Basically DVDVR LiveJournal

[Dolfan in NYC]

If you're in the US and your phone isn't working...  it's not just you. 

 

Verizon is down for basically the eastern half of the country.  No ETA, but it has been about 3 hours now. 

[Cobra Commander]

the perfect day to listen to a 7 hour long BTS podcast without worrying about calls interrupting you

(i'm on AT&T so we're running normally, and nothing can stop this obsolete bluetooth speaker that I use, except for if the phone installs an iOS update but I just need to unplug the speaker until it turns off and plug it back in for an informal reboot)

[twiztor]

On 1/12/2026 at 4:07 PM, Contentious C said:

Jury is still out as to whether I'm going to spend the money to jump out of a plane.

that's always been on my bucket list, so if you go through with this, i'd like to hear about your experience.

[Contentious C]

I don't think I will this time just because I didn't plan well enough. There are other, non-Vegas ways to do it, though, so it may be that eventually instead. 

Have you tried the indoor skydiving spots? My aunt did that first and I think it's part of what got her to follow through.

[zendragon]

On 1/13/2026 at 2:13 PM, Contentious C said:

The Silver Sevens. What a fucking dump. There are worse - I did live in Baltimore after all, and see my note about all cities being the same - but I would have been so much better off being anywhere else. Maybe Linq if I ever come back.

Open to food recs if anyone has them. Probably doing Evel Pie tomorrow night.

There's Chicago Brewing Company (they also have full micro brewery off the strip) in side the Four Queens, can't remember the name but there's a place on Freemont st (I believe its Eureka) with a large craft beer selection (they do flights) and good burgers.

[Contentious C]

Sadly, no more burgers for me, as my red meat budget (roughly once a week) was spent between In n Out and visiting Evel Pie. Can't recommend the latter enough.  Very much my vibe. Three slices I had were Barry White, Maui Wowie, and Balls to the Wall, and the only one of those where I'd had a pizza as good was the white (Hersh's in Baltimore does a killer white).  The others would be hard to beat unless I visit again someday.

Mostly spent today worrying I'd add a sunburn to my walking blisters, but I managed to be indoors enough to avoid that. It's now approaching the in-between time here, and I wish I could bottle this sort of weather.

[twiztor]

4 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I don't think I will this time just because I didn't plan well enough. There are other, non-Vegas ways to do it, though, so it may be that eventually instead. 

Have you tried the indoor skydiving spots? My aunt did that first and I think it's part of what got her to follow through.

i have not tried anything like that. I'm not afraid, i just haven't gotten around to it. It's on my list, but not a top priority. Also my wife is not really enthused about the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good plane.

[Contentious C]

Well, I wasn't casting aspersions, just suggesting something similar that will give some amount of the sensory experience without the full adrenaline blast. And your wife will likely hate it less, hah.

[Curt McGirt]

6 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Barry White, Maui Wowie, and Balls to the Wall

So: white pizza, Hawaiian pizza, meatball pizza?

[NikoBaltimore]

16 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

If you're in the US and your phone isn't working...  it's not just you. 

 

Verizon is down for basically the eastern half of the country.  No ETA, but it has been about 3 hours now. 

I didn't look up anything about a possible outage and ended up troubleshooting what I could yesterday.  Thought my SIM card was already toast and planned a trip to store until it started to work again around 10.  It's frightening how if this can happen by accident imagine if we get to a point where this is done on purpose.

But onto less-frightening discussions I went to Vegas twice and both before I was 18.  I did what I could while the parents were gambling and as a teen doing teen things I found plenty of ways to have fun.  I thought of going at some point in adulthood but over time realized it just doesn't appeal to me.  I'm not a good gambler, I don't feel a need to spend shittons of cash on whatever and the fattening foods that are seemingly everywhere just don't do it for me.  Guess I'm boring like that. 

[zendragon]

13 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Sadly, no more burgers for me, as my red meat budget (roughly once a week) was spent between In n Out and visiting Evel Pie. Can't recommend the latter enough.  Very much my vibe. Three slices I had were Barry White, Maui Wowie, and Balls to the Wall, and the only one of those where I'd had a pizza as good was the white (Hersh's in Baltimore does a killer white).  The others would be hard to beat unless I visit again someday.

Mostly spent today worrying I'd add a sunburn to my walking blisters, but I managed to be indoors enough to avoid that. It's now approaching the in-between time here, and I wish I could bottle this sort of weather.

Pizza Rock is worth checking out as well

[Pete]

1 hour ago, zendragon said:

Pizza Rock is worth checking out as well

Three words: Cosmopolitan. Secret. Pizza.

[Curt McGirt]

3 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

But onto less-frightening discussions I went to Vegas twice and both before I was 18.  I did what I could while the parents were gambling and as a teen doing teen things I found plenty of ways to have fun.

What, you didn't try your luck with a fake ID and being Mr. Papa Giorgio?  (Vegas Vacation joke)

[Contentious C]

On 1/14/2026 at 3:30 PM, zendragon said:

There's Chicago Brewing Company (they also have full micro brewery off the strip) in side the Four Queens, can't remember the name but there's a place on Freemont st (I believe its Eureka) with a large craft beer selection (they do flights) and good burgers.

Did CBC and that was worth it just because the server I got is a million percent my type. Their brown ale is a fucking winner, too, I guess.

AND THE FUCKING DUNKIN DONUTS HERE STILL HAVE MAPLE FROSTED.  Everything else everywhere else is just wrong. It's WRONG.

Edited January 16 by Contentious C

[Contentious C]

Oooh, am I steamed. The STRAT has amusement park style rides at the top of one of their towers, so I bought a ticket yesterday to ride the Big Shot today. It was, shall we say, opaque at best that there is a separate admission fee just to go into the tower. So there went $20 for nothing. 

And naturally, the people working there were very *shrug* about the whole thing. I don't gamble, but I *was* going to put my $50 of slot money into their machines. Not any fucking more! What a bunch of See You Next Tuesdays. Guess it's the Flamingo for me. 

Edited January 16 by Contentious C

[zendragon]

11 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Oooh, am I steamed. The STRAT has amusement park style rides at the top of one of their towers, so I bought a ticket yesterday to ride the Big Shot today. It was, shall we say, opaque at best that there is a separate admission fee just to go into the tower. So there went $20 for nothing. 

And naturally, the people working there were very *shrug* about the whole thing. I don't gamble, but I *was* going to put my $50 of slot money into their machines. Not any fucking more! What a bunch of See You Next Tuesdays. Guess it's the Flamingo for me. 

that $50 would go a lot farther at the pinball museum!

[driver]

Here in Northern Indiana we got some Lake Effect Snow on Wednesday, and depending on where you lived you either got a dusting or a foot or more. I drove an hour into work(usually it's 30-35 mins.) and found out we weren't running routes because of the weather. I had less than an inch of snow where I live, one of our drivers had over a foot of snow on her porch and she couldn't open her door. So three of us showed up and with no routes to do, two of us spent a few hours tearing down some pallet racking and another was in the office. We took our time taking down the racking(four levels, five sections). Everything was covered in thick dust, so moving the plywood took some care. After finishing the first section(three more to go), the office guy bought us wings and rings. While we waited for him to get back with the grub we popped some Aleve and ran to Speedway for a Big Gulp(75% Diet Dew/25% Dew for me).
After finishing our wings there was a conference call with our manager and one of her multitude of bosses. One of the topics was traveling to train/aid another warehouse. Everybody who showed up was offered a week in Lexington, KY(either training/working) and I got offered a week in Rockford, IL to train. I said yes to both offers.
Outside of the financial benefits, I find some comfort in being in a situation that I'm unfamiliar with.

What started as a sideways day ended up quite upright.
Here's to a better '26.

[Contentious C]

Getting on my first flight back in a few hours.

I think I like gambling now? Well, slot machines anyway. Someone who understands operant conditioning as well as I do shouldn't fall for it, but here I am. I stuck to a plan and it mostly mitigated losing:

$10 buy-in, stick to quarter slots (old school, not the things resembling video games) and only 1 credit at a time, cash out anything above 40% of the buy-in (so 14 and up).  Set the extra aside, re-run the buy-in. Gambled $155, only lost about 50 of that, and most of that was at 4 Queens and Fremont Street Casino. Basically I was just playing against the machine's PAR. I mean, we all are, but I know the math enough to understand you really should quit when you're ahead.  Cleaned up OK at Planet Hollywood with a $40 winner and several other cashouts. I think the cashiers were getting sick of me nickel-and-diming but oh well.

Edited January 17 by Contentious C

[Curt McGirt]

Gambling to me is the most pointless and dangerous addiction next to the one I got, but I wouldn't mind playing some blackjack or baccarat. Math is not my strong suit so there's no point in doing anything involving that. I had a friend who walked right up to a casino there and won $200 from the slots first try, cashed out and walked away, despite the protestations of the cashier. Smart. 

[The Natural]

22 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Gambling to me is the most pointless and dangerous addiction next to the one I got, but I wouldn't mind playing some blackjack or baccarat. Math is not my strong suit so there's no point in doing anything involving that. I had a friend who walked right up to a casino there and won $200 from the slots first try, cashed out and walked away, despite the protestations of the cashier. Smart. 

I don't gamble. Way I've always seen it is why risk losing what you already have then having to try and get it back?

Edited January 17 by The Natural

[Nice Guy Eddie]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Gambling to me is the most pointless and dangerous addiction next to the one I got, but I wouldn't mind playing some blackjack or baccarat. Math is not my strong suit so there's no point in doing anything involving that. I had a friend who walked right up to a casino there and won $200 from the slots first try, cashed out and walked away, despite the protestations of the cashier. Smart. 

I feel the same way. Cocaine addiction has been bad enough, but a gambling addiction on top of it would have been horrific. One addiction is about all I could handle, and handle it not very well. 

[AxB]

I remember in the Naseem Hamed documentary (not the move that just came out, this was years ago) his brother was going off on how he hated all of the big boxing matches being in Vegas. It was something like (VERY strong Sheffield accent):

" I 'ate Vehgas, me. Thes ohnly thray reysons to come to Vehgas, raat? Drinkin', Gamblin' and Fornicehhhtion. An' Am Muslim!"

[JLSigman]

They used to have video poker machines all over South Carolina, and the main thing to remember is that as soon as you win twice in a row, cash out and walk away. You can make $10 or $20 that way in a few minutes, enough for dinner, gas, whatever.

[zendragon]

I've never really had enough money to start gambling, slots have no interest to me. I could understand playing craps or roulette if you have some understanding of how the odds work.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

The most enjoyable thing about Atlantic City to me was getting completely shitfaced drunk and doing karaoke. Despite being barely able to speak, I was told by complete strangers that I sang really well.