A Little Blackjack and a Lot of Movie

Helen insisted I get out of the apartment this morning, so I drove to Bally's, parked and hiked south about a mile to the MGM Grand to cash a $60 football ticket from the weekend games. It was a good walk and I needed some exercise. While there I played a little blackjack, losing $36 in about 20 minutes.

Then I walked back toward Bally's and ended up at Bill's Gambling Hall where I managed to eke out a $55 blackjack win over the course of an hour.

So for the day, I was up $19 and decided not to play any more so I could quite a winner, albeit a slight one.

I still had some time to kill before heading home, so I walked over to Caesars Palace and had lunch (a huge pizza slice & a diet Pepsi). After lunch I walked over to Bellagio to check out the poker action (saw no big poker names) and went to the sports book where I kicked back in the leather recliners and just rested while checking out some futures bets. The Tigers are 22-1 longshots to win the 2009 World Series.

Bellagio has a lot of Christmas decorations up and, as usual, they are spectacular. Huge silvery packages with bows the size of Buicks, about half-a-zillion potted poinsettias and some outrageously huge candy canes. Very cool.

I rolled home about 2 p.m. and Helen and I went over to the Suncoast theater to catch a 3:30 showing of "Australia" with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. It was long, almost 3 hours, but really pretty good. After the movie we had dinner at a small cafe - sweet and sour chicken for Helen and lemon chicken for me.

Then it was a quick ride home and time to plan tomorrow's adventure...