When the condo sold back on Leap Day, I figured a good way to celebrate would be to make my first trip to Pittsburgh’s riverside casino, creatively named “Rivers”.

What I hadn’t figured was how painfully difficult it would be to obtain a fistful of Bens for my initial cash buy-in. BayBank BankBoston FleetBoston Bank of America has no branch ( Read more... )

I started taking casino blackjack seriously about ten years ago, and the venue for three-quarters of my gambling junkets has been Foxwoods. Over those years, they’ve been very good to me.

A frequent birthday ritual has been to take the day off and drive down to Connecticut, play some blackjack, and then stop off at Purgatory Chasm on the way home.
( Read more... )

Somehow two years had passed since my last trip to a casino. To make up for that, I made two blackjack pilgrimages in the past couple months. Here’s some notes.

My first stop was Foxwoods, my preferred joint. In that session, I lost a lot early, but managed to turn it around. In the most memorable hand, I split two fours against a four, then ( Read more... )

This year’s birthday wasn’t the greatest piece of work I’ve ever experienced. Woke up with a sore throat that presaged the cold I’d deal with for the following weeks. Made the usual pilgrimage to Foxwoods (where I lost for the first time in three years) and visit to Purgatory Chasm, which was cold and grey but pleasant enough, then a big ( Read more... )

Last night I attended the Reel Paddling Film Festival at the Kendall, a three-hour collection of the best kayaking and canoeing films of the year.

On the way in, organizers asked attendees to register for two raffles. I ( Read more... )

Figure the odds. The chance of you being a Liscomb in the US are 1 in 860,000. It’s only 1 in 800,000 in Canadia.

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      The following is my travelogue from the 2007 DargonZine Writers' Summit. The official project writeup and photos can be found here, while my favorites out of my own photos can be found here.
Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Woke up to 20 degrees, but at least it was sunny. We'd had snow ( Read more... )

I thought it important that I followup on last month’s article, wherein-after a successful trip down to Foxwoods-I described my betting strategy for blackjack.

I did a little followup research, and discovered that the basic idea behind my betting strategy is pretty close to something that’s been around for a long time, and is commonly known as the ( Read more... )

I know it’s tedious to read about everyone’s end-of-year natterings, so I’ll keep mine brief.

Having just gone through a very difficult period, I’m naturally inclined to write 2005 off as just a series of very painful events. However, when I went to make a list of the good and the bad, I discovered a very ( Read more... )

So my buddy somervillian, who hosted a few of the Hold ’Em tournaments that I’ve attended, aspires to become a “serious” poker player. A couple days ago he pinged me and asked if I wanted to make a trip down to Foxwoods with him. (For the out-of-towners, Foxwoods is an Indian casino in Connecticut, and presumably the largest casino in the world).

I’ve only ( Read more... )