Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III

This is the finale' of Shortstacking Vegas Pt. I and Shortstacking Vegas Pt. II. It's been on my procrastination list forever, so enjoy it more than you usually would.

Decker's first four-of-a-kind of the night

With spirits high (and flowing), and Decker just having turned his $20 into $550, the crew was ready for the night ahead. Although we had just eaten hours earlier, the five of us figured we'd uphold our obligations to ditch the Nugget and join some family over at the Mirage's buffet since 1)we didn't have to pay for it and 2)we were going to be down on the Strip for the rest of the night anyways.

We met up, nibbled on a few things so as not to be rude, and the 21crowd ordered a slew of drinks to keep us entertained as we chatted with family and friends for the birthday celebration. A short while later Brando called and said he was parking and would be in soon. We downed the rest of our drinks, said goodbye to the family, and we were off to enjoy the night.

Brando was waiting for us outside the cafe, and the first order of business was obviously...DRINKS! Mitch, him, and I headed to a bar in the Mirage while the rest of the guys went to find some video poker machines. Brando took care of the tab (thanks again man) and without an open table we took back to the casino floor.

We found Decker (the apparent video poker kind of the weekend) pluggin away at a quarter video poker machine with a fist full of twenties in one hand, a drink in the other, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Mitch and I both watched as Brando peeled a hundo out of his pocket and sat next to Decker.

At this point, being the last night in this Vegas go-around, Mitch and I had obviously run out of money. We decided to head to the ATM (one time!) and we hit gold on the 100% no-risk machine as a few hundos poured out for the each of us. When we returned to the video machines Decker and Brando were about to negotiate a deal for a race to the next 4-of-a-kind. An amount was agreed upon and they were off.

Decker, hot off of his $500+ hit at the quarter VP machines at the Nugget was nonchalantly randomizing his betting amounts and draw times, while Brando took the more aggressive, more optimal approach by max betting every draw and doing so as fastly as possible. Obviously with more credits returned on the big hands and more hands/hr than Decker, Brando looked like the favorite to win.

On this night, however, optimal play would not come into consideration in Brando's play. After ripping out a second hundo and continuing his timely play, he couldn't capitalize. A few minutes later Decker raised his hands in victory as four sixes came drawing to a halt in front of Brando's face. Defeated and distraught, Brando paid his debt and, visibly shaken ;), collected his remaining funds from the machine. This wouldn't be Decker's last quads of the night...

We decided to roam the Mirage for a bit and Mitch and I ended up watching Brando go on a short craps heater before he gave it back to even (or a small profit...I don't remember). After that we found ourselves a nice little single-deck blackjack table, which I managed to pick up $300 to start closing myself in on even for the trip.

I made a dangerous move when I stopped by the craps table before I even cashed in my winnings, and ended up escaping with a minimal $100 loss after a few minutes of play. I exchanged my chips at the cage, and on the way out Brando obviously had to hit up a few more slots. He tried a random one first and then a Harley Davidson one, both of which treated him like slime. It was time to go somewhere else.

After we milled around for a few more minutes, we decided to head over to the Venetian. The other guys had headed over a while earlier, and we were on our own to scout them out...but not before Brando found another slot machine once we got inside. This time it was a Wheel of Fortune slot.

After multiple spins and multiple failures, I came up with the idea of the Triple Thread Slot Pull. It's a move that requires two players, and uses a combination shot of hitting the Max Bet button, the Spin button, and the lever. With one player using one hand for either button, and one offset player on the right-hand side pulling the lever, it's sure to confuse any slot machine and it's caretakers. In my mind it was an unconsidered move that guaranteed a win. In reality, it was useless. But it still looked badass, and I have strong feelings that this move will work wonders on a single pull one day...

In this example, Brando was the main man while Mitch helped alongside.


After we were carded twice, I jumped on the phone and Decker had said he was at the bar. Of course with Vegas bars come Vegas video poker machines. Imagine my surprise when we turned around to find Decker occupying another seat, steadily staring down at the machine with cash and drink in hand. We all ordered drinks and started intently watching Decker try for his third four-of-a-kind on the day. Brando popped in another bill as he ordered a drink, while Decker gave both Mitch and myself cash to play beside him.

About 20 minutes after I sat down, I ended up pulling four Aces on Decker's dime. We all shouted in celebration. I was completely speechless at the fact that in a matter of six hours, we'd managed to hit three four-of-a-kinds, while my only previous time playing video poker in Vegas had me hitting a royal flush on the first and only draw I'd take during that trip.

Decker scurried off to the bathroom to relieve himself of his day's current drinking tally, while Brando, Mitch, and myself stayed seated to keep plugging away at the video poker machines. As I was facing Brando and talking, Mitch began to tap on my shoulder repeatedly. I looked over at his machine (again, on Decker's dollars) and saw an unbelievable sight: another four-of-a-kind, this time it was 7's. We waited for Decker to come back before we all laughed hysterically at the ultimate luck held within our monies, and cashed out after ordering another round.

Brando and I headed to the Venetian's poker room to see if we could cause some drunken havoc at a $2-4 game, but the lowest game going was $4-8 and it just didn't have the inviting feel that a lower game would have at that point. Even though we'd been drinking the day through, I was not even buzzed and felt very disappointed. I hadn't slept the previous night, so I assume that my body trying to keep itself awake was doing a big part to keep me un-drunk, but it was disheartening nonetheless. I wanted to be drunk, but I hoped to get there by sitting at the lowest limit poker table possible and drinking round after round while wildly flinging chips. This wasn't the game for it though, so we did what any sensible gamblers would do, we hit the blackjack tables again.

We took up Mitch and Decker as we scoured the casino floor while looking for a fun looking table. We found one and Mitch took the seat. He went through what little money he had withdrawn, and Decker handed him a bit from his victory stash. I ended up grabbing a seat next to Mitch after about a shoe and a half, and after a few more shoes I found myself up another $200 on the night after giving Mitch $100 to stay in the game with me. I was almost even!

We got up and strolled the Venetian until we came across our other two very drunk friends making fools of themselves in front of a couple attractive Vegas nighties. Jason had managed to acquire an electro-shock massage pad at a gift shop somewhere, and had decided that the middle of the Venetian was a good place to use it. They had attached it to his chest, and with a drunken 21-year-old on the controller's end, Jason was in for quite a ride. He was shocked pretty hard for quite a while as the rest of us were on the floor laughing hysterically. The entertainment lasted for a few minutes and then Brando took off for the night.

The five of us then decided to head down to the MGM. On our long walk, we managed to lose Jason to the cops twice, ran into two cute weed-selling modern day hippie chicks, and low and behold we ran into a group of chicks that we knew from back home. If there's anything more disappointing about a Vegas trip, it's randomly running into a group of chicks that you already know during a random drunken walk down the strip. Add to this the fact that I had yet to BECOME drunk, and I was in a bit of a bitter mood. The girls wanted to go to McDonald's....so we left them there and took off back on our marry way.

Before we hit the MGM we came upon a wondrous sight, the Paris. The lights had attracted us and in we went. We looked for an open bar, but there was none. We all ended up in the walkway to Bally's before Jason got pulled in by the temptation of loud club music and cute promoter chicks that were standing outside. He drunkenly, laughingly tried to resist the moans and puppy-dog faces of the half-naked girls, but they pulled him in and the four of us followed suit to make sure he didn't get into any trouble.

Once inside the drinking continued, and after I bought a round of Kamikazes for the guys, and three shots of the same for myself, I felt drunk for the first time during the trip. I had accomplished my goal! We decided to carry on and keep trying to make it to the MGM Grand, but we hadn't gotten half that far before we found ourselves on the bridge of the New York New York having a loud drunken conversation.

I ended up fielding a phone call that lead me inside, and when I was finished I saw that the rest of the crew had followed me in to locate me and get me off of the phone. I ended up finding another single-deck blackjack shoe, and having lost to NYNY every time I've been to Vegas, I pulled out $300 to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Since I had yet to come even on the trip, the alcohol obviously played a big role in this blackjack round, but as drunk as I was I was still determined.

I played through a few shoes while I slurringly tried to explain to the group of friends that stopped by to play how to play correct strategy. Of course when they hit their 16's and 14's and busted, and doubled down their 11's against the dealer's 5 and they lost, they ended up getting hard headed with me and playing horribly on their own and losing anyways. As for me, I saw that I was up another $300 and, making a point to have a theme of winning for the night, decided to call it quits sensing that I was too gone to play well for any longer.

We all wandered around NYNY for a little bit longer before realizing that it was early the next morning and that after an entire night of drinking, gambling, walking, and all around fun, it was time to retire. We hailed a cab to take us back to the Nugget, and Mitch and I decided to take off to avoid the Sunday leaving-Las Vegas traffic. I passed out after another 48-hour sleepless stretch and Mitch drove home.

We had both taken to Vegas with no cash and only intention of appeasing Casey and his birthday well-wishes, and we both ended up having a blast. I broke even after spending $200 and giving $100 for gambling friends, Mitch only lost a little bit, and I was even able to kick down a little bit along with Decker to make sure everyone had a great time.

I can only hope that next time I go back, I'll have the same fun. And if we don't get a Bonedoneskis game goin with Brando soon, my head's gonna explode.

Until next time.

Same Ole' Same Ole'

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. ~William James

If I told you that Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III would be up today, would you believe me?

One Time

Shortstacking Vegas Pt III will be up on Friday

For right now, it's 11:57 PM and I'm eating chocolate cake and running updates to the work database via my laptop. I'm tired, so I'll pass out soon and I really don't feel like finishing up Pt III right now.

I'm planning on throwing in a video of Mitch and Brando' s triple thread slot pull once I load it onto my Photobucket. It'll be amazing.

Until next time.

The Switch: It Is On

Last Thursday something happened out of nowhere that had me tripping hard. As I was dealing with the daily boredom of work, I was taking one of my many internet-browsing breaks and I saw that I had received a message from an old friend:


Ok so I'm kinda flippin out right now because I was totally just talking about you tonight and I randomly clicked on XXX's page who was my old roommate and I found your page! I miss you! We should be friends again and talk online all the time like we used to!! Um I hope you remember me and I'm not just blabbing on like a crazy person!

stephanie

This girl is a friend of an old ex-girlfriend of mine from my sophomore year of high school, and from the time I met her I've always had a huge thing for her. When I was with my ex at the time(it was a short, worthless relationship), I'd always look forward to hanging out with this Stephanie more than my actual girlfriend.

That may sound mean, in fact it probably sounds pretty messed up from any girl's point of view. But the fact is that my relationship with the other girl was purely physical. She was an overdramatic valleygirl who lived in Ventura, whose parents took care of her 110%, and who had no life ambition. She had blonde hair, but could never get it blonde enough, even with all the dying and bleaching she seemed to do on a weekly basis. All she wanted to do was have sex, I despised her attitude, and for the most part found her personality to be unbearable most of the time.

Steph was different. She was always spunky, she always had a huge beautiful smile on her face, she was always laughing and enjoying things, and when things got her down she rarely let them get to her. To top it off, she was as gorgeous as anyone I've ever seen. She hated drama, she just wanted to enjoy life and have a good time.

Since I had broken up with my ex, I haven't talked to anyone from that group. One thing I'd always missed, though, was Stephanie. We talked quite a bit during my relationship with the blonde, and for a tiny while afterwards online. Unfortunately the talking stopped one day.

From that point on I often wondered what she doing and how she was, remembering just how much a breath of fresh air she always was. She was cute and had a personality that could lift you off the ground if you ever felt tackled by life. There were quite a few days over the five years that I was pissed that I had let her out of my life completely because of that fact.

A few months ago I had run across herSpace but ended up not sending her a message. I was hesitant to approach her again, as it had been so long and I didn't really know quite how to go about it. On Thursday, I ended up getting the above message and was completely shocked.

I instantly messaged her back, and we talked back and forth through messages and IM's until early Friday morning (I know, technology...). I had told her how I felt about her back in the day, and she said that she had mirrored feelings, although I would have never known about it because when "one of my friends was dating someone," she said, "I turn the switch off."

That phrase made me laugh, and I was actually quite giddy at the fact that she had been interested all those years ago. We talked for a bit more the next morning before I decided to go see her that Friday night.

She let me know that her and "the girls" would be hanging out at a certain nightspot, so I headed out to Ventura to hang out with Mitch and Brando (Ventura Brando) for a little bit before I headed out. I was a bit nervous, as I'd know some of the people there but only as my ex-gf's friends, most of whom presumably would rather not see me after the extremely over-emotional (on her side ONLY) breakup. Not only that, but it was my first time being old enough to drink on Main St. in Ventura since I left after high school.

I eventually took off for downtown, found the place, and saw her standing with a few people on the back patio. I walked out and was greeted with a wide-eyed, freaked out stare from Steph, as well as a completely what-the-hell-do-I-do stutter from my ex.

"Uuuhhh....hi. What...are you...doing here?" She looked more dumbfounded than confused.

I shot a glance over at Stephanie again and she still had the same deer-in-the-headlights confusion in her eyes. "Just hangin' out. How you guys doin?"

"Good....so like. Uuuhhh....wow. So strange to see you here. Didn't you move?"

"Yeah I'm up in Santa Barbara now."

"So like, who are you here with?"

I paused for a second, laughing in my head at the idea that Steph had clearly "forgot" to mention anything to my ex, and was definitely not ready to deal with any questions at this point. I was about to find a really retarded and nonsensical response until the deer spoke up.

"Heeeeee's...with us!"

My ex snapped her head to the side towards Stephanie. "What?"

"I invited him..."

At that point it was clear that I needed to leave for a second. "I'm gonna head to the bar, I'll be right back."

I ordered a shot and a drink, pondering what was about to happen if I went back outside. I quickly downed my shot and briefly thought about going to hang back out with the guys before I finally took a breath and went outside to deal with the drama that was about to ensue. When I made it back outside, they had found a table and I took a seat next to Steph, abandoning the empty one next to my ex.

Throughout the rest of the night, things actually became less and less awkward. A few people recognized me and were taken back at first, but only for a few seconds. My ex seemed a bit frustrated at my interaction with my new found flirting partner, but I couldn't have cared less. A few people met me for the first time, and it ended up being a pretty fun time.

That night I ended up staying with Stephanie, and we ended up spending the night with each other Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. The weekend has given us a lot of time to get to know each other, yet the weird part is after five years we're even more comfortable with each other than we were before, and we're obviously much closer than ever. I asked her, and the switch from before was definitely turned on.

Even though it's only been a few days since we've been talking again, I couldn't be happier than when she's around. I'll never say that her eyes are "pretty", mainly because that means nothing nowadays, but when I look in her eyes there's more happening than I can describe. Her personality is as beautiful as she is on the outside, and that speaks volumes for a person, especially in the superficial world we live in.

On top of that, even though I have a pretty good life and a good family, I've always felt I was missing something, and even in past relationships I knew I was being naive when I said I felt whole. I didn't know what "whole" meant back then. Over the years I've dealt with being single, depression, work, giving up on school and all emotion involved with that, and overcoming my past in order to be happy with the now. Lately I've been doing great emotionally, and have felt happy with myself. But there's no doubt that since I've matured, I've still been missing that something. She makes me feel like I've found it.

If this seems a bit mushy towards the end, it's cuz what I'm feeling now IS mushy. But after quite some time of not knowing what I was looking for, I found it anyways thanks to the most unlikely situation.

I was gonna update Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III this weekend, but due to the described events, I didn't get around to it. I'm HOPING to have it up by tomorrow.

Also, over the past week and a half I've tripled my online "bankroll" by playing $1-2, and taking a couple shots at $2-4 and $3-6. If anything exciting happens with that, I might post about it, although it might be a while before I find anything poker worthy to write about.

Until next time.

Stuck in a Post-Apocolyptic Hell

There's a fire burning behind the mountains of Santa Barbara a few miles away, and for the past three weeks or so we've had on and off ash downpours. Usually it's a slight sprinkly over night, and you can't really notice it until you go to your car in the morning and there's a very fine layer of ash on your vehicle.

About two weeks ago it was literally raining a heavy downpour of ash when the wind shifted direction for a day and blew the flame and smoke directly into town. There was a brief health warning issued for the city a while ago, but again, as wind changed direction it was just as quickly dismissed.

For the past couple days there's been a slightly noticeable increase in ash coverage, and it didn't look like it was going to stop coming into the end of the week. This morning I awoke to a pretty awesome sight.

Usually in the morning the sunlight peeks through the bottom six inches of my barely pulled blinds, and I can see the light coming in around the edges of my bedroom's doorframe from the hallway. This morning was different. I didn't catch that slice of light under my blinds, nor did I see the small glow around my door. There was no birds chirping outside as usual, and it felt like it was the middle of the night.

I went through my morning routine and got ready to head out the door to work before I even noticed anything about the sky. When I opened the front door, however, I was blasted full body by a blanket of red atmosphere. The entire sky seemed like it was on fire, though it was just the color of the fire bouncing off of the mixture of smoke and morning grog.

I already had my sunglasses on so it wasn't too much of an extreme situation, but it couldn't have been healthy to look directly upwards today. It resembled the setting put out by all the movies ever done about travels to Mars, with a reddish/orange tint all over everything in the range of visible sunlight.

Once I got into the office, my eyes seemed to be overcorrecting my vision, as I was quickly eyewashed with a room full of blueish tint. I closed all the blinds in the office, yet the orange/red light was visible from pretty much any open crease for the majority of the day. By the end of the work day the warm-colored overhead seemed to dissipate a bit, and I was able to come home to a bit of regularity.

Hopefully when I awake tomorrow I'll be able to move freely and breathe without hassle. The fire department is saying that September 7th is the expected full containment date. If I have to live in this post-nuclear wasteland for much longer, I will be pissed. Trust me.

Until next time.

Drinking, Gambling...Living

This weekend was another one filled with drinking and gambling, and of course the now weekly Sunday Taco Bell trip. None of these things are good or healthy for me but they're the only things I'd ever want to do. Luckily, there are friends around me who feel the same way.

I started Thursday with an e-mail from an online betting site that they'd give me $10 for free just to log in, since they've been pestering me to make a deposit and I've yet to do so. I checked it out and it seemed legit, and sure enough as soon as I signed in I got $10 for free no strings attached. I had to put it in play, and just as soon as I got it I bet it on a preseason NFL game, which is about as much of a senseless gamble as anyone could ever think of.

Of course I won it, and put it back on another game the next day and promptly lost, albeit to a small margin. I'm thinking about taking some time off from casino gambling, but maybe betting the NFL football season. I probably shouldn't do either, but like I said...oh well.

On Thursday Darsky had invited me down to L.A. to go barhopping after work on Friday. I had some stuff to take care of and a lot to clean up around the apartment since I wasn't going to be home for the majority of Saturday, and although I went all day Friday telling myself I was going to go anyways, I ended up staying in Santa Barbara. Chores are chores and they gotta get done! Sorry Darsk.

I didn't want to stay inside all night though, so I called Mitch and told him to make his way out at around 11. I finished up most of the stuff I needed to and as I finished up a little web surfing Mitch, Carlos, and John all showed up. We headed to Dargan's and quickly got to drinking, considering we only had 2 hours left before last call.

My efforts to save money have been cut short this week, solely from going downtown and drinking with people. My generosity in the matter has taken its toll before, however on Friday night it was Carlos that was gonna take the gold medal for bar tab offerings. I took up $50 for our first round of shots and beers, while Carlos covered $150 for the rest of the night after that. If you can do the math, you'll figure out how much we had to drink.

A while later, after sobering up quite a bit, we took a drive to Chumash where we lost money and got aggravated at our previously fearless alcohol provider for playing blackjack like an idiot. Again, my money-saving efforts were cut short by my problematic love for gambling. I lost a little bit, got pissed that I was even there, and told the guys that we were goin home.

We all eventually crash at around 7:30AM, and we chalked up another successful night of fun time livin.

I woke up on Saturday at about 10AM for a little bit, and then again at about 11:30. I drudged my way over to the couch, and made a little bit playin small stakes on Full Tilt for about an hour before I took a shower and got ready to head out to the valley for lunch with my dad and Paul's game.

Mitch was up for the game and met us out there. Kirk had driven into town from 29 Palms, and although he was gonna be there this time to have our old crew together, Darsky would not be staying to play. He did end up dropping by, but had previous plans for the night.

This was a huge deal, as Darsky and I have been friendly vying for the top spot in points in our home game's leaderboard. Thanks to a soft start to the year, I fell into the middle of the pack fast. However, with a rally over the last two months I've been able to close in on Dar.

Two games ago I was able to come to within one point of the bastard. Last game I was absent and he widened his lead to four points. This time around, he was the one not attending and I had a chance to hopefully overtake him. By the end of the night, I was to have at least closed into one point of him, if not overtake him, or else I would be one sad dude.

As I walked in and stared at the point board, I admired his name atop the list but knew it wouldn't last long! I geared up, taking a 3rd and a 6th, bringing in 4 points and a tie game. It wasn't a total overtake, but a tie was okay with me at the end of the night.

As of today, with a level ground, we have $100 bet on who finishes the year with the most points. As of right now, IT'S ON.

Today was a weird Sunday. I didn't really do much except for laundry, but it's been a melancholy afternoon for the most part. Usually on Sundays, the thought of Monday at the office doesn't bother me. In the past Vegas, LA, drinking over long weekends, etc have never made me feel like going back to work would be a drudge, but for some reason I'm really dreading going back tomorrow.

I'm sure I'll be alright, but dammit work is starting to get super uncomfortable...

Until next time.

Coming Soon: Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III

Stay tuned

Camera phone from car on Tropicana Blvd

Lounging

For the past couple days work's been pretty mentally busy, and I've been doing a lot of lounging. Last week I ordered a slew of cheap yet wanted DVDs off of Amazon, which included:
-Swingers
-Boiler Room
-The Princess Bride (yessss)
-Three Kings (random, I know).

I spent a couple days hangin out at the apartment and just watching the DVDs and a few recorded movies on DVR. Last weekend I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum, and hopefully I'll get out to see the Simpson's Movie, for good or for bad.

I also ordered Mortal Kombat III and Street Fighter II for my Sega Genesis, and dammit it's sweet. The thing's been sitting in my closet since I moved in, but it was cool to break it out and play some oldies since I don't play video games much any more.

In my opinion some of the graphics and sounds that came from the games back in the SNES and Genesis era were some of the best produced today. Although there's been quite a few versions of the Mortal Kombat series released for modern systems, the MKII and MKIII really can't be beat.

I also ordered the book Comp City, which I've been taking care of a few pages at a time. I've got a couple books on the to-read list, and I'm hopin to get around to those this weekend. Although I spent some time in front of movies/TV last week, I've been trying not to spend too much time on my laptop lately, especially with the beautiful weather/girls/alcohol that's gracing downtown Santa Barbara lately.

There's actually been a fire burning a few miles away over the hill, and for the most part on Friday the sky was raining ash over the entire city. But besides that one day, the weather out here has been amazing and I'm trying to take advantage of it. Don't worry, I'm still pretty pastey white and that might never change, but I'm trying to get out and about as much as I can.

This weekend is Paullywood Park, where I can hopefully take over Darsky's point lead. I probably won't be doing much this weekend, but will try to hit up some more DVD shopping which will hopefully include the "300" DVD.

Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III will be posted soon, and as soon as I feel like staying inside I'll be writing up much more.

Until next time.

ESPN X-Games 13

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My

God