arthur bryant's is fucking wonderful. i cannot emphasize this enough.
ok, from here on we're post-mangling. mostly because drunk+fifa isn't really worth more than this sentence.
andrew's flight in got delayed to around 10pm on friday, so our masterful dinner plan was this: casino steaks->casino->airport->casino. i don't really know if its possible to beat that plan for a friday night. the casinos in missouri are all riverboats, and they have a few unique rules (beyond just being boats) that separate them from my other casino experiences. they are:
- everyone has to have a player's card which must be swiped at every table
- there is a loss-limit of $500 every 24 hours (hence the previous rule)
- drinks are not free
- 10x odds in craps for all numbers (not taken advantage of enough!)
- i think that's it
we had steaks at argosy, which was a plus experience. it was the first exposure to just how cheap kansas city is - it was $27 each and we got: a salad, a kc strip, a potato, and a side. granted, it was a casino steakhouse, but still, that sets you back $40-$50 at least on a coast. we had some time to kill before andrew's flight, so we went and found a blackjack table ($10 - another side effect of those rules is that the limits end up being real low everywhere). there were three things to note about this table (there will be many bulleted lists in this post):
- the dealer when we sat down (keith) was brutal at first. then we got to a second shoe. he asked who wanted to cut, and the guy to my left (we'll get to him) said he didn't want to and asked if someone else could. keith said anyone could, even the dealer. guy to my left (gtml) asked keith to cut, and we all agreed. keith cut, and then dealt winning hands for half a shoe. he didn't treat me well, but everyone else seemed to do ok. his relief comes once he starts losing a reasonable amount (see sports guy re: this matter if you don't understand what i'm saying), and as he walks away he says that he doesn't actually know if the dealer can cut shoes. we wonder if we will see him again
- gtml was hilarious. he must have been somewhat drunk. very loud, southern-ish accent, and wasn't from kc, as he did mention 'visting kansas city'. he did a few hilarious things, but the best was right after keith was pulled. he complains about how "as soon as we get smiles on our faces the dealer changes" (he said this about 3 times so i'm fairly certain i quoted him directly). the new dealer, michael (the third bullet point, as you will soon see) deals out a blackjack to geoff and to gtml on the first hand. gtml yells, loudly "KEITH WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?" 3 times. gtml eventually busts and leaves, but he will be with us always for that line. keith who indeed.
- michael had the unenviable task of replacing keith (who honestly was not that great for me but seemed to be a nice enough guy). this also was his first day ever dealing. first. day. ever. he made more than a few mistakes - paying geoff on a push (which keith actually did for me too - KC isn't as tightly run as vegas), mishandling cards a few times, and almost totally boning geoff's attempt to color up by leaving two green chips out from an earlier transaction. geoff almost netted $50 extra because this guy forgot to put these chips into his tray before taking all of geoff's chips. first time dealers are silly.
we left the argosy to get drew, me down a bit, geoff up a tiny bit, and chad the big winner. drew is retrieved, pleasantries are exchanged, and we head over to ameristar for the evening. we get there around 10:30 and hit the floor around 11pm. if i could do this every friday night i probably would. we glide through a craps session in which we learn about the 10x odds, i throw dice at the stickman (more difficult than you might think), and no one really wins any money. craps is f'n hard to win money at - once you get any kind of a roll, you want to put money everywhere, but you have to really feel out when to take bets down and when to stop betting in order to win and not leave all your profits out on the table. many a good roll end with "man i only won $5 from that."
after the craps run, all of us were hurting. i was down to $30, and i think chad had negated his blackjack winnings from earlier. we went upstairs to the $5 blackjack tables at ameristar to lick our wounds. nothing amazingly fun happened, though i did let it ride on one of my hands and got blackjack, until the very end. andrew, growing increasingly fed up with the evening in terms of gambling, decided that he was done. he took 5 green chips and plopped them down, putting the white and pinks on the side as a bet for the dealer. $125 bet, which is huge in a casino that doesn't let you lose more than $500 in a day. his first card is a 2. the dealer pulls a face... and andrew gets a nice 9 on that 2 to make 11. he groans, reaches for his pocket, and pulls out $140. "double down. face up, let's take it like a man."
he pulls a 10. dealer busts. andrew gets an orange ($500) chip. high-fives all around.
after this, of course, the evening was over. how could that be followed up? also it was 2am and we were all pretty tired.
the next day brought the reason we were in kansas city - the nfl draft, and the browns pick at #3. we were fairly sure the browns were going with brady quinn, qb from notre dame, and none of us were happy about it. we all believe strongly that the team should build up the line before getting a skill player (see: david carr). everything we had read and heard had quinn coming to the browns though, except for a few rumblings from kiper that very morning. he mentioned quinn in the text of one of his articles, but had joe thomas, LT from wisconsin, going to the browns in his chart at the bottom. pipe dreams, we thought.
until, of course, it happened.
joe thomas to the browns, and all of us jumped around geoff's apartment like 13-year old girls. laughter, shock, joy - these words only begin to describe how we felt (edit: also laughter isn't a feeling). since i've moved to cleveland, i can count on one hand the number of times the browns have surprised me in a good way. this was definitely one of those times, though.
we watched to see where the rest of the top ten would go, as we had a little draft pool going which andrew eventually won. we had decided earlier in the week to go to dairy queen during this draft for our meal, so we pulled this together around the 7th or 8th pick. first to the bank, then to a drugstore, then to the grocery store, then to DQ, then back in time for the wizards-cavs game (which i will get to shortly). the bank gave us a hilarious scene, in which i got out of the car to make a deposit (first bank of andrew! which i cannot expound upon), walked up to the further drive-through ATM, and as geoff followed me the whole car exploded with yelling as the dolphins chose to pass on brady quinn for ted ginn jr. clearly they wrote quinn and it was misread and they had no recourse, but anyway, it was out of a movie.
we went to cvs, and then to the grocery store to prep for the bound-to-be-painful wizards-cavs game 3. quinn remained on the board.
dairy queen was a fucking travesty. this was really a shame, because we had high hopes, but it was in kansas and we should have known better. the food was awful, the service was slow, the other patrons smelled terrible, and their vanilla soft serve machine was broken. "like mcdonalds not having burgers." i hate dq and i really hate kansas.
it's hard building up the tension, it having happened already, but the excitement was palpable. it didn't seem possible until we got in the car on the return trip from dairy queen and behold brady quinn was still available. it was the second pipe dream - would the browns give up enough to move up and get two of the top five talents in this draft? since it was the browns, i would have said no, but this is the year that phil savage finally realized that he might get fired if the browns don't win.
the draft was spectacular and we were all in great spirits going in to the cavs game. of course, the amazing drinking game we created for this game helped. basically, we all had 4 events - if they happened, we received 3 drinks to dole out to the other 3 participants however we wanted to. we drafted these events, and here is how everyone fared. oh, and the game was on tnt. this is important.
- geoff's: Everytime the Closer graphic comes up, Barkley complains about Cavs lack of PG, Gilbert Arenas shown in the stands, Snow and Gibson on the court together
- chad's: Songaila called for a foul, Sasha travels/carries, Hughes changes his headband, Lebron completes an and-one
- andrew's: Teammates can't handle Lebron's passes, Cavs fail to score coming out of a timeout, Every time Lebron posts up, Z tries a behind the back pass
- mine: Hughes pulls up on a fast break, Ira Newble jacks a three, Varejao takes a charge, Can't feel my face/make it rain
additionally (!!!) we picked 'firsts' for each half - first cav to dunk, first cav to shoot a ft, first cav to block/steal, first cav to make a three.
we drank beers and jager bombs. we all ended up quite drunk. snow&gibson was incredibly valuable, and when antwan jamison did "can't feel my face" it was the single greatest moment of the game. second greatest moment - when they replayed jamison doing "can't feel my face." chad owning the lebron and-1 caused me to boo a lebron free throw, which caused me to get drunker than i would have had i not booed. all in all, it is very difficult to watch cavs basketball without this or a similar drinking game, i think.
at some point one of geoff's friends (brent!) came over and we played kings for a little bit. we then headed to the plaza and a bar called the grandfalloon, where we ate food and sobered up a bit and watched the tribe lose to the orioles. nothing really of note happened until we went downstairs and decided to play pool. after waiting upwards of 90 minutes for two terrible games of pool to end, we finally got on the table.
first, an aside: i owed andrew $40 at this point of the evening, between a bad RPS game, the pistons beating the magic, and losing the aforementioned draft pool.
so i played brent first while andrew and chad finished up their darts game. i'm up a ball and have a very difficult shot on the 8 ball that i'm lining up when andrew walks over, looks over the shot, and announces that i will receive $20 if i knock the 8-ball in on the shot i have called. i do knock the shot in and take the $20 off his hands. i play a random person in the bar and take a good lead before scratching on an ambitious 8-ball shot and losing. chad and drew cleaned this guy up which led to brent/me against chad/drew. we lost the first game, which we had a chance at winning and blew. luckily, we kept a quarter on the table and demanded a rematch.
drew makes a terrible break. cue ball is back where it came from, there is a mess of balls everywhere, the solids (us) are all blocked by stripes. except one, the 5 ball, which had no shot on anything directly. but it did have an angle on the 3 ball. which would directly go into the far right corner pocket except it was blocked by... the 2 ball. i called it. cue->5->3->2.
andrew says something about money. i don't hear him. i knock in the 2. and the 3.
apparently he offered me $40 if i made the shot. later he said he was drunk enough to have said anything, he could have said $400. i really wish he had.
we were at this bar for something like 5 hours altogether. chad and drew both got pretty drunk, and geoff and brent weren't far behind. the waitress only charged us for 3 beers and 6 mixed drinks, leaving our tab at... $29. for an east-coaster, this an absurd thing to see. yet another example of the low expenses of kansas city.
the draft weekend was a success - the browns drafted well, the cavs and spurs won, and we all had a really good time. we didn't win a world cup, which breaks from tradition, but despite that, it was definitely one of the more fun weekends in recent memory. unfortunately, with geoff moving to pittsburgh, kansas city's time has come. i remarked that i'd miss it, as i had a fun time every time i came out there. geoff did not share my sentiment, but i guess i can't really blame him.
you don't get to mangle niv every weekend in kansas city. only draft weekend.