Saturday, March 27, 2010

Vegas, baby!

Tuesday morning I headed up to Las Vegas with Mikey and Tyler for the GAMA trade show. Mike and I went last year, and we've learned a lot since then. This year instead of getting our own booth we were set up in the PSI booth, alongside Steve Jackson Games, Tablestar Games, and the guys who made Castle Panic (a cool guy I met at BGG.con last year).

This year our goal was just to get retailers to sign up for Mike's Retailer Mailing list, so that he can send them information about upcoming releases such as promo art and special pre-order deals. We brought a bunch of our plush dragons to give away to retailers in exchange for their contact information - a good deal for them since they like to get that kind of information anyway! The dragons were a big hit - they're the last business card you'll ever throw away! :)

This trip to Vegas I was determined to do some gambling. The last few trips I didn't get to play much Craps or anything like that. This time I played Craps with Tyler for a while, and for a lot more money than the $2 tables I used to play at Slots-A-Fun! It was exciting drop $30-$50 on the odds behind my $10 pass line bet, fill up most of the numbers on the board, and then have $70 at a time roll in on every roll! Of course, money can get lost really fast that way as well... You win some, you lose some, and I ended up pretty much even for the whole trip.

I also played a little Blackjack Switch, which is a Blackjack variant that I found pretty fun. I usually dislike Blackjack, but this variant felt more fun because you get to do something that would normally be considered cheating - you play 2 hands at a time, and you can swap the 2nd cards between the 2 hands if you want. This of course makes it much easier to get a good hand, so to make up for that a Blackjack only pays 1-1 rather than 3-2 or 6-5 like on most Blackjack tables. Also, if the dealer gets 22, it counts as a push for everyone.

One thing I like about that is that, like Pai Gow Poker, it seems common to win one hand and lose the other, thereby not losing any money. Once in a while you lose both, and once in a while you win both, but you can play a long time without going broke, even if luck isn't with you!

This trip happened to overlap my 35th birthday, which was fun. One thing I wanted to do was to go to Tony Roma's, which used to be my favorite restaurant - and they closed all their locations in Tucson. Michael didn't want to go there, so I was going to go by myself. He reluctantly agreed when he realized it was my birthday, but was pretty complainy about it the whole time which was a buzzkill. On top of that, it turned out the service was pretty terrible, Mike's soup smelled awful, they were out of Ranch dressing and didn't tell us until his salad came, they forgot my corn on the cob, and they were very slow all around. I'm afraid this experience, in addition to just not having been there in a long time, that they discontinued my favorite chocolate cake, and that the last time I went with Tyler and Stirler something very similar happened has turned me off of Tony Roma's for good :/ In any case, I was crazy not to think of going to one of the many Buffets on the strip. Not too long ago I went to the buffet t Mandalay Bay and absolutely loved it. From now on I plan to do that instead when I go to Vegas!

All in all it was a fun trip to Las Vegas - despite a stupid speeding ticket I got in Wickenburg from a sneaky unmarked cop when the speed limit drops suddenly from 65 to 45 and then to 35. :(

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

Sounds like your trip was fun!! I had fun on my bday trip to Vegas too...

Too bad about Tony Roma's. Maybe that's why they've been closing their locations.

The buffets are pretty fabulous, so it seems like those are the way to go when in town. You can eat right away AND there's something for everyone! :-)