The Holtonian

Vegas just ain't for me

I had a business trip to Vegas this week and I knew going into it I wasn't going to particularly enjoy vegas. I'm not a gambler, I could be if I wanted to, but part of me is just too cheap. I think to myself as I'm giving money to Casinos, "I could have bought a tv with that, or a new cd, or had a V8..."

I took some cash and played Pai Gow Poker, which if you've never played and you're going gamblin, you need to play Pai Gow Poker (Poker not the dominos, dominos is too hard). It is by far the best game you can play without losing your money in an instant... well I mean you can lose your money in an instant, but generally the odds are you won't.

Basically its two hand poker, you get 7 cards, and make the best five hand and 2 hand you can and if your two hands are better than the dealers two hands you win... if the dealer beats one of your hands you push and if the dealer beats both, well, your out. Plus its one deck and seats 5 i think and they deal out five hands (plus dealer) regardless of how many people play. So the odds are pretty good that the dealers not goin to have 4 aces or whatever. The only trick is the five hand has to be better than the two hand.

So i have two pair lets say, two 10s and two aces (a good hand in pai gow), i have to put the the two 10s up top and leave the 2 aces in my five hand. Though you can try and play around and keep both pairs in your 5 hand and put junk up in the 2 hand and just hope your junk is better than the dealers.

But another cool aspect of the game for novices like myself... you can ask your neighbor, the dealer, or your buddy who isn't even playing what to do. you can show all your cards and get a poll of what you should do. The dealers going to tell you what the house would do, so at the very least you'll push, if you try to get creative and go against the house you'll probably get burned.

So anyway that was one game i played and it was fun. A buddy of mine went up 500 bucks pretty quick and then proceeded to lose it all by nights end.

One thing that I can't stand though is the smoking, i had bloody noses from all the cigarette smoke and what not. That was one thing I liked about Mohegan Sun and the Indian casinos up in Conneticut was they were smoke free and would have a small smoking section. Vegas seems to be the opposite.

My company was at the Venetian which i must say was the nicest hotel I've ever stayed... and I've been to the Ritz. 3 plasma tvs in my room, huge bathroom with travertine tile showers, sunken living room with a view of the strip, it was nice. Granted I spent about 6 hours a day in my room... including sleeping time.

We were in conferences all day and basically had our nights free to do as we please, Sunday and Monday night. Sunday was an open bar night so I took advantage of that and then called it a night thinking it was real late... it was 11 o clock vegas time... the time change killed me though so i was dead tired. The next night I just wasn't up for much and just wanted to crash and did.

Blizzard Entertainment was having their global strategy meeting while we were there and I tried sneaking into their conference but I stood out as i was not 500 pounds and a complete dork... only a partial one. It looked kind of boring too, they weren't playing warcarft, diablo, or star craft.

It was a good time but glad to be back, its just not my type of place. A little too much sin/skin for my tastes. The night I packed it in early my buddy asked me why I was going to bed and I told him, "Frankly the women here are too distracting and I just don't want to see what I'm seeing." Not trying to be pious or anything but it was pretty surprising what people can get away with wearing these days.

I find it funny that companies have so many conferences in Vegas. They expect us to pay attention and attend all the meetings in one of the most distracting places in the world.

The only regret I had was I didn't walk up and down the strip at all. I mean I didn't really have time unless I wanted to late at night and by that time I was too tired for walking. But my company's going back there next year so if I'm still employed then i can go then.

Eating out and Desiring to Work out

Well this won't mean much to those on chattablogs since Huffine and Roe won't move me to ATLblogs, but janelle and I ate at the Orient Express last night. Had crabb come over and watch anna-kate/play xbox while we went out. This place had the ultimate gimick to get me in the door, the outside is a traincar, this old timey metal train car which i think, "Man o man I'm eating chinese in a train car all day!"

Well you walk in and you kind of realize the train car is pretty much just a facade. Though a very good marketing gimic. The place is actually three restaurants, hibachi, sushi, and chinese. We opted for the hibachi just because we just ate chinese and janelle, being pregnant, can't eat sushi. It was good stuff though we though bout it and have you ever realy had bad hibachi? I haven't even at the chains its generally always good.

The only thing i think they were missing was bean sprouts, and janelle thought they needed snow peas. We sat with some yuppies and they didn't pay much attention to the hibachi dude which kind of cheesed him off so he totally gave us way more food than them so that was cool.

After that we went to Sports Authority on Cobb to test out some tread mills.... yeah kind of funny go pig out and then go look at exercise equipment. With my hours at work I just can't get a good "running" time established. The morning runs just are too early for me as I go it in at 6:30 somedays running at 5 or even 6 just is not manageable. Its hard enough to set up a routine let alone one where your half asleep while running. And at night, well I'm just lazy... and havne't seen the wife all day and don't want to go run for an hour. Plus with the preganancy she's wanting to get more active. We go on walks but its rained the past few days so thats made walking a no go, so a treadmill would be nice so during naps she can walk, and when i get home we can hang out while i run.

We're looking a few, gonna check out consumer reports take on them and see what they say, see if I can't find a cheaper one thats not a piece of junk. company reimburses you up to 50% ($500 max) for exercise equipment, bikes, etc. So it seems silly not to take them up on that offer. We'll probably check out play it again sports as well as I'm sure they have a ton.

After all that, went to barnes and noble and just read magazines.

Tonight is ladies night bunko so that means the crabb and i doing some halo.

Oh those republicans

Chris Matthew's reaction is just priceless

This is funny regardless of your political affiliation. Craig's an idiot and needs to get out of DC before he becomes any more of a laughing stock.

ok that's my politcal post for the year

The Black Ninja of Death.... beware

Someone tell me to get back to work....

Appalachian State was too hot hot hot for Michigan to handle

In case anyone forgot, this is the school that beat Michigan...

Quick Xbox 360 Game Post

I'll try to keep this brief since no one I know reads these posts...

First off two games I've played recently for Xbox 360 Gears of War and Command n Conquer 3.

Gears of war (GOW) was pretty cool and I can see why it won game of the year. Great graphics, different take on the shooter (third person done very well), and lots of violence. But my big thing with games is story. I think if a game especially a shooter doesn't have a great story then its just more of the same. Halo was cool because it brought so much to the console in terms of a great fluid shooter that worked well with a controller. But also the story has been well developed and somewhat interesting.

GOW had so many plot holes, and on top of that its like they forgot to film a few cut scenes. Unless you read the manual you really have no back story. The game starts off with you in prison for breaking rank but you don't know in what regard... unless you read the manual... no flash backs or anything. And then you're thrust into a battle with no clear idea of what you are doing, what the significance of it is, all you know is there are bad guys and they have guns. And its on another planet so its not like you can go, "Oh I'm fighting in Trafalgar square or Times square... etc."

The game also is very short which was kind of disappointing I expected a lot more gameplay. Also the game is completely linear with a few forks in the road, so in essence theres little reason to play it through twice. It ends with a bit of a 'to be continued' so hopefully the second one will have some more plot and cut scenes and what not.

Command and Conquer however is pretty much the same as it always is. Kane is back and up to his old tiberium tricks again. And for some reason we went from having mechs, walkers, space ships, and mutants, to going back to tanks. I loved the second one the walkers were awesome, and the story went in a cool sci fi direction... so this game in essence fails to deliever the continuity I expect from a sequal.

One thing I hate is when game series don't connect. I can't stand how the zeldas are basically just rehashments of the same old story, same with mario. The stories in no way connect or build off each other. One of the few that does and does it very well, is metroid. Every metroid game ties into each other with a few gaping holes but never the less they connect in one way or another.

The thing CC3 does have... Billy D Williams as the president... now theres a candidate I can support. If he can take down the second deathstar then solving the Iraq quagmire would be a piece of cake. It also has Grace Park (Boomer) from Battlestar Galatica, and Sawyer from lost, and the teacher from Starship Troopers.

But after playing this game for a bit I am realize why these games have run there course with me. They just get repetitve and old. Plus they get freaking annoying, I'm playing and yelling at the bad guys, "Look can you stop attacking me for 2 seconds and let me get my base set up... geez!"

All this to say, these games make me wish I had Halo 3.