The Schoolyear of Scott

I am writing this post on my new laptop that I got for school while yesterday’s rain-delayed NASCAR race at Pocono is playing on ESPN.  Life is good.  Windows Vista, not so much…

This past weekend I traveled 120 miles north with seven college friends to Atlantic City.  We had originally planned on going out to Las Vegas, which is what we did last year, but airfare was ridiculously expensive (even to AC it was a little crazy…Naresh paid less to go from Columbus, GA to New York City, with a connection in Philadelphia than the Columbus, GA to Philadelphia direct flight.  Smartly, he just got off the plane in Philly and just took the hour train to AC).  We stayed at Harrah’s and had a great time.  Sadly, our bank accounts did not.  Thoughts on the trip following the jump…

Harrah's Atlantic City

• One thing that I enjoyed about Atlantic City, in comparison to Las Vegas, was that the dealers were very friendly.  Right off the bat, Cody, Daniel and I sat down at blackjack and were pleasantly greeting by Haresh, which we quickly concluded was Naresh’s cousin.  An hour later, a nice little Asian dealer was making googly eyes with Cody and we went over to talk to her and she taught us the great game of Caribbean Stud Poker.  Sadly, once her shift was over, we never found Ping again.  Luckily, her replacement was another of Naresh’s cousins, Nimesh.  It should be noted, though, that Pajesh, a dealer at the Borgata, and another of Naresh’s cousins, was not as nice as the rest of the family.  Highlight: Nimesh inviting us to breakfast at 7:30am, but we sadly slept through it.
• Caribbean Stud Poker is one hell of a game.  None of us had ever played it before, though some of us saw our friend Matt win big at it at the Atlantis back in college.  When we played at Harrah’s, we all won big, with (I think) everyone of us who played going on $100 runs at least once.  Inexplicably, we decided to try our luck at the game at the Borgata and quickly lost all our winnings.  High (low?) light: One of the progressive slots at the table broke, so the dealer moved another player directly to my right.  The very next deal, the man gets dealt four 4’s, for a payout of $900 on a $10 bet.  That would have been mine!
• We did four to a room, against my wishes, but it actually turned out for the best.  Naresh, seemingly, lost his yellow plaid shirt between going to sleep Saturday morning and waking up five hours later.  Saturday night, we all returned to our room at about midnight to reload our drinks and Naresh became convinced that the maid had tucked his shirt into the bed when she made it.  Cody, Daniel and myself could not stop laughing.  “Why would she tuck your shirt in the bed?” we asked.  “WHERE ELSE COULD IT BE!” Naresh would respond.  Astonishingly, it was not in the bed.  Highlight: The radio in the room only got one station, which just happened to be Spanish.  Highlight #2: Playing “Donde Esta Naresh” when Dave, Dave, Jeff and Justin came in (he was hiding behind the curtains.
• Saturday night we spent some time at the Trump Marina, which was a pretty shitty casino.  We had to run across a highway to get there, which was pretty scary, but we luckily made it there in one piece.  After leaving the casino (after leaving some money at the casino, I should say), we walked across the bridge to “The Deck”, which was a happening bar on the water.  And by happening, I mean a place that was filled with Jersey trash.  It was amazing to people watch.  I mean, if we had blindfolded someone and put them in that bar and asked them, “what state do you think you are in”, I am convinced the person would have guessed New Jersey fairly quickly.  Highlight: We ordered Oyster Shots from the very friendly waitress.  She did not know what that was.  So we explained (a shot of pepper vodka, an oyster, a dash of cocktail sauce and horseradish).  She said they could not make that.  So we ordered a shot of pepper vodka, an oyster, a dash of cocktail sauce and horseradish.  She then admitted that she had never heard of pepper vodka and was convinced we were making it up.  Actually, I believe her exact words were “um, this is Atlantic City, not Atlanta”.  Truer words have never been spoken.  So we ordered a short of vodka, an oyster, a dash of cocktail sauce and horseradish.  She then said they do not have horseradish.  I almost lost it at that point and lectured her about the fact that the biggest horseradish distributor in the world is just up the turnpike.  Finally, she brought us shots of vodka, oysters and cocktail sauce.  Not surprisingly, the fun did not end there.  I tasted a piece of the oyster to ensure it was edible.  It was pretty disgusting but I, probably against better judgment, gave it my approval.  So then I attempted to combine the cocktail sauce with the vodka, but it wouldn’t mix.  It turned out that it wasn’t, in fact, cocktail sauce that we had been given…it was cocktail gelatin!  We still ended up doing the shots, albeit in about three parts, and it was disgusting.  At least the story was good.
• An 80’s cover band happened to be playing at one of the lounges in Harrah’s.  We watched them for a few minutes on Friday night, with the most notable thing being that the trumpet player looked like he was miserable.  Saturday night, with us being significantly more inebriated, we went back and spent a good two hours rocking out to the band.  The ten piece band was all wearing sparkling white uniforms and were either one giant family or picked to play together because of how much they looked (the men were all very hairy).  They were a lot of fun and, after talking with the two lead singers, we learned that they were from Canada.  I can honestly say that I’ve never had more fun dancing with seven other dudes without worrying about how gay it was making me look.  Highlight: The band took a break and Daniel took a smoke break at about the same time.  Daniel just happened to be wearing a white button down shirt as well.  So when the band and Daniel returned together from their breaks, it really looked like Daniel was a part of the band.  You may have had to be there to appreciate the humor, but it was damn funny.

So overall, a great weekend.  I for sure was paying for it yesterday!

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