A number of people have asked me what I did for my birthday this year. Since I was missing half of the group birthday crew (remember that Jack was an original member) and I’m in NYC, there were really only two choices: Atlantic City or Foxwoods. The decision was pretty much made for us, since hotels in AC were $400+ (just for Saturday). So we spent my birthday at the World’s largest casino (well, maybe it’s not, I knew I had to go to Macau someday anyway) where you can check out what is probably the World’s largest rainmaker statue or at least the one with the largest sack. See:

We did the usual stuff, played poker, ate the buffet, and eventually got stuck at the craps table. I really need to learn to stay away from it, but damn it’s fun. Poker was somewhat uneventful. I spent all of my poker time playing $4-$8 limit. The people were your average players, with some terrible calling stations, some crazy aggressive high-limit players trolling in a low-limit game for some unknown reason, and my favorite – the know-it-all who critiques every play you make. I love playing poker live. Seriously. I had a million drinks and got so hammered I couldn’t read the cards on the board. That’s how you know it’s time to head over to the craps table.

The real story was getting there. Without a car, there are three options for getting to Foxwoods from NYC: take the bus, take a train halfway and a bus the rest, or take a train most of the way and take a bus for the last 20 minutes. We chose to take the train halfway because it was cheaper than taking the train most of the way. Plus it said “casino package”. Which is a good enough selling point for me. It was a bad decision. The train portion of the trip was fine, but the bus part totally blew. I blame Greyhound for the bad mojo which eventually lead to my losing weekend. To start, the bus was an hour late. Buses don’t have schedule monitors. That would be asking too much. So we spent an hour waiting outside of the train station with child molesters, serial killers, and the crackwhore single moms that frequent Greyhound buses. Once we got on the bus, I realized the real treat wasn’t just getting to ride on the bus with these people, it was the opportunity to smell them for 2 hours.

Anyway I’ve rambled enough. Here’s the real review of Foxwoods: It’s fucking huge. They have more poker tables than anywhere I’ve ever seen, spreads more games at more limits, and it’s run as well as the majority of casinos I’ve been to in Vegas. The craps table runs at $10 on weekends and I’m pretty sure I saw a $5 craps table on Sunday afternoon. It’s inconvenient to get to (which is exactly what everyone told me before I went). Oh yeah and there are hillbillies up here just like in the South. Still I’d like to go back, as long as I could get better transportation. I need to find one of these charter Chinatown buses, those chinese people love their gambling.

Oh yeah, and keno. One of the freebies in the “Casino Package” was some free Keno action. Having never played keno before, we just gave our cards to the guy at the counter who told us to come back in two hours. We showed up a few hours later to find out that we had won $5. That’s five American dollars. It’s no $400, but it will do.

If the title doesn’t say it all, the picture does:

(I’m in the back on the right)

There were a series of missteps that lead to our championship, but let’s just say destiny was on our side. We beat two teams that were definitively better than us. We did have some help though. First, Jan was able to get a couple girls to come out and play with us so we didn’t have to forfeit after all of our girls bailed on us. I can’t remember their names, but those girls were awesome. Next, it poured down rain before the game started (like monsoon rain) so a bunch of people from the other teams didn’t show up. And probably the largest contributing factor was that Jan was a scoring machine and was pulling zero angle goals on a keeper that knew what he was doing. It was a sight to be seen.

Actually, I take that back. I know exactly why we won. See a while time ago, my favorite Mexican bought me a Chivas home jersey. Not the bullshit streetvendor $2 kind, the real deal. I only pull this jersey out for special occasions. I’m sure it was the jersey that won the game, because it definitely wasn’t my blistered feet.

The funniest thing of all of this is that for winning the championship, we didn’t receive t-shirts (like every other adult league in the world would give out), we got a trophy and medals. And while that may seem like the dumbest idea in the world (well, actually it is), we had a great time with them. Because I learned a valuable lesson: if you want people to talk to you when you go out to the bar, grab a group of friends and show up with medals around your necks and a trophy in hand. I’ve never been so popular in my life. The bartender bought our entire first round. Everyone wants to give you a high five (that part sucked for me, but you’ve gotta roll with it when free drinks are involved), and attractive women would walk all the way across the bar to talk to the sweaty guys with the trophy (for real). Pure craziness.

In case you needed more proof that the Alamo Drafthouse was the greatest movie theater ever, then you should check this out. Last week I watched The Warriors at Coney Island, followed by a Q&A with a number of the cast members. I even got to hear Cyrus say “CAN YOU DIG IT?” in person. Daren is jealous, I can feel it. It was totally worth the three hours I spent on the subway. Now if Ice-T, Chris Rock, and Wesley Snipes will just get together and host a screening of New Jack City…