Gussied up for Cheap Trick. It's tradition to dress up one evening, usually for a show and some carousing. The good legacy of the movie Swingers.
Saturday morning was another day to knock out the last planned thing on our agenda, the Las Vegas Gun Store. The last time we were in town, we spotted the brochure in the lobby of our timeshare. Normally a shooting range is nothing new…we live in Texas, hell, there’s a place within a couple miles of my house (Red’s of Pflugerville) but this place allows you to fire a machine gun, legally. So we had this on our short list for two years. I also received a ringing endorsement from a co-worker earlier this Summer; it was a gift from his brother. I’ll go on about the experience in greater depth because it warrants such treatment. My immediate statements: Hollywood is full of crap on how firearms are actually used, my position on gun-control is unchanged and when the zombie apocalypse comes, running would be the wiser option unless they’re the slow, shuffling Romero kind (moving targets are impossible so d20 Modern is correct to assume there’s a lot of misses with firearms).
I intentionally wore this shirt as an obscure joke poking at all sides of the Che shirt debate. Thank you Onion Store!
With our curiosity (and fun) appeased ahead of schedule, we were still filled with adrenalin and decided to carry out round five of the video poker challenge, this time at a casino I have kept putting off for 13 years, The Orleans.
Back when I lived in Las Vegas for a month in 1997, my co-workers and I resided at the Howard Johnson’s on Tropicana and Industrial (currently boarded up, good riddance). Why PowerComputing put us up there was beyond me, especially after we moved to The Orleans several days later to finish out the stint. I had only discovered too late that The Orleans was $10/day cheaper, the room was nicer (it had a desk!) and larger, the place had multiple restaurants and cheap table games in addition to the machines. Besides, it appeared to be one of the nicer, classier off-Strip places with A/B-list touring shows: Everly Brothers, Commodores, LRB, Cosmo’s Factory (CCR minus John Fogerty), etc. Having a rental car made it a feasible destination, especially on an impulse.
How is it 13 years later? I think it’s a repeat destination, namely on a non-weekend day. Somara’s reaction was lukewarm so I guess it will be with my gambling buds (Jose, Nelson, probably Aaron, I’m open to widening my circle). My positive bias was probably colored by two experiences, my near-instanteous video poker victory and their player’s club at craps doesn’t have a minimum. It took a while to find the poker machines we wanted, seems Jacks or Better isn’t popular there; the economy definitely made it impossible to look for 9/6 systems too. Didn’t matter, I won! How well, see below but I photographed my victory.
My biggest and fastest video poker win in history, $35 which would be 175% return. It was also the second time I have nailed a four-of-a-kind.
The craps table? At least it was five bucks a throw unlike the Strip’s going rate of ten during the weekends. I may not have won (I think I wiped out my poker gains there) but I had a good time. Especially when one shooter scored the hard eight. I have no idea what I accumulated on my newly issued Boyd’s card (Orleans’ parent company) but I hope to return in a year; I lost my MGM one on this trip no real loss. Oddly, the employees were ignorant of the hockey team playing at the arena attached to this casino. The Wranglers’ loss is Austin’s gain; their coach and his staff came to the Stars, bringing his winning ways of six seasons.
Back to the timeshare to unwind with lunch from a nearby chicken finger restaurant called Cane’s. I genuinely liked it, namely the sauce and crinkle-cut fries. We agreed on their claims of Texas toast being false-advertising. I slept off the carb coma on the couch, Somara got acquainted with the ongoing Nickelodeon series iCarly on the television; great to see Tim Russ in a funny role.
The curtain at Theatre d'Arts while waiting for Cheap Trick.
Afternoon led to evening and we got dressed up to attend the Cheap Trick show at Paris. A bit much? Well, it’s tradition for me to wear a suit for one evening. Usually it’s for a big event and since we passed on Cirque du Soleil again, I figured this rare opportunity to see Cheap Trick perform with an orchestra qualified. Maybe next time we’ll do it for a weeknight of gambling. It would’ve been nice to do this to celebrate our anniversary yet this year we arrived on that day, jet lag trumped formality. The awesomeness of the show was covered previously.
The guy sitting on my right gave me the anecdotal lowdown on the LV economy; his wife is a (rare) native and he arrived in 1967 with the Air Force. Matters there are rotten yet the bleeding has stopped. Some elements are rebounding thanks to tourism (the city’s primary income source for a century). Real estate remains the biggest problem. The area’s inventory continues to rise through the continuation of foreclosures while nobody is building. I told him we do our part via our timeshare. It certainly puts Austin’s situation into perspective; I wouldn’t say we’re sailing through the Great Recession as we’re probably being invaded by a flood of 21st century Neo-Okies. He closed with a reminder to spend money, not a problem in Las Vegas.
We snagged a snack, wandered about Paris to get Somara her travel mug (she envied my TI one I packed and use at work when I’m jonsin’ for Vegas) and thought about having round six of our video poker challenge. We called it a night instead, save up our remaining energy for Sunday, namely checking out the lazy river at Tahiti Village (I had visited Friday, quite nice). Fortunately, Adult Swim was on so we unwound and fell asleep to the various, confusing anime they were showing. You definitely have to catch those series from the vary beginning or you’ll never understand what’s happening with Ghost in the Machine.
Gambling Report:
- Video Poker: Somara 3, Steve 2 ($55, $2), I nailed four threes to win it and I did in three hands (pair, three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind!) The Orleans is my new favorite place because of this!
- Somara: -$124
- Steve: -$141