I must say not a bad race to see the first Lady win it since 1924. I wish I had it but my buddy went a bit too far in throwing out Mind That Bird in our trifecta. None the less I did make enough for a Chinese Food Buffet in Fort Erie with $10 left over for the day. In all actuality I would have had more if it wasn't for the Fort Erie Racetrack under staffing the tellers for Preakness Day. How can they have only 3 tellers working and at times only 2 when the other one was on break on the day of the 2nd leg of the triple crown??? I know that the track almost never opened this year but it seems that they just want to give it an excuse to close down forever.

Come on seriously in the end it's a dying model. There is now no need for someone to get in a car, go to the track, stand in line, read off a bet to a person and hand over money. Because God forbid the idiot in front of you has a laundry list of bets, still in the process of making their selection or just plain does not know what they are doing. With that kind of delay you may not have the opportunity to make you bet and you will get "Shut Out" when the gate opens at the track you wanted to make your bet on. At times I just used my xpressbet phone account as it was quicker. The future of this game will embrace technology as you will be able to call up the past performance statistics, make your bet and watch the race you bet on on your phone very soon. There will be no need to go to the track as it will be rendered a large outdoor open TV Studio for Simulcasting. When I go too Las Vegas at some of the places allow you to open an account and with a touch screen monitor in front of your cubicle you can do everything from betting, ordering food and a drink to watching the race you placed a wager one all without leaving your seat. The best part is if you miss the opportunity to make a bet, you only have yourself to blame.

Although you may not agree with the type of debauchery in the party that went down in Pimlico in the past it just doesn't make sense for another company that is having financial difficulties Magna to drastically change the way the Preakness was "celebrated" A company that is in Ch 11 should not be chasing away 30,000 fans. Horse racing is mostly an old man's game and to chase away Gen Y ers doesn't seem like good business plan. Seriously who is going to horses besides myself in 5-10 years when these old men can't get to the track/OTB to physically fork over their cash to bet takers making approx $20 an hour?

I had this song in my head today since I'll admit I'm feeling a bit emoish but not in a drastic way. Then after just surfing Youtube I discover that it was used in some HBO Show.



Plus I had to make an appearance in the whole risque title game, although the video is in kind of in the Cable softcore genre.

Yea there's another one for the obituaries on deadmalls.com but we knew it was coming.



Pretty much ever since 1994 it's been downhill for that place. I remember when they had two movies theaters one inside the mall and a General Cinema Sixplex outside across the street. The most memorable movie that I saw inside was Ghostbusters and I think the last film I saw in there was The Return of Shaft, in which my friend Bill and I were the only people in the place. We went because we were denied admittance to some rated R movie across the street and we went to see Shaft II just because it was rated R for the principle alone just to be rebellious I guess. Although i do remember seeing Chevy Chase in European Vacation with my Dad one night and I though it was so cool that we were in the Mall when it was closed, approximately 10-11 at night.

There were other things that I remember about the place. When I was a kid there were these pits in the middle of the common hallway in which you could go down and sit. They were for the most part outside of Jenss and if you go way back the pet store. Yea, Jenss the place were my Grandma would take me to go buy "nice" clothes that kind of made me feel out of place in comparison to the way the other kids were dressed at school. I guess I didn't appreciate being well dressed and preppy until much later on in life when I had a better grasp on who I was as a person.

But going about crazy stores in the place, I even remember in the late 80's very early 90's they even had a Gap in the place. You can't forget those guidoesque stores like Chess King selling Z Cavaricci where they had bad 80's music playing like Taylor Dayne and really push sales people working strictly on commission and bad hairspray.

My personal favorite was York Steak house (WIKIPEDIA - York Steak House) in it's many incarnations of layout. I just remember going there with my Late Grandmother and I think it was one of the first places where I ever seen a automated change dispenser from a cash register. Since back in the day I don't think they even had a real food court until the early 90's.

Other than that there was the McCory's which always sold junk except for the brief moment in time when they had a music store what leased space from them. On another note, they did have a cafeteria next in McCory's that did have an ICEE machine as well.

Other things that I can remember that stick out in my head were the crazy 70's fountain in the place that had a bridge over it and Waldenbooks which seemed to be there the entire time that I can recall.

For the first time ever since he wed his wife I ended up going out on the town with my long term old neighborhood high school friend. For the most part it was a pretty tame evening as we went to Town, stopped by Cosumel to wish (e:jenks) a happy birthday & went to Hardware followed by Staples.

All I can say is I'm leaning to the negative in my feelings towards Hardware. First there were some obnoxious people in the place that night but you can get that anywhere. For the most part it was just some other girl with her friends being totally loud & screaming at very high pitches. The kicker is I'm really pissed off at the place that they now only serve PBR Pabst Blue Ribbon in Cans. Seriously I have gone there for years and enjoyed it in a bottle, now they don't even display in on the shelf you have to ask for it like some Vegas value special. The problem is that it's still $3 for a can. Why are you so ashamed to sell it now after carrying it for years?

So we went next door to Staples and enjoyed PBR in an actual BOTTLE. For the most part I have to say I'm leaning towards their selection of beers more than Hardware's. Plus I have to say I kind of really got into the bartenders there. I really couldn't believe that one of them had her 40th birthday there as she was pretty fine looking. Plus they just have this non-pretentious vibe as they're not the "hottest" looking bartenders, but they do have a pretty well put together style and they do make you feel pretty friendly and welcome.

Other than that I did go over early to Fort Erie and meet up with my Canadian horseball friends as it was Derby Day. For the most part I couldn't cash a ticket early on in the day from 10:30 until the around race went off around. The highlight of the day is my engenious bet, which was a Daily Double a bet picking the winners of back to back races. It was Race 10 & Race 11 @ Churchill. In the 10th there was this Brazilian horse named Einstein who seemed like a lock, so I ended up betting this ticket for $19.




Basically this is how the bet worked the #6 horse in Race 10 Einstein had to win or else I lose, then I win my bet as I have all 19 horses for the Derby covered. So Einstein did his part then I waited for 1 hours & 15 minutes. Well the best case scenario came in as the longest shot on the board for me in my Daily Double came in which Mind That Bird was in my case paying $304 for me as I only had it for a $1. The worst case for me would have been if the favorite Friesan Fire won the race and in that case I would have lost money. For some reason I knew when Einstein on race 10 I was into something really good as he only got my the other horse by 1/2 a head. But yea, what a rush especially for the fact that I normally don't bet longshots, but in this case I was pulling for one. The scary part is that unless you really were looking for it there was no way you would have known that the 8 is sneaking his way long the rail.

As Tom Durkin says "An Impossible Result Here"

The human element to this story is that my 2 horse buddies really had a bad day. They're not well off as the one guy that was a co-worker of mine back in the late 90's at a factory that I worked at in Canada is now working construction and kind of barely holding his head above water. The other buddy is his roommate who is in a wheelchair with no legs. So when I hit the double on the Derby they said "If we hit, Chinese food on you." So it did come in and I made a profit for the day after being down myself. What came after we hit his place on Hwy 3 in Fort Erie was a bit of a surprise, he said, "If you don't hit and take us out, we wouldn't have had dinner tonight!" It was kind of surprising to hear, but at the same time I was glad that i did have some luck to spread the good luck around a bit tonight, especially since I kind of had the seed planted for the double bet from him talking about the 10th race.

The other crazy thing was this other guy at the track hit the Exacta the 1st and 2nd place horse in exact order. He bet it for $5 and it paid well over $5000, needless to say it was interesting to see the stack of money he had being escorted to his car by security. I think only 3 people including myself cashed tickets at the track. But with horse racing as well as the financial markets, it's a zero sum game the losers payoff the winners. I got $300 because a bunch of other people lost their bets and if the favorite won I would have lost or cashed very little.

So yea, that's a bit of reality on Derby Day on how the game really works out along with a story about the people. It's not all hats and mint juleps...

Yea, so I'm back to my regular scheudle for the foreseeable future, meaning that now I can actually blog the stuff that I've been intending to do without being squeezed for time or getting distracted.

The weird thought that I've had is that with the whole Swine Flu thing, the name of it H1N1 to me would make a great German Synthpop name. The other night when I was at the Transmission Dance Party, I ran into an old friend of mine who kind of lead me into that kind of music. It's one of those relationships where she's an intelligent conversation and fun at times, with the only problem being that she's all about her way & a total energy vampire to boot. So I haven't seen or talked to her in a year, by my choice as I don't need the draining effect around me. The only weird thing is that for the most part I haven't listened to that kind of music since I've stopped hanging around her or going to Diablo and I'm not going to change that at all either.

It's just that even though she's a drain, there were some things that were descent about her and some of her influences were a good time. The problem is that the big picture overall is negative unfortunately and to keep my sanity and positive momentum I just have to plain stay away from her.

Anyway here's a happy uplifting German Synthpop song for these times...