Purplish Rain

There used to be a Purple Rain tribute band at the Boardwalk. I wonder what happened to them when they closed the place down. Perhaps they transferred to the El Cortez, or Fitzgerald's, or wherever it is that ageing tribute bands go to die. Steve Bennett said to me that, one day, the bass guitarist in that group must have woken up and said, "where did it go wrong?"

Anyway, it rained today. I mean, proper rain that started at 10am and continued for all the day and much of the night. LV gets 4 inches of rain a year, and 5% of it fell today. You kind of felt sorry for the people getting married, but, then again, anyone can say that they got married in LV in the sunshine; it takes a particular kind of luck to choose the rainest day of the year.

Rain in LV is great, apart from the fact that the sidewalks turn into death traps. Outside of the Fashion Mall was like a skating rink if you were wearing rubber souls.

I took some pictures of the Venetian, Harrah's and Riviera card rooms, as well as some last pictures of the Stardust, but it's late and I think 'll get some sleep before I pack.

I'll squeeze in a couple of hours' play tomorrow after checking out, but the trip has been roughly +$600.

Airport connections

Life is certainly different from when I made my first trip to Las Vegas. Indeed, for my third trip here (December 2001) I celebrated a good win with a trip to a Downtown pawn shop, where I bought a leather jacket, a watch and a Compaq laptop for about $350 combined. The laptop ran Windows 3.1 and last year I gave it to my mum to sell off in one of her garage sales for a fiver if she could get it.

Now I sit here in the airport, typing on a somewhat newer Compaq (albeit a couple of years old by now) having just checked my e-mails. The wi-fi connection here is flaky at best (I think it automatically cuts out after 10 minutes or so, but then it mysteriously reappeared for a minute, before cutting out again. However, a restart gets you back online for another 10 minutes or so. But it makes playing an hour or two of online poker somewhat difficult). But it is at least a connection, which would have been an incredible dream just five years ago.

On the downside, for the first time in, what, 10 trips, I have a flight delay, of about three hours. Bleaagh. That means that take-off time will be about 3am London time Saturday morning, so I won’t be back home before 3pm.

I suppose that I could have adopted the Titmus tactic. Not the one about buying leather-soled shoes, even in the colonies, but the one about getting a cab back to the strip after getting your boarding pass. You can then fit in three more hours of doing your money at the MGM before getting another cab back to the airport. However, this does make one something of a hostage to fortune, and if things went wrong your luggage could end up in the Philippines while you end up in Frankfurt.

The check-in was its normal depressing self. You are stuck between middle-aged couples from places like Redditch or Bromsgrove who have obviously made their money in the building trade or something and are now spending the rest of their life comparing airlines, airports and views from hotels in Hong Kong and Rangoon. Twenty years ago these people would have been talking about timeshares in Marbella and summer’s golfing in Alicante, and it would be nice if they had stayed there. Now I’ve got one of them singing along to her fucking I-Pod. Gawd.

Then there are the families who have special deals at the Plaza, Circus Circus or the Stratosphere. I wonder what these people do for the week or so that they are here, because I never come across them in my (admittedly limited) travels from Poker room t Poker room. I did meet a couple of women while I was buying a piece of Stardust memorabilia (a rather neat tee-shirt, actually). They were amazed that the Stardust was closing, that it was actually being knocked down . They thought it was the most wonderful hotel in the universe, they said; they’d never seen aything like it, and the rooms were fantastic. I guess that if they had been plonked down in a Venetian suite they would have had some kind of collective aneurism.

The world has, indeed, shrunk to a degree that it’s absolutely impossible to avoid these people without buying a timeshare in a private jet.

Anyway, never let it be said that I don’t use advances in modern technology to improve my productivity. I downloaded the past week’s copies of ID Asia and IIN 24, produced by my replacements, and then read them offline. One more read-through and I should have in my head what’s been covered and what hasn’t. That will save me an hour or so when I get home.

Full Tilt appears to have taken legal advice and decided to tell the US government that it isn’t breaking the law. I like this line. In effect FTP is saying that the poorly drafted legislation doesn’t apply to sites providing the facility to play online poker. Now, the banks might still be yellow, but there seems to be a growing feeling that this little-supported legislation, pushed through on the back of a must-pass law, will be enforced less than enthusiastically. Party looks to have been caught on the hop again. What odds that they backtrack on their decision to pull out? It could happen.