Las Vegas

One day, this guy wakes up hearing a voice: "Sell your car, sell your house, go to Las Vegas." He ignores it. But next month he hears it again, "Sell your car, sell your house, go to Las Vegas." He ignores it again. But then week after week the voice keeps on coming back and bugging him, "Sell your car, sell your house, go to Las Vegas; sell your car, sell your house, go to Las Vegas." So after a year of this the guy has finally had enough, and he sells his car and sells his house, and gets on the plane to Vegas.

When he gets there, he says, "okay, what do I do now?" Then the voice says, "Take all your money and go to Ceasars Palace; take all your money and go to Ceasars Palace." Ok, so he gets his whole life's savings together and goes to Ceasars. Then the voice says "Go to the roulette table; go to the roulette table." So he makes his way over to the roulette table. Then the voice says "Put it on red 17; put it on red 17." So takes all his money and bets it on red 17. The roulette spins around. Then it stops on black 21.

Then the voice booms, "Damn!"

(- Drew Carey, who we saw at Ceasars last weekend.)

The thing about Vegas is: the casinos never close. The only way to really experience the city is to bring your gambling money and put it all on the line. Our gambling expert was Dinarte, pictured below, who took time out to teach us basic strategy for blackjack.

The good thing about gambling a lot of money is that if you gamble enough, the casinos start "comping" you - they give you complimentary food, rooms, and so on, depending on how much you bet. Above, Dinarte is eating a complimentary donut - his just deserts for placing $30,000 of bets in a weekend. Besides the free stuff, he also happened to finish up about $300. Is it luck, or is it skill?

At the blackjack tables we split up in to the poor boys (Dave and Joe) at the $5-mininum tables and the high rollers (Dinarte, Rod, Eric, and Tom) at the $25 tables. Some of the high rollers are pictured below - those green "quarters" are $25.

At the blackjack tables, they serve free drinks. These help your game tremendously, a fact to which Rod can attest. Below, you can see the evidence: both Rod and Eric finished in the black for the weekend, and they're showing off some of their gambling money. The black chip in Rod's hand is $100 and Eric's gray chip is $1000. For some reason, the dealers call the gray ones "gold". Can you see how it shines?

Dave and Joe also won a little bit of money at blackjack. Rachel didn't gamble. But not everybody escaped unscathed at the tables. How did Tom do? "I take the fifth," he says. Nevertheless, at the end of the weekend, we all went home happy.

So we're stepping out of the casino, and we run into this bum on the street. He's begging us for money.

"Can you spare a few dollars? I need it for food," he says.

"No way," we say, "We know about people like you. If we give you money, you're just going take it right into the casino and gamble it away."

"No I won't," he pulls out a hundred dollars, "See, I got gambling money."

(- David Letterman)

There is other stuff in Las Vegas besides gambling, and to prove it, we have have some more pictures...

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