there goes my new ipod

there's a big huge reason why i should never, ever go to a casino.

in my more than six years of visiting different casinos all over [from vegas to reno to nawlins] the u.s., never have i left a single casino with a smile plastered on my face. this weekend was no exception.

a good friend of mine floated the idea of a quick drive to vegas, since it was the long weekend anyway. okay, it's not that hard to convince me.

we picked up something from his work in walnut. somewhere, we decided to just go to pechanga. then, i suggested casino morongo, since i read somewhere that they just finished their multi-million dollar renovation. and it's less than 20 miles away from palm springs. so that's where we went.

we arrived around six. i psyched myself that at most, i was willing to part with one benjamin franklin (a hundred bucks), no more, no less. shortly after seven piyem, the benjamin that has been lingering in my wallet for four weeks now, was gone. sigh.

so i went to the atm machine. this casino has (i think) more than a hundred atm machines strategically located all over the casino floor. how convenient. and despite the prohibitive cost that each machine charges for every transaction ($4 per transaction, aside from the charges that your own bank will deduct from your account, for not being loyal using other atm machines), there was a long line of people withdrawing money from these machines. i was one of them.

i withdrew a hundred bucks. the receipt reflected that i got 104. whew. the price of a tall white chocolate latte at coffee bean. mahal. but what can i do? i wanted to win. (who didn't).

by 8 piyem, i was down to zero one more time. oh no. i was losing one hundred bucks per hour. god forbid if we stayed for six hours. i was, of course, not gonna let that happen.

for the second, and last time, i braved the line to the atm machines. i withdrew another hundred bucks. win or lose, this is it. i know my limit. hehehe. i think.

i did not play the slots. i did not play pai gow. i stuck with the good old black jack. obviously, not a good idea. we went back to hell-ey hundreds of dollars poorer. i've been wanting to upgrade my ipod and get the newer ones, but i guess that would have to wait now. as the budget that i was supposed to use for this project has been donated to casino morongo.