gambling and sci-fi con

Blog 11/12/06


Went to the Foxwoods casino Friday night. I guess I had fun. This was more of a learning tool and business trip. I was there to win money. I had my ups and downs for success. I certainly didn’t hate going.

The bus trip is around 90 minutes. Our organizer popped in Mission Impossible 3 for our viewing pleasure. It was okay. Had a lot of standard plot stuff with one or two twists. Still, in a spy movie, there’s only so many times that you can see ‘there’s a mole in the spy agency’.

The bus was probably 50/50 middle aged people and elderly. There’s one in every crowd however. What I mean is, we got to the casino and received very clear instructions about our bus number and gate and what time to return. Either someone was babbling or just not paying attention and asked in all seriousness ‘what’s our gate?” and another asked “what’s our bus number?”. It was literally 10 seconds after the guide had very clearly told us over the intercom twice that information.

I was new to Foxwoods and this bus trip stuff so I let my brother-in-law take the lead on things. After logging in our free Keno ballots my brother and I went to get some chow at the buffet while my brother-in-law and sister went to play Caribbean Stud Poker.

The chow was okay overall. Nothing tasted bad, some of it tasted like nothing (the ice cream no less!) and some stuff tasted pretty good (apple/cherry cobbler). During our chow my brother-in-law lost all of his money. So they went to eat and my brother and I wandered about taking in the casino.

I finally sat down and dumped $10 into a slot machine that was 25 cents a spin or max bet of 75 cents a spin. My money lasted about 8 minutes. I think in to total I won about $40 with a hit at one point of 70 credits, 25 cents a credit. I put it all back into the machine though and walked away with no money.

My brother for a table of Caribbean Stud Poker for $10 a hand. Pretty much, it’s a $10 ante and double the ante to bet in order to win money. Then you can also add $1 for extra bonus money. Despite it being rather simple I stood about 40 minutes watching my brother play. I think in the end he lost $60.

After about 10 minutes of wandering we returned to the same table and I tried my luck. I was pretty nervous because it was my money and I still wasn’t sure of the rules. I dropped down $60 and started playing. I played maybe 10 to 15 minutes lost my money and on my last hand pretty much got it back. I needed a $20 spot from my brother though for a bet on the last bet. When I won that and ended up with $65 total in remaining chips I stopped. So in the end, I lost $20 at the table.

As we walked out of that casino room I grabbed every ‘how to play…’ pamphlet there was. LOL!

I found out later that my free Keno ticket won me $5. I bet $10 for $1 a game selecting 10 numbers. I won $30 there so I made $20 on that.

In the end, I broke even pretty much. The bus ticket was $14 which included 2 Keno tickets and chow which I believe was $18 if I just walked in. So these bus trips are terrific deals. The big winner on the bus scored $3000 off the free Keno ticket.

The bus ride home seemed like it lasted 30 minutes or less. Watched the remaining part of MI 3. Again, I wasn’t really impressed with the movie. Mainly I just didn’t care for the characters and the script really felt ‘been there done that’ to me.

I think I was probably to uptight about trying to win and learn some table games instead of just relaxing and enjoying things.

The thing I enjoyed the most was the eye candy. The casinos see all walks of life of people. But I was looking at the women there dressed up or in some cases, in states of undress. Lots of my favorite fashions for women were there – simple stuff like jeans and stiletto heeled boots. Hell, I even checked out this 40-ish year old woman in a brown business skirt suit with stiletto heeled brown boots. Hey! She looked pretty good! LOL! I did see two women dressed like maybe they were hookers. I think it was just bad looks. I saw them at separate times but I did wonder if they were ‘women of the night’. LOL.

I then stayed up waaaay late talking to a new internet friend on the west coast on IMVU.

Staggered out of bed the next morning sometime after 9am. Showered up and headed out to my buddy’s place to head down to United Fan Con. We stopped at a greasy spoon for breakfast. I rather enjoyed my meal of two Texas Style French toast. I think the chef put some cinnamon sugar on the French toast. It was really good because I could taste it without being over powered by it. My buddy and I oogled over the eye candy there. I swear, half the women in that joint were quite attractive. So my buddy Dwain and I were constantly scoping the scene.

On the way to the con we realized that I screwed up because I hadn’t looked to see what hotel the con was at. A quick phone call to a friend solved that.

We got to the hotel and found the registration area after a brief search. The line wasn’t horrible – maybe 30 people in front of us, but it moved incredibly slow. So we were in line for what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes. I think part of the problem is that registration ran out of change. Some dude was walking the line asking if people had $10’s and $5’s.

We saw a couple of people we knew since it was a local con for us. We saw religous nut – former co-owner of my buddy’s comic store that tried to totally screw them over there. He was cordial. Overly cordial it seemed – as if nothing ever happened.

I succeeded in my main goal, dropping off my comic with a writer from Marvel comics who’s also had some Hollywood screen writing success. I asked him how much it would cost him to review my comic. He said he’s not a reviewer and wouldn’t take money to do so. He did take my comic and said if it warranted it he would write something up. I was satisfied with that and thanked him and thanked him for writing enjoyable stories for several years. The last was no bullshit. I have enjoyed a number of comics for several years. Will he bother reading my comic? Who knows. I know I’ve heard many pro’s just toss anything given to them because of no desire to bring tons of stuff home. He did tell me he checks over e-mails sent to him though so I may follow through. I hardly expect this fellow to be my friend or anything but who knows. I also have no idea what kind of impression I made on him. I know sometimes I come off like a total dick to people my first time meeting them. People usually find out about the ‘real’ me by spending time with me. If someone gets screwed over or needs help I try and help them. But without the opportunity to do so, I usually seem like a dick because my humor is so dry that when I make a crack it seems like I really mean it.

With any luck, said pro will at least give me a quick review of my comic. We’ll see.

The actresses at the con looked terrific. Linda Blair was fairly hot for a woman older than me. Claudia Christian still looks quite fetching also. She’s starting to get up there in age and I expected her to start showing it. There was some young actress from Firefly and she looked drop dead gorgeous. I may actually have to watch Firefly to check her out.

The guys at the show were fairly uninteresting to me. None were big names and I didn’t follow their shows. A bit player from the X-Files was one of the only ones I can remember.

William Shatner was the VIP. I would’ve have liked to have seen him but Dwain had to leave for another engagement. Seeing Shatner was also quite expensive. Initially, Dwain and I weren’t all that up for even attending that morning. We opted for the $15 autograph area and dealers area ticket. Hearing the stars blabbe was another $25 for a total of $40. To even hear Shatner was another upgrade of $75 and to get an autograph and pic was even more – over $100+ in total.

We were disappointed that Grace Park was there only on Sunday. She looks quite exceptional.

Kurt Angle walked by me at one point. I was totally surprised that he didn’t look very big. This guy could kick my ass 10 million different ways but in street clothes you wouldn’t necessarily think he could. And he only seemed my height of 5’9. On TV while wrestling he looks pretty big.

The dealers’ room was what I expected. Not overly large and the usual stuff. I did make a couple of purchases though. From a customer at the store I bought a unique Heroclix from him for $6. The character usually goes for $10 to $15.

I was quite happy to find some Led Zeppelin concert DVDs. I bought two different ones for $20 each. The quality or lack there of was expected but good enough for me. And the more I look back on it the more I’m happy I bought them. I kind of regret not seeing Shatner because I had wanted to. But my Zep DVDs have blunted that blow rather nicely.

The eye candy was expected for a sci-fi con – not very good. LOL! There was a really cute girl there walking around with some guy. We made sure to oogle over her. We knew we could take her boyfriend if he started any shit with us. I was checking out this blonde. She was dressed in a brown skirt suit, matching colored wide brim hat and knee high boots with metallic ice picks heels. Then she turned enough so I could see her face. Well, she was either a hard 40 or closing in on her 50’s. LOL! Oh well.

So despite some early mis-givings about even attending the con, it ended up being enjoyable and I’m glad I went.

Now it’s time for about 8 hours straight of NFL football!