Viva Las Vegas!

When I was a kid, I used to watch a television show named 'VEGA$'. For three seasons Dan Tanna - played by Robert Urich - tooled around Las Vegas in his little red corvette, helping people and doing the right thing. This was in the late 70's. I think the show started in 78 or 79, but I can't be 100% on that.

That show started my fascination with Las Vegas. Since then there have other shows based in Vegas. 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' - which I throuroughly enjoy even though it doesn't so much glamourize the city. My current favorite show about the Soddom of the Sands is 'Las Vegas' with James Caan as the president of the fictional Montecito casino (the Montecito also made an appearance in the NBC show 'Heroes' when Hiro was kicked out of the casino for suspicion of cheating).

The show 'Las Vegas' really captures the fantasy that is Las Vegas. From Highrise condos, to the glitz of the strip. They don't seem to make it to downtown area much, but that is probably because the strip is really where it is all happening.

One of my favorite story arcs was when Danny, Mike and the girls build a new home and were renting it to a gay couple. The couple broke up and one of them, in a fit of anger, burned the house down. And they were under-insured. I don't know why that tickled me, probably because it is always refreshing to see seemingly perfect people do dumb things.


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smörgåsbord - I love that word

Luckily about 20 some odd years ago, I happened to meet Mrs. Right. I met my wife when I was attending the University of Kansas. I needed coinage, so I sauntered into Checkers Pizza (get it, Checkers, it was right across the street from Domino's Pizza). Checkers was a local owned business, and she was the weekend manager. I managed to get a job as a delivery driver. Oh, don't get me wrong, the qualifications were stringent and I almost didn't make it. But since I had a pulse, and a car, she decided to take a chance.



We knew each other for almost a year before we started dating. Then another two years of sometimes rocky on-and-off dating before she one day sat on my lap and would not get up until we set a date for the wedding. "Fine," I said, "how about September 31st." That lasted about 30 seconds...until she realized that September only has 30 days.



Nowadays one has a much more vast field of play when looking for dates, partners and life-time commitments. Back in my day, to meet someone usually involved going to a bar or other place where people gathered. I've never really been much of a people type of person. Stupidity really irritates me. And stupid drunks doubly so. Now people have the Internet for hooking up and hanging out. One can go online, setup their profile, and wait for the emails to just start rolling in. It is a virtual smörgåsbord of dating goodness.





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The "Beautiful People"

Beautiful People - that term has come to mean people of means. People with money. It wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, way back in my youth, there were truly beautiful people. People like Lauren Bacall, Anne Margaret the starlets of old. They carried a natural beauty almost not available now-a-days in the era of plastic surgery.



Don't get me wrong. Personally, I have no problems with "augmentation procedures." Or nose jobs, or liposuction or any of the other plastic surgery procedures. But it used to be those of a truly natural beauty rose to the top in Hollywood. Now, with enough coinage, anyone can look like Dolly Parton or Britney Spears, or Cher.



Which maybe why there are even television shows (Nip/Tuck - which, BTW, i have never watched) about people giving and getting cosmetic surgery. I'm pretty much just following thoughts here. This is the kind of thing that happens when one forgets to pay the cable bill and actually has to think for an evening.



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Technorati Tags: Ann Margaret, Lauren Bacall, Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic Surgery

Love 'em or hate 'em...

Credit cards. Some have them, some don't. Some love them, some hate them. Some use them wisely, others foolishly. There are those that preach the evils of credit cards and the credit card industry. Personally, I've never been in that camp. Even when, many years ago, I got into my own little area of Hades concerning credit cards.

I had several, I charged them up, then it took me years and years to pay them down. I was under the thumb of the creditors. But all that time, even with the sky-high (for the time) interest rates of 21% (I think they go much higher than that now) I knew it was not the credit card companies fault that I was in the position I was in.

See, I am a big believer in personal responsibility. Credit cards are a tool that must be used responsibly. Mis-use of any tool can and often does lead to disaster.

Now, I use my credit cards wisely. I have two. One for medical expenses. The medical expenses are reimbursed through my Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work. So I usually won't carry a balance for more than a couple of weeks on that card.

The other card is a mileage credit card. Last year the 5/8s and I went to Cancun while the boys were at scout camp. We enjoyed it so much we wanted to return with the kids. We decided to take this years tax returns and put it in a 12 month CD. Add nex years tax return to it, and we'd be able to afford to take the whole family to Cancun on vacation. With that, we also decided to obtain a mileage credit card so we can get air miles on the things we buy. We charge everything on that card, and I pay it off every two weeks on payday.

There are so many different options for obtaining credit cards these days. They have reward or cash back credit cards, there are cards that let one transfer the balance from other cards at 0% interest. And there are plenty of places where one can get credit card comparisons so they are fully armed with knowledge about which card is best for them.

Credit cards are not the enemy to the American consumer that uses them, carrying personal debt is the enemy to us all.

This post is sponsored by the CreditCardStore.co.uk

Rome over Disney any day of the week

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My brother and his wife are putting money aside to take their kids to Disney World. My wife had talked about doing that. Personally, I'm not into it. The kids don't need Disney World. I grew up just fine without going there. Besides, I think for close to the same money one would spend for a family of five at Disney World, one could take the family on a true adventure. Somewhere like Rome.

There aren't very many places in Europe I would like to go. I don't have much use for most of that continent. I have no real desire to visit England or Ireland, especially not France, Germany or Belgium.

About the only two places I would like to visit over there are Spain and Italy. And really, not even the whole countries. Spain, I'd like to visit the Manzanares el Real (that's a castle that bears my name) as well as the town of Manzanares. In Italy, the only place I have any desire to visit is Rome.

Rome has so much to offer a visitor. The artworks of the great masters. All the ancient churches and, of course, Vatican City. Being Catholic, it would be somewhat like a pilgrimage to visit the Vatican. That would be the real reason to visit Rome.




Technorati Tags: Rome, Disney World, Vatican City

Cool custom poker chips

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Every year the parents and supporters of my kids' school get together and have a casino night. The parents obtain donations from community businesses as prizes - and even donate some items themselves.

They asked for a$20 donation which would buy one $10,000 in play money. We have been using play money, but for next year, I'm going to try and gather enough donations from the parents groups to get some real poker chips. At e-pokerchips.com one can order custom poker chips. It seems like they can put any image on them desired (some examples even had Cpt. Kirk).

But this year, this year I spent the whole night (aside from the hour I voluteered to deal blackjack) at the poker table. I have been playing Texas Hold 'Em on the computer. I caught the poker bug from my father who is mostly blind, but still likes to journey up north to the Indian Casinos. Since he is unable to drive, I'm the one that gets to make the drive north to pick him up on Friday and Saturday nights.

I didn't do nearly as well at the casino night as I do at the "play money" casinos online. But it was still a fun time, and raised money for a good cause.

Technorati Tags: Gambling, Poker, Nightlife, Recreation, Charity

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The low-down on your fav soaps

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You know, when I was in college, I was addicted to Days of Our Lives. Heck, my roommate, girfriend and I all scheduled our classes around that show. This was back when Stephano was still king of the baddies and his kid Count Tony was a close second.

Things have changed quite a bit since then. Now people can get the latest on their fav soaps just about anywhere. There is a new site, about 6 months old (I guess, in reality, that is kind of old in Internet age), called soaps.com.

Soaps.com is a fairly easy site to navigate. Clicking the "List of Shows" button takes you to a page that has the soaps categorized by network (ABC Soap Operas, CBS Soap Operas, NBC Soap Operas). In addition, the soaps are all listed along the left of the page, so a simple click on the title of your fav soap takes you to it's details.

One thing this site has (which, I must admit, I spent some time perusing) is a "where are they now" section for Days of Our Lives. It is interesting to see where the actors are now and what they are doing (and if there are any plans for them to appear on the show again).

Latest & Greatest cell phones for FREE!

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I am somewhat of a techophile. I love having the latest greatest of any technology. Unfortunately, new technology is expensive enough, and there are enough other expenses with the 5/8, and the kids, what with Judo classes, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts etc. etc. etc. that I don't always (okay, almost never) get to have the latest and greatest tech.

For instance, one thing I am usually several years behind in is cell phone tech. Cell phones have become outrageously full of cool and neat features (some of them even allow you to place phone calls!). I have had cell phones on and off since about the late 80's. You know, those big bulky bag phones you plugged into your cigarette lighter in the car and it cost you something like $50/month and $.30 a minute? With roaming fees in the umpteens? Yeah, those were the ones I'm talking about.

When we moved to Topeka in '99 and I started working in Kansas City (about 70 miles away) I knew I would have to find a phone that 1) I could afford and b) that would work everywhere (since I was going to travel a little with the new job). So I settled on Sprint PCS phone. It was big, it was clunky, but it did the job. After a couple of years with Sprint, I changed to Cingular. With Cingular I got two Nokia phones for about $20 each (one for the wife). Cingular at the time, worked in many more places than Sprint did. With absolutely no roaming charges. With Sprint I still had roaming charges to pay in some areas, and simply couldn't use the phone in other areas.

There has been almost no place I couldn't use my Cingular phone. Since I signed up with Cingular, I have received several upgraded phones for free! Not the latest and greatest mind you, but I finally have a phone that plays MP3 ringtones, takes pictures and has Bluetooth. But I'd love to have one that can hold more music, in essence, has an MP3 player built into it. Something like Sony Ericsson w300i - now that is a phone I could sink my teeth into (so to speak, I don't really eat phones).

After looking at the WireFly site, I wish I didn't already have Cingular as my carrier though. I don't know how these guys do it, but they have the phones with all the latest and greatest technologies for FREE! No, really, they are free! No payment for the phone. Oh, sure, there is a two year contract with Cingular, but hey, from WireFly you can get a RAZR FREE. With Cingular, the RAZR would cost you about $100, and you'd still need the two year contract. If you're simply not crazy about the flip phones, they also have the ultra smooth, ultra classy Samsung D807 which slides up to reveal the number pad. How cool is that?

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