Current mood:	exhausted
Entry tags:	casino, fair, friends

Whaddaweekend
Friday morning was a revisit of But, this is Florida complete with 20 minutes to defrost the windshield for any visibility (another 10 for full defrost), and a hose (not even 300 feet long) which, at full water pressure, dribbled maybe a half-ounce per second. After such delays we finally made our way to the State Fair again, this time taking a friend who lived actually not even a couple of miles from the fairgrounds and had a very tiring & full day.
At the fair we stopped in the exhibit/expose area to make purchases we'd considered (though not all of it was there) last week, including a wall hanging with a Celctic knotted cross (do Not make assumptions) & a dragon (the main feature of the purchase), a 2-for-less-than-the-price-of-1 purchase of a grilling platform that cuts fats, and such but helps retain or even add flavor while doing so and can be used with any cooking surface (and we got a couple of discount wear-resistant utensils with'm), and a SodaClub Edition 1® (after oogling over them for a couple of years) with 3 big bottles and the basic generic Family Pack. After this, we wandered to and fro along the midway and fairgrounds, managing to keep spending to the minimum, and only walking away with 1 plush thanks to t's frugalness (with excuse to save money for Sunday's prospective venture back to the fair). Lunch for 3 was done just off the midway for $6 in burgers (dollar per), $6 in fries (a bucket from around the corner), and $6 in sodas (20 oz. Dr Peppers; not a bad fair price for those, per fairpeople). We did the Circus, which had been revised &/or improved &/or replaced by a much better performance than previous years, with the best acts being last 2: first of these a tight-rope artist whom did a fantastic feigning of most of his wiggles and wobbles or partial falls (with only 1 that I'm not sure of being faked), and last a Motocycle "Ball of Death" with 1 rider by himself, 1 rider with 2 showgirls, 2 riders by themselves, and finally 3 riders by themselves. There rest of the acts weren't half bad, either, but those stood out. Slith had seen much "Ball of Death" but never with 3 riders.
Thus more wandering ensued through the midway and the expo with a 7:00 stop at the Agro center which was selling $2.00 food items and $1.00 drinks; some of the items were on special so we managed to fill ourselves with hot stew or hot sandwich, a pudding, and a drink, and the total bill for us 3 was $11 even. We took a cute photo of the plush going after a share of the food while wearing t's hat.
And then it was a rush to the other corner of the fairgrounds where the fireworks were being launched. The music was old, though. And I don't mean just old songs, I mean pretty old recordings of older songs; and the pyro guy just couldn't keep the booms to the tempo, though you could tell s/he was trying. It was decent, though no July 4th. We had planned on staying longer, but our local friend was getting tired and all the legs agreed. So we picked up our purchases that were being held (a SodaClub package is heavy, even if it is only 1 CO2 tank in it; that tank turned out to be larger than any we have for Paintball!). So we drop our friend off and thus everyone goes home to sleep.

Sunday is not so crunchy to wake up to, thankfully, but still chilly and rather much blow-a-kite-away-with-the-kid-still-tied-to-it windy. At some point in dropping off and the morning we'd decided to hand our remaining pre-purchased tickets to Slith's sister (whose kid wanted to go to today's "wrist-band" day (with unlimited rides for $20-25) and went off to the local Hard Rock casino, from which we'd gotten necklaces that got us $10 of free play with sign-up to the free Players Club. On Slith's first pull, he got $20-$30, so he cashed out as to have some pocketed, and put some money back into the machine, while t's, friend, and Typhon (who tagged along today, not scheduled for work) promptly lost all of our $10 on the adjacent machines, or at least to the point of cents less than the minimum play (as they were all Multi-Line minimums). Slith proceeded to get another big winner, including one of the rare (per the `lil old lady who sat down next to us) bonuses such that we ended up with an additional $80-$120. Not much more was gotten out of another $10 plus the small-cents tickets (they don't do cash-payout-from-machine around here) then $5 submitted to various machines, so we headed further into downtown a few miles for one of our favorite restaurants, Evos! We splurged a little, dropping almost $40 of the remaining $80-some of winnings, and enjoyed a fantastic healthy lunch. Jori was very pleased with the place.
Due to some issues with Jori's roommates, instead of spending the rest of the day for videogames as we intended, we just dropped him off and headed home to enjoy our first SodaClub liter (Pete's Choice). After, this post is made, some Daytona is watched, and even after the post, some steaks will break in our new grilling accessories.

 - Slith & t'sChillin