Guess the casino, #732

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Answer: Bill's

Christmas videos

For your viewing pleasure, a small collection of nontraditional Christmas-themed videos that I have enjoyed seeing over the past several days:

Guess the casino, #731

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Answer: Golden Nugget

Give blood, get tickets

For at least the last several years, Penn and Teller have generously donated two free tickets to their show to anybody who gives blood during what is otherwise the slowest time of the year for blood donation. (In 2008 I wrote about seeing their show for my second time when a blood-donating friend took me with her.) A Twitter message this morning from @PennJillette reminded me that it was that time of year again: "I'm at United Blood Services on Charleston giving whole blood and free tickets to P&T to other blood donors from now until December 31st."

So I headed over there this afternoon. I confess that I had not donated blood in, oh, 20 years or so. After having been a regular donor in my youth, I stopped when I entered a career that, kind of ickily, gave me sufficiently frequent contact with other people's bodily fluids that I thought it wise not to donate, even though I remained technically eligible. (I was concerned that I might donate in the interval between acquiring some nasty virus and the tests for it turning positive.) But that's no longer an issue, so it's time that I put myself back into the donor pool.

I'm grateful to P&T for their service of giving show tickets as an incentive. It worked for me! To my surprise, the blood bank was also giving each donor a free four-pack of compact fluorescent light bulbs from Nevada Energy (equivalent of 60-watt bulbs), which are not cheap to purchase at stores. The combination made for a rather nice payoff for doing something that I really should just be doing out of the goodness of my heart.

Oooo, shiny!

I like changing the background picture on my computer desktop every month or two. I inevitably choose an astronomy photo, and the most convenient source of beautiful and interesting astronomy pictures is the wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA. Hey, we're already paying for them, so might as well use them. I have it in my daily RSS feed. When I bother to read the detailed explanation that accompanies the photos, I almost always learn something about astronomy that I didn't know before.

The one above is now my new desktop picture. See it in its glorious maximum resolution here, and see the explanation of it here.

I only started using it with a heavy heart, because it meant giving up the one I had been using, which is this astonishing image:




Click to see it at full size. See the explanation of it here.

Another Bodog withdrawal

I took another $200 out of Bodog. I made the request on Saturday or Sunday, and received a check by UPS today, drawn on a Canadian bank. Strangely, the amount was for US$200.35. I'm not sure how to account for the little extra bonus. But unless there are problems with the check clearing, all in all a far better experience than the last withdrawal.

It's possible, in retrospect, that on that previous withdrawal I just wasn't paying enough attention and clicked the wrong option, resulting in the Visa card and its attendant problems. I just can't remember for sure. But either way, I'm glad to have what I consider to be the normal/standard method back in play.

Guess the casino, #730

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Answer: Club Fortune

"Five-Card Stud"

I just watched "Five-Card Stud" (1968), which is available through Netflix, both DVD and instant view. It's the first poker movie I've seen in a long time. Except that it's not really a poker movie. In fact, we see exactly one hand of poker during the whole film. There it is above, in the opening scene.

Somebody in the old west town of Rincon, Colorado, gets caught cheating, and the others form a lynch mob and give the scoundrel the frontier justice that I think casinos still ought to deliver to poker cheats. The town starts going crazy, though, when the card-playing vigilantes start being found dead one by one. The mystery of who is killing the killers is the movie's whole plot.

It's all pretty lame, I'm afraid. But it is kind of fun seeing stars such as Dean Martin, Roddy McDowall, Robert Mitchum, Denver Pyle, and Yaphet Kotto in their much, much younger days.
Maybe the best part, poker-wise, is Martin singing the cheesy title song:



Lyrics (as found at the bottom of the page here):

FIVE CARD STUD
(Music by: Maurice Jarre / Words by: Ned Washington)

He was King at Five Card Stud.
The stranger's game was Five Card Stud.
He was hard to beat,
Rather play than eat,
Long as it was Five Card Stud.

When he played he played for blood.
When this ramblin', gamblin' man said, 'Deal 'em',
You had better beware.

Bet your poke and he'd leave you broke.
Then he'd make a joke as he slyly grinned.
Then he'd say, 'That's enough today!'
And he'd ride away like the wind.

Stud was all he lived and breathed,
But now and then a fire seethed.
Liked his gals and fun.
Then he'd up and run,
Run right back to Five Card Stud.

Never played two hands the same.
He could bluff you, bluff you blind.
You'd swear that He invented the game.

How he loved that Five Card Stud.
Life to him was Five Card Stud.
When he played he played for blood.
He was King at Five Card Stud.

Guess the casino, #729

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Answer: Bally's

Guess the casino, #728

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Answer: Sunset Station

Guess the casino, #727

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Answer: Sahara

Scarves

Get yer scarves, get yer Cardgrrl handmade silk scarves right here: http://www.quellebelle.com/

Though it is not yet technically time for "last-minute" Christmas shopping, Monday is the last day that you can get free shipping, and may well be the last day that you can order and expect delivery by Friday. Early purchasers of my acquaintance have been impressed by their beauty, quality, and suitability as gifts for a tasteful woman in one's life.

Guess the casino, #726

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Answer: Luxor (Easiest one yet?)