, and I dealt them around the table. The lady in seat seven picked up her cards, started to set them, and I noticed her grinning. She then looked over her cards and notices that the bet she made for me has moved.

Doh!

She said Hey, I put that bet on the bonus for you--you shouldn't have moved it!

Did I make a mistake?

Yeah you did--you would've gotten paid! Move it back!

Um, lemme call the floor person over. I can't move it back now that you *know* it's a winning bet, I said.

So I called for the floor, told him what I did, and he said to move it back.

Before I did, I told him, Well, I think it's a winning hand, and she told me to move it back *after* she saw her cards.

So he said, As long as it's not a Royal Flush or something like that, I don't care...

The player then chimed in, saying that she had a Straight Flush!

Immediately, I felt sick. I'd just lost $250, because I *knew* there was no way they were going to let me drop that in the toke box. The player's bet was safe--She was getting $250, but I realized that instead of $250, I'd make a whopping ten bucks instead. Great.

Of course, as soon as she said she had a straight flush, the floorman looked at me like I was a complete f*cking idiot, and at the time, well, I was.

He said he couldn't approve a disputed payout of that size, and that he'd have to call Surveillance to see what really happened.

So I had the cards spread out on the layout, her bonus money all cut out in front of me, and the game came to a complete stop for damn near ten uncomfortable minutes while the floor supervisor was on the phone with the Eye. All the players were like "Dude, are you going to get in trouble?"

Of course not, the house LOVES it when they don't have to pay a bonus. And I felt like a total shiatbag for moving the bet over, because tokes are hard enough to come by on a Pai Gow game, and losing out on $250 is a huge kick in the balls.

I looked over my shoulder a few times, and I could see the guy on the phone and it wasn't looking good. His body language told me all I needed to know, and he kept shaking his head whenever I made eye contact. But they were looking at the tape for a LONG time.

Finally, he hung up and walked back to the table.

Gimme the bad news, I said.

Well, he said, according the the Eye, the player put the bet in front of the Fortune Bonus, and was unaware that you moved it. Pay both bonuses.

The whole table erupted in a cheer! Of course, they were all going to win their $20 Envy bonuses, but they were rooting for me to get the big payoff. So I gladly dropped the $255 in the toke box and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And I swear to God, if that would've happened at any other casino in Vegas, they would have *never* paid that bet to the dealers. Not in a million years. So the next time my co-workers are bitching about how the casino is sticking it to them, I'll remind them that they don't have it so bad. And word spread pretty quickly that night that I'd dropped a $250 bonus on a Pai Gow table, so I was the big hero in the break room. But when I told them how I almost lost it, well, I got humbled again. And again. And again.

After that, it was like the floodgates opened on the tokes, and I ended up dropping almost $500 before calling it a night, which is unheard of in the Chinatown pit. And we ended up making over $150 in tokes for the night, so it helped.

Last night, however, was the polar opposite. On one game I had people betting for me almost every hand for the entire hour, and I didn't win one single bet. I just wiped everybody out. It was a bloodbath. I *may* have dropped about $50 total for the entire evening, but I had at least three or four times that amount bet for me--I just couldn't win a bet!

But, word around the campfire was that day shift dropped some big money, so I'm hoping somebody carried my ass like I did for somebody else the night before. Normally, I'm almost *always* ahead of the curve as far as amount of tokes go--I'm one of the big producers on my shift. But not last night. I was a cold-blooded house-dealing bankroll killer--you didn't want any part of me if you were in the casino. It was just one of those nights. It couldn't end soon enough.

But the nightmare is finally over now, and I'm chillin' in my bed, ready to get a few hours of sleep. I've got one more night of this silliness before my weekend, so let's hope the gambling gods are kinder to my players tonight.

Mikey

Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon

Turning a corner? Oh yeah... Tokes were a whopping $101 on Thursday night. That's just pathetic.

Anyhow...

I'm just wiped out today. I got worked like a rented mule last night, and basically just came home and collapsed in the living room chair at 3 am. Not before making a tall glass of Malibu & Coke, however. Priorities, you know. But every one of my tables was completely full all night long--everybody wanted to play with Mikey!

I kinda felt like I dodged a bullet yesterday, though--They laid off about 30+ people at the casino last night, but luckily the dealers were unaffected. Word around the campfire is that they laid off a whole bunch of the Extra Board dealers at two of our more upscale sister casinos this week, too. Having been laid off twice in the past, I was just relieved that the pink slip didn't find it's way to me this time. But I should be safe. I've got decent seniority, the bosses on my shift love me, and I deal dice, which is always in demand. So I feel somewhat protected.

But it makes me wonder what the hell is going on in that casino if they're laying people off. Also, we had no part-timers working last night, meaning that one entire pit never even opened (we have five pits total, plus a small high-limit room), so I figured our tokes would go up. I got a text message from Rob a little while ago telling me that we made $133 last night. Not great, but about average for 2008 so far. But there were only two, yes, TWO five-dollar blackjack games last night--the rest were $10, $25, or higher--so that helped out with the flea factor. Normally we have about eight or ten $5 games on the weekends.

But even with only two cheap-assed games in the entire casino, guess who got stuck with one of them for two hours last night? Yep--yours truly!

And adding insult to injury, I had to deal that $5 Pai Gow game, too. Of course, it was completely full all night long. The blackjack games weren't too bad, I mean, there's always at least one jackass at every cheap game, but overall, it wasn't as bad as usual. But I was on the string of tables last night that nobody wanted--all of our worst players that everyone just hates made an appearance last night, and I had to deal to at least one of them on every table I went to until 2:00 am. Luckily my last game was a relaxing carnival game with nice players--it was a great way to end the evening, but man, I was just wiped out by the time I hit the parking garage. Luckily, a twenty minute long steaming-hot shower and a tall glass of booze helped once I got home.

As a reward for my hard work and patience in dealing with the morons last night, I'm being rewarded tonight by being put back on my favorite string of tables, in my favorite section, that is also serviced by my favorite cocktail waitress all night long, and, I get the first break, so I don't pitch the first card until 7:20. Heh. Oh, and since there aren't 20 part-time dealers on staff tonight, that string will hold together most of the night, and I will most likely not have to end my night doing twenty minutes shifts on blackjack.

So if I get some rest this afternoon, I should be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tonight, ready for an enjoyable night in the casino.

Mikey

Mixed Feelings

Is there anything better than waking up to a fresh pot of good coffee? I mean, besides waking up like Hef with a bevy of naked bunnies lying about... I guess if there was some bacon cooking over a fire and I was in a tent up on Mt. Charleston, that might be better. But it's too cold for that right now, so I'll just be content to hop out of my own bed, grab a cup of hazelnut happiness from the kitchen, and chill out here at my desk for a bit.

As much bitching as I've done about work over the past year, it seems that we may be turning a corner. First of all, this week has been the best week for tokes (so far) since I've been here in Vegas. Hell, we had a $180 day on Tuesday, which is unheard of. And of course, Super Bowl weekend was fairly lucrative, too.

And then this past Monday night, they implemented a new rule which will easily add a bunch more dollars to my pocket every week. Effective immediately, the Extra-Board part-timers are no longer allowed to work on Friday and Saturday nights. Now, if you're a part-timer, that's a huge kick directly in the balls. But if you're a full-timer, which I am, it means more cash every week.

Here's the thing--The casino only pays dealers around $7 per hour. A few make less, but I myself am topped out at a whopping $7.10 per hour from the house. Of course, the bosses are always quick to say We don't put a cap on your earnings--you have unlimited income potential working here!, but the truth is, the house doesn't pay us shiat. No biggie, that's the deal I signed on for when I got here. So the vast majority of my income comes from tokes.

Now the house can do things to make it easier to make tokes, like offering more higher-limit blackjack, fewer $5 tables, limiting the number of 'flea' games like mini-baccarat, etc. And do some decent marketing, which goes without saying. Of course, I'd *love* to work in a place that only offered $25 blackjack, but that's not a reality-based wish. But I certainly wouldn't miss that $5 Pai Gow table if they got rid of it--it's a drain on our income.

Anyhow, the biggest gripe is that we have way too many dealers on staff, especially on swing shift. And having too many dealers around really dilutes the toke pool. Starting around 1:00 am every morning, a good chunk of our games get shut down. And it has to be that way because 1) We don't have enough players around to keep them open at that time of night, and 2) Graveyard shift starts at 3:00 am, and they don't have half as many dealers as swing shift does, so games *have* to be shut down--they don't have enough personnel on hand to keep the games open. But most of the dealers on swing shift are scheduled from 7:00 pm till 3:00 am, and a handful are scheduled from 8-4. So what do all those dealers do for the last two or three hours of their shift?

Well, the "roadmap" goes out the window, and the games you started the evening on are no longer yours. We go onto a condition known as 'rubber band' (who knows where that term came from) which basically means that each time you come back from break, you check with the shift boss (or whoever is in charge of the roadmap) to find out which game you go to next. The problem is, there are so many dealers still around whose games have been shut down that instead of dealing for an hour and then taking a twenty minute break, you end up doing forty minutes on, twenty off, or even worse, twenty on, twenty off. Or worse yet, the Mother of all pain-in-the-asses, double breaks followed by working for twenty minutes.

Are you beginning to see why it's so hard not to take an early out?

And since the money was so bad last year, some people have become conditioned to never leave early--they have the mindset that it doesn't matter how many breaks they take, they won't leave until they put their eight hours in. Me? If I'm not doing anything at work, it's hard for me to stick around. I hate hate hate just standing around doing nothing at 2:00 am. And we have dealers who refuse to even take the half-hour early out--they still get the full hour of tokes, but lose $3.50 in hourly wages. Man, I take that EVERY time I can get it--but some people refuse, they want that last three bucks (I'm sorry, but my free time, even if it's sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and channel surfing, is worth more to me than that piddly three bucks).

Now, here's the thing--each shift treats their part-timers differently. Back when I was on the Extra Board, if it got slow, they threw my ass out of the casino with no hesitation whatsoever. Some nights I'd go in and get sent home after just two hours. Some weeks I'd be scheduled for five or even six nights, but end up with only 24 hours of actual time worked. Extra Board dealers are used at the casino's leisure, and there's not much you can do about it. Nowadays, however, we have a new shift boss, a new casino director, and it seems like new rules. They'll still send the part-timers home, but good lord, not unless they absolutely have to (Rob's shift, however, is different--they punt his ass to the curb without a moment's hesitation. It's kind of funny, he's gotten to the point that when he gets tapped out to go on break, he hides from the bosses so they can't find him and send him home--if he can dodge them until twenty minutes after the hour, he gets another hour of tokes for the day!)

Since it seems like they don't want to send the part-timers home, all the dealers have been bitching up a storm about having too many dealers on hand. And Friday nights, our busiest night of the week, ends up being a crappy night for tokes because there are just too many dealers taking a slice of the toke pie. Seriously--back when I started, weekends were usually between $175 and $225 per night. For the past several months, they've been closer to $120. Which really sucks, because I work way too hard on those nights to get only a hundred and twenty bucks. Throwing a monkey wrench into the whole equation is the fact that part-timers are not allowed to work over 32 hours per week, and full timers are not allowed to work less than 32 hours per week.

Not only have the dealers been bitching, but it just looks shiatty and unprofessional to have a gathering of about 30 dealers standing around at the end of the pit, waiting for a table assignment like pigeons begging for scraps in front of an old man at a park bench. And every night, sometime after midnight, that's what we have going on every 20 minutes.

So, they did something about it--no more part-timers on the weekends, meaning fewer dealers diluting the toke pool. As a full-timer, I *love* this. However, since Rob is a part-timer, it really sucks for him. They haven't implemented this rule on his shift, yet, but I don't know if they have the same issues on day shift as we do on swing. And the In-my-day part of me says "I don't care what happens to the part-timers--they dicked me around like that for nine months!", but Rob is now at ten months on the extra-board with no full-time openings in sight.

The irony of the whole thing is, if the money improves because of moves like this, there will be no turnover. And it'll take even longer to get off the extra board and into full-time status.

So, here it is, Friday afternoon, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what our tokes turn out like this weekend.

And Rob just took off for the casino to begin his shift as I was typing that last paragraph. Wanna know what the last thing he said to me was?

See ya in three hours!

Mikey

Celebrity Look-Alike

According to one of my internet stalkers "fans", I remind her of one of her favorite celebrities. I leave it up to you, my readers, to decide if she's on to something...


I always thought I looked more like John Candy in 'Uncle Buck', but I guess I'd need more hair on top and less out front.

Hat tip to Cici in Tampa for the mad photoshop skillz and ego boost...

Mikey

The Latest Mix II

Yes, I made another CD, culled from the vast collection of porn music found on my hard drive. Here is the list and liner notes. Feel free to tell me how crappy my taste in music is.

• Shake Shake Shake Senora -- Harry Belafonte. Ok, so it's actually called 'Jump in the Line' but nobody really knows that. But do you remember that scene in Beetlejuice?
• Unchain My Heart -- Joe Cocker. This was a little undiscovered gem of a song, for me, until football season. That But Light commercial where the Dalmation jumps from the Clydesdale wagon into the Miller Lite truck featured the song, and the keyboard just sounded so frickin' cool on Rob's surround sound in our living room. Had to get it.
• Push It -- Salt N Pepa. This song is one of the most fun tunes ever recorded. Not only does it remind me of epic night I first met Andrea, it was also the featured song on one of the best commercials ever made. I also like to throw an amended lyric out some nights at work-- This table's not for everybody, only the sexy people!
• Me and Bobby McGee -- Janis Joplin. This song reminds me of Amy, because once we get a few drinks into her and Scotty2Hottie, (not a tough sell, by the way), he'll bust out his guitar and she'll sing this song with all the enthusiasm of a hippie born twenty years too late. It's especially fun at the end when Janis goes into 'freak-out' mode.
• Battleship Chains -- The Georgia Satellites. Just a fantastic hillbilly rock tune. Not nearly as popular as the 'free milk and a cow' song, but much much better.
• Candyman -- Christina Aguilera. You all know my thoughts on Miss Christina already. But this is a damn good song, too. And a killer video.
• Jump Around -- House of Pain. I love this tune, even though it gets overplayed at sporting events (Hello Wisconsin!). It gives us white guys a chance to make fools of ourselves, as if we didn't take advantage often enough already.
• Ride Your White Horse -- Laid Back. I always thought it was Bootsie Collins, Grandmaster Flash, or somebody like that. Apparently, lots of people have covered it. But everybody needs a little funk at some point in the day.
• I Second That Emotion -- Smokey Robinson. This is a damn good tune if you haven't heard it in awhile.
  
• We Ride Tonight -- The Sherbs. This was an MTV one-hit wonder back when I was in 9th grade. But holy hell what a great song. It took me almost 15 years of searching to track down a copy.
• 65 Love Affair -- Paul Davis. This is another one of those fun songs that remind me of the carefree days of youth when all I had to worry about was how many times I could get Stephani Layton to slow dance with me on Saturday night.
• Pure & Simple -- The Lightning Seeds. I don't know when or how this song entered my consciousness, but it's a great one. I have no idea when it was released or anything about the group, but it's a favorite of mine that has "Early 90's before music started to suck" written all over it.
• Somebody Told Me -- The Killers. Did you know they were from Vegas? I didn't, until I watched Jeopardy the other day.
• A Town Called Malice -- The Jam. This tune was from the 80's but it sounds like it's from the 60's. Nobody had ever heard of it until that Pierce Brosnan/Greg Kinnear movie, The Matador, came out a couple of years ago. But I've had a copy of it on CD for about 14 years now.
• Don't Change -- INXS. This is by far the greatest offering from a group that put out a whole shiatload of amazing music. I think this is one of my all-time favorite songs.
• Wings of a Butterfly -- HIM. I wrote about this song about a year ago. European power pop at it's finest!
• High School Never Ends -- Bowling For Soup. They're like Blink 182, except with more talent. And I like how they take the US Weekly crowd down a peg or two.
• Voodoo Child -- Jimi Hendrix. I loves me some Brother Jimi (and the other Brother Jimmy, too), and I think this is my favorite song of his.
• Keep It Comin' Love -- KC & the Sunshine Band. Who doesn't love classic disco? And this is my favorite song by KC and the boys.
• Ole Ole Ole -- Ricky Martin. Yes, I know I put it on the first CD, but after listening to it all the way through, I realized there were some messed up tags in my music library, and what I had actually put on the other CD was House of Pain by Faster Pussycat. I fixed the tags, but couldn't fix the other CD. So I've added it here. And I think the name of the song is actually The Cup of Life, not Ole Ole Ole. Either way, it makes me want to go to a bullfight or drink some tequila with a worm in it.
  

That's it for Volume II. A couple more of these, and I'll have enough music to take a road trip to Phoenix.

Mikey

Paying For My Laziness

Yeah yeah yeah, so I didn't post anything yesterday. And I didn't do much the day before that, either.

But ask anyone who actually tries to keep a blog going--It's always tough, and some days are tougher than others. And then when I write something that *I* think is interesting, and get very few--or even worse--no comments, the self-doubt creeps in and I find myself asking if it's worth the effort. Some days the answer is a resounding yes, but some days the answer is "not really".

Or sometimes I feel just plain lazy, and sitting at the computer is the lowest of all priorities, somewhere below scrubbing the shower tile or tightening down the loose toilet seat. But I've been working on all of those little undesirable projects all morning, and they're getting done. I still have to fold laundry and vacuum my room, but most everything else is finished. So here I sit at my desk listening to my latest randomized CD (more on that later) and trying to make my otherwise dull week sound somewhat interesting.

I know everyone likes to read about food, but after the pizza last week, I've not been feeling particularly inspired. I made some decent enchiladas the other night, but it was more of a Sandra Lee-type of recipe--canned sauce, spice packets, etc. So it was fairly pedestrian. And I have about a ton of leftover Spanish rice, and with the half-pound or so of seasoned beef still in the fridge, I'll probably find myself eating burritos all weekend. (Dougie--I need your expertise!)

I had my eye exam yesterday, and it went well. Yes, my eyesight has degraded a bit since my last exam in 2001, but not too much. So Tara, there are a few reasons I'm not getting contacts. First of all, I don't need them--I only need assistance to see off in the distance, and sitting with contacts in at the computer would likely drive me nuts, or even worse, probably hasten the need for a stronger prescription down the road. Also, I work in a casino, and all that second-hand smoke would probably just kill my eyes if I wore contacts. I remember all those trips to Vegas back in the day with Derek, and his biggest whine every trip was about his contacts and the smoke. I won't subject myself to that. And third of all, I'm not that vain to insist on having contacts. Some people actually look good in glasses (Howzie!), and of course I consider myself one of them.

Anyhow, the exam went well, and the doctor said my eyes weren't in as bad of shape as I thought they were. Even the glaucoma test didn't bother me as much as I remembered, and my peepers are glaucoma-free. Must be all that glaucoma medicine I've been taking all these years...

I'm going for the record on how many times I can use the word 'glaucoma' in one post. Glaucoma!

I also avoided getting my eyes dilated, which I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. They had an eye-mapping machine as an alternative, which generated pictures of the inside of my eyeballs that looked like modern art when blown up (the pictures, not my eyes). Once we had a look at them, the doc took her time explaining everything to me, and of course, besides a case of being mildly near-sighted, my eyes are in good shape. And two of the chicks in the office complimented me on my long and luscious eyelashes. Seriously. I'm guessing the staff at a gynecology office would have to be more judicious with their compliments...

The only downer of the visit was that they didn't have my frames in the right size or color on hand, so they have to special order them first, and then send 'em off to the lab to get the lenses made and mated. So it's gonna be a few weeks. But I'll post pictures of my new, more sophisticated look as soon as they arrive.

Other than the eye doctor, I didn't do a damn thing yesterday, which is why I've been so busy this morning. After my morning coffee and breakfast, I attacked half of the bathroom (the gross half) -- not that it was filthy, it just needed a good scrubbin', kinda like Britney Spears after a long weekend bender. I also did a couple of loads of laundry (How do my bed sheets get dusty? Seriously, I think that speaks ill of my recent social life...), I cleaned and polished my laptop, made another CD, and picked up all the little pieces of scrap paper, cough drop wrappers, and bottle caps from around my bedroom.

But I guess it's cool. My days off were the definition of sloth, and now that I've got to go back to work tonight, I've spent my day being a productive person. There's something to be said for being lazy though...

Mikey

They Always Said I'd Go Blind

I can't help myself--I had to do it.

My original eye appointment was set for two weeks from yesterday, but I had to change it. I've really noticed lately how bad my eyesight has gotten. Not that I'm gonna end up like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder (hell, I can't play the piano anyways), but since I made that initial visit to the optometrist's office last week, I've started paying attention to things I should be able to see, but can't.

It takes me longer to focus and middle-to-long distances. I can't read the scores on the bottom of the screens on the huge TVs at the casino from more than thirty feet away. I already mentioned that I can't read the progressive amounts on any slot machine more than fifty feet away. But driving at night, when I first leave the house, is when I feel like I'm most affected, and it actually feels a bit dangerous for a minute or two.

So today, while I was puttering around the house, I decided to call the eye doctor back and see if I could move up my appointment--it's going to take a week to ten days to get my glasses back anyways, so I might as well get the ball rolling as soon as possible. Luckily, they had an opening tomorrow morning, so I grabbed it. So maybe by the time my original exam appointment rolls around, I'll be sportin' some new trendy specs. And I won't be a danger to those around me when I get behind the wheel.

Mikey

This Reminded Me of Reverend Dave

Actually, here's a real picture of him. It was taken at the track--he had a motorcycle race that day, but just like Thurman Thomas in the Super Bowl, he couldn't find his helmet, so he had to go with whatever headgear was available.




Mikey

Welcome to Tuesday...

Or as some are calling it, Day Two of the Patriot's Eternal Shame...

Heh.

I gotta tell ya, I really enjoyed seeing the glazed look of disbelief on the mugs of hundreds of Patriot fans in the casino on Sunday night. It was a thing of beauty. When the game kicked off, I was thinking that I'd like to see the P-men go 19-0, only because the only bigger douchebags in the world than smug New England fans are the asshats on the 1972 Dolphins.

But after that first ten-minute drive of the game by the Giants offense, I realized that hey, all those players from the '72 Dolphins are all getting old and will start dying off soon enough, and eventually we won't have to listen to Mercury Morris talking through his colostomy bag. And since I have no particular allegiance to either team, coupled with the fact that I didn't make a bet on the game this year, I just got to enjoy an old-fashioned beat-down.

Seriously, is there nothing more satisfying than seeing that pretty-boy Brady getting knocked on his ass all day long? But he's probably not too upset when all was said and done. At the end of the day, he's still got three Super Bowl rings, millions of dollars in the bank, and a supermodel girlfriend. Me? My jewelry consists of a handful of bead necklaces from the Carnavale Court, I've got about $600 in my checking account, and as far as the ladies go, the highlight of my current social life is a half-hour or so of conversation and flirting per week with a smokin' hot cocktail waitress who I'm certain considers me just another one of the dorks she encounters in her daily grind.

Oh well.

Here it is almost noon on the first day of my weekend, and I haven't done a damn thing but take a shower and make a pot of coffee.

I've got a week's worth of email to catch up on--I swear I haven't answered a single email all week long, sorry guys, and the usual housework. I've also got another life-in-the-casino type of post in the hopper, along with the usual drivel I tend to crank out every now and again.

I'll get to it, so check back again later.

Mikey

Monday... Finally!

Damn, it's been a looooong week for your humble correspondent. Being Super Bowl weekend, it was extremely busy in the casino this weekend--I worked my sizable white ass off! And on a happy note, it turns out that Saturday's tokes broke the $200 barrier for the first time in over a year. Yep, that's right--in the entire calendar year of 2007, we didn't have a single day where tokes were over $200. We had one day that came close, just a few cents short, but it's been a long time since we've had a good day like that. I'm hoping yesterday was just as good, but I could tell we weren't quite as busy.

Also, I was stuck dealing mostly blackjack all weekend, and that just wears a brotha out, especially if you're doing it for three or four hours straight. Ugh.

The worst part was when I got into work on Thursday night, my first table of the week was an hour on that crappy-assed $5 Pai Gow table that everyone hates. Talk about your flea circus! Every hour on that table is an hour-long prison sentence. I was stuck over there last night too, the table was completely full for over four hours, and I didn't drop the first toke into the box until 10:30! Yep, one lone five-dollar chip hit the bottom of the box with a clang from a dude who I happened to deal four full-houses to in a row, so he georged me up with a fiver. Thinking that the box sounded a little hollow, I lifted the lid to take a look and saw that lonely chip sitting there all by itself. At that point I felt absolutely no remorse for just crushing everyone at the table over the course of the next half hour or so. Heh.

Anyhow, one of the biggest fleas in the casino (we call him 'Alvin') plays that $5 game every night, and just annoys the hell out of everyone. He's one of those guys who has to play everybody else's hand, never shuts up, and overuses the dealers name, while generally being a stiff. I swear, if I took a shot of whiskey every time I heard the name 'Mikey' when I was dealing to him, I'd be dead from alcohol poisoning inside of half an hour.

So there he was during my first hour of my workweek, just sitting there in seat 2, next to me, being an annoying little troll. The lady in seat 7, next to me on the other side, was chain-smoking her cigarettes and just letting them sit in the ashtray and burn non-stop for hours on end, creating a nasty blue haze around the table that couldn't be avoided, no matter how many times I tried to blow it back towards her.

At one point, I was riffling the cards before putting them in the Shufflemaster, and I was damn near overcome with second-hand smoke. So I started coughing loudly and uncontrollably for a few seconds. Well, at that very instant, I accidentally busted out the rankest, nastiest fart you could possibly imagine. But since I was coughing so much, combined with all of the other extraneous casino noise, nobody heard it.

A few seconds later, the foul stench started to creep across the table, damn near making my eyes water. So what did I do?

I made a full-on disgusted face and said Jesus Al, did you do that?!?!? That's just frickin' gross, man!

Of course, he was like, Huh? What?, and then about five seconds later everyone else caught a whiff and started going off on him, telling him he was a nasty freak and to have better manners and such. I totally blamed him for it and it totally stuck.

Heh.

And it was even more fun because he kept denying it and it just made him look more and more like he was guilty. I could barely contain myself, because a couple of the people at the table put their shirts up over their noses and wouldn't let it die--they just kept ripping on the guy for being so foul. He finally got so embarrassed that he left.

Highlight of the night!

Another night I was dealing Deuces Wild to this dirty old foreign guy who kept grabbing at the waitress's asses every time they'd come to the table. I swear, he was 80 years old if he was a day, and he had one of those extremely long and droopy faces that reminded me of a cross between a British senior citizen and a Bassett hound. He looked like his name would be something like Jeeves or Alistair or something like that, and was drunk on Scotch.

He kept saying stuff like Give me a jackpot hand, Mikey--I wanna go to the whorehouse tonight! much to everyone else's delight who happened to be at the table at the same time. One of the waitresses stopped by and dropped off another drink for him, and he gave her a $10 bill. She leaned down to ask him if he wanted change, and he reached over and grabbed her directly on the ass, telling her to do whatever she wanted. Of course she jumped back, kept the ten-spot, and never delivered another drink to the table.

When I was coming back from break a bit later, I saw my favorite waitress, who now had that same section. I flagged her down and pointed him out and said to avoid him. She told me that she was already aware of him and that he'd already tried to grab her earlier, so she delivered his drinks using the beer-man-in-the-stadium method, standing at the end of the table and having everyone pass it down. But she also told me that he'd already propositioned her, asking her to drive him home. When she said she didn't have a car, he said That's ok, I have a room here! and then started flicking his tongue at her... Needless to say, she was rather disgusted.

Anyhow, he sat there for hours, and I had to deal to him again. I told him that if he put a paw on "my" waitress, I'd come across this table like a spider monkey! But by that time he was so drunk and oblivious that he didn't realize that all the other players at the table were making fun of him. He kept saying he wanted to go to the whorehouse, and one of the other old guys said Dude--they're gonna make you pay double if you go!

Why's that? said 'Alistair'

Because at your age, the chick's gonna have to stand on her head in the corner so you can drop it in!

Hell, I even laughed at that one. But he finally lost enough money and drank enough Scotch that he called it a night and shuffled off to his room, alone. I never saw him again for the rest of the weekend, but I sure hope he found a nice lonely old lady and got some satisfaction.

The rest of the weekend was just a blur of drunken fools and an endless parade of cards and chips. As hard as I worked these past few days, I'm glad that tonight will be a little slower. And I saw on the road map that I'm scheduled back on my favorite string of tables in Chinatown tonight, so it'll be a nice easy way to slide into my weekend.

But I've been home for almost five hours now, and still haven't gone to bed, so I'm going to try and get a few hours worth of sleep before I head back to the cul-de-sac of broken dreams.

Peace out, y'all.

Mikey

Mailbox Triple Happiness

No, that's not the latest daily special at the neighborhood Chinese restaurant, but it's the pleasant surprise I got when I checked the mail the other day.

First of all, there were absolutely no bills to be found. Woot! Second of all, I had a few things addressed to me--

1) My L.A. Confidential DVD. I'm probably going to watch it tomorrow or Wednesday. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out--it's just a great movie all around.

2) A copy of the latest Christina Aguilera CD, courtesy of Eric in VA.

3) A check for SIX whole American dollars, my prize for coming in dead-last in the college bowl pick-em contest last month. Oh hell yeah. Mad prognosticating skillz--I has them! So I rounded up another three bucks and finally bought that elusive book of stamps I'd been hunting for.

Also on a positive note, I got a letter from the Department of Education saying that a good chunk of interest I paid last year is tax deductible. And speaking of the IRS, those rat bastards also sent me another bill friendly letter. I'm down to owing them just triple digits now, so I figure that my tax refund will cover a big slice of that and I'll be damn near out of their clutches once and for all very soon. Rounding out the field trip to the mailbox was a statement from my 401k administrator, showing that I'd lost a few hundy in market value last quarter. Doh! Oh well--it happens. I'm not too worried about that one at this point.

I still don't have my W-2 yet, although Rob got his a few days ago... I guess I'll put some shoes on and go check again this morning.

Mikey

Oh My Dear God...

I am *so* ashamed...

Regular readers know of my undying love and devotion to the Rams--they've been my favorite team ever since I was old enough to understand what the NFL was. I was so upset after they lost Super Bowl XIV that I was wanting to see the guy in the hijacked blimp carry out his evil plan on 'Black Sunday' later that night and 'get' the Steelers and all their fans. (Anybody remember that movie?). Luckily, that never happened, because later in life I found out that my buddy Eddie B.--a huge Steelers fan--was at the game with his dad...

Nowadays, the only team I wish bad things on is the Seahawks. I kinda like the Steelers, and the Jags, now.

But this... Oh dear god-- I just don't have the words. I cannot even begin to defend my own team for the following abomination which you are about to see.

You will probably want to take a shower after watching it. You don't want to catch Teh Ghey.




And here I thought that the Super Bowl Shuffle video the Bears did back in the 80's was the gayest sports video ever recorded. Clearly I was wrong.

Anyhow, since this footage is now 'out there' and the genie can't be put back in the bottle, I will no longer make fun of anyone else's team in the entire NFL, at least until the pre-season.

At least now I understand why that dude with the rainbow afro was always in the End Zone seats at every game...

Mikey

Leftovers

I hate to admit it, but I'm about pizza-d out. After two nights of Chicago-style deep dish, I had plans to meet up for lunch with Lars Vargas yesterday. As I was leaving the house to go hit the ATM and fill up the gas tank, I gave him a call.

I'll be there a few minutes after noon, he said.

I agreed on the time, said that I'd see him there, and just before I hung up, we both realized that while we agreed to meet for lunch, and never once in the past couple of weeks did we ever mention the name of the restaurant. I guess we just take it for granted that meeting for lunch means going to Grimaldi's!

The bad thing was, there were still two pieces of the home-made pizza sitting on the counter staring at me with that come-hither look. Unfortunately, I had to pass, opting for a date with their more-sophisticated east-coast cousins. In fact, those last two sliced probably won't even get eaten...

Anyhow, after hitting the ATM, gas station, and giving my truck the worst six-dollar car wash in the history of automotive cleanliness, I found myself pulling into the parking lot at my favorite restaurant. I also noticed that Lars' "police cruiser" was already there.

We didn't waste any time perusing the menu, and the waitress was already there at the table waiting for me. We broke all of the rules, ordering two 18-inch pizzas (which I said I wouldn't do again), and we also ignored the two-topping commandment that is part of my as-yet-unwritten Pizza Manifesto. On one pie we got meatball, sun-dried tomato, and onion, and on the other pie we went classic and got pepperoni, Italian sausage, and mushroom.

Of course they were still fantastic, but we realized that the B-team was working the kitchen that day (one of the pies got a little too charred on one side). We also realized that two meats equals too much grease, and sun-dried tomatoes and onions on the same pizza imparts a little too much sweetness. But that didn't stop us from our feeding frenzy. Nothing went to waste, even though we had some leftovers to take with us.

And, while we were eating, I had another only-in-Vegas moment, as somebody walked up and asked me--wait for it--Hey, are you Hurricane Mikey?

That hasn't happened in months.

It was reader Phil ("Big Mo") from someplace in Ohio, saying he's been a reader for quite awhile and was visiting Grimaldi's on my recommendation. And he just happened to stumble upon me in my native habitat--and I just happened to be wearing my Hurricane Mikey t-shirt for the first time in about a month, so between that, Lars' Hawaiian shirt, and the two huge pizzas on our table, we stood out like a couple of chubby sore thumbs. But we had a nice visit for a few minutes, but then we got back to the task at hand, which was shoving as much pizza into my pie-hole as I could before it got cold. (The pizza, not the pie-hole).

Three slices made their way home with me, and late last night after work, it was nice to come home and crack open an ice-cold bottle of IBC, put my feet up, and munch on the leftovers.

The last of the Chicago style is probably headed for the garbage can, though. I'm really just in the mood for peanut butter and jelly right now.

Mikey

Windy City Pizza Experiment #1

Since it was blowing like stink outside today, a steady 22-mph north wind, I figured it was as good a day as any to go ahead and try my hand at Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

It's finally in the oven as I type this, but I don't have high hopes for my first pizza. Here is what I've learned thus far:

• I should probably use less garlic and Tabasco in the red sauce.
  
• Getting the dough from a large sticky ball into a nice pliable disk that fits the pan perfectly is damn near impossible without *lots* of practice.
• Don't set ingredients behind me when I'm doing the final assembly. I'll forget something, like say, the mushrooms in the strainer. Once the sauce goes on top, well, the pie will look like it's got acne.
  
• I didn't need as much cheese as I thought I did.
• Don't set foil down on the counter to roll the dough on, thinking that it'll make cleaning up all that flour easier. It might be easier to clean up, but it's a cast-iron bitch to roll dough on, and even worse, pull the dough off of once it's finally close to the right size.

Anyhow, it might look a little rough, but I'm sure it'll still taste ok. Just putting the ingredients together smelled pretty damn good, but the crust worries me. It might be too thin in a couple of spots and way too thick around the edges. I guess I just need practice.

Updates to follow in a couple of hours. Maybe a picture, too.


~~~~UPDATE~~~~

Ok, we finally have a pizza! First of all, it didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would. But like I said before--just how bad can you screw up pizza? Here is a picture of the finished product:



Not too shabby... If you look closely, you'll see that the crust shrunk down a bit and pulled away from the edges of the pan. I also think it could've used a couple more minutes in the oven, but the mushrooms on top were starting to dry out, so I had to get it out of there. I also sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top just before I put it in the oven--won't do that again--it browns too quickly. Once it came out, however, I gave it another sprinkle of Parmesan, along with some fresh chopped basil.

The sauce turned out ok--Rob gave it his seal of approval, but I could still smell the Tabasco in it. It didn't ruin it, but it wasn't as good as it could've been. I minced four cloves of garlic, sauteed them in olive oil, then added a can of crushed tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste to thicken it up. I meant to put just a teaspoon of Tabasco in, but ended up using closer to a tablespoon--a mistake I won't repeat.

Underneath the sauce was almost two pounds of Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mozzarella cheese. I went with the low-moisture part-skim mozz instead of the fresh mozzarella on this pie. It seems like the fresh stuff is more suitable for thin Neopolitan style pies, not deep dish. But we'll see where our next experiment takes us.

I'm sure I'm being almost too critical of my pizza, but only because I wanted it to be perfect, and it wasn't. On the other hand, I have a new-found respect for those guys that can roll out that dough into a perfect circle and get it to behave the way they want it to. Man, that was the hardest part--I worked up a sweat trying to work the dough, and it was still too thick around the edges.

But even though it didn't look as good as it should have, it still tasted pretty damn good, and of course I could only get down two pieces before waving the white napkin of surrender. I was stuffed.


I still have two pizza crusts in the freezer, along with a pound or so of mozzarella, a package of pepperoni, and a tub of sliced mushrooms. And one of the ladies I work with said she has an extra pizza stone she's gonna give to me, so maybe next week I'll try my hand at thin-crust pan-less pizza. It's gotta be easier than this monster. Of course, I might still be eating leftovers until then.

Mikey

Time For Some New Glasses

So, I had to head down to the grocery store earlier today to fetch the last of my pizza ingredients, but I made one stop first.

Next to the local Smith's grocery store (where I've been shopping lately, instead of the selection-challenged WalMart market), is an upscale optometrist's office. Most people don't know that I actually *do* wear glasses, mostly because I lost my last pair almost two years ago, and have been too lazy to go make an appointment and get a new set. But my prescription was extremely mild, and I only wore glasses while driving at night or going to concerts, movies, or sporting events when long-distance vision was a premium.

Also, that first year I was here, I didn't have vision insurance anyways, and was in no position to pay cash for an exam and a new set of frames and lenses.

But lately I've noticed that I probably should be wearing glasses. The road signs that I used to be able to read are now a little blurry. And I can tell that my night vision isn't nearly as strong as it once was. Plus I use a computer a whole lot more than I did back in 1991 when I got my first pair of glasses, so I know my vision has suffered. But I really notice at work, while sitting on a dead game in the casino, I can't read the progressive jackpot amounts on slot machines as close as sixty feet away.

So I stopped in there at the eye doctor's office to have a look around and find out what my insurance covered with them, if anything. Unfortunately, almost everything they had were expensive designer frames, so I didn't have high hopes for getting off cheap. But while they were looking up my insurance info, an optometrist came out to help me choose frames. After only about ten minutes of searching, I actually found a good-looking, stylish set that fit on my phat head. And in the meantime, it turned out that my insurance coverage was pretty good, so I'll get a free exam, and the lenses--if it turns out that I don't have a ridiculous or complicated new prescription, will only cost me about $60. And the frames I picked out, normally about $160 retail, actually came out under the wholesale price limit, so I won't have to pay for them either.

I ended up making an appointment for three weeks from now, giving them time to order the frames in my size and color, and they said the lenses will take about a week or ten days after that to come back. So in about a month or so, I'll be sporting some new glasses, making me look even more smart and sophisticated than I already do.


Mikey

I Can Relate...

Mikey

Did I Say Peaceful & Relaxing?

Whoops.

I'd totally forgotten about the maintenance guys coming over today.

It all started on Friday when I got home and there was a post-it note in the left-side kitchen sink from Rob saying not to use that side of the sink because it was leaking underneath. The garbage-disposal side, thankfully, drained just fine with no leaks. No big deal, we could get by with just one side until maintenance came by to fix it.

Both of us pretty much stayed in our separate spaces, snoozing away on Saturday, so we forgot to put in the call. Rob took care of it on Sunday, and left me a note saying that they'd be by to fix it on either Monday or Tuesday since it didn't really classify as an emergency.

Well, the maintenance guy showed up a couple of hours ago and worked on it for about a half an hour, then left to get reinforcements. He came back with another guy, and they brought in stuff like hacksaws, sledgehammers, and torches. At the time, I was trying to watch a little ESPN in the living room, but that proved fruitless once they brought out the big guns.

It seems that the drain pipe was an easy fix, but then they noticed that our cold water had very low pressure. That didn't seem right, so they went to investigate. First they thought it was a clog in the faucet, then maybe a clog in the feed line. Turns out that basically the whole damn sink/pipe/fixtures needed replacing, but the hardware just didn't want to cooperate. So they spent about an hour destroying out kitchen. Seriously--I wish I would've taken pictures--it was an insane amount of work to fix a leaky pipe.

But after busting out all of the offending pieces, they had to replace pretty much everything but the sink shell itself. Luckily that was ok, otherwise the counters would've had to come up, too. And they had the pry-bar sitting there ready to go, I saw it.

Finally, after almost two hours of smashing, hammering, sawing, and numerous other types of noisy destruction, they just finished up a few minutes ago and got the kitchen put back together. So we now have a new faucet, the sink doesn't leak, and we've got plenty of cold water pressure (the hot water was never a problem).

I guess that means I'm free to get back in there and start cookin' again.

Mikey