Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, I did resign today. No, I didn’t run in there and go “ZOMG THIS PLACE IS EVIL” — I told them I was going back to school, which is true, I just had been planning to stay another couple months.

All my supervisors and coworkers have been thoroughly decent, which is why I gave two weeks noticeand spared them the lecture. I just couldn’t reasonably live with myself in that position.

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Today, I’m putting in my two weeks notice at my job.

I think the assault may have had something to do with it. Not alone, not by itself, but as a last straw, a kick in the pants.

There was an old Asian couple at the baccarat table. They were fighting. She slaps him.

He hits her, hard, with his cane, and she falls straight back onto the floor.

He was arrested.

She keeps playing all day.

They’d been there four days and didn’t have a hotel room.

Four days. Eighty years old. Assault.

I’ve been doing this job for too long knowing it was really, really wrong, and I kept doing it, because I am lazy and afraid of change.

No more.

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Today at my table there was a doctor from India who claimed that he used to carry a million-dollar diamond around in his pocket until a friend of his, who did the same thing, got beat up and mugged in Detroit.

For me, I think, that practice would have ended a lot sooner, when I tossed those pants in the drier and my million-dollar diamond wound up lost in the aether like a spare sock.

I didn’t check the soles of his shoes…

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

So I took a guy’s money a few times in a row today, and he said “Oh, it must be that time of the month for you, huh?” and I was just… taken aback. How seriously fucked up do you have to be to think that’s an appropriate thing to say? EVER? I mean, I understand that gamblers are all rather crazy and believe fucked up things, or they wouldn’t be there to begin with, but when their fucked up beliefs start involving my own very personal bodily functions, that just crosses a line that I’d really rather stay on the other side of. Waaaay on the other side of. I’d prefer to have never even considered the fact that there is a line, that’s how far away from it I’d like to be, and this guy just totally ruined that.

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Anyone who has an indoor/outdoor cat knows this situation well, especially in the winter: the cat begs to be let outside with that irresistible blend of cuteness and obnoxiousness. You relent. The cat steps outside for maybe ten seconds and immediately puts on its most forlorn expression of “Oh, I’m a poor little kitten left all alone in the freezing cold”

He didn’t want to go out that door. He wanted to go out into the door where it’s warm and sunny.

And eventually he finds that door, somewhere around March.

It occurred to me today that gambling is nothing more than the human equivalent of that search: countless trials consisting of an endless manipulation of irrelevant variables in search of the inevitable and completely random one that produces a win.

But when cats do it, it’s cute.

It’s like last year’s Academy Awards. The girl from Little Miss Sunshine bailing out Will Smith’s kid when he flubbed his lines: cute. Leonardo DiCaprio bailing out Al Gore when he flubbed his lines: kind of sad.

Blackjack players? You’re not cute.

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

A Las Vegas-style casino opens in the Iraqi region of Kurdistan.

Actually, security is very good…. Of course everyone is armed. Everyone carries Kalashnikovs, but we have a room by the door where they can check them, one hour, two hours, however long they need.

(via Instapundit)

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Two things really get me about blackjack: first, people think that other people playing wrong hurts them; second, people think they can “mess with the system” to turn around a “bad streak”. The idea of “random” is a difficult one for humans, I guess, or at least for gamblers, who expect to come out ahead in a game with a house edge.

Whenever I see someone talking about someone else’s play ruining the hand, or the shoe, or whatever, I have this inner Bob the Angry Flower shouting “NO! WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG! WHERE DID YOU LEARN THIS?”

Actually, the funny part of it all is when people are losing, they think that they can fool probability by doing stupid shit like splitting tens and refusing to hit 14 against a 10. I could retire on the amount of money that one idea has made for the Pokagon band.

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

Because no one at all asked, but I’m sure someone must want to know, I’m going to answer the question: “What does it take to be a casino dealer?”

The answer: four things.

1. The ability to stand for eight hours
2. The ability to be nice to people, even assholes and morons. Especially assholes and morons.
3. The ability to do math in your head.
4. BEING REALLY REALLY LOUD.

Number one, most people know from previous jobs. Lots of dealers have had jobs such as cashier or bartender. Number two is sorted out by the interview process. Number three becomes apparent during training.

Number four is the most underestimated part of being a dealer. Being surrounded by talking, slot machines, bands, etc., you have to get the attention of someone who is somewhere — God only knows where — behind you. Any sense of politeness or respect for not totally breaking the eardrums of the people in front of you, at your table, has to be left at the door if you have any chance of getting anything approved.