Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[kinboshi]

Emergency cheese?

Tell me more. What type of cheese? Is Cheese banned in Vegas?

Where's Llyr when you need him?

What type you looking for?  A smelly blue or gooey brie?

Wow - that was quick.  Nearly as quick as Kev swooping down on a noobie asking which is the best poker site to play on.

[RED-DOG]

We walked into Ballies Hotel feeling like two extras from Shaun of the dead.  The impeccably attired and manicured  lady on reception greeted us with a noncommittal smile. Ralph slipped her a $20. It disappeared up the leg of her knickers so fast that left a scorch mark on her thigh, after that she warmed up considerably.

We asked for a quiet room away from noisy lifts and traffic. We also asked if we could have a refrigerator, then, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, we staggered past a few hundred yards of slot machines to the elevators.

[Redsgirl]

hello dad, enjoying your posts, keep 'em coming. Mams in London 'til tomorrow nite but she's been reading this and will email u when she gets back. good luck! xx

[ripple11]

  Loving the updates already and ye've only just arrived!   

+1

really looking forward to more!!

 

[Claw75]

  Loving the updates already and ye've only just arrived!   

+1

really looking forward to more!!

 

+ me!

[Pelham Boy]

Is Ballies anywhere near Ballys?   

[The_nun]

We walked into Ballies Hotel feeling like two extras from Shaun of the dead.  The impeccably attired and manicured  lady on reception greeted us with a noncommittal smile. Ralph slipped her a $20. It disappeared up the leg of her knickers so fast that left a scorch mark on her thigh, after that she warmed up considerably.

We asked for a quiet room away from noisy lifts and traffic. We also asked if we could have a refrigerator, then, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, we staggered past a few hundred yards of slot machines to the elevators.

I remember that feeling so well. Peed ourselves lol at that one Tom.

[RED-DOG]

We open the door to room 1556 and stumble inside, it's like walking into an oven. Ralph switches on the air con, nothing happens. We are desperate for sleep, but we know we have to get the air con sorted, otherwise we could poach to death in our beds. Ralph called the desk, and in the meanwhile I fired up the lappy. Bally's doesn't have WIFI so I connected the ethernet cable, It didn't work. "Tell them our internet connection isn't working either" I said. Ralph passed on this information and hung up the phone.

For the next hour or so, I kept myself awake by talking to Ralph, he kept himself awake by constantly chanting, "I'm talking bollocks, I know I'm talking bollocks" which, if you think about it, is a statement that becomes more accurate the more times you repeat it.

Eventually, Ralph decided to go downstairs to find out what the hold up was, while he was gone a life sized version of Super Mario arrived, complete with toolkit. He took out a large lump hammer and battered the air conditioner for 10 or 15 minutes. "Is broken" he announced, waving his hammer, "You wan me fix computer?"  He must have noticed the look of consternation in my face because put down his hammer and reassured me. "Is OK" He said, "I'm good for computers, yes?"

Actually, he was good for computers and he soon diagnosed the problem. Apparently, my lappy didn't recognise the ethernet connection because it had some drivers missing. I didn't know about it because I've only used it wirelessly. It was a catch 22 type problem. I could download the drivers from the web, but I couldn't access the web until I'd downloaded the drivers. Bollocks! as Ralph would say.

Super Mario set about "Changing out the motor" on our air conditioning unit. Ralph returned and I explained that although we were absolutely cream crackered, there was no point in us sitting in the room and that we might as well to go in search of WIFI so that we could download the drivers that would allow us to access the internet. Ralph listened with a quizzical look on his face and said "You're talking bollocks". "I know" I replied, and with that, off we went.

The long bad Wednesday was about to get longer..  and badder.

[RED-DOG]

We took my lappy to "The Business Centre" A small room tucked away in a corner of Bally's. It was actually nothing more than an internet cafe, charges for internet access were £5 for 5 min, $10 for 12min, and $20 for 30 min. Nice.

They didn't have WIFI, and I couldn't make them understand why I couldn't use the ethernet cable, one of the girls game to connect it for me and then she explained to me why it wouldn't work. A bit of soft soap later and she was as helpful as can be. She suggested that walk to The Apple Shop and connect to the WIFI there, and if we had no luck downloading the drivers, we could buy a USB ethernet adaptor which would solve the problem anyway. Ralph said she was talking bollocks.

[RED-DOG]

At some point during that Wednesday night, our brains ceased to function altogether. Sane, rational people would never have done what we did.

Like a pair of robots that have been programmed to perform one single task, seemed to be programmed to get the computer fixed.  We didn't weigh up the pros and cons and say Hey, this is too much efffort, We're exhausted, it's too hot and it's too far. We just set of down the strip. It didn't even occur to us to take a taxi, we just walked the two miles (closer to 4 because of all the forced detours through markets and overpasses) to the Apple shop.

"Is that a Mac in the bag?" the assistant asked. "No" I replied. "Then we can't help you here" He said.

After about 5 minutes, he managed to stop me crying by promising to help me. A mere 5 hours after leaving it, we were back in the room. The air con was on, and I had the precious USB ethernet adapter clutched tightly in my sweaty palm. I plugged it in, and it didn't work.

While I was swearing, a pop up popped up and told me that there was a wireless signal available for a cost of $11 for 24 hours. A few moments later there was a 'kerchinging' sound and hey presto, we were connected.

[Graham C]

LOL Great posting Red, looking forward to more.

Have a great time guys

[Bongo]

Have you tried turning the ethernet port on? 

[kinboshi]

Have you tried turning the ethernet port on? 

That way lies suffering...

[Geo the Sarge]

Well all in all we've got off to a bad stat. Ralph said that instead of The Long Good Friday, it was a case of the long good Wednesday, or the long bad Wednesday, or something. (He did admit that he was talking bollocks).

We didn't get much sleep before we left, Ralph had to be up at 3:30am and although I could afford to lie in until 4:30am I didn't get to bed until 3 cos I ran deep in the Daddy. By 5:30am we were bowling along in a nice big VW people carrier driven by Ralph's mate, who services we had retained for both the outward and inward journeys. 

The trip to Gatwick was uneventful, save for Raps mate's interest in roulette systems, his fear of us boking his motor by saying it went well, and Ralph himself repeating the phrase "Where's yer mate" 7 times to ward off bad luck when we spotted a lone magpie. After that, it all went a bit down hill really.

We checked our bags and headed off to security. They stopped Ralph and searched his hand luggage. When they discovered his stash of emergency cheese, they became very suspicious and swabbed the inside of his bag with a small piece of cloth which they then gave to an electric spaniel to sniff. After a bit of whirring and grinding, the electric spaniel grudgingly conceded that it was just cheese and they let us pass....

Our family have a tradition of greeting a lone magpie by saying "good morning/afternoon Mr Magpie, and how are your wife & kids today?" haven't a clue how it started and although I always do it, I cannot tell the difference between male and female Magpies.

I also found this on the web:

www.superstitous-minds.info/magpie-superstitions.html

(strange that at work I cannot copy and paste links, had to type this in.)

Geo

[Colchester Kev]

I just salute the lone magpie, and say "Morning Mr Magpie" ... I have mastered the art of the sly salute though, wouldnt want people to think i was a loon or anything would I