ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

It’s been somewhat of a difficult week, and to be honest, I haven’t felt like doing a whole lot for the sake of recreation.  The end of the month saw lots of airports, travel, and was just extremely unpleasant for a variety of different reasons.  As months go, July of 2009 could not have come to an end soon enough.

I’m going to rip this page out of the calendar and wipe my ass with it.

Life goes on, though, and while I wasn’t in the most friendly of moods, I was more or less coerced into heading out because there are only so many household items that will survive an impact with the living room wall without breaking.

As a professional Keno player, I also had little option but to get out and about.  It’s an occupational requirement.

After some careful consideration, the decision was made that once again, Downtown would be our destination of choice.  That makes three out of my last four gambling outings, but there were a number of reasons for this decision.

First, when I am already annoyed, traffic is out of the question.  I don’t want to be in a car at all.  I want to be able to move at-will.  Second, when I am already annoyed, douchebags are also out of the question.  Half of California is on The Strip on weekend nights, and, well … I probably need not say more.  Third, when I am already annoyed, six five and shortpay tend to irk me even more than usual.

After the Downtown decision was made, the property decision was next.

“Let’s go someplace I haven’t been in awhile”, I said.

“Green Valley Ranch?” the driver asked knowing it would further annoy me.

As I rattled off a full sixty second freestyle regarding objects being placed into the driver’s various orifices with the full participation of his family members, clergy, pets, and Rosie O’Donnel … a voice emerged from the back seat.

“How about Main Street Station?”

After I chastised the person in the back seat for interrupting me … with yet another guest appearance by Rosie O’Donnel in his mother’s bedroom … it was eventually decided that Main Street Station was an acceptable destination.

“Beeeeer!”, someone else screamed after this was finalized.

“Great, I’m in the middle of a bad Vegas movie complete with three douchebags getting a boner over F’ing beer.  Which one of you is going to make this nightmare complete and shout “Vegas, Baby!”, I said.

Of course, someone obliged, and said person was the target of yet another tirade, but it was quasi-cathartic.

Much like the Cal, MSS is a casino that I like, but is one that I just don’t go to very often.  There is so much going on in the city, and sometimes quality properties go unchosen simply because of the enormous amount of alternatives.

There is probably another reason why I am not drawn to the MSS quite as much as other people.

As alluded to above, one of the primary draws of MSS for a great many people is the large selection of alcoholic beverages.  The casino has The Triple 7 Restaurant and Microbrewery, and this place is ground zero for Downtown beer aficionados.

Unfortunately, I simply don’t drink that much beer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those “clean and sober” cultists.  Some people might laugh at the mere suggestion.  Sobriety is just another addiction, usually practiced by the most screwed up people I know.  Even though I’m not a huge drinker, neither am I a “non-drinker”.  If anyone had a need to pigeon-hole me (which sounds kinky as hell), I suppose the correct term for me would be “apathetic drinker”.

I can take it or leave it.  Not always, but if I am gambling, I usually leave it.  Over the course of my lifetime I’ve put away far more than my fair share, but much like spinning around to get dizzy and punishing my primate to the bra section of the Sears catalog … after a certain age it just didn’t do much for me anymore.

I grew out of this conversation:  “I’m sorry for taking a whiz in your refrigerator, but I don’t remember doing it.  By the way, why is there a half-eaten banana in my rectum?”

We’ve all been there.

And by “been there”, I mean tropical fruit in the anus.  Don’t act like you don’t know.

I’ve nothing against the product whatsoever, just in my opinion, beer is an overrated drug, and is a bit boring.

(And with that statement Canada is massing troops on our northern border and offering a hefty reward for my capture.)

Anyway,  when I do order up a beer, I generally don’t care what it is.  I am not a beer connoisseur.  I don’t really even have much of a preference.  It more or less all tastes like horse urine.  I drink it solely for the psychoactive effects of ethanol and nothing else.  Drinking booze for the taste is like smoking pot for the smell.

“No way am I hitting this.  Let’s go to Lisa’s house.  Hers is stickier and it smells better.  Oh yeah, and she has some pot too.”

I assure you that everybody used what was in front of them before going to Lisa’s house.

Elevating the consumption of drugs to some kind of high art form is a metrosexual obsession to which I rarely avail myself.

My casino beer conversations typically go something like this:

Waitress: What can I bring you?
Me: Something with alcohol.
Waitress: Well, we have Bud, Bud Light … (interrupts)
Me: It’s all horse urine, bring me whatever your hand touches first.
Waitress: Um, okay.
Me: You’re going to spit in my drink, aren’t you?
Waitress: Of course not! I would never do that.

A few minutes later, the waitress brings me a bottle full of alcohol and spit, and I rarely look at the label.

I don’t really care about the price of the beverage either.  I don’t get excited about “cheap beer”.  In Vegas, it’s like getting excited about “cheap air”.  I always pay the exact same price for my beer.  $2 if it comes within 10 minutes,  $1 if it comes later.  The spit is always complimentary.

If you gamble in this town, you don’t pay for beer, you just pay gratuities.

Given all of the above, I suppose it’s no great surprise why I am not attracted to MSS as much as the usual person.

That being said, when in Rome …

We went into the 777, and a companion insisted that I must have Mango Cream Ale.  Apparently this beverage is quite a big deal among beer lovers everywhere.  After my first taste, I knew why it was so popular.  It tasted like mangos and horse urine.  A winning combination.

Okay, I jest (sort of), as beers go it was very tasty and refreshing.  I had sips of two other concoctions as well, and the brews were probably the most “flavored” beers I have ever had.  I fully understand why the Brewpub is a beer lover’s paradise.  Maybe I will eventually get into the whole “beer loving” thing.  When I do, this will probably be a frequent stop.

Main Street Station also has an extremely popular buffet, and is considered one of the best Downtown.  I have eaten at this buffet several times, and would probably concur.  The only thing I don’t like about this buffet is the line.  It can get unwieldy at times, as it was on this night.

After sampling the “best beer in Las Vegas”, we headed into the casino were I got into some cheap gambling action.  MSS has fairly typical Downtown odds and rules.  Unlike most Downtown casinos, however, the pit has a very open feel to it.  The building has a high roof, and the entire casino lacks the dark and claustrophobic feel that is synonymous with Downtown casinos as a whole.  They even have an upstairs antique area overlooking the casino.  I don’t know the story behind the upstairs throwback room, but it was interesting to walk through.

My luck wasn’t holding up terribly well at the tables and machines, and neither was anyone else’s, and eventually the decision was made to walk a block south to the Plaza.

Once inside our new destination, I was again greeted with the @#*& tie-dyed t-shirts that I must admit I am growing a little tired of.  The “Summer of 69” is a great theme for a weekend, but four months is a little overkill.  I was an one year old in the summer of 1969.  I just didn’t drop that much acid at twelve months old, and my pining for the 60’s simply doesn’t exist.

I took a spot at the side of a craps table and I made it known that I was looking forward to tapdancing on the grave of this particular Fremont theme.

The dealer looked at me and asked “You don’t like the 60’s?”

I told him that the nostalgia made little sense.  In the summer of 69, we were in a war with massive casualties and no real objectives.  I explained to him that the Patriot Act was proof that the hippie movement was an abject failure, and that as such … we were celebrating a time of military death, government oppression and the massive failure of the people to resist that oppression.

When I realized that I was getting hostile stares all around, I added “but they had some great music”.

“Oh, yeah, the music was the best”, one guy said, as a couple of other people agreed.

My disclaimer seemed to pacify everyone and the good times continued to roll.

Dance, monkeys … dance.

After 10 minutes of losing yet again, I finally got a waitress in yet another frigging tie-dyed shirt.

“Sir, can I get you something?”, she asked.

“How about some weed?”

“Um, is that a drink?”

“No, it’s uh … weed.”

“I don’t think we have that.”

“Summer of 69 my ass!”, I shouted.

We left shortly thereafter.

I can only spread so much joy.

I wasn’t in much of a picture-taking mood, but I managed to get a few more shots of the“69” costumes to put the finishing touches on my gigantic “things I hate” dartboard.

Overall, I suppose I enjoyed the night Downtown to some degree.

I don’t think Downtown as a whole enjoyed my company nearly as much, but screw ‘em.

Damn fake hippies.

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