October 31, 2004
The best keep getting better
New Release
Caesars Palace Forum Shops Grand Opening $5 2004
10-29-04
I don't know how many phases there are in the completion of the Forum Shops, but improving on what was already voted "The Best Place to Shop" in Vegas is quite the task. Caesars set the standard in 1966 as the 1st Mega Resort on the Strip and has been able to weather the onslought of the newer resorts. Its one of the few "classic" casinos left. When you think of Vegas, Caesars is one of the first places that comes to mind.
Well...look who's back?
New Release
Four Queens Halloween $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Looks like the Four Queens has rejuvenated their Limited Release program...or just for a little while anyway. This chip does them proud too, I didn't know which side to show. What a killer chip...I hope the FQ continues to release sweeties like this one!
...'On a Magic Carpet Ride...
New Release
Aladdin Halloween $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 800
This is my favorite Halloween chip for this year. It's a great combination of the Aladdin and the holiday themes. Very spooky, as is the reverse of the chip that features a ghost. Good stuff!
New stuff coming for me soon
Pete Rizzo is the guy who graciously lets me use his images and bandwidth for my notices of new releases. He recently asked if I would write an article for him about chip collecting and offered me $100 worth of chips from his site.
How could I pass that up?
I have placed my order with him after much debate over the choices. I'm not telling yet! I'll add them to the rest of the chips I have that need to be scanned. In the meantime, I'll post more new releases.
October 30, 2004
Riviera Releases a Spooky One!
New Release
Riviera Halloween $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Here kitty, kitty, kitty! This is a neat chip from the Riv. Look at all of those sharp pointy teeth! I can't let my cats see this chip or else they'll want one!
Harrah's New Chips
New Release
Harrah's Autumn $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
This is one of chips that Harrah's and the Rio are sharing. I picked the Harrah's because the side inserts look much better. This is a very nice looking chip overall and depicts the coming of Autumn, which just happens to be my favorite time of year. Nice chip...you could buy one and send it to me if you wish!
Other Harrah's Releases
Harrah's Thanksgiving $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Harrah's Winter $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Harrah's $5 Decision 2004 Vote
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Harrah's Halloween $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
New Chips at the Rio
New Release
Rio Halloween $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
The Rio seems to have an underlying theme to some its chips. Notice the nice legs sitting on top of the pumpkin? That same pair of legs dons a pair skis for the Winter Wonderland chip. This last round of chips doesn't always copy the Harrah's, and that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with originality!
Other recent Rio Releases!!
Rio Autumn $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Rio New Year's Eve $5 2005
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Rio Winter Wonderland $5 2004
10-29-04
Limited to 500
Rio 12 Days of Christmas $5 2004 Chip Set
10-29-04
Limited to 500?
Are you ready for some chips?
Wow...Pete has caught up with all the new releases and so will I. There are so many that I will sort them by Casino instead of release theme. Here we go with...
New Release
El Cortez New Rack Chips $1 and $5
10-28-04
The El Cortez has been around for quite some time and many of its earlier chips are scarce and valuable. It's always news when a casino changes its rack chips because the old ones will be snapped up by collectors and the new ones...well...new chips to collect!! Duh!!
October 28, 2004
Show at the Palms
This is one of the most anticipated shows of the year, aside from the Annual Convention of course. A couple of our Monday Lunch gang will be attending. There will be lots to do and tons of chips to check out!
October 24, 2004
You are Getting Sleeeepeeeey
New Release
Riviera Exotic Hypnotics $5 2004
10-22-04
Limited to 500
This blog is mainly about chips...right? All this tae-kwon-do stuff is great but what about the chips? Okie dokie, here's a new one! This couple puts on a show...sometimes comedy, sometimes risque, and always entertaining. The audience volunteers become the stars as they "go through" the Playboy Mansion or do impersonations. Neat chip and a good one to add, especially if you collect Vegas Act chips.
Head is clear, so now...
...here are the details of what went down yesterday. First thing though, I was far too busy to get any action shots. I was either working my ring as ring coordinator and scorekeeper or I was competing. I wanted to get shots of the boys but I was a board holder in my ring for the breaking competition and then things went quicker for the forms. By the time we got into sparring, some other rings opened up and we were able to spread things out a bit.
The pictures? Well the 1st one just to give you an idea of how big the area was. Here's the kicker, there are 8 competition rings behind me as I took this shot! That banner is quite large as you can see. The 2 gentleman centered below the banner are Mark Gronotte (left) and Russell Brown (right). Both are Black Belts and both competed in my ring. Mark won Grand Champion for forms and was featured in a news spot on one of our local broadcasts performing a very high split kick break...awesome!
Picture number 2 is a shot of the trophy tables. The gentleman in the middle is Troy Kyle. That's Conor walking in front. Trevor and I helped set up the tables on Friday...one of the many things we did. Friday was wild and Trevor worked real hard, I'm quite proud of him...he never fussed about doing anything, he just got right on it. The only thing he ever said was that he was hungry...no problem as pizza was served to all the helpers...that made him very happy!
So...how did we do? The same as last year!! Conor received A Tiger award for his forms and Dragons for breaking and sparring. Trevor received Dragons for all 3 competitions and I received an Eagle for breaking and Dragons for forms and sparring. Conor once again was somewhat unhappy with the results but he needs to realize that Eagles aren't going to be handed out just for showing up. He needs to go to more classes and work on his skills. Regardless, I'm proud of both boys for how they conducted themselves. They represented HMA 2 very well and next year? Well...I say watch out! Conor and I will temporary Black Belts so we'll be competing against the best.
The after tournament party was an interesting event. We pretty much took over the Ichiban Samaurai restaurant. When you get close to 100 martial artists together for some fun and games, things can get a bit wild.
Battered and Bruised
Wanna hear about the tournament? Once I recover, I'll tell you.
October 22, 2004
October 20, 2004
It's showtime!!
We start the setup in 2 days. Not only do Trevor and I get to help get the arena ready for the tournament, I get to buy the beer for the "after tournament volunteer party" and get it chillin'!!
Trevor and I went to 2 classes tonight...wow...no let up just because there is a competition coming up. Over 200 target kicks between the classes. We each had the chance to go over our breaking routines and forms in a tourney format. The boys have work to do and there's not much time left.
Both days will be long ones for me and Trevor, but we'll manage. The blackbelt competition is going to be awesome. Am I keyed up about it all??? You betcha!!
October 13, 2004
Just Around the Corner
Tournament's almost here!!!!
We're getting geared up and ready.
I've seen the medals...OOOOoooooo!!!
I've seen the schedule...AAAAAaaaaaahhhh!!!
I've been trained on scorekeeping and timekeeping...impressive!!!
Let the Tourney begin!!...I'm pumped...REALLY pumped for this year's event! I have my form down and I'm ready for some spirited sparring. The only thing I need to work on is my breaking technique. I have to make a change and come up with a different routine, as my last one had kicks that were too similar.
The last technique will be a 3 board reverse punch/claw strike, right in front of the judges so the last thing they see will some serious wood flying!
October 06, 2004
Goodbye Rodney...I always respected you!
Comic Rodney Dangerfield Dies at Age 82
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament "I don't get no respect" a catchphrase, died Tuesday. He was 82.
Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced Aug. 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
Sasaki said in a statement that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma, the publicist said.
"When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed my hand and smiled for his doctors," Dangerfield's wife, Joan, said in the statement. The comic is also survived by two children from a previous marriage.
As a comic, Dangerfield - clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight - convulsed audiences with lines such as: "When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother"; "When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out my act was reviewed in Field and Stream"; and "Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: `Basement?'"
In a 1986 interview, he explained the origin of his "respect" trademark:
"I had this joke: `I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me.' To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: I was so poor, I was so dumb, so this, so that. I thought, `Now what fits that joke?' Well, `No one liked me' was all right. But then I thought, a more profound thing would be, `I get no respect.'"
He tried it at a New York club, and the joke drew a bigger response than ever. He kept the phrase in the act, and it seemed to establish a bond with his audience. After hearing him perform years later, Jack Benny remarked: "Me, I get laughs because I'm cheap and 39. Your image goes into the soul of everyone."
AP VIDEO
Classic Comedian Rodney Dangerfield Dies
Flowers were placed on his star on Hollywood Boulevard after word of his death, and the marquee of The Improv, a comedy club where Dangerfield often performed, read "Rest In Peace Rodney."
Teller, half of the magic duo "Penn & Teller," said Dangerfield hardly needed material since he was "intrinsically funny." He said Dangerfield at times would appear while they were performing in Las Vegas, walking around the casino wearing a satin dressing gown and sandals with a beautiful girl on his arm.
"He was so confident," Teller said. "He was Rodney and he could do anything."
Comedian Adam Sandler, who starred with Dangerfield in 2000's "Little Nicky," said the affection felt for Dangerfield "when you saw him on TV or in the movies was doubled when you had the pleasure to meet him. He was a hero who lived up to the hype."
Dangerfield had a strange career in show business. At 19 he started as a standup comedian. He made only a fair living, traveling a great deal and appearing in rundown joints. Married at 27, he decided he couldn't support a family on his meager earnings.
He returned to comedy at 42 and began to attract notice. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan show seven times and on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson more than 70 times.
After his first major film role in "Caddyshack," he began starring in his own movies.
He was born Jacob Cohen on Nov. 22, 1921, on New York's Long Island. Growing up in the borough of Queens, his mother was uncaring and his father was absent. As Philip Roy, the father and his brother toured in vaudeville as a pantomime comedy-juggling act, Roy and Arthur. Young Jacob's parents divorced, and the mother struggled to support her daughter and son.
The boy helped bring in money by selling ice cream at the beach and working for a grocery store. "I found myself going to school with kids and then in the afternoon I'd be delivering groceries to their back door," he recalled. "I ended up feeling inferior to everybody."
He ingratiated himself to his schoolmates by being funny; at 15 he was writing down jokes and storing them in a duffel bag. When he was 19, he adopted the name Jack Roy and tried out the jokes at a resort in the Catskills, training ground for Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Red Button, Sid Caesar and other comedians. The job paid $12 a week plus room and meals.
In New York, he drove a laundry and fish truck, taking time off to hunt for work as a comedian. The jobs came slowly, but in time he was averaging $300 a week.
He married Joyce Indig, a singer he met at a New York club. Both had wearied of the uncertainty of a performer's life.
"We wanted to lead a normal life," he remarked in a 1986 interview. "I wanted a house and a picket fence and kids, and the heck with show business. Love is more important, you see. When the show is over, you're alone."
The couple settled in Englewood, N.J., had two children, Brian and Melanie, and he worked selling paint and siding. But the idyllic suburban life soured as the pair battled. The couple divorced in 1962, remarried a year later and again divorced.
In 1993, Dangerfield married Joan Child, a flower importer.
At age 42, he returned to show business as Jack Roy. He remembered in 1986:
"It was like a need. I had to work. I had to tell jokes. I had to write them and tell them. It was like a fix. I had the habit."
Even during his domestic years, he continued filling the duffel bag with jokes. He didn't want to break in his new act with any notice, so he asked the owner of New York's Inwood Lounge, George McFadden, not to bill him as Jack Roy. McFadden came up with the absurd name Rodney Dangerfield. It stuck.
Dangerfield's bookings improved, and he landed television gigs. After his ex-wife died, he took over the responsibility of raising his two children. He decided to quit touring and open a New York nightclub, Dangerfield's, so he could stay close to home. A beer commercial and the Carson shows brought him national attention.
His film debut came in 1971 with "The Projectionist," which he described as "the kind of a movie that you went to the location on the subway." He did better in 1980 with "Caddyshack," in which he held his own with such comics as Chevy Chase, Ted Knight and Bill Murray.
Despite his good reviews, Dangerfield claimed he didn't like movies or TV series: "Too much waiting around, too much memorizing; I need that immediate feedback of people laughing."
Still, he continued starring in and sometimes writing films such as "Easy Money," "Back to School," "Moving," "The Scout," "Ladybugs" and "Meet Wally Sparks." He turned dramatic as a sadistic father in Oliver Stone's 1994 "Natural Born Killers."
In 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected Dangerfield's application for membership. A letter from Roddy McDowall of the actors branch explained that the comedian had failed to execute "enough of the kinds of roles that allow a performer to demonstrate the mastery of his craft."
The ultimate rejection, and Dangerfield played it to the hilt. He had established his own Web site ("I went out and bought an Apple Computer; it had a worm in it"), and his fans used it to express their indignation. The public reaction prompted the academy to reverse itself and offer membership. Dangerfield declined.
"They don't even apologize or nothing," he said. "They give no respect at all - pardon the pun - to comedy."
October 05, 2004
Famed Ponderosa Ranch closes
Park was site of 'Bonanza' television series
INCLINE VILLAGE -- Nevada's Ponderosa Ranch has faded into the sunset.
The 570-acre Western theme park overlooking Lake Tahoe and made famous by the 1960s television series "Bonanza" shut its gates Sunday after nearly four decades.
Thousands of people visited the park over the weekend for one last snapshot of the Ponderosa and the Bonanza television show that featured the Cartwright family -- Ben, Little Joe, Hoss and Adam.
Mary Beth and I visited the Ponderosa Ranch in 1998. The whole area is just incredible with its scenery. If you went up a hill behind the ranch, there was a collection of old tractors and other farm machinery. Not the prettiest collection I've seen, but still interesting. I sincerely hope that something will be done to preserve the entire site. It is a beautiful place and deserves to be left intact.
"It's the final day and look at the crowds," Royce Anderson, whose father Bill opened the Ponderosa in 1967, said Sunday.
"On Saturday we had 2,200. It was the biggest September day we've ever had. People are coming out of the woodwork."
Anderson said some of the TV program's scenes were shot in the Incline Village area and horses for the show were kept at the Incline Stables, which his father opened in 1963.
The stables later became the theme park.
Bonanza, which was first broadcast in 1959, went off the air in 1973. But the Ponderosa Ranch, with its Western town, memorabilia, "Hoss" burgers and hayride breakfasts, stayed open.
Owners of the ranch sold it in July to Incline Village resident and developer David Duffield for an undisclosed price.
A coalition of government agencies had hoped to buy the land, putting together more than $50 million for the purchase before the Ponderosa's owners made a deal with Duffield.
Government officials had said they wanted to preserve the ranch as public land.
In a written statement shortly after the sale was announced, Duffield said he had "no immediate development plans" for the property.
"It's really the end of an era," said Anderson, who was 6 years old when he first went to work for his parents at the Ponderosa.
The ranch, which was open from April to October every year, was a successful business until the end, Anderson said.
"This is the biggest year we've ever had," he said.
October 04, 2004
Taking One for the Team
New Release
Palms Playboy X-Treme Team 2004
09-30-04
Limited to 2500-$5, 500-$25 and $100
I'm not quite sure what ths team does, but it's a team definitely worth watching. I think it may be a reality show...I mean what isn't?
The artwork is different for each denomination, I like this one the best. The Palms and Playboy seem to have a very solid relationship and the result is some very nice chips.
The $50 50th Anniversary chip won Chip of the Year for 2003, perhaps one of these will follow suit.
Vote...for your favorite
Gallopalooza...the creative placing of 223 almost life size winged, non-winged, and sometimes wheeled horses throughout Louisville. All of the horses are painted, sometimes with a theme. It's fun picking them out while you're driving around town. Of course there are folks who are getting pictures of all the Gallopaloozas, a challenge to say the least.
Well here is your chance to vote for your favorite. You only have until October 12 so don't hesitate!!
October 02, 2004
The Shame of it All
Today was our practice tournament...what fun it was!
Conor did well in his 4 sparring matches and he completed his form in surprisingly good fashion. He hasn't really worked on it that much.
In my sparring, I didn't fare as well. I wasn't trying to smack anybody around so just getting back into the swing of tourney sparring was the objective. One gentleman I sparred with was named Mr. Gibbs. He's about my age, a Blue Belt, and pretty quick...faster than me by a bunch.
We were tied at 1 when I launched a crescent kick from close quarters that came in and landed just below his chin...a nice kick, in fact I was surprised to get one up that high so close. I thought it was a bit high but I scored the point. Then my problems began. Mr. Gibbs came in and led with roundhouse and I countered with a spinning back kick that a bit low. I received a warning, no big deal. The next point or clash started and I laid a text book hook kick to him. This time I overcompensated and went high. My heel was ok but I turned my toes upward and made contact with Mr. Gibb's chin. This time I lost a point...grrr...but it was my fault.
October 01, 2004
Know when...to...hold...them?
A little late in the notice, but a rather enticing ad for Hard Rock Texas Hold'em Poker Tourney. Nothing up her sleeve!!
Looks like the Hard Rock is back after its brief tasteful? billboard campaign.
Ante up boys!