You don’t need a mirror on the ceiling
Podcasts February 9th, 2007Boy what a week it’s been on the website, in fact we spend the first half of the show talking about all the great posts. What a rowdy bunch stories from Finland and football to giving birth at the craps table you discussed it all.
Love it, hate it, Tommy loves the fact the Vegas is one big happy family and Brian goes on a rant with a little help from Steve.
Last Casino review on the strip is the grand old Tropicana. We are not going to lie, it’s a dump. The sports books in a closest, the poker rooms not much better and the best thing we can say about the food is we didn’t get sick eating the buffet.
Email: Brian Mollica brian@notiowa.com and Tommy Dutch tom@notiowa.com Give us a call 206-203-Iowa
February 9th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
“Embracing your inner degenerate” - Thanks to you guys we get to do that twice a week.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Great to hear you guys are going to be expanding the strip reviews to the off-strip places. I can’t wait for the Rio’s rating in a future show. Hopefully you guys will also slum it up a bit and rate the downtown casinos.
Also with all these sports bets being posted it would be great to find a website that will allow groups of people to join and place play money sports bets! That way the entire TAI group could join and try to beat red hot “Touch Down” Tommy D. I’d search for a site that’s capable but I’m at work and would rather not get fired or ruin the internet privileges for everyone else at the office.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Regarding Anna Nicole-Smith ..I heard one theory that forth-coming DNA test reveal she had had an oedipus thing going on..
(she did die in a casino hotel room..)
February 9th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
What the Hell. I get back from Vegas mid-week and post up a long message, congratulate KGB, and have a good mini-exchange with both Trainfan and Devildog ranging from Band Names to the Rainbow Bar over a span no less than two days. On Friday I update my ipod and listen to a good show on my way in to work only to hear, at the 55 minute mark, myself getting crap for not posting. Do you guys record the Friday show on Tuesdays now? Should we all make our final four picks this week to meet your minimum lead time? The only other rational explanation I can think of is that Tommy is in charge of message board review and hasn’t figured out how to use the “scroll-down” key on his new computer yet so the final 20 messages from last week went MIA. Fennville probably has a better theory though.
Its all good.
The rest of the show was on target and funny. With the possible exception of the rather disturbing news that Brian himself applied for a job at Hooters. Yikes! Not a good vision!!
The Iowa connection is becoming increasingly hilarious. Its bad enough you have accumulated Iowa listeners, but now Brian’s comedy cast is being dominated by Iowa talk! Karma. It was a good behind the bricks episode (7 Feb) and interview though. I am now expecting to tune in UPC and see all pig farmers at the final table.
It sounds like the Trainfan meeting should be a good one.
I will likely return to Vegas in a few months and I suspect that my group will have to hit the Voodoo Lounge - so, hosts, you have been given early warning (assuming you survive Trainfan). My real guess is that Tommy Dutch can party us all under the table though.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I’m with Slash -
Thanking us for “more than 30 posts”?!?! How about more than 50!
This is more pre-recorded than ESPN’s World Series of Poker or the 1984 NBA Finals - what’s up with that?
I think you are going to have to add a Wednesday - Message Board Review and Discussion Session.
I think we should just keep posting on the last show - and Brian and Tommy will think that they’ve lost all of their listeners.
Ok - now that’s out of my system - Good show. I do think I will have the last laugh as we down the Mai Tai’s at TI. Brian has made the mistake of not asking what makes them special. Let’s just say it’s three little words that spell 151. And I’m sure that unlike the “traitor” Slash I will return to post again. Iin fact - I have some info for our good friend and global ambassador KGB that I”ll put into the next post.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Let’s Call This Post -
YOU MIGHT NOT NEED A MIRROR - BUT KGB MIGHT WANT ONE
From the World Sex Guide (http://www.worldsexguide.org):
FINLAND:
Legal Situation:
Prostitution Status: Prostitution is neither illegal nor regulated.
One of the traditional methods which prostitutes have used to contact customers is the personals in Finnish sex magazines and even daily newspapers. The ads (in the daily papers) are very ambiguously worded and of course in Finnish. The traditional code word indicating prostitution in the personals is “päiväkahvit”, which roughly translates as ‘daytime coffee service’. However, these personals usually require a written reply to the signed pseudonym, so they are a slow method, not very suited for those looking for quick sex. Besides, if your Finnish is poor, you may have a hard time figuring out whether an ad is offering or asking for service.
Brush up on the Finnish KGB or you might end up making money instead of spending it!!!!
February 9th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Slashdogx wrote:
“I will likely return to Vegas in a few months and I suspect that my group will have to hit the Voodoo Lounge - ”
When are you going back? After this upcoming trip in a few weeks, I’m back again in May - the 20th to the 24th.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Ok, so you caught us, we had to record the Friday show a little early to make sure it was released on time. You fuckers are on top of it! Be sure to tune in Friday for a recap of what that crazy president Reagan is up to now.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Brian wrote: “tune in Friday for a recap of what that crazy president Reagan is up to now.”
Cool. Can you cover the Grand Opening of the Sand’s new buffet while your at it.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:35 am
Thanks for all the info about the 80% fat guys / 20% girls parties… how about some tips for a party where we can find 3 or more hot women for every guy? That definitely ain’t Iowa!
February 10th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Trainfan - what a hoot. I’ve been coming here for a lot of years and never heard of “daytime coffee service” as a euphemism for commercial beaver. Every coffee shop I’ve ever been to sells coffee. Even in Amsterdam where the coffee shops are fronts for hash dens apparently don’t offer whores. According to the locals, the strippers and prostitutes here seem to mostly be from Russia or one of the former Soviet republics, looking for either quick money to send home or to find a sugar daddy so they can get an EU passport.
1 more week in this frozen country. I can deal without -30 temps. I think a trip to Vegas is definitely in order to thaw out! My wife and kids are here with me, and the kids go to school. Last week it was too cold even for Finns to have outside PE.
Since I seem to be this week’s target for crap
here’s my Pahrump story:
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Every year in the winter the guys and I take a trip to Vegas. It started as a guy’s bachelor party and then just became the anniversary of his bachelor party. Anyhow, about 5-6 years ago we were there and one of the guys was getting a divorce. Apparently his wife left him for another dude. Well, we felt bad, so a bunch of us chipped in $50 each and drove him out to Pahrump about 9am Saturday morning after a night of heavy partying.
So we get to Pahrump and can’t find where we are going. We stop at one of the local casinos and ask a security guard “Hey, where are the cathouses?” There was something really spooky about asking a (pseudo-)cop for directions to the brothel, and then getting them!
We drive out into the middle of the desert and there’s two cathouses right next to each other. Basically they are fancy trailers. We went into one of them, and there’s a bar on one side, an entry room on the other, and of course the “offices” are somewhere in the back. We go into the bar and have a beer while the divorcee is working up his nerve, and finally he is ready. So all of us go into the entry room (and there was another bachelor party there the same time as us), and get a “lineup” where the ladies all come out and introduce themselves. The madam asks us all whom we want, and of course all us family guys say “just looking, here with the divorcee, etc.” When they get to the divorcee, it takes him all of about a nanosecond to call out the name of the gal he wants. So he goes back to the “offices” and we go back in the bar.
Now probably what happened is that he took about 6 seconds to finish the transaction and made her stay back there and talk to him for about 20 minutes so that he wouldn’t be the complete target of shit from the rest of us. We drove back to Vegas and pressed him for details but he didn’t say much - all he had was a smile. At least until his football team got WHACKED later that day in the NFL playoffs.
So there’s my Pahrump story. Who’s got better reviews?
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Tommy, we need an over/under line for player arrests and gangland murders during the NBA all-star weekend.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
My plays for Saturday
UCLA-3 over West Virginia
WV looked like they were going to be a dark horse early in the season, but they have been caught in a downward spiral. Not a good time to be facing one of the most complete teams in college basketball. I’ll take the Bruins in a blowout.
Arizona +2.5 over Oregon
Ever since the Ducks were exposed by UCLA, they’ve been struggling. They lost to USC and barely escaped with a 4 point victory at home against the lowly ASU Scum Devils. I’m not gonna lie, there may be some value with Oregon if you can find them at -1.5, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Go Cats!
Detroit -6.5 over Toronto
Last year the Raptors were my cover team of the year. They rarely won but were generally such huge underdogs they would cover. Well, that was last year. This year I’ll take the Pistons by double digits.
My plays
UCLA-3
Arizona+2.5
Detroit-6.5
February 10th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Wow, game 1 was seriously piss poor. If Zona puts up the same kind of effort, you may be hearing the drunk show sooner than expected.
February 11th, 2007 at 2:12 am
Anna’s gone and Florida “WILL REPEAT”!
Florida to cover over Kentucky!!!!!!!!!
February 11th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Hi everybody! Man do I have some news to share!
I was having dinner tonight at no doubt one of Tommy Dutch’s favorite places to chow as a youngster, the venerable Crazy Horse in Holland, MI when I get to yapping about Vegas with a gentleman next us at the bar. Get this! They…and I think he even mentioned some Winn or Wynn guy is finally going to do something with that old Dunes property. Sounds like it is going to be pretty special. He said they are even going have fountains that some how are in sync with music. Can you imagine how sweet that is going to be? If T Dutch liked Air Play at Trop so much, then man he is going to be spending a lot of time at the corner of Flamingo and the Strip watching the water show. That’s not all. I guess the Hilton dude with all of the cash that owns Caesars and Bally’s and the Flamingo is building some monstrosity right across the street. It turns out that he has a sweet, innocent granddaughter named Paris who will soon be turning 18. I haven’t heard of the girl and we probably won’t hear much about her beyond this post, but to celebrate her birthday, the place is going to be called Paris and supposedly modeled after the city of the same name. the whole idea is to make you feel like you are in some quaint French village as you walk between Bally’s and the new place. I heard the killer is going to be a replica Eiffel Tower with a hot air balloon right next to it. Man nothing says Paris like a hot air balloon. I bet when Brian finds out about this, he is going to start bugging Tommy to do a show live from atop the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know if this information helps at all guys. Just passing on what I heard . Feel free to use any of the information in an upcoming show.
BTW how come no mentions of Sigfried and Roy’s show lately? My wife and I have reservations for the Stardust next month and thought we’d walk down the Strip to check that out. Guess we’ll just have to stop in and do some gambling at the Desert Inn or Westward Ho instead.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:07 am
Brian, it serves you right. Daring to pick against my Mountaineers right after a show making it my day in the barrel? I enjoyed every minute of the WVU win - thank you Slingbox!
February 11th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Hey Fennville - with your tight connections - maybe you know something about this place: http://landmark.startrekxtreme.com/1962.jpg
Some new, state of the art place going up just off the strip.
Brian and Tommy - can you check it out for us?
Ok, ok - even as I’m posting this I realize that the bit is already worn out and we’ll have to move another direction. I Guess it’s either back to the Parhump Whores, Punting Grumpies or talking about how long Brian can actually survive in Vegas going 1 for 3 on his BB picks.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Straight Outta Fennville:
Glad to hear you’re going to Vegas next month… could you cash in some casino chips for me when you go? They’re from the “Silver Slipper” and “The Mint”. I’d appreciate it, as I probably won’t get back to Vegas until spring break 1987.
February 11th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
No problem Steve. I will just drive down the middle of Fremont Street.
Maybe we should all meet up sometime out there. We could take in the free show Tommy recommended at the Tropicana. The one with jugglers and trapeze artists and stuff. We better hurry though. The last performance is New Years Eve 2005.
February 11th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
this joke could go on and on until i get a computer and then don’t have one again and then have one again. tune in tomorrow to understand what the hell i’m talking about
February 12th, 2007 at 12:27 am
TF John,
I never got to experience the Landmark but I had lunch once with a guy who dealt dice there. Oh, and I once parked in the lot shamed by the author of that website. Life in the disposable city I guess.
February 12th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Well, last Sunday my husband Slashdog and I were visiting with Brian and Tommy at the Hilton in Las Vegas and having a few beers. This Sunday it’s back to reality. We had a great time though and I encourage each of you to swap a story or two with Brian and Tommy if you get a chance. They are as entertaining in real life as they are on their pod casts. Thanks Brian and Tommy for sharing your afternoon with us. You guys are great and a lot of fun to hang out with!
February 12th, 2007 at 2:40 am
And now for some truly tragic news:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/02/09/business/news/11_06_082_8_07.txt
Barbary Coast to becomes “Bill’s Gamblin Hall and Saloon”.
That is freaking weak!
February 12th, 2007 at 4:17 am
ok, so i not been able to listen for a while and looks like i have missed a lot in the last week and half. i am trying to catch up with the podcasts, so i can be caught up for tomorrow and ready to contribute.
the reason i was unavailable, is because i got sick and tired of living vicariously through bmo and tommy, and moved to vegas at the beginning of february. i have surrendered my california driver’s license and am now a proud resident of henderson, nv. can’t wait to meet up with bmo again and meet tommy dutch.
this is certainly a much different place than berkeley, california.
bmo and tommy, let me know if you need a field correspondent. i have the beer money ready, so can’t wait meet you guys and buy you a beer or six.
February 12th, 2007 at 11:17 am
“bill’s gambling hall and saloon”, that blows!! i think we need to organize an emergency drinking & gaming session at barbary coast before the change.
steve - there is an awesome website for all vegas real estate & development issues that has amazing maps (want to know who serves coke or pepsi, they have a full color map) it is http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com
a few notes on old shows since i just caught up:
Alladin is a complete cluster fuck - avoid at all costs until the renovation & change over is complete. i was just there and couldn’t get out fast enough.
if you want a great history of the people who built vegas, read “Sharks in the Desert” by John Smith (a journalist for the Review Journal) it is a great read with a ton of info on all the names big and small who helped make vegas what it is.
the monorail does suck, but works ok if you are by yourself and need to get the major stops on the east side of the strip. it has stops at sahara, hilton, riviera, harrah’s, bally’s/paris, and mgm grand. if you are by yourself it is cheaper than a cab and can be pretty quick.
Avoid the Deuce bus from about noon to 10 pm thurs-sunday. it goes down lv blvd at an absolute snails pace and i have seen up to 6 stacked in a row nears caesars going nowhere and have had to jump off and walk. it is great early in the morning and late at night and on off days, but you can get trapped on it (plus the ration of mentally unstable to sane people can be quite disturbing)