My blog for 4/18/2012 Dumb Casino Day

So today I thought I'd go to the casino and lose $20.  Maybe make a couple thousand.

I had to wait for the people the landlady sent to look at our floors that seem to have a haze on them I can't get off.  They were due at 12:00.

About ten o'clock I go outside to sit in the sun that finally arrived after seven months of rain and cold.  My landlady, the leprechaun, wandered by (she lives in the big house), then sat down and let me know she was waiting for people to give her estimates on taking down the pine tree that got hit by lightning two days ago, along with a couple of other trees that were endangering her driveway by shoving their roots against its concrete.  She was going to be stuck at home all day and there wasn't much sense in both of us being stuck here, so I could leave and she would see to the floor people.

I took Abby with me to the casino to get her out of the way of the floor people.  By 11:30 the sun was getting warmer than it has been the whole year.  We were off on an adventure.  I went down the roads to the casinos, following signs.  I don't need no stinking GPS, I'd been there three times already.  It's about 26 miles to the one I wanted with the cool machines that pay on five lines and have triple play medallions.  That casino also has a non-smoking section.  It's on the Pauma Indian Reservation.

I missed the first turn, went over the mountain, realized my error, turned around.  My 26 mile trip turned into a 40 minute drive thus far, so I grudgingly consulted my GPS, which took me back over the mountain through what looked like northern Italy.  The most gorgeous land.  For a land lover like me, I was starting to not care if I got to the casino.

Mountainsides flowing with citrus trees and avocado groves glowed in the sunshine.

Okay, so twenty more minutes and I finally found the casino under the tent-covered structure of a tiny casino in the middle of groves.  I pulled into the parking lot that was devoid of any shade trees.  Got out of the truck, decided it was too hot to leave Abby.  Went back and opened all the windows about three inches and poured her some water.  A breeze came up that made the truck comfy, so I looked at my watch to time myself for a half hour before coming back out to check on her.  It was 79 degrees, and by now it was 1:30.

I found my machines and started dumping 45 cent hits into the brazen machines, found one that started paying off a little at a time.  When I reached $40 it was a half hour gone by but the machine was still paying off.  I made myself go back out to the truck, figuring I'd come right back after checking on Abby.

Well, the truck was borderline too hot.  While I sat there thinking I better just go home, the Darrel calls me.  He's on his way home from work sixty miles away.  He wants to come meet me at the casino and can be there in 30 minutes.  So I sit in the truck to wait for him with Abby, trying to decide how I can get back to my machine before it freezes up on me.  I check the valet, the door guys and ask if there is any shade around back.  The answer is no, sorry.

At about 2:00 around a hundred people begin pulling into the hot lot.  So I call Darrel back and tell him I don't think this is going to work because the truck is too hot for Abby to be out there.  With the windows all the way down the breeze is really nice and the truck is really comfortable, but with the windows mostly closed, no.

So the saint I married said, "I'm almost there.  Why don't I take Abby with me back home and you can stay to bleed your machine."  The man has driven about 75 miles, is almost there and selflessly tells me he doesn't need to go inside or make me leave. 

I make a quick dash back to the machine to see what's what and promptly lose all the money I brought and all the money I've "won."  So I go back out to the truck, having spent three hours in the truck, 40 minutes with the machines and the Darrel arrives.  I decide enough is enough and offer to take Abby back so he can stay and gamble a bit.  He likes the poker machines.  He doesn't want to stay without me though, so we throw in the towel.

The shine is off the pumpkin so to speak.  Some days just don't work out the way you have in mind. I'm only down $20.  And a bunch of wasted day.  And a bunch of truck gas (diesel).

My blog for April 13, 2012 The Hunger Games

Since it seems to never stop raining in Escondido this year, we went to the movie to see the latest and greatest according to word of mouth and publicity in newspapers and magazines.

In my opinion this was a horrible movie.  Mostly it was about the premise—that of 24 children being forced under the guise of "patriotism" to kill each other till only one remains alive.  This is supposed to be a reality type show to the death, whereby the whole thing can be watched on TV, including by the parents of the children being killed.  This is an annual event perpetrated as "payment" for the debt of insurgency against the government several years before.  I liken it to worse than a volcano sacrifice to keep the thing from going off and blowing everybody up. 

Then I can't help but get carried away regarding our society being reduced to the basest thoughts held to idealism.  The idea of our young people finding this amoral hogwash to be a valued movie curdles my blood.

A supposed "romance" is laughably cellophane, no matter how one looks at it, and the ending of the show is the very best part.  Will the heroine continue the ruse of "loving" the male lead, or will she dump him at her first convenience since she's now "won" the war and doesn't need him any longer.

Now let me see, we've got lying, killing and stealing for our model movie.  How about cheating?  Ah, yes, the manipulators of the "show" have it in their power to create monsters, aid any of the 24 participants on a whim and kill off anybody who rubs them the wrong way.

I remember very well teaching my children to not lie, to not cheat, to not steal.  In one two hour movie I've been undermined by a much more exciting and glamorous production than the life I tried to give them over twenty years.  Society has been suffering for many years because of writers and producers of products like The Hunger Games.  As movies are manipulated in their roles, they get worse and worse and in fact train our children on brilliant massive screens that values mean nothing.

I've never felt like burning a theater down before.