Playing the part of the queen
Taking my own advice
I'm giving up tonight
Good luck to you and the king.

John Mayer, "Man on the Side"
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I thought a little memo of my trip to and from the Sin City would be in order. I spent Friday night with Liz and Matty J and their friends, and I proceeded to give them an early Christmas present, given that they had already gone to the trouble of tricking out their home theater setup. I didn't get up as early as I'd like, but that's life sometimes.

My brother and I arrived in Vegas and used my car's GPS to try and find a bank off the strip where they might have smaller fees. (We had neglected to hit up the Washington Mutuals so common in Los Angeles. There goes $4 downt he drain.) We then headed off to the MGM/NYNY end of the strip. This is my favorite part of the town of Paradise: all of my favorite casinos are there all in a row. After warming up on a few slots, we end up playing roulette at MGM. I make $40 worth of chips, and I would be the poorest I'd be in actual cash the whole trip. We both walk away with modest earnings (for us, that meant up $10) and we're having a good time so decide to just move on. At NYNY, the table right next to roulette was a $10min blackjack table. My brother has decided to stake his claim on roulette, so I'm just going to move on to blackjack. It was at this point that I found my true game in Vegas. By doing easy $10 every time, I ended up being up $50 by the time we decided it was time to get dinner at the Palm in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. And instead of trusting my instinct and valeting my car, I ended up circling around Caesar's cavernous parking garage looking for a spot (and ended up on the rooftop where I was about 7 years earlier after a U2 concert at Sam Boyd). Oh well, after dinner I continued to play well at blackjack (ending by being up $200 for the first half-day of work) and my brother also found things to be a bit more under-his-control with video blackjack.

The next day we headed back to the south end of the strip to spend Sunday at Mandalay Bay. The cocktail waitresses were cute, and wore their thongs the way Marines wear their hair: high and tight. Sadly the service at the sports book was subpar, but my experience at the sports book at Mandalay Bay was fun nonetheless. First of all, while I was catching the tail end of the early NFL games, the guy in front of me had some serious nervous tic issues (the fellow next to me will also attest to this fact). Severe back-of-own-slapping, back itch scratching, back of neck scratching, and not the kind of scratching that a normal itch would require. I'm talking about the fast fingers-on-couch-to-try-and-get-a-cat's-attention-type of scratching. The lady sitting next to me was just as interesting but not nearly as disconcerting: she poured MGD into a tall pilsner glass full of tomato juice. Breakfast of champions, it seems.

After placing a simple parlay bet (that lost later that day thanks to the Bears and Kordell beating the Broncos), we proceed to have the Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues. I've never had so much fun at a buffet! First off, the food was fantastic. Second off, the music was amazing. The singers on hand were so talented, and I was completely moved. I had a spiritual, but not religious, experience.

Black jack story of the day. I get dealt a 13, lady next over has a 12, guy next to her has 15. Dealer shows face card. I stand. What?!? Lady next to me hits into a 3 (total 15) then a bust card. Keep in mind, that if I had been following the normal procedure, I should have hit into the 3 myself and taken the bust card. The card for the guy with 15? A 9: bust for him, would have been 21 for the lady if I had followed the rules. Dealer turns over a 6 to go with his face card. He hits into another 6, busting him (would have been 21 for the guy if all had gone according to plan). Can only speculate that next card would have bust the dealer also. Net effect: instead of everyone winning but me, it ends up that no one wins except for me! Holding down the fort with the 13! This happens to me all night and leave gracious tips to all dealers involved to repay my karma. I encountered many cool dealers at every casino. Joyce at Bellagio. Steve at Caesar's.

So all told, I was up $300 for the trip, which is fantastic considering I'd never really focused on the table games before. I think that next time I do sports betting, I'm just going to focus on the parlays instead of the single games. For some reason I had more fun doing that than worrying about the spread and money line of a single game.

And it's kind of fun carrying around a bunch of $100 bills.