Primrose Road

There's an item in this month's Wired about a new slot machine that looks like an old-school 'destroy some boulders' arcade game. What's interesting about this game is that the odds of winning are the same regardless of where you move your spaceship or what you shoot, because skill-based payouts are not legal in Vegas (or anywhere, I think). I don't know ... it seems like non-traditional slots could attract too many people who aren't entirely responsible with their money ... though the slot machines in casinos now also seem to attract people who aren't responsible with their money ... NB: Grad students who get paid in the change found in the cushions of the department's couch and have memberships at five Atlantic City casinos don't count. ;)

At the Tropicana Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, between a pair of too-pricey-for-my-wallet restaurants called Red Square and Cuba Libre, there is ......... a statue of Lenin. A very large statue of Lenin. Just ten feet away was the casino's Halloween "psychic," offering $20 readings at a table set up in front of the spa, across from a store that sold spy accoutrements and fake body armor.

Thirteen days until my first comprehensive exam. Three hours of writing about Renaissance drama, including New Historicist, psychoanalytic, and reader-/audience-response understandings of Will S. & Friends. I'll be in Atlantic City this weekend.