...in Atlantic City. Posted by Matt, 7/4/2005. Return to X-E!
A couple of us went to Atlantic City this past weekend, and as longtime readers know, it's a place I visit fairly often. Guess it's two parts tradition and one part thinking I'm the special holy person destined to hit five smiling palm trees on the Super Triple Peppers 777 Jackpot Robot. I'm not that special. I lost.
 I'm used to losing money in Atlantic City. You're paying for the rush as much as the chance. It was a little different this time, though. I seemed to be losing far quicker than usual, not getting even a nearly passable return as machine after machine gobbled up twenty-dollar bills as if I had them to spare. I tried everything -- slots patterned after popcorn machines, slots based on The Pink Panther, slots with magical fourth reels that tempted with shady promises of "respins" and "40x payouts." Nothing. This coupled with a series of incidents where I felt either cheated, slighted or wronged by the hotel staff sent me back up to our room.
Alone, because despite blaming my mood on a shitty hotel staff, my comrades knew I was just ticked that I'd lost so much. They weren't ready to end the night; nobody had even landed an ironic "I Lost My Shirt In Atlantic City" shirt yet. I understood, but they still got the finger.
I sat in the room festering for about an hour before coming to grips with my losses and feeling okay enough to go back downstairs...but I'd made such an ass of myself with the melodramatic exit, I had no choice but to continue pretending to be mad and later pin it on some family or work related travesty that I was too hurt by to mention earlier.
I blew it. Nobody was coming back for hours, and I couldn't go downstairs. I'd stupidly left my ATM card with the woman, leaving me without the ability to even get a two freakin dollar can of Nestea out of the vending machine. So, there I was, stuck, and unless you're a big enough player to get comped a suite, the rooms in Atlantic City hotels are about as interesting as the caterpillar-shaped growth I just found behind one of our cats' ears. There's only so many times you can have the casino host page Dick Frucckunt over the loudspeakers before it gets boring. Like so many before me, I turned to television.
Television is always good to me, but with the less serviceable amount of stations coming through on this godforsaken hotel TV, I was left with nothing but natural botox infomercials and tutorials on beet-related cuisine once The Running Man hit the end credits. I caught it so late, I even missed the legendary TBS audio edit to the Dynamo/Amber confrontation:
 Dynamo: Thought it was pretty funny out there in the zone? What's the matter now WITCH, why aren't you laughing?
Amber: Because there's nothing funny about a WITLESS moron with a battery up EES BUM.
Dynamo: I'll show you WITLESS.
After Running Man, boredom swept in, swept me off my feet and swept a heavy chair through the plate glass window so I'd have something to jump out of. Having nothing to do is bad enough; having nothing to do and it being all your own fault God damn pisses me off.
Then I remembered: LodgeNet, of course!
LodgeNet and other companies like it have long charmed my visits to Atlantic City. You've probably seen them in hotels before -- they're the onscreen television systems that let you watch PPV movies, play video games, surf the web and enjoy a whole bunch of other dumb crap at ridiculous prices. Growing up, I'd sometimes stay in the various Atlantic City hotel rooms for hours on end as my parents played downstairs, watching hit movie after hit movie after porn flick. It was a blast. Only difference is, they were comped for that kinda shit. I wasn't, and had to choose wisely.
Everything is overpriced. The system is intended more to make those who are getting comped (getting stuff like this for free) feel all the more indulged. If the hotel succeeds in nailing a few actual purchases from non-comped guests, though, they're not gonna complain. With hours to kill, no cash and no hope with dope, I embarked cautiously into the world of LodgeNet, slowly dulling my senses until I no longer cared that I'd ruined my own trip. LodgeNet's good for that junk, and this is its story.
Yup. Whole article about LodgeNet. We're gonna have a great time.
What to do first? Leading candidates were a movie, porn flick or a video game. Porn may have led to some embarrassing moment later if my friends stormed into the room unexpectedly, and as for the video games, I was confident that I'd be in even more trouble if they returned to find me actually having fun. A regular, good old fashioned movie would provide just enough entertainment and be totally ignorable if anyone walked in. They'd never guess it was a PPV...not with these selections, at least.
The PPV section is divided into categories -- you've got "Still In Theaters," "Hollywood Hits" and at least a few more. The "Still In Theaters" section is a bit of a sham; some of the movies very well may still be getting theater time at some shady crackhouse cinema living in the nation's underbelly, but the rest are long on their way to DVD already. No matter: The only real difference between "Still In Theaters" and "Hollywood Hits" is that movies from the former category cost more.
I'll admit it -- Boogeyman was tempting. I know it's supposed to be awful -- I've heard this from several trusted confidants -- but it seemed perfect. The kind of movie one could watch without having to process one iota of brainpower or even really pay any attention to. Perfect. Finding the risk of my own associative power manifesting itself in the form of a repeated humming of the 7th Heaven theme song too much to handle, I went with Aliens Vs. Predator instead.
That lasted about three minutes, up until about the point where Random Royal Messenger Dude meets Unlikely Lead on top of a fucking ice mountain on Jupiter. Nope, no more of that. I know she would've heard that helicopter before getting to the top. Not gonna take that crap. Plus, I've already seen the film: It's not like there was much coming to delight in. "Hello, now this part I show you pictures my family, yes? This mean you more care of me when eaten, yes?" Fuck that movie, and fuck LodgeNet PPV. Maybe LodgeNet Video Games will treat me with more respect.
Only the latest from the video game industry here in Atlantic City -- a selection of titles from N64. At seven bucks an hour. In the time it took to get anywhere good in any of the games, I could've just bought a new system and hooked it up instead. I don't want to complain too much, as the outdated N64 can't compare to the worst offenders I've seen even during just this past year -- going as far back as the Sega Genesis. I don't personally care -- I stopped playing video games save for a very select few before these systems went kaput. I don't know any better. Real gamers -- and by real gamers I mean kids who play video games, not adults who manage to get as geeky about video games as I do with Kool-Aid and somehow skirt ridicule -- might be a tad more upset.
The controller is standard N64 fare, but instead of the long, straight wire, there's an even longer phone-style wire that lets you play comfortably without affording anyone the chance to make off with this top notch hot slice of hip new technology. Current market value: 42 cents. As the bigger hotels in Atlantic City put less and less into their video game arcades (many don't even have one), even the chance to play old games is totally welcome. Even at a rate of ten cents per B-button smash.
If anything, LodgeNet's vast selection of Nintendo 64 games put me in the mood to fire up my own system as soon as I got home. I didn't, but the thought crossed my mind. A small victory for Mahhhio. Still, I'd forgotten how many terrific, my-kind-of-games drenched the system's library. It's a good sign when you're having trouble picking a game because so many seem appealing. Even better were the descriptions given to each game on the place-an-order pages. From Mario Kart 64's page, verbatim: "An exhilarating thrill ride as Super Mario and Luigi try to escape Donkey Kong and Bowser in a race to the finish!" Uh yeah, something like that. I'd bitch more if it didn't make me sound like such a hopeless loser.
In the end, I chose Super Smash Bros., which next to its sequel is arguably my most-played game of all time. Actually, no, that'd be a complete lie, but if we're talking about recent years...definitely. I love the circuitry out of both titles, but the obsession began with the original -- a game I picked up purely on the merits of its discount price on some long ago trip to Best Buy with friends on an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon. I had no idea we'd be playing that game for seven hours straight every other night for over a year. I had no idea we were such hopeless losers.
 I'm not very good at video games. I'm really not. The entire industry has gone over my head and past my fingers and between my legs. I am just not schooled. That said, when it comes to either of the Smash titles, I could kick all of yer asses. It's true. I use Pikachu on both -- something that started as a gag ("Oh look, I'm being the minuscule and bitty cute rat Pikachu -- LOOK AT ME!") soon grew into a more sincere appreciation for what the character brought to the table: The ability to shoot fucking lightning at everyone else. I've got Samus trying to rope me with a fishing line on one side and Donkey Kong doing the Flamenco on the other. Yeah, look up at the sky, bitches.
Plus, Pikachu had the best victory dances on the post-game screens. Sometimes he'd do this cute little spinning jig, or even more insulting to the losing player, you'd just get a shot of Pika sleeping with bubbles pouring out of his ass. The idiots who picked Bowser had to take their theories that a 2,000 pound dragon would find wrestling small Pokemon a cakewalk and shove 'em straight up their ass. Nobody dents my electric Pika power.
The fact that different players could choose the same character necessitated a color-coded system -- like, if Player 1 picked Samus and Player 2 picked Samus, you'd have Regular Looking Samus and Violet Flower Samus dueling it out. In Pikachu's case, they differentiated him with a series of hats. Let me tell you -- there is no better feeling in the world than defeating someone in a Smash game using Party Hat Pikachu. Opposing players practically cry when you do this.
I plowed on through for a little while, kicked the computer's ass from Hyrule to Saffron City, then remembered that I didn't want to get caught playing video games -- my friends would return soon, and if they thought I acted like a dick, left and actually had fun in the process, I'd extend the period of awkward silent treatments by a good three or four hours. By the time I'd figure out that the strange, mousy noise coming from the door was them attempting to figure out how to use an electronic key, there wouldn't be enough seconds left to switch channels, chuck the controller and wipe the smile off. They'd smell the Smash on me.
With that, we now enter the world of LodgeNet's fabulous Internet access. The rooms come with hookups to connect through your laptop, which is certainly preferable for a multitude of reasons, but I left mine at home after threats from everyone in the group that I'd be hung if any attempt to spend the weekend working or otherwise online was made. But they were downstairs having fun without me, so screw 'em.
Obsessed with outdoing the budding business of WebTV, snort, LodgeNet offers a primo deal -- I think it's like fifteen bucks or so for the day, but I was ordering so many movies and video games and other junk that I've lost track of what the codes on the bill mean. It's honestly the worst interface a web user could possibly imagine, and considering that we're attempting to use a hotel television to surf the web, that's really saying something. Using a wireless keyboard with half of the keys broken and the other half goop-stained, you slowly type into the impossible-to-see web address entry form and even more slowly hop from wrong website to wrong website, never able to figure out where you're screwing up. And while one of the main coups is being able to check your e-mail, good luck. Any site that uses a password-protected entry form causes the system to grow arms, grab paper and draw you a crude sign reading "I cannot do this."
When you're able to find a site without issue, it's a miracle. How the site looks is another matter entirely...
Look at that! X-E isn't compatible with the LodgeNet Hotel Television Browser! I'm finished! The adapted layout only got worse as I scrolled down the page. X-E looked more terrible than some of the other sites I visited, but all were funky in a bad way. Nothing was aligned correctly, every instance of text came in completely impossible font sizes and/or colors, and in the absence of a mouse, the only way to get to a link on a particular page was by using the friggin' keyboard's arrow keys.
I would've switched back to Aliens Vs. Predator, but if I hit the part where one of the Preds applied war paint to Unlikely Lead Girl....oh man, you don't want to know what terrible things I would've done.
The Internet failed me once again. I turned off the television, and the minutes passed by. Many minutes. Many more minutes. I got sick of the minutes, rebuilt my confidence that my buddies were still very much in the thick of heavy casino action, and checked out the porn offerings. Hey, I'm not ashamed. The only thing on regular television by this point were like, Juiceman commercials and The Steve Harvey Show. Tits to that.
As mentioned earlier, many of the weekends of my youth were spent in Atlantic City. The tradeoff of having no one to play with there was adequate: I got comped for all of this great shit even in the absence of my parents. This became particularly important once the hotels introduced sleazy pornos to the growing repertoire of Hollywood hits. Hoping my parents couldn't track it (and looking back, it appears they couldn't), I'd hit the "order" button on every tit channel they had, always careful to monitor the volume because, well, I didn't want anyone overhearing the moans and ass-smacks from the hall. From the television, I mean.
That was over ten years ago, and at that time, the selections were limited to, at most, 2-3 pornos. These days, you can choose from a library that'd make the back room of any 42nd Street novelty shop look under-stocked.
I don't know what an "AAAAA" rating signifies; I think they just picked a rating with enough text to cover Barely Legal Betsy's barely legal breasts. If she was a cup size bigger, it woulda been "AAAAAA." All of the porn flicks have different prices seemingly dictated completely arbitrarily. My hunch? LodgeNet knows that the people browsing through this section probably aren't paying much attention to the numbers onscreen.
Oh yeah, that's the ticket. "Latex Housewives," with promises of extreme close-ups of leather-clad wives' puddies. And it's only 12.99?! And it has raunchy outfits in every scene? Whoa oh.
An interesting upgrade to the hotel-purchases porns of old is that, these days, you can pause, fast forward and skip around. So, if you're not into the requisite four lines of dialogue before the next series of thrusts, you can skip right past it. Or, if someone contorts themselves in ways that spiritually rename the movie "Position Impossible," you can freeze-frame, call your buddies and tell them you're looking at an ass bent at a 67 degree angle. Best of all, there's no caveat: You're using a remote control and still have a free hand.
Even the title screen felt dirty. It took approximately ten seconds for "Latex Housewives" to evolve into upward full frontal/backal/sideal views of "housewives" dressed in converted Matrix Halloween costumes, scrubbing counters, toilets and windows with as much sex appeal as a person doing those things can possibly muster. "Oooh, you're a naughty little stain...well I'll lap your right up, mmmm, yeah....mmmmm....mmmm." I suppose there could be a market for girls talking dirty to kitchen counter stains, but when it comes to fetishes, mine run more along the lines of "throw a peanut in the air and catch it with something other than your mouth."
It was way too late and risky to get away with the porn -- surely my friends would be returning soon, drunk, broke and pissy. "Latex Housewives" had to go, and I don't mind telling you, it really bugs me that I may never know if any of the gals went for the ultimate crowd-pleasing broomstick scene. Ah, who am I kidding? How could they not have?
I was tempted to use the Jukebox feature, but with its per-song rate and the fact that the music would only blare through television speakers so bad I could barely hear Arnold's best lines from The Running Man, I passed.
Oh God, has it come to this? Am I really going to fill out hotel surveys? Is this how I'm going to spend my "vacation?" Again? Fine.
Yeah yeah, they were great, those restaurant associates. Perfect gentlemen. Even gave my take-home steak a golden doggy bag.
I still flunked them, because it felt so fringe and rebellious. I hope they all get fired.
To: auntmary@myaunt.com
Subj: (Matt) says Just Checked In
Message: This is strange. I don't have an Aunt Mary.
Found a fiver. Thank God. I'm outta here.
I went home broke and broken, but not without the requisite set of fun-sized condiments. The trip wasn't a complete loss after all.
Overall LodgeNet Rating: Well, it sure beats trusting bare naked television to entertain yourself. In Atlantic City, you slowly lose that little part of you that keeps wallet-action in check. Paying for overpriced movies and video games is absolutely the cheapest endeavor in the whole town -- you're not gonna "feel" it. It's also a good chance to take your palette to some new experiences, because let's face it, movies like Boogeyman, bad, housewife-related porn flicks and video games now only found at garage sales probably aren't going to twiddle their way into your life otherwise.
I've always had a little thing for it -- not LodgeNet in particular, but any form of hotel-based stupid pay-per-entertainment interfaces. I have six siblings, but they're all much older -- whenever we went on trips, things like LodgeNet were my best friend. So go ahead, charge up my credit card. That's what friends are for.
-- Matt (7/04/2005)
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