Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 4 – The Pink Chip

On the night of my Vegas all-nighter, I found myself at the Aladdin Casino at the darn-near south end of the Strip. I’d played there over the years, but not since they’d completed their total makeover, including the Desert Passage (shops and restaurants) It is quite a fantastic property now, and well worth a visit.

I was playing at one of three Craps tables operating at 2am. I’d selected a table that had many of the prerequisites I described in my “I play Craps” post, with an overabundance of noise and energy. Note that I’m typically the quietest person at the table. It’s not fear or lack of confidence: it’s just not my job to entertain or provide commentary.

I played at the end of the table next to a cheerful black man and his companion. He had a row of chips of varying small denominations, signifying he’d been playing for some time and had been pulling money off the table. Of all things, I noticed he we betting only the Field (a one-roll bet that pays on the 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12, with 20 ways to lose and only 16 to win), and yet he was well ahead, sending his companion to cash chips in twice after I arrived.

Then, a young Asian kid came up and dropped $1,000 onto a Field bet; he had another grand on the Field bet on the table immediately behind me. He won both bets, with the dealers commenting on the preponderance of Field numbers coming up. It was a great time to be awake and at a table.

I started as I always do (see my “I play Craps” post), and very quickly had all the numbers covered. The Aladdin allows the 3x-4x-5x odds, so I was able to start with a $5 flat bet with double odds and press the odds as I got money ahead. It was a great time to be awake and at a table (or did I say that already?)

After 20 minutes, I was up enough to take the full odds allowed and started pressing my flat bets. The dice were hitting all the numbers on the table, allowing me to take only a little money off the table (using the balance of the winnings for odds) for another 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the Field guys were still raking it in, missing only a few here and there (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many 9s rolled in a Craps session).

At the point I had too many 25-dollar chips, I asked to “color up”, and lo and behold, was given a $500 chip. It was pink.

I’d only seen them before (I usually color up to 100-dollar black chips) when the Asian kid was pulling dough out of the Field earlier that night. I pocketed the chip, looked at a little less than $200 in 5-dollar chips on the table and set my walk-away point. That point came only a few minutes later as we couldn’t seem to get anything started, so I took my leave. The night had cleared a fair amount of dough: enough to fund the ‘dome and incidentals for the trip.

This is part of five articles. While I saw / did enough for ten, these remained a part of my memory by the time I got to the keyboard. Links to all the articles follow:

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 1 – The Venue and the Kids

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 2 – The People and the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 3 – Sunrise on the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 4 – The Pink Chip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 5 – I play Craps

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 5 – I play Craps

I play craps. I separated this bit from the rest as it’s more about my play than the trip itself.

I’m not going to teach Craps in this post; there are many sites that outline the rules; here’s one: http://www.ildado.com/craps_rules.html. Note: there are TONS of sites with the rules, but most are come-ons to online gaming. This one offers rules only (although there are lots of links on the page to online gaming experiences).

I do not recommend playing online except for fun. Most sites let you do this, and it’s a great way to practice.

I’m just going to cover my play in this post; what I look for, how I start out, when I quit. Caveats, as always: don’t try this at home (or in a casino) unless you get acquainted with the rules and have the requisite funding. Don’t ever bet more than can afford: if that’s zero, bet zero.

Casinos refer to me (and others who play like me) as “desperados”. We are not high rollers. We are typically solo players with small bankrolls. We play a tight game of pass and come, making the smallest “flat bet” allowable and taking the “free odds” bets the house allows. We tend to bet small amounts at the start, taking only two or three points (non-2, 3, 7, 11 or 12 rolls) at the start.

We set tight losing breakpoints. When we hit those breakpoints, we collect whatever’s left and walk away. We don’t go running to the cash machine or markers.

Once we’re playing with the house’s money (i.e., have won a few points), we’ll take more points and ramp up odds bets to the full house maximum (most casinos offer at least double odds; some go as high as 100-times odds). As a result, I look for casinos offering these high odds levels, or lacking that, at least double odds.

There’s a new odds wrinkle out there called 3x 4x 5x odds (where “x” equals “times”), where you can take higher multipliers of odds bets on different numbers (3x on the 4 and 10, 4x on the 5 and 9 and 5x on the 6 and 8). Old-time Craps players will recognize these as the single-odds multiplier allowances for the numbers, as long as you made your flat bets in units of 3. When playing on these tables, I start with double odds and as I accumulate some house money, press my odds to the maximum before pressing my flat bets.

When looking for a table, I seek evidence of “stability”, that is, the game has been going on for some time:

• Drinks in various stages of consumption and replenishment; this means the cocktail server has been visiting over time.
• Quantities of chips of varying denominations in trays in front of the players; the players have been taking wins from the table.
• Point action on the table (money within the number boxes); the roll has been going on for some time.
• A general air of enthusiasm; some cheering, encouragement, cries of “same good shooter”, etc.

I steer clear of tables with little activity unless I feel like “rolling my own” or are in the casino at off hours. I also steer clear of high-limit tables, preferring $5 tables with high odds (at least double).

When I play:

• I start with the table minimum, ramping odds (true desperado style).
• I “drop change” often when getting paid, so the dealer will give me larger denomination chips. These larger denominations go into the back tray.
• I “color up” (exchanging lower-denomination chips for higher denominations; i.e., 25s to 100s) often, and either pocket the larger chips or move them to the back tray.

I never quit on a winning streak; I let the streak quit on me. I do this by setting close loss points at which time I stop putting money on the table and walk away when the play is done. If the numbers hit, I have more money to continue play, if not, I walk away.

This is part of five articles. While I saw / did enough for ten, these remained a part of my memory by the time I got to the keyboard. Links to all the articles follow:

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 1 – The Venue and the Kids

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 2 – The People and the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 3 – Sunrise on the Strip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 4 – The Pink Chip

Vegas Vacation Recap, Part 5 – I play Craps

Theatre and DVD: Mind the Gap

The early release of “Sin City“ to DVD sparked a few thoughts for me. Here are some fun facts:

• There will always be a New and Improved release of the DVD you’re just dying to own. I just noticed I have three copies of "Fellowship of the Ring" and two copies of "The Usual Suspects".
• The first DVD released will always be the one with the fewest special features.
• The gap between theatrical release and the first DVD is shrinking (note that "Sin City" is still in theatres at the time of this writing).
• The price of a theatre visit for two now far exceeds purchasing the DVD.

Hollywood et, al. is compressing the gap between theatrical release and the first DVD. My guess is to solve two goals: leverage the ad campaign for the theatrical release and any resulting buzz and for anti-piracy purposes; if the "real" version is available straight away, why burn the bandwidth for a crappy copy?

For those who are infrequent visitors to theatres, the first view of a film may well be in the comfort of our homes, following a visit to CostCo. Granted, there are films for which the grandest of home theatres cannot possibly complete (the "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars" sagas come to mind), but what of the rest?

Hollywood is aware of this; there are talks of releasing that "first" DVD at the theatre, with others to follow (presumably near the gift-giving season). Director Rodriguez speaks about the initial DVD release on About.com, citing it is bare bones. Of course, spoilers abound; specifically, spoilerspodcast.com who released the director’s commentary as a podcast to be enjoyed in an MP3 player while watching the movie.

Does this make theatres less relevant? Probably. Who wants to pay for overpriced snacks, be a slave to a schedule, have to arrange child care and more? Perhaps, in the future, theatres will simply be an extension to the marketing campaign for legitimate, downloadable content.

The usual caveats apply; these are just my thoughts.

"Sin City" commentary released as a podcast

"Sin City" commentary released as a podcast. This page also has the printed commentary; many fun facts about the film.

Update: Note that this highlights an interesting development, which I’ll cover more in a future post: the desire for studios to leverage the ad campaign associated with the theatrical release of a film by releasing a “bare bones” DVD soon after the release to the theatres. As we’ve all observed, richer extras can be had by waiting a few months before purchasing a DVD of a favorite film.

Delay for the .XXX domain?

Maybe I’m nuts, but I always thought the .XXX domain had a place on the internet.  Let there be a domain type reserved exclusively for adult-only sites, and let those of us with kids exclude the domain type from our routers.  Give us back WhiteHouse.com and don’t penalize us for inadvertently clicking craiglist.com!  Note: don’t navigate to either of those sites.

Of course, the way the internet grew (I don’t mean how fast; I mean the way it grew virally .. more like mutation), there was chaos and little organization.  I remember when .net domains were “supposed” to be for ISPs and .org domains were “supposed” to be for non-profits.   This all changed when we “ran out” of .com addresses: companies scurried to collect .org and .net, just to protect the body / root name of their domains.  I even recall when the .cc and .tv domain types were introduced in an attempt to give companies an option.  So many domain names and types; so many opportunities to hijack them.

I digress: just wanted to spout.  This post is actually a meme about how ICANN is being encouraged to delay the availability of the .xxx domain (again) by the feds.

Wired: “Feds urge delay for .xxx domain”
SlashDot: “Top Level .xxx Domain Concept Under Scrutiny”

.. and the article on the June 1, 2005 approval from News.com: “Porn-Friendly" ‘.xxx’ domains approved”.

SOA Building Momentum

Developer.com: Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is building momentum. The article notes that business leaders, not IT departments must take the lead in SOA deployments. This is in line with my views in my “Services Orientation – the Architecture formally known as SOA” series. Speaking of which: I need to get back to that series. Link for additional chapters.

WiFi "Roguing"

Not that I’ve ever done it, but the practice of “Roguing“ (as in being a rogue; connecting to an available, non-protected WiFi signal) is now considered a legal gray area and could land you in jail.

News.com provides a FAQ on “WiFi mooching and the law”.

Here we are, legislating technology again. Bah. Secure your networks people.

Use 128-bit Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) keys. While a WEP key can be hacked (although typically not in the time of the average drive-by rogue), there are other, stronger protocols such as WPA.

For larger organizations, certificates are an option.

If you have a small home network, use a wireless access point or router that allows you to restrict access only to the known MAC addresses of your network cards; this will prevent anyone sitting outside your house (including your neighbors) from connecting to your network.

Applying BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1

No warranties; this is what I did to install the SP on a NEW system (that is, one on which no prior development / implementation had been performed).

Read the ReadmeSP1.htm. That’s why it’s there. In it, you’ll see a reference to KB890673, "Availability of the .NET Framework 1.1 Post-Service Pack 1 XML Web services and XML Messaging hotfix rollup package 8". If the files listed below (located in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322) match (or are later than) the versions below, you are good to go to apply BTSP1:

Date Time Version Size File name
———————————————————————
02-Dec-2004 21:55 1.1.4322.2051 573,440 System.web.services.dll
02-Dec-2004 21:55 1.1.4322.2051 1,355,776 System.xml.dll

Otherwise, you have to contact MS for the hotfix. Note: Win2kSP1 and subsequent patches have an acceptable version of these files.

The other updates are XML and .NET related (should have been prerequisites for installation):

• Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2, if you are installing on Windows XP, available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39455.
• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, Service Pack 1 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39456.
• SQLXML 3.0, Service Pack 2 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39457.
• Microsoft XML 3.0, Service Pack 4 available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39458.

Test this on a disposable box first. Hope this saves you some time.

Mercury and Autism

While I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories or cover-ups, I tend to be a big fan; think the X-Files (the series, not the movie), Wag the Dog and Capricorn One. However, I admit to harboring a certain suspicion when it comes to my middle son, Hunter.

Hunter is a beautiful, charming and brilliant little boy. He is seven years old, reads (and understands) a wide variety of chapter books and does math like a madman. Computers and DDR Max are his favorite pastimes, and he’s always discovering some new way to challenge me with a fix or a dance move. His current delight? Knock-knock jokes.

Hunter falls “in the spectrum”; a nice way of saying “he has autism”.

His development was normal for his first year-and-a-half or so. He didn’t speak a lot, however, he had an older brother and parents who would anticipate his needs, so we didn’t think too much of it. Sometime between his first birthday and our noting changes in his behavior, he had his childhood shots.

A popular theory among some parents of autistic children is the concern that children received vaccines that contained a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal. Thimerosal has since been removed (or reduced to trace amounts) from vaccines, giving rise to a fair amount of suspicion in the interested community.

A note on childhood shots: we had them, you had them and our oldest had them. However, the timing of the shots and the apparent changes in Hunter’s behavior (which led us to seeking diagnosis) has left us wondering.

My belief? I believe Hunter’s intellect will propel him above the challenges he faces. I think that eventually (and we are making progress), he’ll be able to understand the social reasons to minimize his stimming (the act of stimulating himself through voice and action), be taught to recognize the subtleties of facial expressions and learn to not feel so deeply when something (like a video game or a cartoon) goes “wrong”.

Anyhow, I told you that story to provide a link to an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. It was posted on the Common Dreams Newscenter and is called “Deadly Immunity”. Quite an interesting read, and really doesn’t make me feel any better about the possibilities described therein.

I think I’ll go give him a hug.