Sin City Yard Sale Blog

Been a while

Michael — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:47:23 GMT

Been really busy, both at work and away.

My wife has started a job as a 21 dealer at one of the 'local's' casinos. She likes the days when the customers win, and hates the days that she takes all their money. Living on the tips....

At work, things are always busy when football is in the air. The used book section of the website here is in shambles. I just don't have the time to really keep it up to date. The poker and general sections are the worst. The stock is always changing and I must develop a better system to track it. I think the pics are going to disappear. That is the big time eater when updating the list. I will just go to a Title/Author/Date/Price structure, and that should help a lot.

I am taking a break from poker playing. My interest is a sine curve. It swells and ebbs. I reach a point where I lose to the suckout that breaks the camel's back and I swear that I will never play again!!! Then after a while, I get the bug again and I start to play again. Tournaments are really where my interest lies. And live. I played a while at Spadeclub, and even had a little success. But I just prefer, and seen to play better, looking my opponents in the eye. Online just is not as fun. Yah, I still play for the fun factor.

What else? Hmmm. It is August in Vegas, so it is about a zillion degrees. The car needs work, but it is just too darn hot to do it.

Wow, here is a rarity!

Michael — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:26:52 GMT

Oh yeah, and original Dr. Thorpe's Mini Blackjack program. For IBM PC. Complete with 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" discs, and documentation. Quite a collector's item. Find it in the Rare Item section of the website.

Thorpe's Mini BlackJack Software

Yesterday, I also added some things to the Horse section, and I put up a couple newly found Holloway items. One in the horse section, and the copy of Full Time Gambler in the rare items.

More later!

Full Time Gambler, by L.G. Holloway. 2nd edition

Michael — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:48:46 GMT

We came up with a second edition of the classic "Full Time Gambler" by Louis Holloway. The book is in VERY good condition, with the dustjacket encased in mylar film, so even IT is in great condition.

You know what it is, and if you want it, shoot me an email. I will add it to the site in a couple days, after I take a pic of the book. It will list for $125 and that will include free shipping.

More later!

'08 WSOP Final Table 6 week delay

Michael — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:00:41 GMT

It was announced that the final table at the '08 WSOP main event would be delayed 6 weeks. What they are saying is that the main even would go off as scheduled, but once the final 9 were determined, a break would ensue until November.

Harrah's stated many reasons for this, and the seemingly biggest one was to generate revenue. I mean a casino having almost ALL the money in the world is just not quite enough. They want to squeak out a little more. This is a tournament that is paid for by the entrants. Not the casino. The Rio merely hosts it. But they are in bed with ESPN and who knows who else, and they want to make more money.

I try to imagine another competition that decided to delay the finals for a few weeks. Aren't most all competitions, at least partly, based on strength and stamina? I mean why don't we play 56 minutes of the Super Bowl, then break for a month to let the players rest up, then suit up and play the last 4 minutes? Let's get to the match point of the US Open and break for a month to let the finalists grab a breather.

One thing that Harrah's says is that it will allow for more exposure and sponsorship deals for the final 9. They know the table is most likely to be filled with unknowns. and they hope that the 6 weeks will create some buzz on them, so more will tune in for the broadcast on TV.

If it were me, the last thing I would want is a break. I mean, heck, I just outlasted thousands of competitors and made to the final table. THOUSANDS! Obviously, I am on some kind of rush, just to get here. Will that heater continue in 6 weeks? Maybe. Maybe not.

Some say it will give all the finalists time to learn how to beat their competitors. Hey, they are all unknown amateurs (probably). What can you learn about them in 6 weeks. I guess I could use the 6 weeks to bone up on strategy. And so will they. And what if the table DOES have a pro or 2? 6 weeks to sit around trying to figure out how to beat Daniel or Gus? Hell with that, let's play. NOW!!!

Yah, I can think of a few good reasons to delay it, but I can think of many more for not delaying it. Power to the average Joe that is going to win. And let him win without delay.

Thanks for listening. Let me hear what you think...

Sales, sales, sales

Michael — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:27:00 GMT

I will be the first to admit that what I know about selling and marketing you could write on the head of a pin. Using a magic marker. In all caps. I am a computer guy. Have been for 25 years.

So, I have this website that sells the used gambling books and ephemera. And sales are not so great. Mea culpa. I am willing to change, but I need some ideas on what you guys want. I mean, it would be great to have detailed write-up on every item we have, but since almost all of them are one-offs, it is not that realistic to spend a lot of time developing that for an item that disappears with one sale.

Now, the more valuable items, sure. It is something I want to get done soon. You know, right after I do all the stuff on the list before that. And it is quite the list.

If you found this blog, then you are internet savvy enough to know what you want, and how to find it. So shoot me some suggestions. What would make this website easier to use. What would you like to see? Are the colors hard on the eyeballs? Are the thumbnails taking too long to load? Is the pic and title just not enough information to allow you to make an informed decision?

Prices? Selection? PayPal? Let me know what works, and especially, what could be made better.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Vegas Dealing

Michael — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:16:42 GMT

The second time I lived here in Vegas, I decided that I wanted to deal poker. I was on a roadtrip. I quit my old job and jumped in my car and was traveling around the country in my 1985 BMW 533i. I started in Huntsville, Alabama and headed North. I got the Chicago and turned West! Somewhere in Montana, I stumbled upon a gambling town and stayed the night.

I was wandering around the casino and they had a poker room. I was immediately transfixed by the action. I don't remember the limits, but it was probably 2-4. How cool! Just like in the old west movies. I had played some online. Paradise Poker, if you remember them. I had had some initial success, then a losing streak. I quit and hadn't really played any for a couple years.

But this was different. This was for real. My mind saw it like comparing Micro$oft's Flight Simulator to getting in the cockpit of a fighter jet. You could fly them all day long on the 'puter. But fly a real one? Not me. I was excited and intimidated. I didn't sit down at that game, but a seed had been planted.

After roaming thru the national forests of the American west, my road brought me to Vegas. I toured the strip, but was unimpressed. That was not the Vegas that was in the movies. Downtown. Now THAT was my Vegas. I booked a room at the Plaza, and when I got in the elevator to ascend to my floor, I could FEEL the spirits of the rat pack in there with me. Now, yah, this is Vegas.

I settled in and made my way down to the casino floor. I found the poker room and just watched for a couple hours. I finally got the guts to ask the floorman about the rules and the etiquette. I aked about the buy-in, and he says' "It's only $30. Give it a shot." So I did. I bought in to the 7-stud game and I was shaking like a leaf. I don't remember much about the game, just that it was wonderful. Mano a mano. Warfare at the table. How cool was this?

It was about 2 years until I got back to Vegas, and this time it was a move-in, not a vacation. I got an apartment over on Trop and Jones, and booked myself into Nick Gullo's dealer school. I seem to remember that the tuition at the time was about $500. (Now its $800.

Took me about 4 weeks to get comfortable at the table and I started doing auditions. My first was at the El Cortez. I tapped into their $1-$2 limit HE game, and again I was shaking like a leaf. I wound up dealing seat 4 a straight flush to the 6 and he tipped me $2. Wow, I was a professional dealer! I got no position there, but I broke my dealing cherry. I wound up getting on the extra board at the Poker Palace in NLV. 2 tables, on limit HE and the other 7 stud. 2 dealers on duty and the floorman. The floor tapped us out for table changes and breaks.

I did that for a few weeks, then wound up at the Orleans. Great learning experience. They run 2 daily tournaments, and dealing those was gold to a new dealer. A couple months there, and I moved over the Circus Circus. The 'Show'. As some know it. I dealt there for about 8 months, and my second week there I dealt a bad beat at the 7 stud table.

All said and done, I made between $70 and $200 a nite in tips there. Not bad. Life has a way of changing on you and I left Vegas at the end of my Circus stint. I came back 5 years later and now NL is the thing.

In the interim, I have gotten married and my wife wants to deal in the pit. So we put her into Nick's school, and she spent the last 5 weeks learning blackjack. She passed her final audition with Nick, and can now start her auditioning. Of course, we happen to hit it just when there is the big downturn in tourism, so we don't know how this will go. Her advantages are that she is a young, asian, attractive gal. So she has that over all the guys looking to break in. Her disadvantage is that she is not as confident in her English as she should be.

We are going to start talking to pit bosses next week, and see if we can get her a shot. Then we'll see what happens from there. One great thing about Vegas, it is never boring! More later...

Installed Vista

Michael — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:05:43 GMT

At work, they got me a Toshiba laptop about 6 months ago. A nice, entry level machine. It came with Vista Home and it took me about 27 minutes to realize that it really couldn't do what I needed to do, and the things it could do, it did very slowly.

It was difficult to find all the XP drivers I needed, but I finally got XP SP2 running just fine. All things have been peachy for the last few months. I got invited to the Micro$oft launch event for Server 2008, etc, and for attending, I got a copy of Vista Ultimate with SP1. Hmmmm.

I did some research and discovered that many of the complaints I had about Vista had supposedly been addressed with the service pack. So, maybe it was time to give it a second chance.

I debated as the whether just do an upgrade over XP, and hopefully save all my data, or do a clean install. I decided to do a backup, do an upgrade, and if all went well, I could wipe and do a full, clean install later. That is what I did.

The upgrade took about 2 1/2 hours, but seemed to go smoothly. All my apps and data made it fine, and the system as a whole looks like it is running fine so far. (It have been 3 days now.) No crashes, no freezes. Actually no problems at all. Some things still run a little slower, but in general, it is a much improved system than the Home version I started with.

One of the first things I did was to disable just about all the bells and whistles (like the sidebar) and uninstalled all the apps and services I think I could do without. I have since reactivated the sidebar, it is actually pretty cool. I haven't played with things like the animated backgrounds or other stuff, but it is running my work apps great, and the network setup was automatic and painless. I have a lot more to learn, but so far I am changing my opinion of the operating system.

More later....I have a stack of old horse books I want to get added to the website soon. Thanks for visiting.

Added a few hard-to-find Horse books today

Michael — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:25:15 GMT

Today I added 3 books to the horse section.

Some difficult-to-find items that the owner said had quite a bit of value to the horse betters.

Secrets of Professional Turf Betting, by Robert L. Bacon. 1961

Betting at the Racetrack, by William T. Ziemba and Donald B. Hausch. 1985

and

Beat the Racetrack, by William T. Ziemba and Donald B. Hausch. 1984.

Find 'm here.

Spade Club Poker

Michael — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:56:26 GMT

This is one of the latest poker websites, with a twist. There are no deposits, so they claim it is not gambling. There is a monthly club fee of $19.99, if you want the deluxe package, but you can register and play for free.

Spade Club Poker

They have monthly, weekly and daily tournaments, all Hold'Em No Limit. Most are reserved for their exclusive members, but there are also daily tournaments for all users, paid or not.

You can register and play as an exclusive member free for 2 weeks, as their trial membership. You start with 1000 points, and you can use your points to gain entry to various tournaments. There are point builder tournaments that pay in points only, and there are cash tournaments that pay in both cash and points.

There are also Sit and go Hold'em tournies to build you points. Finally there are play money tables if you just need to waste some time at work.

The interface is okay, but is limited if you are used to some of the old timers like Pokerstars or Full Tilt.

But it is free, so check it out. And when you register, if you could reference my user name MadManMike, it might get me some free stuff.

BUT BE CAREFUL! When you sign up for the free membership, you have to give your credit card info, because if you don't cancel before the end of the 2 weeks, it will automatically convert you to a paid user and charge $19.99 on your card. And they only take cancellations on a toll-free number and only during business hours, Pacific time.

Thanks, and see you at the tables.

We dined at the Hard Rock's Lucky's Cafe this evening

Michael — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:47:15 GMT

I have heard of the 'off the menu' specials at the Hard Rock's Lucky's cafe, so we tried it tonite.

We were interested in the All-you-can-eat Prime Rib for $9.99 and the Surf and Turf for $7.77.

First off, the Prime Rib special is advertised on a banner at the entrance of the cafe, so it is no secret, but we had no problem ordering the 'secret' steak and shrimp special. Soft drinks are pricey, $2.50 each for a root beer and an iced tea. Service was very good, a nice gal that appeared only when needed. Not too much
attention, not too little. We had a salad, they were decent sized and okay.

The entrees arrived when we were only half done with the salads, but it's a cafe...what do you want? The steak and shrimp was the much better of the 2 dishes. It was a nicely sized sirloin, cooked just as she ordered it, mashed potatoes and 3 decent sized broiled shrimp on skewers. The prime rib was a nice hunk, probably 12 or 13 ounces, but it was pushing the definition calling it prime. Quite a bit of gristle, not very tender, but cooked nice and rare, just as I requested. It came with a medium to small-sized baked potato and broccoli, which were cooked just fine. She asked if we wanted butter, sour cream or horseradish sauce and we said yes to all. No extra charge for these.

If I were to go again, we would both choose the steak and shrimp, as the prime rib was not that good. I am a HUGE steak lover and even I passed on a second helping of it. We had to wait to get seated, and all service was fine. Total bill, with tax, was $24 and change, not bad for 2 steak dinners.

So I would have to give this one a SinCityYardSale 4 out of 5. You can certainly get better steaks, but hard to beat this price.

More later...

Can you send pics via email too?

Michael — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:44:06 GMT

The boss says sell this thing. The link to more information is:

Harrah's Prints

This was priced on the web at $49.00 for the set. For one week, we are dropping the price to $39.00 with free media mail shipping.

Wow, you can really do this via email?

Michael — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:40:55 GMT

How cool is that? Just write the entry in your favorite email program, and send it to the appropriate email destination, and BANG! The latest entry gets published on the ol' blog.

I have been involved in the computer industry, in some capacity for over 25 years. My first experiences were with game consoles. I had an Intellivision. I had an ADAM (anyone remember those? I even had the hi-speed datasette!). Next was maybe the Colecovision. And eventually, the Commodore 64. Got the 300 baud modem and went online with Q-link. Then came 1200 baud. Blimey, we were screaming then.

But it is still good when something can still excite me in the computerfield. Developing this website has been great fun. Re-acquainting myself with html. And moving up to PHP and MySql. And then this Blog thing. It is a lot of fun writing, and then self-publishing. Letting all you bit-voyeurs get a glimpse at what happens to be firing across
my synapses at this moment.

I got a lot of work done today, playing with the used book database. I have decided to drop the SQLite, and go with MySQL. Reasons are mostly because the MySQL seems like a 'real' database, and SQLite seems like a
tinker-toy dataset. Maybe I am wrong, but some of the things I read about SQLite make me leery of using it in a commercial application, no matter how small the venture is.

Want to peek at what I got working today? Go to the root of the website, then add mysql.php to the address. You should get a tabular display of about 10 or 11 records, and the ability to filter the display, look at a pic (it only displays one pic at this time) and even add the item to a PayPay shopping cart. The code is not that hard, and
I can see some more improvements in my mind already.

Okay, enough rambling for now, I have some work to do with AOL (America OFF Line). More later, seeya.

Book of the Week

Michael — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:08:58 GMT

Yes sir, this is the original. A first edition of 'Hold'Em Poker' by David Sklansky. Published by the Gambler's Book Shelf in 1976. ISBN 0-911996-67-2.

The one that started it all, the poker craze would not be what it is today without this guy, and this was his first published work on the subject.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Position
Chapter 3: The First 2 Cards
Chapter 4: Flops You Want
Chapter 5: Strategy
Chapter 6: Reading Hands
Chapter 7: Probability
Special Chart on No Limit Insurance Situations
Glossary

A total of 64 pages, includes a publisher's foreword on how this book came to be.

A seminal work that has been expanded and republished many times. You can own this little piece of poker history now. This is selling for $150, but how many of these still exist? And this one is in VERY good condition.

Make me an offer!

Rare Book Page

Well, my world and welcome to it.

Michael — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:01:55 GMT

Alright, it is time for me to enter the world of weblogs. Everyone tells me that you ain't a web citizen without one. The question is how to come up with something that hasn't already been blogged to death.

Why would you want to read my blog? Well, maybe I just write it to satisfy myself. And if you happen to want to peek into my mind, well, be warned. It ain't always pretty.

I have published this website to sell the used stuff that has accumulated in the bookstore where I work. I just bought a year of hosting from godaddy, and started putting some html together. The biggest problem is that the books are for sale in the store, so if something sells, I may not find out about it for a while. And if someone tries to buy it online, I might go look for it , only to find it was already sold.

Secondly, I want to use a database for the items, but creating a database of many unique items is incredibly labor intensive, not to mention without a lot of worth. Why have a database full of items that have an inventory count of 1? Create a record for that item, then delete the item when it sells.

Anyway, I have created a small test database in SQLite, and I have written some code in php to access the data. It works okay, but it is going to be a bear to enter all the books. I have set it up to be able to get the UPC code with our POS scanner (if the book has one, they all don't). It would be cool if there was a program that could read the UPC from the database, do a web search for the title, author, retail price, etc., then update the appropriate fields in the database. Pipe dream, I guess.

Anyway, if you want a peek at the test database, go to my Sin City home page, then type in /books.php at the end of the address and it should come up. Suggestions and critiques are always appreciated.

All for now, so ends my maiden blog entry. See you later!