I have returned home from "The Niagara Excursion". A fascinating experience. First off, we never went to see the actual falls at all. It hadn't stopped snowing since Saturday morning. Fortunately, the casino was nice and warm, had an entourage of conveiniantly located floating Beer Girls, and was some really good fun. Blackjack style.

Our group had its own table which was helpful since if you had crap then you could attempt to draw out the right card for the person on your left, or hold, depending on what the card trend was. Plus the anchor, the last seat at the able) could help influence the dealer to bust. It was somewhere between a 6 and 8 hour run, nonstop. Overall our group came out ahead, raking in some good coin. Small potatoes. I personally lost about 250. not that bad. I was up for a long time. But after about beer #15 or so I started to bet kind of funny. Go figure. When you start playing 50 bones a hand and double down on hard 12's with the dealer showing 10, you tend to start losing. But it sure is fun!

My favorite was "the epic of the d00d". "The d00d" was my roomie for this excursion. An exceedingly cool guy is "the d00d". He is comparatively mild compared to the rest of us wildly extroverted types. He sat to my left.Anyways, after 5 hours or so at it "the d00d" started to get bored and attempted to lose the rest of his chips. At that point something magical happened. All of a sudden Jesus showed up at our table and was on the side of "the d00d". Apparently, the house pissed Jesus off good because after that "the d00d" just couldn't lose. Pretty soon He had quite a collection of 25 dollar chips and they just kept growing. By the end I was in awe of him. Royally smashed, I think He walked away quite pleased. Good stuff.

Almost as good was the story of my buddy "the big loser". Coincidentally, He is married to "the big winner". Even at the height of drunken betting I had to give my head a shake at the betting of "the big loser". This indivdual likes to split on really fantastic (and I mean that literally) hands like double threes with dealer showing 9 or 10. Fortunately, H e is married to "the big winner". Now "the big winner" didn't even play Blackjack. She spent most of the day at the quarter slots and unbeknownst to the rest of us the roullette table. Apparently , a few rolls after "the big winner" hit the table the ball spun out of the wheel and went straight down her top. Now this is a problem when that happens at a casino. The dealer freaks out, the pit bosses come out and check all this out [editor's note: if their is any question about the ball why not replace the thing?]. Anyway, "the big winner" correctly assumed this was a sign from the aforementioned Jesus. So she bet large and inside next hand, meaning on the individual numbers. They pay huge, 30 to 1 or something, I can't remember but the payout was pretty good. and the slots hit twice on quarters for her. Either way, she offset "the big loser" losses and then some. The rest of were playing blackjack and had no idea about this as we were all playing blackjack. "The big loser" was complaining that someone had stolen all his luck. Well, just then "the big winner" showed up to explain where it had gone. Definately, a poignant moment. We all laughed our asses off. :)

Note: "the big loser" is an awesome guy, He just really sucks at drinking and gambling at the same time, despite the big smile on his face.  

The other notable was "the degenerate". He organized the whole trip as he is wont to do. This guy is the hub that this group of friends revolves around. He organizes stuff, and is especially good on the fly. Somehow, this guy knows all the good places to go, everywhere in Toronto, on any particular day. Want to smoke in a non-smoking and have cheap drinks downtown TO on a Wednesday? Call "the degenerate". He doesn't even have to think about it. He will give you 3 places, off the top of his head. "the degenerate" had to give up all access to cash before reaching Niagara, credit cards, bank cards, only god knows what else.

Saturday morning we had to take two minivans of us to go out. "The degererate" was directing us in cab 1. We in cab 2 thought we were going to "Ripley's Museum". It became apparent slighlty later on when we saw a suspcious amount of casino signs that we were going to the casino first.    

Anyway, "the degenrate" coached us all on the rules of all the games, made sure everyone had what they needed, and was generally quite great. He may have ended up with something of a minimal loss but He had a good a time as everyone else.  

The rest of the weekend was spent eating, drinking and partying. Despite the fact that we picked possibly the worst weekend weatherwise ever, everyone had a good time.