The Grown Up Timezone

I am back and blogging again after quite a long bout of lazybee syndrome because today was a pretty interesting day for Ryan and I.

For the past few days, we've been mostly sitting on my couch at home, eating take out, and marathoning Harry Potter and The Last Airbender series. Today, we finally got our butts off the couch to go watch the last Harry Potter movie (huhuhu). It was a bit of a struggle, at first, with the traffic and the broken car aircon and all but we finally got ourselves to Resorts World and lined up for a good 15 minutes to buy tickets. It was 2:30pm and the movie was at 6:55 so we had around 4 hours to kill. So we ate at a new restaurant (because we usually just eat in our favorite restaurants... we like to make sure we're eating good food eh) called Johnny Chow (i think). Food was surprisingly good and they served us a hot pot of house tea which was a plus! Afterwards, we walked around the mall and found that... well... there's really not a lot to see. We've been toying with the idea of going into the Casino but we felt very uncomfortable and shy. We're very young at heart so we kinda forgot that there really is nothing to be afraid of seeing as how we were well beyond the legal gambling age (which, I assume, is 21). So when we were finally out of stuff to do, we decided to trudge on in to the Casino. We must've looked like a couple of mischievous 16 year olds because the guard stopped us. Ryan very defensively said that we were both 23 years old but the guard nonetheless asked for my ID (I assume he didn't ask for Ryan's because he's... well... an obviously grown man)!

We walked around for a bit. Twas a lot like the casinos in Vegas, only much smaller and less... Vegas-y. The usuals were there anyway... slot machines and old people on the slot machines. What was very interesting was how some of the "manual" games were digital already... like the roulette and some card games. But there was an area for the high rollers, of course. And those had real dealers (sexy ones)... and well... more old people. I never would've guessed that gambling was big here!

So anyway, Ryan and I walked around and observed people like a couple of ignorant teenagers trying to figure out how we can waste some money on a poker slot machine game. Before started to think that we were up to no good, we decided to line up at the counter where people were cashing out their chips. Let me tell ya... walang barya barya in that counter! People were cashing out a serious amount of money. This woman in front of us, for example, looked like she was cashing out about 50,000 pesosesoses! It was crazy! I've never seen that many thousand bills piled up on top of each other! Crazy crazy crazy! I felt like I was in a bank heist! I felt like robbers were gonna come out with their guns and sacks of money! That didnt happen, of course. I had to remind myself I'm not in CSI Las Vegas.

Anyway, Ryan and I felt ridiculous amongst those filthy rich people so we just asked an attendant to show us how to play some poker on the slot machine. Turns out you just slide your money into a slot in the machine (doink!) and you're good to go! So we started with a hundred bucks. Obviously, we were not high rollers. We just bet 1 for the first few rounds which was just 10 bucks per deal. Twas fun. You win some, you lose some! We lost the 100 ofcourse. So... we bet a hundred more. HAHA! Our limit was 300, which we justified by the fact that we usually spend that much on a Timezone game day anyway.  The casino could be a kind of... grown up Timezone! So anyway, on our 3rd 100pesos, we ended up winning P850 on a straight flush! Since, for us small timers, that was pretty huge already, we decided to payout. I thought money was gonna come spilling out of the machine... but no. It was pretty boring. The machine asked us to get an attendant, who then gave us a receipt to present at the counter to claim our winnings. That's more practical than money spilling out of the machine, I guess.

We didn't stop there though. Ryan was having so much fun, and I must admit, I was having fun too. At home, Ryan and I would often play this 5 card poker game, a slightly modified version of the original that he made up. We'd bet tickles instead of chips. It was fun. But the slot machine was fun too since we were winning actual money. Anyway, we decided to bet just a hundred more, and won 750 on a straight (or two pairs or a flush or a trio... cant remember)! How about that huh? We had a bit more time to waste before the movie so we went on and decided to stop at 500 and we did! We felt a little silly cashing out an 800 and 500 peso receipt while people around us were cashing out thousands and thousands of bucks. Even then, I must say, we were the happiest and most excited looking people in that crowd. I mean, a thousand bucks out of a quick fun game of slot machine poker? Not bad! (It was definitely much better than the 20 tickets we won in Timezone the last time. We couldn't even get candy with it!)

In the end, Ryan and I concluded that it was extremely fun but quite dangerous to gamble (not that this is a new realization or anything). We finally understood how people could get addicted to it. You lose some but then you win some as well... and that can get pretty exciting and blinding. It's important to keep it at a minimum and set limits for yourself so you dont end up burning a lot of money in the hopes of winning more. You have to have the will power to stop while you're on top...

... Unless you're filthy rich and you really have that much extra money to just gamble away. In which case, you should really be thinking about better ways you could be spending your life and money. But that's just me.


Love, Oli :)