Thursday, April 4, 2013

Good morning crew,

We hit Vegas like high rollers, for once, the wife and I and a couple friends of ours. We had all packed our best clothes (well, I had, anyway) and we had pockets full of money to spend, so we were ready to paint the town in style.

We were staying at the Paris and we got in relatively early, so the first thing we did, after checking in and changing, was to have lunch, because much like going to the grocery store, you don't want to gamble on an empty stomach.

Since it was a Wednesday afternoon the place we pretty empty, and we walked right into a little cafe right off the casino floor. We even got in ahead of the only other couple waiting to be seated because of the wife's "platinum" player's card.

Of course, that was the end of our privileges. I have rarely received worse service. Oh, the waiter was polite...when he showed up to the table 15 minutes after we were seated, but even then it took another 10 minutes for a round of drinks to arrive. 2 sandwiches and 2 rounds of drinks took 45 minutes to be ordered and served.

Well, I wasn't about to let horrible service ruin my afternoon, especially with a full day of gambling ahead of me. So after the lunch fiasco we hit the casino floor.

I have always had a weird attraction to roulette. Maybe it is just the aspect of dumb luck that appeals to the fatalist in me. Whatever the reason, I convinced my friend Val to sit down at the roulette table with me while the girls went off to tour the slot machines.

We settled in and started betting small, which is the way to do it if you want to spend more than 15 minutes in a casino. Unfortunately the bets started to creep up after we lost a couple of spins. Pretty soon we weren't only betting five dollars a spin and poor, old Val wasn't enjoying himself anymore. I told him that winning and losing go in trends and we couldn't quit while we were losing. But he was more in the mind of cutting his losses and running, so he quit. Wise or not, I decided to continue.

It got a little tense, I don't mind saying, more tense than it should have been after only three hours in town, but after upping my bet five times, a number that was giving Val fits as he stood looking over my shoulder, I finally got the spin that I needed to put me back over the top.

I got up from the table after that and I admit I was sweating a little bit. Val just shook his head at me.

Reading the look on his face I said, "Hey, I won and you lost!"

"Yeah," he answered, "but you look like the stress just shaved a couple of years off your life."

"That's not stress," I corrected him, "that pasty, terrified expression is called fun."

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"The women's school district in New Hampshire has officially banned dodge ball because parents complained their kids were being targeted during games which, of course, is the point of dodge ball." -Jimmy Kimmel

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"Today President Obama asked Congress for $100 million to map the human brain. And believe me, if anybody needs a map to find their brain, it's Congress." -Jay Leno

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"Last week, a hunter in Kansas shot his friend twice because he mistakenly thought he was a turkey. After the first shot, the guy said he wasn't a turkey. But, come on, that's exactly what a turkey would have said." -Jimmy Fallon

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A woman, searching for a job, inquired about the benefits. The Personnel Manager informed her they had group health and life insurance, but the costs were deducted from the employee's pay.

She said, "My last employer had full health coverage, as well as five years salary for life insurance and a month's sick leave AND they paid the full premiums."

"I can't help but asking madam why you would leave a job with such benefits," the interviewer replied.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, "The company went bankrupt."


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
When Peters learned that he was being fired, he went to see the head of human resources. "Since I've been with the firm for so long," he said, "I think I deserve at least a letter of recommendation."

The human resources director agreed and said he'd have the letter that next day. The following morning, Peters found the letter on his desk. It read, "Jonathan Peters worked for our company for eleven years. When he left us, we were very satisfied."