Saturday 17 February – New York / Atlantic City, NJ

As per usual, today’s trip to a Museum – this time, the Museum of Natural History – once again left us wishing we had allocated more time than we actually did to see it in full. One day myself & Libe will learn from this lesson and we’ll get to see everything we want. Nevertheless, the Museum was so easy to enjoy. The stuff we saw most of were the American Mammal and Indian exhibits. If you’re in NY for a length of time it’s definitely worth doing. In fact, Museums throughout the country have been good to browse through. Even Barrel found his way to a museum this weekend (the Guggenheim – a modern art museum - even more unbelievably)!

Today we’d planned for a long one and it proved that way. Without heading back to Libe’s apartment, we jumped on a 5:30pm bus for the 2 hour-plus bus ride down to Atlantic City (‘AC’) and its mini-Las Vegas strip. Unfortunately traffic in Manhattan turned it into a 2 hr 45 min trip, keeping in theme with the delay in travel over here. We wouldn’t get back to Manhattan until 4am, the result of being what others may call “Terry Tightarses” (Dad might think that the use of the name “Terry” there is appropriate – I’d better not explain that here though) - to maximise gambling investment funds – and electing not to stay in an AC hotel but to come back the same night.

In between, we didn’t take in too much of the sights of AC in terms of quantity, despite being there for 5 hours or so. That’s because – if you exclude the strip and its numerous casinos – there’s SBA (Sweet Bugger All) really. Go one block off the strip and you’re in a big country town, say something like Geelong.

Hence why we went casino hopping. As everyone must do here on a Saturday night – there’s nothing else to do. Disappointingly, the tables here (e.g. poker, roulette) had $15+ minimum bets, thus they got none of my money. That’s their loss – I lost count of the times I was called a ‘spout’ down at Unc’s betting shop (a spout being someone who is constantly pissing money down the drain), and I probably would’ve made a handy little donation if only they’d allowed me to play for $5 or $10 so I could savour doing my hard earned $$$.

Thus myself & Libe got a new occupation for the night – slot jockeys. Although tonight was OK, I remembered why I prefer the nags over the pokies. There’s probably 3 reasons for that. One - I defy anyone who doesn’t enjoy the process of betting ‘red screen’ – involving doing the form in the last 2 minutes before the next race, watching it, cursing the jockey for a poor ride when your ‘good thing’ gets beat (despite the fact it had EPC – every possible chance) and then doing it all again for the next, which is the 2YOs in the first from Ascot. Two – the sight of looking in the wallet during the day and seeing the brand spanking new pineapples that only the bookies seem to give out is just a beautiful thing, and such a possibility (however minor it might be) lures men like Hollis and myself back to the track every weekend. Three – the pokies can become tedious quite quickly.

Having said all that, I think we both enjoyed sitting down at countless machines during the night, particularly the Donald Trump themed ones. Donald just happened to cough up a little for me – which I subsequently took, and as a result entered the Guinness Book of Records for the first person get some cash out of Donald. The bloke next me loved the fact I’d collected from him, and thought it warranted giving the Trumpster and his machine a spray, so he did in the manner which suggested that he was also a full member of the Collingwood Escaped Criminals Club, aka the Collingwood Cheer Squad.

A number of the machines had the old pull down handles on the side. Despite the fact that you could simply push the usual button to spin ‘em, the novelty decreed that I’d have to have a pull (clarification - pull the handle, that is. I know men – no, little boys – who will read that differently with their filth-riddled minds). I think the experienced slot jockey next to me was getting a little annoyed, but that’s her loss for sitting down next to an Aussie who was starting to win a little $. She should’ve known that we just keep on punting, trying to ‘win the grandstand’ (i.e. everything). It’s un-Australian not to.

Think we visited 5 casinos in all – Tropicana, Caesars, Ballys, the Wild West Casino and the Trump Casino. As in Vegas, you drink while gambling for ‘free’, the only cost being tips to the waitresses, which are generally $1 per drink. No drinking beer here at such a price – Baileys on the rocks for us two.

The casinos are fairly similar inside, quite often bland. The exception was the Wild West, which had a really good Western theme – some of the pictures below will give you an idea.

On the way back to NY City, the bus driver got us lost in New Jersey, when we were only 5 to 10 minutes away from the bus station. How this happened I don’t know. I think I was the only one on the bus not sleeping by this stage, and he probably thought he got away with it. Bad luck for him, he didn’t. If it was Ronnie Steel driving this wouldn’t have happened. It was upon this mistake that I knew he was only a bus driver, not a Coach Captain.

Readers of Lonely Planet’s US guide are given a warning on New Jersey – driving along its massive highway system (which are called ‘turnpikes’ here), one would think that NJ is a ‘hole’, because the ‘pikes are surrounded by ugly industrial areas. Let me tell you, the book ain’t wrong. The first 5 minutes after leaving the Lincoln Tunnel, which crosses beneath the Hudson River from NYC, is quite nice, but after that it’s quite an ugly city area. LP says you need to get off the highway to experience NJ and I hope for NJ’s sake they’re right. It was like the entrance to Geelong, where Shell Refinery is on one side and Corio on the other, although in this case you’ve got Shell either side.

Still yet to see a piss trough in the States. When those from the US come down under they must be shocked to have to stand at the wall.

(By the way, refusing to call those from the US ‘Americans’. America consists of North and South America, thus everyone from these two continents are effectively ‘Americans’. Perhaps they should officially use the term ‘Septics’? I know Pete probably wouldn’t enjoy this – only god knows how many times he’s dropped the phrase ‘stupid septics’,l thus he owns the phrase).

In other news, Libe’s hit the double figure mark for the number of pairs of shoes she’s bought. At this pace, there might be one Fedex plane devoted purely to getting her collection back to Oz by the time our time here is finished. But she tells me she’s getting good deals, and the shoes are the rare type that look AND fit good, so she may as well load up here with a view to having a complete set by the time she gets back down under.

P.S. They gave Washington the suffix ‘DC’ to refer to the fact that it is in the District of Columbia. If only Atlantic City (‘AC’ as called by the locals) was there as well – that would make it AC DC. Although the city might not deserve to share the name of one of the greatest rock bands ever, right up there with Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Knack.

gh said...
again moorey you have mixed in some gold comedy with some poor acdc joke

February 25, 2007 6:07 PM