A 48hr Layover November 24, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Genius.Tags: las vegas trip gambling
add a comment
The plan to go home for Thanksgiving took a minor detour. The pacific Baltimore consulates would be returning to the homeland, but not without a quick stop in Las Vegas.
The concept for the Vegas trip is unlike any other as far as anticipation is concerned. We got a bunch of buddies from home together for a trip, and for weeks in advance, the emails sent back and forth made us look like the biggest losers on the planet. “Dude, no one is going to sleep!” “Bro…we’re going cougar hunting man. Whoever bangs the oldest cougar wins, man!” Vegas is billed as a paradise of sin and opportunity, where you roll into palatial casinos like you’re in the rat pack. You’re James Bonded out, you’re rolling in duckets, and you will absolutely, definitely get laid. Repeatedly. That’s Vegas.
Vegas isn’t seven dudes in a single hotel room, with a pact that whoever loses the most gets a bed. Vegas isn’t rolling over to O’Shea’s or Imperial Palace in search of a two dollar blackjack table. Vegas isn’t guys in sweatpants and elderly women without arms carrying around players cards so when they play five hundred hours of video poker they get a shrimp cocktail.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because if it got out, no one would ever fucking go.
Think about this for a second, the INSANITY of it; you’re in an environment where you know you’re going to fail. The entire city is built on the absolute certainty that if you stay long enough, you are going to lose. Plus, they’re feeding you booze! They’re coming right out and saying that they are going to impair you. It’s like someone saying, “Okay man, go ahead and try to jump over that crevice in your ATV. Oh, I’ll be shooting at your ballsack with an airgun. Good luck, sir.”
The moniker of sin city doesn’t exactly fit either. For one thing, it’s the most religious city in America. That’s right. I’m not talking about religion that tells you it’s wrong to do a rail of blow off a set of gigantic fake tits, because that’s never wrong (cue Leykis). I’m talking about God and magic and shit that’s doesn’t make sense. That’s what religion is after all. People are afraid to question their faiths because they’re terrified of dying. People flock to Vegas because they’re terrified that someone else is going to get their free money. But it’s true. You do ridiculous things under the influence of that place. The concept of a Hot Shooter, for example. When you’re underway at a craps table, you believe that the guy in the Corona Visor and the t-shirt that says “Ass: The Other Pussy” can, in some way, throw the dice in a manner that will get them to land exactly the way he wants to. He has no discernible skills and works at a car wash, but knows enough of vector physics to time four hundred bounces correctly. This is what we’re banking on. He stacks the dice up, switches them really fast, wiggles his hand like it’s a salmon over top of it, pretends to finger-bang the table, wipes the imaginary secretion under his nostril, and screams “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!” every forty five seconds. And then there’s that moment when you’re rolling the dice, and you’ve had about seven Red Bull and vodkas compounded by the contact buzz off the phermaldehyde holding the cocktail waitress together, when it hits you. I can control the dice! I can throw any number I want! I am magical! I can see into the future! KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
Seven out.
Two of us walked away in the black. Severely. The rest were in the red. Also severely. It was my worst gambling defeat of all time. I reached a point of absolute sartori, standing outside The Palms watching the sun threaten to come up over the mountains, signaling that the trip was over and that any attempt to get back to even would be in vain. Technically, they were all in vain, but the next one never is. I imagined how a hangover would just start to develop once I got in the security line at McCarran.
Then I started to think about the next trip, and how ridiculous it was going to be.
That’s Vegas.
Howard Smead for President October 31, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Genius, Immigration, Politics.add a comment
I always do my best to remain as nonpartisan as possible when discussing election tactics because I personally believe that it’s a ridiuclous dog and pony show fought ferociously unfairly by both sides. Unfortunately, I was a student of Howard Smead.
I expect various campaign extremists to jump on their podiums, soap-boxes, and stationary tractors to cry blasphemy and paint the opposition as a satan-worshipping, cattle-raping lush. But not the president of the United States, especially not while China is stepping up to the plate with North Korea, a proposed border wall has made people very unhappy and, oh yeah, the bloodiest month in a four year old war is about to come to a close.
So strike number one was that the man has better things to do than to stump for his frat brothers and golf buddies. The real problem ties back to Smead’s Culture Wars, which this president is intentionally trying to incite. In recent campaign stops in Georgia and Texas, the president made the following remarks, as reported by the BBC:
“President George W Bush used campaign stops in Georgia and Texas to warn that election victory for the Democrats would mean “terrorists win and America loses”. Meanwhile, Vice-President Dick Cheney said insurgents in Iraq were increasing their attacks in order to influence the mid-term vote.” Voting against Bush’s team means you support Al-Qaeda and have a big, celebratory barbeque every year on 9/11, that’s basically what Bush is getting at. He’s using the “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” catchphrase to divide our own nation as well. Dick Cheney’s jaundiced remarks are less hateful, just more oblivious (for the record, I don’t believe for a second that Cheney believes what he says here; he’s way to smart of a man). This makes sense considering his party’s base is the uneducated and oblivious. To think that the insurgents in Iraq give a flying fuck about our elections is complete narcissistic insanity. Believe it or not, Al-Qaeda is not tuning in to The O’Reilly Factor for updates. In case you haven’t been following the war, or the history of islamist jihad, or even the history of fanatical religion in general, you’d understand that their mentality is even more “with us or against us” than our own leadership. There is only one true god, Allah, and all who follow false prophets will be destroyed. That’s the tagline for any fundamentalist religion; sub Jesus for Allah and you’ve got yourself the Westboro Baptist Church. Using the war to paint the democrats as terrorists is exploitative, and I wouldn’t be so pissed about it if I didn’t know that a few million people will vote next week with this exact message in mind, believing it wholeheartedly as they fumble with their TiVos to make sure they catch the finale of Blue Collar Tv.
Another great quote from the president: “If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don’t have one. Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, yet they don’t have a plan for victory.” And what’s yours, Mr. President? Or are you still living in the fantasy world aboard that carrier where you so famously and prematurely declared “Mission Accomplished”?
It is an impeachable offense to deliberately try to divide the country. The last man to do that was Jefferson Davis. For the religiously minded, check out Caina in the Inferno to see where that crime stacks up against embezzlement, insider trading, and illegal wire-tapping.
Considering the alternative currently sitting in office has said that “When it comes to evolution, the jury’s still out”, maybe a satan-worshipping, cattle-rapist lush is just what we need.
Analyze This March 23, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Chicago, Common Sense, Genius.add a comment
I have been quoted a dozen or so times as flat-out mentioning that given the proper amount of time, I can figure anything out. That gigantic oystering net encompasses everything from what people are thinking to how to install a gas stove. With any luck, the latter will not be challenged, as it is kind of like culinary Cambodia behind my stove at the moment; in the brief time I have lived in this particular apartment, I have accidentally launched butter, tomato sauce, ground beef, lettuce, scrambled egg, a coat hanger (which was supposedly used to collect the butter), a slice of smoked gouda, and a Comcast cable bill (don’t ask) into the thin crevasse behind my oven. Needless to say, the next person to go back there will be shaking hands with the foulest situation they’ve ever come across.
Anyway, I can figure most things out. That would come across as an arrogant statement (and maybe it does) if I wasn’t convinced that anyone could do it. Some people can do things faster than others; I’ve met kids who can assemble the Lego pirate ship in 20 minutes, and others who eat the red – “cherry” – pieces. Forgetting that knowledge doesn’t need to be a horserace, anyone can figure anything out if they don’t get in their own way.
That’s the trick. Especially with dealing with people. If you attach any sort of desired end result to your analysis, you’re going to screw it up. It’s counterintuitive to figuring out most things. If you’re trying to set up a TiVo, you know what the end result is going to be: a functioning TiVo. People are different, and when they are pigeonholed into predetermined spots…well, that’s how you get war, racism, punditry, and virtually every other problem existing today. Except bird flu. That’s no one’s fault…except for the cockfighting “coaches” who don’t understand that ThunderCapon has a disease who could kill everyone on the planet. I’ve made a sweeping judgment about them. Fuck them.
The first lesson is not a popular one and is in agreement with Malcolm Gladwell: your first impression is almost always right. Now before the hate mail comes pouring in, I would like to express what it is I mean by “first impression.” I don’t mean the first time you see someone, I mean your initial interaction. It could be anything, as long as a conversation or as short as a look from across the El platform. You’re going to know exactly what you’re dealing with almost immediately.
It’s the oldest statement in the bad-cop-movie lexicon: the Eyes Never Lie. In every interrogation scene, or poker scene for that matter, the analyst gathers flawless, CSI-foolproof information by watching his target’s eyes. Give TJ Hooker ten seconds of eye contact and he knows what you had for breakfast that morning. It’s that kind of hyperbole that forces us to dismiss the claims that the Eyes Can’t Lie. But they can’t, and never do.
The most basic way to figure out what’s going on is to be conscious of what your eyes are doing when you’re thinking different things; when you spot a smoking hot chick, when you want to punch someone in the face, when you’re so bored you start reciting movies line by line in your head. In poker, where do you look when you have a hand? When you’re trying to get away from someone in a bar that you’re considering faking a knee injury like a soccer player, where are you looking? Here’s a newsflash: everyone operates the same way. People think different things and like different things and react differently than others, but the intristic wiring of everyone operates exactly the same way. When you’re pissed, intrigued, or looking to get laid, your eyes are doing the exact same thing everyone else’s are in that situation.
This is not, of course, a universal rule. While watching someone’s eyes will tell you absolutely everything you need to know about them, people don’t always take the time to check. They get so wound up in what people say or what they think is going on that they shirk any and all patience and try to make a judgment. Here’s a secret: you can’t try to make a judgment, you’ve just got to figure it out as you go. That is often accompianied by fear, but only because people are afraid of being wrong. If you’re not clinging to some end result, you can’t be wrong, therefore you can’t lose. The truth is going to be there.
Here’s the real clincher: what if you’re afraid of being right? Aye, there’s the rub. Been there, a number of times. Two different, yet equally terrible, ways to react to that one: 1) deluding yourself into thinking that it’s not the case and; 2) working like crazy to prevent it from happening. Neither of them work. Delusion only lasts so long and makes you feel like an idiot when all is said and done and preventing it just never works. You can’t drop the Terminator’s arm into the smelting pot in this case, plus you start second guessing yourself. Bad news, tragedy ensues.
People are overly speculative, myself included. You can only project so far ahead before you find yourself walking a bike with training wheels along a perfectly mapped out path wearing a foam helmet. Fear is ridiculous. Wait, I need to rephrase that, because the original Ring scared the crap out of me. Fear of failure, in any capacity, is ridiculous. It’s all in our heads. We only fear what we’ve predetermined. It’s much easier to regret something you did than something you didn’t do. Someone famous said that, but I’m not going to footnote them. Regret sucks either way, and it’s an infinitely worse feeling than fear. Regret is Mike Tyson and Fear is Don Flamenco.
The worst way to live is to be afraid of being wrong about the future. A better way is to just see what happens and trust that it’ll be okay.
Keep your eyes open and you’ll see what I mean.
