From: Las Vegas and the Mob

Things aren't always what they seem.

THE ROLL

By Dennis N. Griffin

It was 5:30 on a Tuesday morning. I was in a small casino a block off the Las Vegas Strip, where my wife worked as a waitress. I had another hour to wait before her shift ended and we could go home.

I decided to kill some time at the craps table. The place had a quarter minimum bet; so you could play quite a while on a ten-dollar buy in. I considered myself to be very disciplined at the tables, so I knew I?d never drop any serious money while just passing time. And, with a little luck, I might even be able to make a couple of bucks profit.

There was only one other player at the table. I shrewdly eyed his bet and the status of his chip rack as I walked up to the table. He had fifty cents on the pass line, with no odds behind it. The puck showed he was trying to make a point of five. I guessed his chip rack contained three or four dollars of quarters and a couple of ones. Maybe he was just killing time, too.



I walked to the opposite end of the table and bought ten dollars in chips, mostly quarters. As my chips were being counted out, I noticed that only the three dealers manned the table. The boxman ? the fourth member and boss of the crew ? was absent. The lack of action probably didn?t require his presence.

For the next ten minutes my fellow shooter and I took turns passing the dice back and forth. We were both betting ?pass? and risking a half dollar each. He?d throw three or four numbers with no repeats, and then seven out. I?d do the same. The cubes were ice cold.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a figure approaching the table. I turned my head for a direct look. What I saw was not a pleasant sight. To say the newcomer was disheveled would be a gross understatement. I figured him to be in his late sixties, but he could have been much older, or much younger, for that matter. There was nothing remarkable about his height or build, but his appearance is indelibly etched in my mind. From his head to his feet he looked dirty. The salt and pepper hair was long and uncombed. He hadn?t used a razor in quite some time. His pullover shirt may have been white once, now it was gray and stained ? with what I dared not guess. His blue jeans were tattered, and looked as though they could stand up by themselves. I just knew he?d carry an unpleasant odor.

His shoulders were stooped, as though he carried the weight of the world on them. Here is a man who life has beaten into submission, I thought smugly. Here is a loser.

To my horror, this hideous apparition headed straight toward me. As he neared, I moved further around the end of the table until I was nudging the dealer. I could go no further. He stopped next to me, so close we were almost touching. My hunch had been right: he stunk. I briefly thought about moving to another position, and then discarded the idea. Who was he to make me move? To hell with him. I stubbornly decided to stand my ground, foul aroma and all.

My colleague at the other end of the table had just sevened out. The stickman passed the dice bowl in my direction. ?Shoot?? he asked as he passed the bowl in front of the loser. The old man nodded. He reached in his pants pocket, pulled out two crumpled up dollar bills and laid them on the felt in front of him. ?Ones,? he said. Two chips immediately replaced his bills. He put one of them on the pass line.

As his claw-like hand was selecting a pair of dice from the bowl, I put eight of my quarter chips on the ?don?t?. If this clown is going to blow his last two dollars, I might as well bet against him and make a dollar or two, I figured.

His first roll was a twelve. ?Craps dice, line away,? the dealer said. I smiled to myself as the dealer took the old man?s chip. The boxcars had been a ?push? for me. My bet was safe. I left the chips where they were.

His next three tosses were an eleven, sandwiched by a pair of sevens. He had let his bet ride, and now had eight dollars. I had doubled up after each loss and was down fourteen.

The smelly one moved five chips from the table to his rack. I reached for my back pocket and my third buy in. Only this time I wasn?t going to fool around with a lousy sawbuck. ?Give me forty ones,? I said to the dealer as my pair of twenties hit the table.

Over the next forty minutes I watched this man make fifteen passes and throw a whole bunch of numbers. As his bankroll increased, it became obvious he had a money management system. He kept four bets working, his pass line and three ?comes?. He took full odds on each. He?d ?press? a bet on occasion, but made sure to take down sufficient profits.

Several minutes into the roll a small crowd formed around the table to watch the action. The boxman returned. Perched on the edge of his chair, he watched the shooter like a hawk. Later, the pit boss also made an appearance. But by that time I was just a spectator, my chip rack and wallet long since empty.

I heard the boxman explain the streak to his boss. ?Considering the roll this guy is on, we haven?t been hurt too bad. The other guy is only betting half-dollars, and he (nodding toward me) was a non-believer. He offset some of the loss.?

After he finally sevened out, the old man spoke the only words he?d uttered since he ordered his chips. ?Color me up,? he said, as he shoved his considerable pile of winnings toward the dealer.

As I was watching my nemesis shuffle off to the cashier?s cage with several hundred dollars in chips, my wife grabbed my arm. ?Hi,? she said. ?What have you been up to??

?I guess you could say I?ve been in school.? I kept the emotion out of my voice, even though I was still smarting from the beating I?d taken.

?And what did you learn?? she asked, puzzled.

After a few seconds of thought, I answered her. ?A few things that wouldn?t interest you, like the proper way to bet a hot hand. But there are two things I hope I won?t forget. Never bet on emotion, and looks don?t make a loser.?





http://www.authorsden.com/dennisngriffin

If its not one thing....

The problem actually isn't solved as much as its been removed. I'm giving up on my blog template idea for the time being. Maybe what I wanted to do isn't actually possible.I guess I should say thinks. I really appreciate you pointing that out to me, Cinas. What I don't understand is why I have to accept your friendship along with a line of bull that's only slightly more believable than Santa Clause. Its not just that you're lies are transparent its the fact that you have to type *wink while you're lying, and still insist that you're not. And then top it all off by saying its not a bad look while you're telling me about the display problem with my blog, like you were eating a kids mud pie. And the fact that its so outrageously insulting and moronic and I have to explain it like we were all born yesterday and are just establishing the basic laws of respect. Maybe there is something wrong with me. I don't know you. Maybe you treat people like that all the time and they never object. Who knows. Anything is possible.

The Bad Evil IE Look

OK I admit its my fault. I've been saying that there's a problem for a while now, but I didn't check other browsers to see how bad it was. Deep down I actually don't care. Internet Explorere sucks as a browser, and personally I never use it, but most people who visit my blogs do. They should stop. Just do yourself a favor right now.

What you are looking at is the bottom of my blog page. My right side bar has been pushed there by the right margin of the blog content. It look odd in Firefox, but in IE it looks bad. Cinas was kind enough to share this information with me. Its not clear how she discovered the problem because she doesn't actually read my blog. We had a long chat about it. She's scared of my counter. She does want me to think she visits my blog and I'm not sure why that is either. Now she'll message me and be terribly offended that I would say such a thing and we'll debate back and forth about what was actually said in our chat, but the long and short of what she said *wink was that she thought I was trying to track her using my counter *wink and she doesn't read my blog, but wants me to think she cares. The winks are hers the interpretation is mine.

How's it look to you?

Someone just told me my profile pic is moving around the blog. This is my blog in Firefox

HermesNews.Net

OK it happened again. Its probably some system thing with Blogger, although I can't imagine why. Suppose I wanted to post about HTML and wanted to share some mark up?

I recently discovered that this blog is being traded in a stock market game. The site is called BlogShares. My blog is worth $19,202.54 in Blogshares money. That means its almost worthless. There's a reason why and it makes sense if you look a their site. Since my discovery I've joined the site and added one of their buttons to the bottom of the page. Now I just have to figure out how to play.

Their system is fairly well thought out and allows for Press Releases if you can afford it and want to promote your blog. I'm sure it adds to the game play but its also a good way to learn what is happening in the world of blogs. Below is a recent press release that I wanted to make note of for myself.

[Press Release] HermesNews.Net

On behalf of HermesNews.Net:

Hermes News is Back!

Check us out today at http://www.hermesnews.net!

We're looking for contributing writers as well! If your interested email us at hermesnews at goldstein media DoT CoM.

-Seth
Editor

Another Problem Solved and Another Mystery.....

I think I've solved the border issue. We'll see with this post.

I still want to use Nvu to blog. The reason is that I get to see exactly what my post will look like before I post it, but you have to set your template up correctly for that to work, which I think I have finally done.

I know I said I wasn't going to write about it for a while, but I just noticed that my last post about it has been edited. The original post looked like this:

I haven't laughed so hard since my father died.

I added the tags to make it clear that I was being sarcastic, you never know what people will think, but for some reason they were removed. After I made the post I checked it several times, because I'm like that, and I like to look at my pics. I created the post in Nvu so there's no way that Blogger could have mistaken it as HTML. Nvu converts all that because its a WYSIWYG editor. Oh well, another thing I can't do anything about.

Nvu works

I woke up this morning with the revelation that I've been thinking of Nvu in the wrong way. Its not supposed to do all the things that I want it to do. Its not supposed to replace my other web authoring tools. It was designed for people who don't know anything about HTML and want to create web pages, but can't afford a swanky program. That's what its for and that's what it does. I'm frustrated because I want it to do something else.

One problem solved today.

Fog of Life

Apparently, there are Bald Eagles living along the Fox River. If you're not from Chicago the Fox River is near here, and if you are from Chicago I bet you thought you'd have to drive a long way to see a Bald Eagle in the wild. OK you probably just walk down to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Hey, maybe these Eagles escaped from there.

This guy has a job, a wife, and kids and he feels compelled to drive around and take pictures of things.

Fog of Life

A few drops of rain ...

Maybe its not just me. Maybe there are a lot of unread blogs out there. This guy seems really disturbed about something. I wonder where his stalkers are.

A few drops of rain ...

Best Funny Pics: Does this Thong Make my Ass Look Big

I'm burnt out writing about "it". I'm surfing blogs. This is what the rest of the world is doing.

Best Funny Pics: Does this Thong Make my Ass Look Big

Illusion, Delusion and Changing Times

With every post I'm thinking that I may have fixed my template problem. I was getting frustrated with Nvu, thinking that using it to blog wasn't using it the way that it was meant to be used. Then I went to check out the blog of the person who designed the program and it turns out lots of people use Nvu to blog. Who knew? I guess I'll just keep plugging away. Learning to use it is a distraction, and entertaining. I also went looking for guides to features that I haven't been able to figure out yet, only to discover that the tutorial has never actually been finished. Of course, I haven't read every single word of the help files and tutorial yet, but if the information is there its not clearly labeled. I working on my own fix for that. If anyone reading has any ideas or insight into Nvu let me know. Maybe Green Chameleon knows something?

I'm debating on whether I'm interested enough in HTML to start a blog dedicated specifically for it. I've thought about a web page also, but every time I try to start one it ends up being just a long page of ramblings and saved notes, which is what I don't want. I'm really excited about Nvu and there doesn't seem to be much out there about it or how to use it.

Despite my blogs subject matter there are a few people who come back regularly. The pics are for you and for me. The woman is Rita Hayworth. I've been enjoying the previous pics so much that I thought I'd add more. As always I found the images online. They're really too small to do justice to such beauty, so I also linked them to larger versions stored at Geocities. Enjoy.

The response to my last post was almost instant. As I've said before my stalkers know what I'm writing almost as soon as I write it. First chat went silent, with chatters giving the NeoNazi 88 (Heil Hitler, for those of you who aren't in the know) sign before they stopped chatting int he main room. Second it took my post well over 24 hrs. to show up in my 360° feeds. I'm starting to wonder if anyone other than them can see my blog at all. The next day my stalkers started responding. I guess they need some time to commiserate. My stalkers always take the attitude of being somehow wiser than me. Their general attitude is that they are teaching someone who is incapable of coping with the world, how to do it, and they intend to teach the hard way. One asked me "If you were hanging onto a branch by your teeth over a pack of hungry wolves would you let go to growl at them?" Clearly a response to my assertion that I'm just not smart enough to keep silent about what's happening in my life. It seems like an odd comment though because it seems like the hungry wolves are asking if I'm smart enough not to be eaten by them. It reminds me of the type of ego head trip the Nazis were on. They had convinced themselves that if the Jews had been smarter they would have somehow evaded the Final Solution. The logic is so circular and obviously inept its mind boggling that anyone over the age of 18 could maintain it for longer than a season without realizing their own foolishness. Supposedly, if I were smart i wouldn't call them fools; if I were smart I wouldn't let them make me angry. Who wants to be that smart? I wonder if women or men who comply with their rapist demands, and submit to the rape and never contact the police, look in the mirror every day while their brushing their hair and say, "I am so smart."

Along with this typical display of wit and logic came the regular signs of contempt. They know where I live and in fact live near me. They know who I live with and think they are saintly for "trying to help" me. Obviously, my offline friends know and protect my online stalkers. Don't even ask me who that works for them, because I really don't know. Black people who think NeoNazis are harmless and funny are the lowest form of life in my opinion. They'll keep us all laughing right into the showers while the orchestra plays that wonderful music. Why would they play this wonderful music if they were going to kill us? My offline friends made it clear that they think the death threats are a joke, as well as the police officer who told me that they weren't illegal, and the cars that play chicken with me while I walk to the store. All just a few people having a laugh. I haven't laughed so hard since my father died. As usual, there's more, but I'm tired of writing about it. Hopefully, one day I'll be free and this will all be material for a really good book.

One of my stalkers implied that I was being treated. He/she suggested that I am going though therapy, that I am a person who can't adapt to a changing paradigm, and suggested that I might be undergoing a chemical lobotomy. Do I seem like a person who needs to be medicated against his will, and such a sever case that the only solution is a chemical lobotomy? Unfortunately, my offline friends are completely mistaken. My stalkers have every intention of killing me. I've contacted the police and the FBI numerous times. There's nothing I can do.

I was looking for other distractions today and came across this blog. Very exciting writing and extremely cute (and married) chick. Her comments section is more like a Guestbook. I left a comment and when I started to leave my URL I found myself thinking about what she or anyone would find when they visit here. There's a lot about my blog and life that don't say "visit and join in". Like her, I wish that I had other things to write about. Unlike her I do have other things to write about except this thing consumes me.

Intelligent Life

What a weekend. My blog template isn't working out. It looks fine on this blog and on Dreams of Color, but in Interpretation it eats the little border between the blog and the side bar. My stalkers have been very active.

You might notice that in this blog I spent a lot of time writing directly to my stalkers, the people in my offline life. That's because I can tell that they read it. It has never done any good. No matter what I write it only makes them angry and for some reason makes them think that if the refine their methods things will get better. Well, maybe I should rephrase that. They don't want things to get better. The fact is that they don't care how I feel or what happens to me. They just don't want me to be able to defend myself against them. I'll start writing about a drugs in the food and they change the drugs. The kitchen is immaculately cleaned with bleach. This weekend we had an "accident" and even the dishwasher was cleaned to the point of overflowing with bleach and detergents.

Since I started my 360° blog my stalkers have started a new ritual. They love to talk about how cold it is outside. They tell me that people in other countries have it much worse than any American ever could, and that they are grateful for the little comforts they have. The analogy is shoddy at best. The analogy is usually surrounded by other little stories and comments the gist of which is that a smart person would take a little discomfort rather than be homeless.

Without recounting every little detail I'd like to say that what happens in my offline life, as well as my online life, is far from a little discomfort. I haven't written about my Christmas ordeal, because I haven't been able to find words to describe it that aren't rife with the appropriate anger and indignation. Over Christmas the beer was drugged, and I was given more drugged food, which of course my offline friends had to joke about and pat each other on the back. They compliment each other at how clever they are when drugging my food. They actually believe this is true. Even though the only thing that's actually true is that I can't stop them or get away from them. We were given a bottle of Champaign for the New Year. The Champaign was drugged. It was a combination of drugs. The pain was incredible and when I came to I had soiled my bed. Over the next few days I was so drugged that I could barely think straight.

I've actually been given the drug that makes me lose control over my bowels much more often than I write about. My stalkers joke about it. The jokes aren't worth recounting here. Just imagine the average ten year old boys fascination with pooo" and sprinkle in a fewprofanitiess and you'll have a good idea of what its like. In a pathetic way it would even be funny if it weren't for the fact that they are essentially telling me that they are drugging me to humiliate me and there's nothing I can do about it.

My offline friends say I'm stupid for writing about this in my blog. For them its only natural that an adult would make fun of another adult being drugged into insensibility and losing control of his bowels in convulsive agony. My online stalkers tall me they love it, and my misery gives them joy.

Writing about it sucks almost as much as living it, and I'm about to run out of cigarettes, which they tell me is my "trigger" for an anger episode, as if I need a "trigger". Its all just bullshit. They are right about one thing. I am not smart enough to endure a few discomforts to save myself from being homeless. With gods grace I will never be that "smart". If they're right, and they seem to have the inside track on what's happening in my life, (who am I kidding, they are my life) I'll soon be homeless because I raise too much of a fuss over the lies and the drugs and the isolation and the manipulation and the theft of my things and the accusations of rape and murder. If they are right I will also be killed as punishment for my crimes.

Apparently there has been a great change in the world and it makes sense that I am isolated and tortured, and can write about it here without a single comment of outrage an only the most reserved sympathies. To the extent that people comment at all its to say they are sorry that I've been having trouble online. I've been writing about it for over a year. Recounting it again won't make it any better. To quote my stalkers "so be it". They love saying that.

It really does look better. I guess you never know until you try. I tried once before, but I guess the Blogger servers were malfunctioning.

I collect a lot of pics off the web. You can never have enough pics of Lauren Bacall, unless of course you need to make more room for your pics of Ingrid Bergman. These pics really show how standards of beauty have changed over the years.

I don't really have anything else to say. Just wanted to pust a pic of Ingrid. enjoy.

Colortini's

Actually they're all going to be black & white. I saw a feature on here to upload pictures directly to Blogger when I was playing with it earlier. What I want to do is use pictures in my posts without having to upload them to my Geocities. So, far that's not proving possilbe. OK, now I've created some content, now lets try to add an image.

Yup, that's what I wanted to do. Is that easier than the way I've been doing it? Lets see how it looks on the page.

She is a striking beauty, but I don't see how this is feature is useful for me. I neve post pics like this, although I guess I could. I remember seeing some other feature on the Blogger page..... brb 

Playing with more free software. I'm working on a page about beautiful women for my Geocities. This is a pic of a very young Lauren Bacall. Lets see how it looks. 

Later that day...

I guess I got a little too excited with my Nvu experiments. I tried to use it to edit my Blogger template. Do not do that. I or Nvu somehow rewrote the code for my template, and before I realized what had happened it was uploaded and saved. Good things came out of it. I had to install a new template and it seems to have pulled the blog together a bit. You may or may not notice a difference, but I see it.

I noticed some other things as well. I decided to take a look at other pages I had experimented on with Nvu. In the earlier post I commented on the number of visitors to my blog, but my Geocities page got more visitors than that today. Of course, my massive ego assumed that people were viewing my page, reading my poems or looking into my Black History Month links. This evening I discovered what they were actually looking at. Nvu has a CSS editor. I've never worked with a program that edits CSS before so I was using it to make some adjustments to my Geocities, and apparently made some mistakes. Well, at least that's what I think they were visiting to see. It would be very consistent with my stalkers behavior.

I have to confess I don't know how to relate to adults who take such prepubescent glee in the mistakes and misfortunes of others. I'm told its simply the way people are but its so abnormal to me that I'm constantly taken aback by it. I wonder who their friends are, where they work. What kinds of people associate with and respect people like that? I simply can't imagine. I'm actually proud that they hate me so much. When people like that see something they can relate to in you its time to reexamine your behavior.

On another note, TFD (Tales of the Forbidden Dreamer) has been visited by some of my 360° friends. I've added links to their 360° and Blogger blogs. I certainly appreciate the company.

Thank You. Come Again.

I have to say I'm very excited about this new wave of traffic to my blog. I think I've gotten more comments in the last two weeks than I've gotten in the last year. My stalkers are even signing my Guest Book.

For the curious, I have four blogs. This is what is turning out to be my main blog. I also have two other blogs on Blogger; Dreams of Color and Interpretation. Links to both are in the side panel on the right.

My first two entries in Dreams of Color were about Matt Hale, the leader of our local branch of the KKK/Nazi Party. The project is unfinished and may be converted to drafts. Its not that I don't have anything to say on the subject of race in America, but I don't often think of constructive ways to say it. Still I like the idea of Dreams of Color, so it hasn't been deleted yet.

Interpretation is a blog on Buddhism. I find that writing about Buddhism is at least as challenging as applying the teachings of Buddhism to day to day life. I'm very satisfied with the content to date, very little of which is my own work.

Feel free to browse my other blogs. The comments are very encouraging.

Nvu-

Blogging with Nvu is as easy as falling off a log. You can basically format your blog entry any way you want and then cut and past from the WYSIWYG screen.

Creating web pages isn't as easy as I think it could be. Nvu is great for working with templates, but if you want to create a design from scratch, best stick with one of the standard HTML Editors.

The experiment continues.

Look what I can do - Nvu

I downloaded Nvu a few days ago. I heard about it from a Yahoo Group I'm in. Learning HTML is a great hobby if you're looking for a way to keep your mind active, but writing HTML can be really time consuming if you also like to write. Between writing and designing your page you can literally spend all day sitting in front of your computer. For some people that might not sound like a bad thing, and I actually spend most of my time on my computer, but I like to do other things besides blogging and making web pages.

There are a lot of programs designed to automate the task of making web pages. All of them are good depending on what you want to do, and how picky you are about how you do it. Some people just want to put up a web page. Lots of people have web pages and they're fun. You can put a picture of your car, boy friend, girl friend, or other favorite thing, tell your life story, these days web pages can do anything you want to do

Search WYSIWYG Editors

Google

ODP

Yahoo

with words and pictures. If you just want to put up a web page learning HTML can be a big deal. HTML isn't brain surgery but its not something you'll be able to pick up in a day. For people like that you can get what's called a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. WYSIWYG editors are word processors that create documents as web pages. You don't have to know any HTML, you just type and go like any other word processor. If you just want to create a web page, and aren't really interested in learning HTML a WYSIWYG editor is great. They range in price from free to a few hundred dollars. The difference in price mainly has to do with the amount of graphics and templates that come with the program. The free programs usually have no graphics or templates, and the really expensive ones usually have tons.

The problem with WYSIWYG editors is that you can't learn HTML using them even if you wanted to. The designing team decided how the program will write the code and the user doesn't have very much control over it, but they do make nice web pages. Some people (people who are really into creating web pages) have a problem with WYSIWYG editors. They think the HTML they create is ugly and too big (if you don't know anything about HTML don't ask, take my word for it, if you know something about HTML you'll either agree or disagree).

People who are really into HTML or Web Design like to write their own HTML. Writing your own HTML give you a lot of control over how your pages look and act in a browser. Even if you like writing your own HTML it can be a big deal if you want to create several pages or a page with some complexity. For people like that they make what is called an HTML Editor. This type of program gives you all the control of writing your own HTML, but it automates some of the tasks involved in writing HTML. Most HTML Editors also allow the user to integrate other languages like Java and CSS into their web pages. HTML Editors also range in price from free to a few hundred dollars. I have no idea what a high end HTML Editor does, but I bet its worth the money.

So, like I was saying I downloaded Nvu. Nvu is based on Mozilla Composer, which is a WYSIWYG editor that comes bundled with the free Mozilla browser. Nvu is almost an HTML editor, except you don't have a lot of control over the how your HTML looks, but you still have all the control over how your page looks. At least that's how I think its supposed to work at this point. Like I said, I just downloaded it. You can use it like a WYSIWYG editor and just type in your content like a word processor. You can also use CSS inline styles, or it can create an external style sheet. In theory it looks like a great program which is why I downloaded it.

Nvu is a great program so far, and its free, and who doesn't like that?