Spent the last week in NY, ostensibly to celebrate my grandmother's 3rd term, but also to see my aunt's new dog Mozart, who is just the cutest thing ever (he's a big Alaskan Malamute). She had a husky last, and this guy is bigger and only a year old. I took a few pictures but I don't know if they came out well because I havne't uploaded them.

I ate way too much. Being part of the Political elite has certain benefits, like default reservations and chefs specialties at discounted rates (or free). Had a lot of top quality chinese and Italian food from around Queens, as well as the unique fast food joints there like Roy Rogers, White Castle, and Nathan's Famous Hot dogs. We went to Juniors while my Brother was in the city, though he had to leave before the inauguration. 

The Queens Center mall which is 5 stories was also pretty awesome. The food court is pretty big (as it should be, it's the only mall in the borough, and one of only like..3 in the whole NYC) and had Taco Bell, Sarku Japan, and a full KFC along with some east coast chains like Ranch One and Shrimp Market.  The mall also had an ITG2 haxed dedicab, and the little community there was pretty cool, I saw around 5-6 people, of which 2 were actually like, soCal good. One goes by Luke, the other is Jew. I'll check to see if they are on the forums but whatever. I was able to Sightread some random 12 as well as star some of the ITG1 10-footers. I hate how I can build my stamina pretty easily, but can't get more accurate. I never was able to get honest good scores on ITG even though I could pass that hardest stuff...I don't know about the new stuff though. They had a Dragonforce Folder filled with 12-15s, but I wasn't really dressed for gaming (I did not expect to find an arcade in this mall).

The whole family went to see Memphis, a Broadway play about the titular city in he early 50's and how a white man assisted in the integration of radio stations and how Rock and Roll became a craze. It was pretty good, a solid show and most of the actors were very good. some of the background people couldn't dance on beat correctly, but there was a fat guy who was in the play and toward the end of the second act (there was an intermission! so fancy!) he started dancing pretty seriously, and that was awesome, you can make everything better with dancing fat people :) The music was really upbeat and soulful of course, but I can't remember them today. I'd give it a 7.5/10. I really want to see Phantom, The Lion King, and there is a spider-man play coming in April...haha.

 
The Inauguration itself was solid. It was held at York College, and members of the Jazz band Faculty were our entertainment. I remember the drummer was sick in his solos and the piano player was really solid for hers. People were asking them for info in the reception. The City Clerk and DA and other high-profile politicians were up and talking, and my grandma (we call her ya-ya, which is a Greek name; none of us are Greek though) well her speech lasted about 30 minutes which wasn't bad. The reception had just cookies and coffee, but the cookies were really good, it was surprising. 

Thats about it, it was a good, relaxing week filled with good food and good times. When we got back home I found all my tax stuff so I'm goign to get that situation worked out, and we will see what February holds!

I don't know if I even want to remember the past few days/weeks.

they have been filled with either bad things or stretches of emptiness where I did nothing but hang out with Brian and play WoW all day. 

Well, There was the Jon, Ash, and Phil show I guess. Phil picked me up with Brian at Fox Hil-I'm sorry. Westfield Shoppingtown Culver City this past Sunday along with Alex and Tiffany. We drove up to Northridge to the founder of Vokle.com's house where Jon and Ash were waiting for Phil to let the show start. There was a special guest live on webcam, Chaz! So that was cool seeing him getting back into the swing of things. That was a good time where I added my 2 cents about topics that came up.

I missed going to Cheddar 2, which was an ITG edits/Hax tournament because Ervin flaked out. Now that doesn't grind my gears. I know ervin flakes out and I don't really get mad at when that happnes. What really grinds my gears is that he was complaining about his oil light, and how it was on. I offered to pay for his oil change and for gas, to get down to SD. He also offered to pick up Phil, who WAS going to drive down there with me in the first place. So Phil and I are waiting, and like 7 hours later Ervin calls/texts and says it's not happening. by then it's too late for Phil to go, and so I check Facebook and Ervin has a status that says "someone come pick me up for the tournament" blah blah. Now even that is some cold stuff, but on top of that, I hear that his car was in fact fine enough for him to go to Arcade Infinity that night!  I mean what the hell is that?

Does Ervin no longer consider us friends or something? Are we to be blatantly lied to and tossed aside like that? I'd like to think that even if distance separates me from someone else, we would remain friends. Case in point, the Ians I know. One is in Irvine. One is in Iceland. But I still consider both of them friends, and I still talk to both of them (Dundore less so, but he's on AIM a lot unlike Morabito). So I don't know how to interpret how ervin is still trying to act all friendly, and he acknowledged his past in an apology when we were in Vegas. I don't know. I've never met someone this shaky on promises.


I leave for New York in a few hours to spend a week there, Chatting up my grandparents and aunt. I haven't been to NY in a few years because of work, but this is my first year I'm completely free to do anything...in a long time. I'll definitely be trying new Pastrami sandwiches, hopefully we will have a rental and hopefully it won't be too freezing.

haha yeah right.

Crazy how my grandmother is being sworn in for a second term as Borough President of Queens. Wow, she even has a wikipedia stub: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Marshall


that's pretty cool. I don't know if I can live up to that of course, or even my own dad's ridiculously high salary as an engineer/manager. I was pretty much more successful when I was 17 than I am almost 10 years later; what the fuck man. The poor video game industry is getting shit on of course by pirates and Gamestop's policy of used games, and people in general playing less, and because of 2007-2008 and the recession, it doesn't look well at all. 

ugh, oh well the Monster I took is finally wearing off and I'm rethinking pulling this all nighter. 

 On Sunday night, I went with Phil, Fob alex, and Tiffany over to Dustin's house so I could try my hand at Salvia, which is one of the very few legal drugs that no one really tries. In the past I've seen a couple of videos of people, but I had not remembered what happened in them, as that was in my college days and I never expected to do it anyway. However I got my chance since Dustin had some (and I later found out Tiffany did as well). Dustin had a video taken of him on it, and it was kind of funny, but nothing I had seen as especially serious. He was on AIM with me when he did it, and so on.

I, of course, have never used a water bong before, so I didn't know how to operate it. After a short tutorial, Dustin packed his bit into the pipe thing and I toked up. I looked up and everyone was looking at me with expectant eyes, waiting for me to do something, and then he turned up his dubstep music. I felt a mild tingling and the world seemed to turn about 4 degrees, but other than that I didn't feel anything. We tried multiple times, and dustin insisted I was inhaling wrong. I don't doubt that I was maybe, but Alex and Phil both agreed that there were a few times I did officially inhale, hold, and blow correctly. 

Alex then turned to tiffany and asked for her bit. Apparently Dustin used "20x" salvia, and Tiffany had "80x", so the effect I assume was supposed to be 4 times more or something. From what I felt from the previous attempt, I figured the effect would be similar to vertigo and I would just feel like i was falling for a few minutes. they told me the effects of this plant were very intense for a very short amount of time, and I would be sane within 10 minutes and it would completely wear off in 20. That was a reasonable tradeoff for me in my mind, as it's hard to do much damage in 5 minutes haha.

So Tiffany packed it, and Dustin lit the pipe, ensuring I was getting the maximum smoke levels. Everyone focused on my form as I toked up and agreed it was perfect once I finished. I held the smoke in for about 7 seconds then exhaled, while Dustin turned up his stereo again. I could feel that familiar turning coming on so I told dustin to maximize the Windows media player fractal visualization to see how it would work. 

I'm gonna try to explain what happened as best I can:

As the sensation grew past what I was expecting, I turned to Tiffany, and I literally counted down the time it took to get compleely smashed. It's weird with this, that you can tell exactly when oyu expect to lose your mind. I counted down 3...2...1...GO and I spun around, and right then I was gone. I staggered to my feet in front of the vortex of the media player, and it appeared to me as a portal to another world, and the entire room and everyone in it was getting sucked in. I tried to also get in while making sure everyone was with me, but I "fell out" of the suction and spun toward the wall. The Dubstep music was still blasting in my ears and I ended up facing his TV, which was off. I interpreted this as a blank portal which had not opened yet, so I stepped inside the vehicle which would take us through the portal (in realiy I was sitting in between his chairs) and sat patiently for a while behind some happy passengers who were talking amongst themselves (his rollerblades which were not moving at all). I then got up because I felt I needed to pull a lever somewhere and walked over to the control room (his kitchen nook). I very faintly experienced a flash of sanity when i Got there, and noticed I was sweating, so I looked for a napkin. 

Phil told me there was a towel on the fridge, but I saw it was dirty and got mad at him because it was dirty. At this point the hallucinations were already fading but I still felt like everything was like, astral shifted out of reality, though I recognized that the other four were still there. I opened the fridge because I was hot, and a shelf fell down onto the floor. Despite knowing it was a shelf on the floor, I thought a piece of the portal transport had broken off, so I tried to fix it in place. I think the cold air helped me out a bit, as when I came back up the world was pretty much normal and the trip was done.


All in All it was a crazy experience, I don't know whether to call it good or bad, and I've spent the last few days trying to filter it all. I think it's an excellent recreational product as long as you have people there to kind of keep you in check.

Don't be a loser
Get over it
Show some courage

1. Stop playing WoW
2. Play games socially more
3. Run LA Marathon
4. Lose 30 lbs
5. reconnect with possible friends
6. kick the "lone wolf" attitude
7. more parties/clubs/conventions
8. better job
9. move out
~11~ New Car maybe



Yeah losing my job in feburary and then not being able to find one since then pretty much shit on everything I wanted to do. There were a couple of bright spots in this year as I am now regularly going to Las Vegas and have picked my Poker game up, as well as other casino games. I met Nisha Ram, who is a cool chick to party with, I got closer to Crystal and seeing her inner thoughts. I guess I did kick the Lone Wolf thing. I totally didn't lose 30 lbs, I have gone to more parties and clubs but not conventions, I did stop playing wow for about 7 months but then got back into it, and I'm friends with a few more people than last year, though some friends have left LA so I don't know if it balances out or not. 

I don't know what to resolve doing in 2010, but it needs to be important.

This past weekend I went to las Vegas with a "close friend" Nisha and her friends Henry and Jasmine. This weekend taught me many things about where her and I stand, and what I want from a girl in the future.

But first: Dustin, Phil, Brian and I went to see Avatar on Thursday in 3D. It wasn't an IMAX screen or even particularly big as far as normal screens. There were a few thoughts running through my head throughout the movie:
1. This is what our Grandchildren will be getting as regular cartoons in the future, and how goddamn lucky they will be.
2. This movie has the spectacle of Star Wars and the adventure elements of Lord of the Rings, and I agree with a Rotten Tomatoes top Critic here: This is what it must felt in 1933 to people who viewed King Kong. A complete transportation to another world.
3. These 3D glasses kind of hurt my temples because my regular glasses had to stay on.
4. James Cameron should now be considered one of the greatest directors ever, up with Spielberg and Scorsese at least, but in his own category of using technology better than anyone else.
5. Very well could be the best movie of this year, and should be thought of when this decade closes soon.
6. Holy Shit the hype is warranted. This movie is fucking amazing, and It is the best and most pure form of escapism out there, and Videogames are relegated back to second-rate entertainment compared to this. I truly felt like I was in the world of Pandora, and the 3D magnified that to the point where I had imagined an "avatar" of myself and we happened to be coming along with the main characters for the movie. I was only aware of the real world and the fact that I was watching a movie maybe twice in the 161 minutes (far too short but understandable).

ok back to the Vegas trip. She picked me up Friday morning a bit early (10:15), and suddenly announced I would be the driver. This was after she was going on about how nervous she was about driving to vegas and her dad would be proud of her for doing it. So I drove, whatever. We played mostly all R&B music of the past 6 years with some classics thrown in from each of their ipods. My music was too different for them to tolerate ("no one likes Metallica" though jasmine admitted she liked Enter Sandman). So I was pretty much fed up with 112/Blackstreet/Neyo/Omarion/Usher/etc. We had one pit stop at Del Taco in Baker (which is one of the best Del Tacos I have ever been to now). Once we arrived at Circus Circus, we cleaned up a bit and went down to walk around, because everyone wanted to do something but no one would take initiative. We ended up in the Adventuredome, and rode the rollercoaster. Henry and Jasmine were pretty much bolted together, perhaps because they knew me and nisha were "together". I played some ITG and Pump for them, which got some nice comments. Then we headed back and got ready for HITTIN DA CLUB YEH!! 

Club PURE at Caesar's Palace, which the magazine noted as top tier nightclub in vegas. Well the hype I guess had reached everyone, because that club had a huge damn line, and on top of that the Marines were in town and had their friends and g/fs with them. An unfourtunate detour for me was that the line bouncer guy saw that I had my $120 suede converse shoes on and said I could not get in the club with "basketball shoes". This was a problem, so I ran to Guess and bought some super cool grey "lifestyle" shoes and slapped em on. Henry and Jasmine had gone inside while Nisha had Jasmines phone to call me about the shoes and meet me at Guess. They had agreed to meet us in the front of the club inside. I coat checked my old pair of shoes and we got in! The club was stupid packed, as in wall-to-wall people and it was nigh-impossible to move without getting a drink knocked on you. I ordered Nisha  a "chocolate birthday cake" drink from the bar while I got a screwdriver, and we spent the next hour wandering through the throngs of people looking for Henry and Jasmine. During that hour I was wondering why she had Jasmine's phone with her when she could have just come to the Guess store and we could have called the others. Nisha was all buttworried the whole time and while I knew I had the keys to the car (and thus the only way back) and just wanted to get a good buzz going and dance (the DJ was playing a lot of high-energy stuff, Nisha was just looking like she was about to burst out crying and looking around for them. Turns out they were at a table we had passed like 3 times before. -_- then they all went to the bathroom while the DJ started turning Daft Punk so I got on the floor myself and did some dancing. They ended up wanting to leave, and it was about 1am at that time.

Nisha complained the entire trip back to Circus about not having a good time so we Went to check out Rok Vegas at New York New York. We got there and the place was closed, but the cantina nearby "Gonzalez Y Gonzalez" was open and playing some pretty good salsa. This is when we started having fun together. Many margaritas were bought, and I got her a  yardstick while I got a tropical one on the house for getting it custom-then the bartender fucked it up. so free alcohol yay! We got some good dancing and good times going on, and left at around 4. We were dead tired upon returning, and pretty much knocked out. Nisha kept waking up because of a tummyache though.

Saturday we all woke up around 10-11am and headed out. We walked around to the Riviera and had lunch at the top of the Stratosphere restaurant "Top of the World". This was a highlight of the trip: te restaurant was top-tier in all respects: it rotated to provide us with a 360-view of the entire area (and it was a clear day!), the food was delicious: I ordered calamari and spinach, and both were among the best I've had. bored chefs = great food, as long as they are real chefs and not just cooks. Our waitress had the presence of mind to point out all the landmarks under us, make good jokes, and make good recommendations to us for dessert, and even was able to have the chefs prepare a custom alfredo sauce for Nisha's shrimp fettuccine. SO GOOD. we spent a good hour and a half there simply because it was so nice up there. I'd give that place a 9.5/10, and that half-point off is my fault because i didn't have enough money to get a true entree. This place is probably a 10 though, based on what I saw. Definitely coming back here in the future.

After Stratosphere we went to the NASCAR cafe and rode on the roller coaster there. It was pretty fun even though the ride was $10. We passed by a failed attempt at the B3 - a 6lb burrito that is free if you can finish it. it looked delicious, but there was just too damn much of it. I don't think I would be able to eat it my own self. After wandering through the Sahara and Slots O Fun, we headed back to the hotel. Nisha and I went downstairs to get pictures of her first-eve gambling, where she somehow found GOLD FISH and loved it to death (seriously? what is with that game, girls are crazy for it!), as well as video blackjack with the creepy video dealer, and a few other slot machines. She didn't want to sit at a live table as she was too nervous. All in all she lost about $60 in slots, but she had a lot of fun so It was worth it to her. We went back upstairs and got ready for Club night 2...

Friday morning Ryan picks me up and we ride over to fatguy's apartment. I have my backpack filled with spare clothes and my netbook with my phone charger (didn't forget it this time!). I also have my unemployment check to mail out, and after a stop at the post office and the gas station, All three of us begin the journey in fatguy's car. We make two stop,s aon at Wendy's for lunch, and one at the big rest stop before the mountain journey that descends down to nevada.

Once we get there, we find out we are staying at Treasure Island. Aaron didn't know I was coming so it was nice seeing him genuinely surprised and happy to see me. We meet up with Shannon and decide to go to dinner at Musashi, a japanese steakhouse, and hopefully Chaz would meet up with us at some point. The place was similar to Benihana, but as our cook said (he was the head chef and owner of the place) "beniwho-who?" Musahi was much better, and he was very skilled. He created a bunch of dofferent sauces for us to try, and made a great show for Aaron and Shannon, bringing out a penis rice mold and a bunch of dirty jokes (which we helped him with). Chaz did end up joining us and we all swapped stories around the teppanyaki grill while the chef did his thing.

After that we headed back to the hotel stuffed, and walked around to check out the casino. I went to the room and crashed since I was up super early waiting for ryan, and I guess everyone else went and partied on the strip. I think I got woken up a few times asking if I wanted to go but I was already past that point.

Saturday Morning I woke up early to go get breakfast and get to Gameworks, but I could not find where I put my wallet the night before. Chaz took my bed spot while I showered so I just crashed on the floor for 2 hours to get some extra sleep. I found my wallet in my backpack and took a brisk powerwalk to gameworks, because it was ficking 67 degrees outside and I was just in shorts and a tshirt. Harrah's was wonderfully warm though and I hung out there for a minute before getting to Hard Rock Cafe and getting an OJ. Then I arrived at Gameworks to see Kellen and the rest of TGRP arriving just in time to miss out on a Wild Card tournament for the last place in the tourney-seems one of the players dropped out and In the end it was a battle between Kellen and Jet for the place. Jet got it much to Kel's chagrin.

I pretty much stayed at Gameworks because it was too cold outside, but I did venture out to get an orange chicken panda bowl from teh upstairs food court.

I met up with Edgar and we watched the tournament from a second story balcony while he ate his XXX(X)L burger with bacon from Fatburger. The setup at Gameworks was really nice. they put Supernova in the middle of the floor and attached a disco ball above it, while two stereo speakers and projection screens were set up for maximum exposure. the MC was also hooked into the buildings intercom so he could call people outside. The 8 finalists ranged from all over the country and in the end it ended up being the Florida representative who won. Surprisingly, JJK, jet, and Dickey who represented california, did not even pass the first round.

After the tournament I hung out with Fatguy and Chaz, who were at the Venetian and Bellagio, and soon I went to change clothes and rest up a bit. I returned to see that Ryan was playing Texas hold em and had already lost. We wandered around the strip some more but Fatguy had gotten sick so he left. It ended up being me, Chaz, Ryan, and Aaron meeting Comet and Christen at the MIrage and downing wine bottles in public while playing Casino War, blackjack, and some slot machines. We stopped by Imperial Palace to find comet's dad playing with the "Celebredealers" or was it "Dealebbrities" who are dealers who look like celebrities. Beyonce, Elvis, the Blues brothers, Tina Turner, MJ, Dolly Parton, etc. Plus they sometimes get up on a stage and sing. The MJ one was singing Man in the Mirror and Thriller, while there was a Britney Spears/Taylor Swift wanna be as well. It was a super fun time in there and so hot we had to take out sweaters off. I was getting tired at that point but I stayed with it, and Ryan left to be with the DDR players while Aaron and Chaz and I went to TI to gamble. Aaron and I watched Chaz drop $50 on the Big Wheel. When Aaron decided to turn in with Shannon, Chaz and I reset and changed clothes and went back downstairs. The first thing we did was check out the Craps tables to learn how it worked. we had a lot of fun and Chaz was on fire with his very first turn! But eventually I got really freaking tired and went to sleep. I think Chaz and Ryan found each other and Fatguy got up to play at another casino, but it was around 5 am on Sunday. I got a decent sleep.

Sunday I woke up around 11 and had breakfast with Fatguy, aaron, shannon, comet and christen at the TI buffet, which IMO now is better than Harrah's buffet by a good margin. they had a mini donut maker and good pancakes, and the omelette's were really good too. We spent most of the day mucking around getting free slots from the Treasure Island Player's Club card. I got up to $5, then wasted it all playing Big Six. Ah well. We said our good byes and Fatguy, Ryan and I left for LA around 4pm.

We took a break at a Carl's Jr, but pretty much got back around 9pm. It was about a 4.5 hour trip all told, and Ryan dropped me off at my house.

Its freezing at my house, and even though there are 3 heaters up here, none of them work, and the central heater isn't on for some reason. I'll check it out tomorrow.


I'll be going to vegas one more time this year, this time staying at Circus Circus. Sadly its the same week as the Holiday potluck, but I'm sure I'll get a good recap of it (yeah right)

I'm having a lot of conflicting feelings over this Winter season. Part of it is that I want to give so many of my friends who have helped me out this year presents, part of it is a feeling of leaving something unaccomplished (I don't know what) and some of it is actual emotions: Apathy, curiosity, apprehension, excitement, dread.

Yes this December will prove to be an interesting one. Vegas this weekend and on the 18-20. I don't know what I'm doing for new years, as far as I haven't decided which parties to go to.

http://amzn.com/w/2S6WJKO23DAHH

I show you mine you show me yours eh? ;)

Tuesday Night Phil Picked me up and we schlepped off to Vegas to catch the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) show, which of course showcases the current and future trends of Family Amusement Centers, theme parks, arcades, etc. We arrived at the Strip around midnight, and we tried to find the motel that we used during our Nationals trip. We picked the motel next to it without thinking lol. The lady was cool though and we got our room and conked out.

Wednesday morning was the first day the Public could enter, and Phil was able to secure VIP tickets through his company Paper Tickets Inc (the company behind the Redondo Fun Factory). We were waived the $89 entrance fee. A small breakfast at Carl's Jr and we were still pretty early, so we decided to walk to the LVCC. The motel was across the street from the Stratosphere, and the walk was only maybe a mile and a half, so even carrying my backpack it was simply a brisk walk.

Approaching the LVCC there seemed to be another convention on gaming as well, this however was for casino-type gaming. I personally wanted to check it out to see what they had in there, but Phil was adamant on getting to the show on time for the first day. Fine. There was some confusion when we got our tickets as He signed me under Paper Tickets but he signed himself under our own "company" Fistful of Quarters (FFoQ). They spent about 10 minutes trying to just change the name of his company back to Paper Tickets, but it was just a communication error between Phil's ghetto English and the Asian lady being too quiet. It was resolved though 5 minutes before the show opened.

Rather than go through what the days were I'm going to bullet list the more awesome stuff we saw there.

-Free Samples of food. Oh my god there was no need to spend money at this show, as all the concession companies brought free samples of their product. Carrie's Pizza, Noble Roman's pizza, Perky's Pizza (very delicious, best of the three pizza vendors); A mini-donut and pancake company, Coca-Cola was there promoting Vitamin water, Fuze tea, Full Throttle Twisted energy drink and Fanta Apple along with the main standbys and free Minute Maid frozen lemonade cups and pops, dozens of candy companies, Two companies that had grease-free frying methods were shelling out corn dogs, fries, jalapeño poppers, and other traditional "fried" foods; ICEE was there promoting a new flavor, several slushee and shaved ice companies were there, Dippin' Dots, 2 similar and other ice cream competitors were spread around the convention. A company called Chipstix had multiple locations and a cool idea of spiral-cutting potatoes and frying them on a stick, which gave them a chip-like look but way more potato flavor, and they had like 18 different seasonings you could try. Also a Capris Sun wanna-be company that had decent juice. Phil took crazy advantage of the free pizza while I gulped down more ICEES than I have since was like 9 years old LOL!

-Arcades. Andamiro, Sega/ICE, Raw Thrills, and a few chinese companies brought the heat with new, amazing "arcade" cabinets. Aside from the sit-down driving games like Sega Rally 3 and H2Overdrive (which are already out), Raw Thrills debuted a Terminator: Salvation arcade based on what looked that Ghost Squad game. There were a lot of Deluxe Cabinets with motion sensing and rumble support. Pretty much every driving game had an "attraction version" which cost like $20k more and had a stand-alone simulator, sort of like how Daytona USA had the life-like car mockups. There were a few prototype racing games set on pneumatic pylons that really moved the player around in 99% accurate g-forces to a race car. On top of that there were some enclosed simulators like the classic roller coaster ones we all know and love, except these rolled and spun in every possible direction, including upside down spinning. Very intense and it actually upset my stomach a bit.

-Mang Stainless Steel Art. Very cool sculptures at the show, including the people who made Chuck E. Cheese (he was there!) and the Ripley's Believe it or Not and Medieval Times wax sculptures (Lifeformations). Add that to a display of some of the best Pirate/demon sculptures (the Pirates of the Caribbean folks) and you had a lot of world-class talent in the halls with some great anamatronics. There were a few surprises as well with smaller puppet companies (the Goosebumps puppeteers) having some of the most bizarre presentations.

-Addicting Redemption games. Pretty much everyone now knows about Stacker, one of the recent and super addicting pseudo skill-based prize games. There were a lot more of those at the show this year from LAI games and competitors. Lai had a new version called Crack the Code which is a Price is Right-type game where the game gives you 9 numbers, and you have to push the button on the right numbers to crack it. of course the farther you get into the code, the faster the light meter spins. It also has the Stacker premise that you can stop at 6 numbers and get a worthless little prize, or hit continue to crack the last 3 numbers (if you can!). Kind of cool, but it wore off just like stacker. As far as the Crane games, Andamiro has a new one called Winners' Cube, which gives you control of a pole that you must move to poke through a hole in a window to push a prize out. If anyone has played Barber Cut (the fun and annoying game which has prizes on strings that you have one chance to move a razor blade to sever the string and win the prize) then they will know how annoying Winner' Cube is. You get only 2 buttons, Up and Right. you can only push each button once so if you fuck up, game over. Still addicting gameplay though and while me and this one lady were trying to figure it out, she mentioned "what if we were paying a dollar every time" and we both laughed nervously.

-New Game concepts! There is a game by Benchmark games that really impressed me called Big Tony's Pokerkard, which is a bar-style game that is all touch-screen, and 4 player texas hold-em. The trick is that when playing multi-player, you physically have to hold your hands over your own cards to check hem and so your opponents don't see. It added a level of personal interactivity to a game that I never saw before. Plus you get a card to hold all your credits (it's play money) that you tap on the game and it remembers how much you win or lose, and of course put in more money and you can rebuy if you want. There was also a gigantic balloon popping game. Skee-Ball corporation had a fun ticket game where you had to drop a token in on a spinning roulette wheel in numerical combinations to hit 21, which was a cool mix between Blackjack and Roulette. DJ Max Technika was there along with it's 2-player Chinese bootleg companion (thankfully they were placed far from each other).

-Uniforms, plush toys, mascot makers, umbrella sellers, and theme creators were also there, allowing any newbie FEC person to turn a drab arcade into a futuristic wasteland or tropical paradise or cartoon wonderland, all that corny theme stuff like how employees dress and sculptures, toys, etc. PLus customized items like purses, candy, pretty much anything you can think of in a theme park, there was a company and a rival for it. Fog machines, musical acts, special guests (there were 2 stunt dog companies and 3 special bird performers there [Owls have fucking crazy necks])

-INFLATABLES HOLY SHIT! The inflatable jumpers you see every so often are pure shit compared to the crazy amazing monstrosities they had at the show. Water slides, rock walls, pirate ships, monster trucks, tidal waves, robots, dinosaurs...we are talking two-story tall (24ft) adventureland goddamn obstacle courses with trick walls, ball pits, house areas, nets, slides, in every color you could possibly think of. I was in awe of the amazing construction they are capable of nowadays.

-Super Auctions had a booth there, this is where Phil, JSB and Erick got a lot of their machines for very cheap. The next one is December 19 and I plan on going to see whats up.

-Courses. I've been interested in ropes courses since high school but I've never been able to do a zip line or rope course before. There was a setup in the hall of a demo course (yes this is how big the hall was), and as I went on I loved every second of it. I'm heavily considering somehow going to one somewhere. RCI (Ropes Courses Inc.) had a very good model. There was also a Laser maze course that felt right out of the movie Entrapment, where a person would walk into a room and suddenly all these fucking lasers appear, and the goal is to get to the other side of the room, touch a pad, and get out as fast as possible without tripping the lasers. Tripping a laser adds 30 seconds to your time. There are beginner, easy, medium, and expert laser levels. they didn't show the expert levels, but the fucking beginner was hard enough for me. I had a million ideas in my head about that, and I really REALLY want to have one. Then of course there were baseball pitching machine/batting cage vendors, etc.

-Waterslide/Roller coaster vendors. These guys were the legit creators of actual theme parks around the world, and some of them had samples of the giant machinery it takes to move thousands of gallons of water or tons of steel track. The innovations in technology so far are crazy, and a lot of the cool new themes in roller coasters are displayed in the middle east (Dubai specifically) and China/Hong Kong. There was a vendor there, Aquarena, which had a heart-stopping launch capability for waterslides called AquaDrop: Most waterslides have the redlight/greenlight, where either you or a lifeguard push you down onto the slide and you continue. Aquadrop has you stand in a chamber with a countdown timer, and when it's time, the floor falls out from under and just drops you onto the slide already going fast. Doesn't sound like much, but it's like 0 to 2.5 G's in 1.5 seconds. Plus other people can watch you drop and it's just amazing. the demo the company had was a launcher into a short slide down, but that was enough to prove to me how amazing it would be for like a dropout-type slide, to just be standing, then instantly falling at 40 MPH into the slide with no horizontal movement to cause burns...ARRGH



So, two days of that nonsense. On the First night I went to Stratosphere Casino to try my first ever casino game of Texas hold-em. I watched for about a half hour on the sidelines, then when a new game series was announced ($1/$2 blinds with a 50 BB buy-in) I figured that was pretty much in my range, and I picked up $200 in chips. I sat in as the 8th person at the table, which was a pretty cool bunch of folks except for one asshole who thought he was hot shit at poker, talking about percentages and skill and all this shit, complaining that everyone was playing tight yet folding to everything as well. I really hated him but the other people were cool. Which was good because as I formally sat down I was stupidly nervous. My hands were shaking as i moved the chips around, and my voice was wavering. But within 5 hands I was able to 1.5x my chips (ie, I had around $325 in chips). It was a cash game so I could have (SHOULD HAVE) gone and left since I was ahead. but I kept playing to build experience.
Then I also forgot that the casino chicks give free alcohol. So 2 strong jack and cokes later I think I was getting cocky as I made one older guy leave the table (he was really cool about it though, we both played well), and one other former casino employee cussed me out after my A/J beat his A/8. I folded a K/3 when the flop and turn ended up being Q/J/A then 10. I kind of hit myself for that. After that though I think I was getting cocky and the asshole player was talking to this one Swedish player, ON HIS DICK about swedes being "amazing poker players" because "they respect the money" and "weren't easy money like this guy"-and he points to me, the fucker- even though I already took people out. I think he called me that because I folded as BB before the flop even with no raise. Fuck him. Well to the Swede's credit he was trying to ignore the guy and put up his hoodie and baseball cap to discourage, but the guy would not shut up, and so the guy started taunting the other players and in general being a nuisance, but I guess that was his strategy? I lost a few hands, then I lost it all when I went heads up with the Swede. I had A/9 and the flop was 6/4/9. Yay I thought, top pair unless he had pocket something higher than 9. He raised and I called, the turn was useless and we both checked, last card comes out and it's a 6. I'm like fuck yeah two pair (6 and 9). He goes all in and I call it.
Fuck he has the third 6. I bust and leave the table, but not after the dealer compliments me on my singing. Wonderwall was playing and I was kinda singing along quietly, but I was to the dealer's right. She heard me and said I really sang it well :3 So all in all even though I lost $200 I consider it a benefit to get over my casino jitters in a major Vegas casino (rather than the bullshit ghetto casinos here in LA), learn to ignore the shit-talkers, watch the quiet guys, and be nice to all the normal people. Tip the dealer if you win a decent pot, and watch my tells (I did this by constantly smiling and acting like I was distracted and not caring about my hand, only checking the cards once). I feel good about going to an LA Casino now and owning face, so I want to do that pretty soon. Or maybe going to Vegas one last time in December under the auspices of the DDR Finals, hehe.


Overall My new impossible life goal is to repurchase the land that Malibu Castle and Monsoon Lagoon were on and remake them into a destination again with an arcade, new minigolf courses, a laser maze, batting cages and either go-kart track or ropes course to take a lot of the open space. I'll be lightly looking into the square footage and price of that parcel since it' only used as trucker stop at the moment.