The Atlantic City Rollers Club

This weekend I took my love of gambling to a new level, when I learned how to play Craps. Matt, Pat, Michelle, Eric Alex and I went down to Atlantic City for Saturday night and Sunday day, and after arriving, checking in, walking down the boardwalk a bit, and eating a quick lunch, we soon got down to business - gambling. Matt had been reading up on Craps, they all started playing. Craps was never my game so I played a little blackjack first and didn't do so well. I came back to the Craps table to see how they were doing. "Play," Matt said. "I don't know how, I don't know what I'm doing." I replied. Matt dismissed this excuse with a wave of his hand. "Just do what we do," he said. "You'll learn as you go along." Good advice. I bought in for a hundred bucks and the fun began.

Thing is, there was winning streak going. Once I started playing, Pat and Michelle got in on it as well, and the six of us had once whole side of the table to ourselves. And what magic. When you're playing Craps, on the first roll, you ante up and then wait for a number to come out. If seven or eleven comes out on that first roll, you automatically win. And when the dice came around to us, we all rolled seven or eleven on our first three rolls. It was amazing. And even when there was a point on the table and we were betting on that, those rolls were coming out too. We couldn't stop cheering. There was such a great energy at the table, I was so happy Matt talked me into playing.

This went on for five and a half hours. By 9:30 p.m. we needed to eat - so we reluctantly abandoned the table and headed to the restaurant to eat. Everybody was up - way up, and at dinner we figured out how much everybody had won to see what the total take was. And you know what it was? Over $1700!

So we started calling oursleves "The Atlantic City Rollers" and as the weekend progressed, we were saying we've got to get jackets that say that on the back and have our gambling nicknames on the front - which are as follows:

Matt - "Mattrick"
Michelle - "Tiny"
Alex - "Dragon"
Eric - "E"
Pat - "Victim"
Jenn - "Rookie"

And of course, the funny comments that made the weekend great:

- It's official. I'm never going to Atlantic City with anybody but you guys ever again.

- Heat seeking missiles, Pat. Heat seeking missiles - bring em right here.

- Did he say "come and rest your balls with me?"

- I cannot believe that we took that casino for $1700 bucks.


We put in about ten hours at the Craps table on Saturday - 5 1/2 in the afternoon early evening, then evening into Sunday morning, until 4:30 a.m. But we also still managed to walk on the boardwalk, walk up the pier, have a nice breakfast together, and laugh it up. Thanks for a great weekend guys! And Matt, thanks for talking me into playing Craps!

Igo Ugo

Hey, guys, Happy almost Memorial Day weekend. My latest scheme is trying to find a way to buy the really cool 30 GB Ipod with video playback without spending the full $300 bucks on it. So, I've come up with a new plan. I have written several travel journals for this site, and they give you points for every one you write, and for every registered member who reads them. Save up enough points and you can get yourself a gift certificate to amazon.com, sports authory, etc. So I figure I'm gonna make a run for points and then get a couple of amazon.com or something gift certificates and buy the thing for way cheap. Good plan, right?

So I need you guys to do some clicking. go to igougo.com - sign up. They will not bombard you with emails, I promise. Igoguo.com is probably the least annoying site I've ever signed up for - no spam. Then do a search for Jenn126. On the right side you'll see my picture, and click on read journals. Make sure you're signed up before you do! That way I'll get the points. Then if you want, you can write your own journals and earn points. Or you can just read about places - some of the journals are really helpful. anyway, have a great weekend everybody!

Let's Go Mets!

Courtesy of Chuck, last night he, Karen, Adnan and I got to go to a Mets game at Shea Stadium. This was a real treat because a) the Mets are actually doing well this year and b) I hadn't been to a game in several years. Here are some highlights/funny moments.

-Sitting about ten-fifteen rows up from the field in a company box on the first base line. It was the closest I'd ever been to the field, and it made you feel like you actually had a shot at catching a foul ball.

-Having passes to the Diamond Club. It was cool to finally see what was up there, a bar and grill and another store to purchase Mets stuff in. Although it made me laugh when Karen looked around at all the patrons eating salad and stuff and said, "What the hell would you want to be in here for?"

-Karen saying she liked being able to watch the planes going by so low (landing at LaGuardia), which was immediately followed by Chuck slapping his head in frustration.

-Me saying that my objective at Mets' games at Shea is to see the "Home Run" big apple go up, which was immediately followed by Chuck slapping his head in frustration.

-Karen wanting to eat sushi at Shea even thought it was deemed "Utterly inappropriate" at a ballpark by Chuck. She did get it though.

-Adnan telling Karen that the scoreboard of "K"s actually stood for Karen, and how many times he thought of her during the game.

-Getting a Mets hat for the first time in years and wearing it at the game. Yay!

-Knowing I had better seats than all three of my bosses who also happened to be at the game. I was sure to wave from down front. :-)

-And last but not least, remembering what it feels like to be at a baseball game at night in cool spring, cheering for hits and home runs and being all excited to watch your home team fight for the victory.

Thanks again Chuck! Glad we all were able to go.

Let's Do Something Good Today

I come on here and I brag about my gambling wins, sigh happily about Europe, recommend books, and bitch about people in New York and traffic tickets. So, for a change, I thought we could all do something good today:

http://www.humane.net/

Click on this link, and you will be brought to several "buttons" which can be clicked to feed the hungry (a click will warrant about a cup of food) or save the rainforest (a click here will help save 11.4 square feet of rainforest). Click one or three or all of them, and then we can all feel like we did a little something good today.

Then go back again tomorrow and do it again.

Spelling Bee

Last night my company took us all out to dinner and a Broadway show to celebrate some of the awards our books have won and what a good year we've been having. The show was "Spelling Bee", a musical that's been around for a couple of years and which I'm sure you've heard a commercial for at least once on the radio.

The show was really great. It's an elementary school spelling bee so the theater is meant to look like a gymnasium. Sports banners, climbling ropes, basketball hoops. What's really cool about this show is that they pick a few volunteers to be in the spelling bee. It's not just yanking people out of the audience, you have to volunteer yourself and they only pick four people or so. But those people are up on the stage, sitting in the bleachers with the other "kids" and they get called up and have to spell words. It's funny because they get to spell words like "cow" for a little while, but eventully they get knocked out by real words. In last night's show, the last of the regular people was called up - this guy Sean. And they gave him some complicated word - I can't even repeat it- and he got it right! The crowd went wild and the vice principal who was reading the words had to call him right back to do another word, because you could tell it was the part in the play where they were supposed to get rid of him. Really funny. The actors played off the clothes and other details of the regular people, and used it as part of their bios when introducing the people before each word. Like for one woman they said, "Mary came in first place in a I Kinda Sort Look Like Sally Jesse Raphael contest at her school." So funny.

So for anyone who's looking for a play to go to, I recommend this one. Enjoy!

Poker Night

Last night Matt and I headed down to Brooklyn to join Pat, Eric, Alex, Will, Brian, and some new guy for some Texas Hold Em. I felt pretty cool, being the only girl at poker night (check out the pic I found to represent it) and it ended up being my most successful poker game ever.

We do a $10 buy in, and then you get a certain amount of chips for that money. Then you just play - and it keeps going until everyone is eliminated...one by one. And in the first round, I was eliminated as usual. But in the second, I was doing well, getting pretty good hands. And I ended up winning! Yay!

I would like to thank my poker mentor, Brian for all of his nights of exasperation at the Kettle for poker tutorials, and I would like to thank all the guys above for letting me play. It was fun!

Although... I wonder what the odds are of me being invited back now...

For Anyone Who Misses Super Mario Brothers

Holy crap this is awesome:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2139555376132383479&q=gordon+college&pr=goog-sl

American Airlines rules

Okay guys, sorry I've been away from the blog for awhile...but it's been a busy couple of weeks. Alicia's wedding (which I'd also like to do a post on), my trip to Chicago, Noelle's wedding shower - BUSY!

So I'll start with a pretty awesome thing that happened to me on the way to Chicago last Monday. My co-worker and I were on a 9 a.m. flight out of LaGuardia. We were sitting at the gate waiting to board, and there was lots of balloons and people taking pictures, and just general hooplah going on near the gate. We wondered what was going on. We soon found out.

American Airlines' Advantage program (you know, miles) was celebrating their 25th anniversary. So our flight turned out to be a "Celebration" flight, complete with giveaways. So, on every seat of the plane there was a little giveaway tote bag with pens and t-shirts and neck pillows and other flying stuff. But the best part was that everyone on the plane got 25,000 free miles = to one free roundtrip ticket for anywhere in the U.S. Score!

Kim said that when she told Ryan about that he shook his head and said, "Only your sister."