Day 3 Monday October 27

The deal at the Cal was pretty simple: Four comped nights, two meal books, one Parlor suite, which is the same as a normal room, except it is 50% bigger and has a couch.
Our offers from Boyd have been weird. Our play has gone up, but our offers haven't. Others get things that we don't get. In fact, I stopped getting invited to some video poker tournaments. I'd even had a phone conversation with a marketing rep many months ago to see if there was some problem. Apparently, I was getting everything I should have. It didn't make much sense to me but I resolved to try yet again to find out why other places downtown such as the Four Queens gave us many superior offers with about the same, or even less, play. In fact, our offers didn't include the meal "book" - we just ask our host for those and she has taken care of it the last couple of trips.

The morning in the casino started with the shrieking sounds of metal on metal, loud pounding, and some rather humorous farting-like noises; in this case, courtesy of the construction going on where the Pasta Pirate and the cage were.

It was too noisy to play there, so we headed to the other side of the casino. I opted for 50 cent double double bonus.. I like this level because the Aces with kicker paid a cool grand, without any tax issues. But to get the Aces with kicker, I'd need to get fours of a kind - of which I got none over an hour and a quarter.

It was about then that an interesting looking fellow with a Fu Manchu vibe going on, featuring a very long, thin beard - I'm talking a foot and a half long - sat down beside me and asked if I was having any luck. I told him what hadn't happened. He almost immediately hit $100 on Keno. And I almost immediately started hitting some quads.
Dude was Fu Goodlucky!

It was so noisy in the casino that the Quad Queen brought down her noise-cancelling headphones and wore them while she played. She was playing all sorts of high- volatility games in a desperation play since she hadn't hit any quads of note... games like Ultra Mega Double Triple Quadruple Super Times Ultimate F**ker Bonus Poker. This proved "unsuccessful."

We headed to Main Street Station, whereupon the Quad Queen beat the shit out of 3-play, went to 5-play and beat the shit out of that, then went to 10-play and played like a maniac. She once again got over 2000 credits, but cashed at 800. She was still searching for that dealt hand on 10-play. (A Royal dealt on 10-play quarters is not to be trifled at. It would be $10,000.)

For breakfast, the almost Quadless Queen had Steak and, and I did the old order - two eggs any style - and add the buffet thing. Sadly, I mistimed the arrival of my eggs any style and peaked too early with the load of buffet slop. So my eggs any style were out of kilter with my country throw-up gravy.

She kept playing and the machine kept spitting out tickets whenever a win took her over $1200. It was a great session indeed!

We planned to eat dinner at the Redwood Grille so we wanted just a light lunch. This meant salad trough at the Cal. I actually had the half a sandwich (chicken salad), soup (split pea), and salad trough. The chicken salad was excellent with big chunks of real chicken (not fake chicken) and the soup was excellent too. The peas were split perfectly and the soup was nice and moist.Salad trough at the cal has my other favorite cucumber salad dish - it's a spicy pickly cucumber dish called Spicy Pickly Cucumbers. I love that shit.

After lunch, we headed over to Mike's bar at the Four Queens to renew acquaintances with the Mikes, and drink some drinks and play that fab 9/6 Double Double progressive video poker. Actually, some of the games have Royal progressives which get stupidly high, and sometimes the QQ favors those choices. Do check out the quarter jacks and dollar jacks Royal progressives when you play there.

At the Fremont on Super Times Pay, I sat beside one of those guys that give you a weird vibe. He was like a silent talk show host. He never stopped moving, not for one moment, whether he was f**king with his ever present cigarette, his drink, playing, whatever. He never looked at me or acknowledged me once, which suited me fine.
Sometimes you get those people. When you play the machines all day, every day, dawn to dusk, with no breaks like we do, you do run into problem gamblers.

The Quad Queen made two or three hundred bucks while I lost about that much and finally insisted on getting the hell out of there.

We played by the keno area for a while but nothing magical happened. Back at the Cal, we headed up for a rest (getting four keno tickets on the way). We agreed to split the winnings.

At 7:30 we headed down for dinner at the Redwood Grille. I plan on doing a separate restaurant review later, as we ate here more than once.

Our server Janelle was terrific. I had a glass of red wine, and started with the escargot. They were piping hot, but kind of chewing, with little grits in them. I wouldn't order them again. (Hugo's does a better job of escargot, so that is my go to snail place... it just takes forever to get there.)

Mrs. F had French onion soup (made with the very finest of French onions), which I ate half of. Me, turn down cheese? Are you kidding?

My entree was filet with crab legs, both excellent, and Mrs. F had filet with a lobster tail. She reflects that they tend to overcook lobster in the west. Her family is from the east and they know lobster. She's found this to be the case everywhere we go in Vegas. Are we unlucky or is it a trend? I just don't know.

The filets were perfect, delish, and very enjoyable.

After dinner, we went up to change and looked at Keno on the TV. On one game, Mrs. Flusher had played our usual numbers except with one missing. We hit five out of five and the sixth usual number hadn't hit. So yay us!

We gave the Treasure Chest coin droppers a visit and we both hit quads. This meant carrying three huge heavy buckets of metal coins up to the fake cage on the second floor.

The lineup was huge and my two buckets were getting very heavy; however, I solved the problem handily by taking the two buckets up to the front and leaving them on the shelf there, and then returning back to the line.

On my way I asked no one in particular, "Anyone want some coins?...." This caused consternation in many quarters. The Coin Queen was apoplectic. The other people in line were very uncomfortable. I really didn't think anyone would take my coins, but it was a breach of coin protocol nonpareil. Even the security guy looked uncomfortable. With a sigh, I went back to my coins and guarded them until the Quad Queen joined me in line.

On our way up to bed, who should get into the elevator but my lucky Fumanchu guy. "How was your day?" I asked. "Any luck?" "My day was allllll right," he said with a smile. "You?" "It was pretty good."

Royal Flusher: Day -$500 Trip +$3150
Quad Queen: Day +$1185 Trip +$45

Combined: +$3195

Day 4 Tuesday October 28, 2014

Deadly Day 4, our last day at the Cal (for this stint), started out, as usual, at the Cal. Favorite server Judy was on holidays, so getting a proper latte at Lappert's without insulting her was now an option, and I did just that.

I was frightened to enter Lappert's. It was as if a big, doughy hand was raised in front of my saying "DO NOT ENTER LAPPERT'S!" I tried not to look at the big doughy hand but it had mesmerized me. It was all I could do to get out of there with my coffee and my life, given the unholy curse of the big doughy hand.

A little play at the Cal, and then a lot of play at Main Street Station ensued.

I tried a couple of different machines and a couple of different games. The Quad Queen was Qruising along, doing fairly well and getting scratch cards.

Giving Double Double spinners a shot, I played for an hour and a quarter on triple play (about 2000 hands, I reckon) without getting a quad. Even though it was short pay I managed to keep going.

"Do you think it is because I drank the forbidden coffee of the doughy hand?" I asked the Quad Queen. "Shut up and deal."
I finally got a good spinner hand on Bonus Poker, 5x a quad.

Got a couple other quads too.

The floor person game me a scratchcard and I noticed, once again, the button they all wear which says, "Aloha spoken here!" I said, "I wish someone would speak Aloha to me." She stopped writing, looked at me, and shrieked in a mock angry tone, "ALOHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I shrieked back, "ALOHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Holy crap it was funny.

I was down about $250 and the Queen about $100, Time to eat. The Market Street Cafe at the Cal makes a pretty good omelette (courtesy of the coupon book). That's what I had for breakfast. The veggie omelette in particular, is delish it turns out.

I like to exercise my 10 year old wit (that is, the wit of a ten-year-old) when I gaze upon the whiteboard listing the specials at the coffee shop whilst waiting to settle the bill.
The game is, with one swipe of the finger, what rude, obnoxious, or otherwise immature and stupid words can you end up with?

We headed back to the Cal to play some Jacks in the alcove. At the end of that session, the tally was not good. I was down $400 and Mrs. F had blown through a lot of her stake of $950 - she had $300 left.

What to do? Get $100 worth of Keno tickets, a $4 bottle of wine, some Jameson's, and head up to the room for Keno and wine and liquor and showers and snack and naps.

After a long break (including more Keno losing) we went at the slant tops at the Cal, got some quads. I think I made $100 at it.

More multi-play at MSS and more scratch cards, many of them not worth $5000. All of them, actually, not worth $5000. Okay, here's why you tip the floor staff on a Royal.

I finished my session and went to the Men's. We'd meet by the cage. Mrs. Flusher had hit a straight flush and was waiting for a scratch card. I did the berlin wall painting and was waiting for her outside the washroom entrances, just kind of looking around at different machines. One of the staff (Albert, I think) came up to me and pointed at the Quad Queen, who was just returning from the Ladies'. "Is that your wife there?" he asked. "Yes, she is." "Here. She didn't cash out her machine." He handed me a ticket for $76.25. Astoundingly good service. I made sure to tell his boss.

We'd planned dinner for 777 Brew Pub at MSS, but the racket in there was so loud, we just walked away, and instead, got a comp from the host for the buffet, based on our day's play.

I wish I could say all the hosts at MSS are friendly, but this one in particular has left me feeling unwelcome, unwanted, and unappreciated on more occasions than I can remember, and more often than not. I don't know what it is with her, but the whole exchange was cold and impersonal. Not a 'hi, nice to see you again', or a 'what can I help you with today', or a 'certainly, I'd be glad to set that up'. No, I didn't even know that I was going to get the comp for sure until she handed it over without a word.

It's the one weak spot in the personnel at MSS; other than that, they've all been just wonderfully friendly. It's too bad, and I just don't get it. Onward.

After dinner, we wrapped up our play and I blew through the rest of what I was willing to lose that day. The Quad Queen finally got her dealt quad on 5-play. The dealt quad on 10-play would have to wait.