Randomly interesting, often unusual, pieces of news and opinion that can’t otherwise be categorized.
I saw something really neat on the news yesterday, and I just knew I had to share it with the assortment of regular readers, online gamblers, and people looking to buy casino carpet who visit my site. This story is covered virtually everywhere, but I particularly like First Coast News‘s package, which includes audio: Piper […]
For some reason, I get a “CityAtlantic” email newsletter. Usually, it’s just a bunch of shilling for whatever big events are coming up, but this issue has a real gem: an unsigned manifesto about one man’s aborted journey to greatness. From CityAtlantic.com: Being overweight comes with a lot of baggage… and I’m not just talking
Science is great. You have an idea, you write for a grant, and then you get to test the idea. Sometimes, you get a big breakthrough. Other times, people misrepresent your conclusions. Take, for example, this story, which suggests that running alone is hazardous to your health. From Forbes: Many runners contend that jogging alone
Running alone is bad? Read More »
haphazard worldFor me, taking pictures of casino carpet and posting them on this site has been a mixed blessing. On one hand, I’ve gotten to share something I find oddly humorous with thousands of people I’ve never met. On the other, I keep getting calls from people who want to actually buy the carpet. (I wonder
White house carpet obsession Read More »
haphazard worldAccording to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Al Qaeda has better PR than the US. According to CNN’s American Morning, they’ve also got a decent policy on paid vacations for operatives. From CNN transcripts: O’BRIEN: It’s not your run-of-the-mill job offer. The salary is decent, the benefits surprisingly good. The only trouble is, from our perspective,
But how’s the pension plan? Read More »
haphazard worldMarketing gambling is a fascinating profession: how do you convince people to spend time coming to a casino, real or virtual, when in all likelihood they will lose? I can’t tell you that, because I’m not a casino marketer. But I guess they are doing something right, as casino revenues continue to soar. Valentines Day,
Love and Pocket Aces Read More »
gambling & culture, haphazard worldRunning a clandestine casino requires a lot of stealth–you need to get the word out, but not tip off the cops. You need to account for large amounts of people coming and going. You also, apparently, need to lock your door. From the AP: Sheriff’s deputies found what appeared to be a small casino when
With the whole “Sin City” marketing strategy, it feels like a lot of Las Vegans think that they invented hedonism. I mean, people have been getting plastered and doing stupid things for millennia. I guess the genius of Las Vegas is that its promoters have boiled this down to a soundbite. Doing research for Roll
What happens at the coffeehouse… Read More »
haphazard worldI am busy at work revising Roll the Bones and doing 1000 other things today, but nevertheless I found these stories compelling enough to share with you. The first shows that megalomania is alive and well. From Scotsman.com: TURKMENISTAN’S president, Sapamurat Niyazov, has ordered construction of a university to be named after his book Rukhnama,
No, this isn’t a glowing review of Wynn Las Vegas–it’s a rare foray from me away from gambling and into the realm of politics. It turns out that a poem indirectly praising US president George W. Bush has been discovered and eliminated from a Pakistani textbook. From the Guardian: Penned by an anonymous writer, The
This didn’t happen in Atlantic County, but it’s close enough to count. Here’s more proof that the truth is indeed stupider than fiction. From the AC Press: A Long Island, N.Y., woman formerly of Manahawkin was charged with burglary Saturday after allegedly breaking into a Parker Avenue home and stealing jewelry before falling asleep on
A while ago, I posted on a story about robot camel jockeys in Qatar. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether it was a totally legit story. Did someone just put some mannequins on camels and have a little fun? Could this really be the next wave of cybernetic design? Thanks to a great article
Robot jockeys explained Read More »
haphazard worldI’m not posting this because of the “low brow humor” aspect, but because of the wittiness, intentioned or not, of the writer. Plus, I got a special email request to comment on this. It’s a story about the theft of bull sperm from the Washington Post: In his nearly 16 years in the Frederick County
Liquid assets stolen Read More »
haphazard worldI got this one while searching Pravda for Russian gambling news. It’s a keeper. From FunReports: The police department of the Russian city of Ulyanovsk obtained information about an attack that a group of criminals was going to commit against a local business woman. The police decided to arrest the gangsters in the woman’s apartment,
Well, that was little more than a fancy way to lead into this story from the LV Sun about a woman who used a stolen credit card to buy a lottery ticket–and is paying the price: A Southern Oregon woman used a stolen credit card to buy a state lottery scratch-it ticket that was worth
The lottery millionaire and the purloined plastic Read More »
gambling & culture, haphazard worldIs it just me, or did casino carpet designers get some serious inspiration from these fabrics? Ugly Couch Home
I don’t generally follow the banking industry, nor do I claim to know much about it, but I’ve got a sneaking suspiscion that payday loan places are a rip-off. So I was intriuged to find out that Arizona now has more payday loan businesses than Starbucks and McDonalds–combined.
I’m waiting for this poster to arrive in the mail some day…it’s an even-money bet as to whether I would find a place for it in my office. It would balance out my brand new “ROBOTcasino” poster. This isn’t a parody, either: the “Taiwan Fulgent Entertainment Company” was giving them away at G2E. The poster
A t-shirt for the times Read More »
haphazard worldNo, this isn’t something out of Total Recall or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress–there is really an entrepreneur who is selling air to people who live right here on Earth where, at last check, the air was still free. His gimmick? Nostalgia.
I have seen the future of racing, and it is robots! At least I think so. According to Ananova, robot jockeys have been pressed into service at a Qatar camel-racing track. They have a picture, too: