17 BLACK...
WINNER!

I left for Las Vegas on a Friday morning with a dream in my heart and a smile on my face.

I awoke with a start, mere seconds before my rarely utilized alarm clock got a chance to finally end his silence. Ha! Sucker.

It was 8:00 o'clock. Apparently they have one of those in the morning now, too. G.W. was right, the damn gay marriage is ruining everything.

After a quick packing job (hour and a half) we left the house, and we only had to come back twice to grab things we forgot. So we set out for the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank at 10:15 for our 11:00 flight and we made it just in time.

By just in time, I of course mean, just in time to give up our seats to some stand-by passengers in exchange for a trip in a "shuttle" to Ontario Airport, which I for one, had never even heard of. It wasn't that bad because we also got a free flight, and some drink tickets. Oh, and $250 dollars, each.

So by the time we actually set foot on Nevada soil, or rather, carpeting, we were already up a deuce and a half. No, I'm sorry. Do me a favor, take that number, and double it.

After we checked into our first hotel, The Tuscany, we quickly walked down the street to meet my good friend, Swidler from Homicide, in his very crowded living room that just happened to be in the same place as the sportsbook at Ceasar's Palace. We grabbed a couple drinks in one of the bars, and they tasted way better than they should have for only 8 bucks a piece. We watched the first half of the Huskies loss to UAB, and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for some dinner.

Our actual reason for being in Las Vegas, as if we needed one, was our friend Carrie Jenkins. She's finishing Graduate School at UNLV with a degree in fine art, and she held her thesis/gallery show that we had the honor to attend.

Once we arrived on the UNLV campus I felt the familiar pangs of regret that I always experience because I never got the chance to owe a school like this multiple thousands of dollars.

The gallery was very nice. Completely empty of furniture, and featuring white walls and hardwood floors, it seemed to look exactly like it should. Oh, and there was an open bar.

Bravo Carrie. Bravo.

During the evening I met a lot of different folks. First and foremost, was my man Jim Beam who is awesome with just a couple ice cubes. The gallery patrons were an interesting lot. The majority of people were Carrie's family and then there were some folks between 40 and 50 and it seemed like they went to art shows with some frequency.

Then there were the art students. You could tell who they were by their crazy hair and tattoos all over their bodies. I immediately warmed to these folks and wished that I had more tatts and/or piercings to impress them with, but alas. One incredibly cool girl named Jessica Starkey took us to her studio, and we listened to some gangsta rap, looked at some of her hilarious artwork, and smoked some great hash that her boyfriend brought.

I was really enjoying myself. And I hadn't even started gambling yet.

When we returned to the gallery it was really crowded, and I decided to step outside for a minute to make some drunken phone calls, it's one of my favorite hobbies.

Once the party was over I went with the freaks to a dive bar called Champagne's, where ironically enough, they don't have champagne on the menu. It was fun just watching the local drunks hit on the local prostitute and then get in fights with each other only to be hugging two minutes later. Someone made the remark that if you just ignored the fact that they were human, it was like watching the Discovery Channel. Only in real life. Oh, and you're drunk.

We went back to the hotel and I proceeded to win 75 dollars playing Craps, which I am notoriously bad at, then we went to bed. I wanted to gamble more, but I knew there would be ample time for that.

NOTE: That night we watched the "movie" Timeline, which is so bad that it rivals Battlefield Earth for worst movie of all time. Watch it only if you're currently making a movie and need a good example of what not to do.

The next morning I woke up and ran down to the casino. In hindsight, I could have walked and kept that $120 for a least two more minutes. Oh well, I lied to myself, it's only money. I laid by the pool for a while and drank the first and last pina colada of my lifetime, and strategized on a system that this guy told me about to win at blackjack. The way it works is this:

Every time you lose, you double your bet. Eventually, you'll win and make all of your money back, plus one bet.

Now that sounds simple, I know. But that's because I left out the part about needing balls of solid rock to pull it off. Let's say you're betting $5 and you lose. And lose. And lose.

If you lose six times in a row, which you will, you will be placing a bet of $160. If you lose again, it's $320. I don't want to sound like a pansy, but I'm not so sure I have what it takes to put that much money in the little betting circle after I'm already down three hundy. In fact, let's be absolutely clear, I'm positive that I don't have what it takes. I'll just stick to betting dollars on Roulette.

That reminds me, it's time to get to the good part.

On Monday, Darla and I decided to take in a little film called "Dawn of the Dead", and being the zombie fan that I am, I enjoyed it. However, my fragile girlfriend informed me after the show that she needed to "scrub that piece of shit off of my brain" and so we walked to the Bellagio Hotel and Casino to look at their fabulous flower garden.

Since I regard flowers in much the same way that Darla regards zombies, it wasn't long before I had chosen a roulette wheel to throw my money at.

I dropped my hundred dollar bill on the soft green felt and asked the kindly dealer named Illysha for "nickels, please.", and she gave me a stack of twenty red discs. I took six of them and placed one straight up on 17, my lucky number, and spread the rest out on the board in such a manner as to guarantee me at least my 30 dollars back, as long as the ball didn't land on 1,2,3, or the 0's. After about two spins, my fears were realized as the dreaded number 3 appeared. There goes my $30 bucks. Waitress!

But the waitress was nowhere to be seen, so I picked up six more chips and placed them strategically, and man, am I glad that I did. Sure enough,

"17 Black. Winner!" Said Illysha as she pushed over a stack of chips towards me that equaled $175.

"Wow," I thought. "maybe I should stop now." But I didn't. Thank God.

I went on to hit 17 three more times at that table and then went to other casinos and hit twice more. And that pretty much paid for the trip.

So, I'm forced to harken back to my last blog post, when I mentioned the four words that keep me and millions like me going back to Sin City.

What If I Win.

When I posted that pre-trip, I was kidding, just poking fun at the incredible gullibility of the general populace.

And now that I've won? Have my feelings changed on the matter?

Of course not. But my new basketball shoes sure are comfy.

WORST BLOG EVER

Good Morning. It's almost time for the men's NCAA basketball tournament and I've got ants in my pants. Ah! Ants in my pants! Be right back.

That's better.

As excited as I am for the tourney, I'd like to discuss another type of madness.

What the fuck is wrong with these Al Queda guys anyway? Do they want Bush in office for another four years? It seems to me that if they are responsible for the senseless acts in Spain, (and it's looking more likely that they are) then that only bolsters support for G.W. and his war on terror.

On the other hand, what if the American People break with tradition and are smart about this? Will they see that the real reason these attacks can continue is because Bush is wasting our time in Iraq when he should still be hunting these thugs down for what they did 2 1/2 years ago, let alone last week.

Let me take it a step farther in saying that if Al Q. had the time and resources to plan this attack, they don't seem to be nearly as decimated internally as our administration purported them to be. Could it be that again, as in the State of The Union, the white house is purposely beefing up it's "factual claims" to support it's own agenda?

The worst part about all of this, is that apparently these guys have figured out that they don't necessarily have to kill themselves in order to carry out devastating acts of atrocity. That sucks, because at least before we were getting some of them, and now that all we have left to rely on is Bush's idea of intelligence, I'm starting to get a little nervous.

And seriously, how many different ways can you spell Al-Qida? I've seen many variations, none of which look exactly right. They need to get their P.R. guy on the scene, pronto!

And now, for an entirely different type of Madness.

I'm going to Las Vegas on friday.

I'm more than a little excited to be surrounded by millions of blinking lights and security cameras and given free cocktails for as long as I can drink them. Some would argue that the drinks aren't free. They'd say I'm actually paying a lot more for them than I normally would with all of the money I lose. To those people I respond with the four words that has kept Las Vegas in business for all the years;

What if I win?

I might, you know.

Today is St. Patrick's day. In Ireland they use this holiday to pay tribute to some guy, I forget his name, who got all of the snakes in the country so drunk that they all died of alcohol poisoning. That's a lot of Zima.

Ridding an entire country of snakes is an impressive feat, even if that country is the size of Bellevue Square*. Now, if someone was to rid this country of all of it's snakes, I would strongly consider voting for him over Kerry. Who am I kidding? I'd vote for Mark Siano if I thought he could beat Bush.
But, alas, he can't. Mark has virtually no left hand, and if Bush gets hot from the outside, it's over.

Zing! I got him again folks!

Wish me luck in Vegas. Go Huskies!

Meaning UCONN. I mean, who are we trying to kid?



*For those of you reading The Pinyon in California, just substitute the Sherman Oaks Galleria for Bellevue Square. Thank you and Good Night!

OOPS.

A Note From The Staff: Previously when we stated that we'd be posting on Monday, we neglected to take into account the fact that we had not cleaned our apartment since a week before the show, and also we had just purchased a new video game for our xbox entitled "Ninja Gaiden" which we will give a resounding thumbs up. Hence, no blog. We'd like to sincerely apologize to all of our readers, both real and imagined. It will most definitely happen again.


Hey everybody!
Well, we finished the Habit show on Sunday and my girlfriend and I headed to my friend Will's house along with six other couples who came to see the show, to get down to some serious drinking. During the course of that evening's conversations, something became very apparent to me, I can't say that I'm surprised, but I was more than a little jealous to find out that apparently Steven Unckles is fucking hilarious.

And that sucks, because I couldn't even get hilarious' phone number. I was like,
"How you doin', Hilarious? I got a pool." and NOTHING.

Seriously though, everyone there had just seen the show and every time I went fishing for a compliment on my performance, I came up with kudos for Steve. It got so bad that I started disagreeing with them so that they'd shut up already. But even that backfired.

I'd say something like, "Yeah, he's kinda funny I guess, but you should see his room."

And they'd all reply in unison, "Can we see his room? That would be great! Is he coming tonight?"

Me: "No, he went to go pick up some hookers and blow."

Them: "Is that what he said? That's sooo funny!"

Enough people, I get the frigging point.

So, it looks like I'm going to have to come to grips with the fact that I am now the 5th funniest member of The Habit. (Take that Mark, who doesn't even read these blogs)

I'm OK with that, as long as I'm still the cute one, like my Mommy says.

The show itself was fun to do, but I only wish we'd had an opportunity to really get to know it before it was gone. It's like an awesome dog that you get when you're a kid and then he gets hit by a car two days later. Ahh, what might have been...

Anyway, from a legal standpoint, I'm forced to now acknowledge the fact that in my previous blog post I used the headline "Riding the Over-Reactor Tractor", and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I did not make that up. It was stolen, and for that I'm sorry. The person who coined that phrase deserves to be given all the credit.

It's been hot as hell lately and I thank my lucky stars everyday when I get up that I don't still live in The Great Pacific Northwest. To anyone who does, forgive me, I'd like to keep writing, but I'm going to go lay by the pool.

********************************************************************
Also, a happy 22nd birthday today to my littlest sister Claire, who is without a doubt the coolest person below the Mason-Dixon Line, and way too cool to read online journals.

RIDING THE OVER-REACTOR TRACTOR


So, I've spent some time over at John Titor dot com and I have to confess my deep and relentless curiosity.

Is it because I'm intrigued by the mere premise of time travel, as we all are, or is it that the answers Mr. Titor gives to the questions posed contain more than just a hint of something that feels genuine?

Basically, what I'm asking is,

Is this guy for real?

Now, I'm not a sap. Nor am I easily convinced of anything ever since I was 17 and figured out that God was just like Santa. Both are old white men, both have big full beards, and both are ficticious entities designed to scare simple minds into behaving correctly. So why am I inclined to listen to this Titor guy and not the guy with the question-mark jacket screaming on the TV about all the free government money?

I don't know. But I am. Perhaps it's the science fiction geek in me, but I want there to be time travelers. And also, I want there to be a Government vs. The People civil war. We'd totally win, even though they have all the tanks and stuff that kills people.

I'm sincerely interested in what my readers think about this subject, and also I'd like to know if they have any thoughts about:

A. Water on Mars. (yay.)

B. The fact that Bill Murray was robbed.

C. The lack of any consistent blog posting these days.

Speaking of that, I'll be working on the new Habit show until Sunday night, so don't expect any more Pinyons until Monday. I don't know what time Monday, but definitely before Davf posts his.

In the meantime, it's back to reading about the five different Presidents of The United States. I mean, back to learning my lines.

Be strong Nillas, for the end is near. Maybe.