{"id":125,"date":"2004-01-19T02:33:24","date_gmt":"2004-01-19T07:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=125"},"modified":"2007-01-09T06:34:35","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T11:34:35","slug":"whats-new-pussycat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/whats-new-pussycat","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s New, Pussycat?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Normally, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I&#8217;ve decided to reveal some aspects of this trip.<\/p>\n<p>First lesson: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomjones.com\">Tom Jones<\/a> still Has It.<\/p>\n<p>Second lesson: The sports book at the Venetian has free drinks, but it&#8217;s NOT good to say to yourself, &#8220;It&#8217;s only 10:30 a.m. here, but on the east coast it&#8217;s actually 1:30 <em>p.m.<\/em>, so that makes it okay to start drinking. And besides, they&#8217;re <em>free<\/em>!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Third lesson: Don&#8217;t bet on teams that you <em>want<\/em> to win (or cover). Bet on teams that <em>will<\/em> cover. Corollary to this is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Fourth lesson: Never bet against Bill Belichick.<\/p>\n<p>Lessons three and four left me $50 down (yeah, I know: real high roller, Gil!). Fortunately, I also bet against the Philadelphia Eagles, which got me even (minus the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garbage.suite.dk\/\">vig<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Vegas is wonderful, as ever. I love the fact that this city exists. Anyplace that so utterly fails to take itself seriously is a winner in <em>my<\/em> book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normally, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I&#8217;ve decided to reveal some aspects of this trip. First lesson: Tom Jones still Has It. Second lesson: The sports book at the Venetian has free drinks, but it&#8217;s NOT good to say to yourself, &#8220;It&#8217;s only 10:30 a.m. here, but on the east coast it&#8217;s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/whats-new-pussycat\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What&#8217;s New, Pussycat?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-21","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3044,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/vegas-baby","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":0},"title":"Vegas, Baby!","author":"Gil","date":"December 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What do you get when you combine a sportswriter awaiting his buyout, baseball's winter meetings, two big-budget teams and Las Vegas? This epic post from Dan Graziano, soon to be formerly with the Newark Star-Ledger.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Las Vegas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/las-vegas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1291,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2006-2007-nfl-playoff-challenge-round-2-the-post-mortem","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":1},"title":"2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 2: the post-mortem","author":"Gil","date":"January 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Several years ago, I attended a wedding in Las Vegas. It was my first trip visit longer than 24 hours, and I thought it would be fun to gamble on sports. See, I've never been a cards or dice guy, but I do allege to know something about pro sports.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;basketball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1289,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2006-2007-nfl-playoff-challenge-round-2","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":2},"title":"2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 2","author":"Gil","date":"January 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's do-or-die time, dear readers! I went 1-3 vs. the spread last week, while rival Ron Rosenbaum went 2-2. There's no denying it: Ron reached mediocrity before I did! I need to catch up in a hurry, since there are only 3 more games after this weekend, so this week's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Football&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1573225142","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1772,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/gambles","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":3},"title":"Gambles","author":"Gil","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"(Ah, just go to the slideshow.) Made it back from Vegas safe and sound on Tuesday. The event was a disaster: the exhibit hall was so far from the conference sessions that few of the attendees stopped in to see us. I knew things would be bad when I picked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Las Vegas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/las-vegas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1984,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-4-2008","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Apr. 4, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"April 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A whole passel of links await you, dear readers! Just click \"More\"! When I was single and meeting girls through the internet, there were certain questionnaire-responses that were dealbreakers. One question was, \"What is a single or album that turns you on?\" Anyone who answered with \"Radiohead\" was off my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Architecture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/viva-2","url_meta":{"origin":125,"position":5},"title":"Viva","author":"Gil","date":"May 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A few months ago, I wrote, \"[Las Vegas] is actually an alien theme park of planet Earth. Which helps explain both the laser beam [from the top of the Luxor] AND the proximity to Area 51.\"In The Nation, Marc Cooper writes about Vegas as the new capital of America (figuratively\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}