defocus·blog

But Wait! There's More!

Occasionally while traveling, you come across something really special, something that makes the whole trip worthwhile just by seeing it. Here, we have the world's largest “As Seen On TV” superstore.

There are no fewer than four “As Seen On TV” stores within a few miles on this one road, locked in epic battle – but this is the largest one in the world. The excitement of being near all those Snuggies, Ronco rotisseries, and Ginsu knives was overwhelming.

The world's largest “As Seen On TV” superstore can be found in Sevierville, Tennessee (near Pigeon Forge, which I only mention because it has such a great name).

Star Wars Slots

Slot machines get more sophisticated by the year. The Sex and the City machine is the current pinnacle of technology, but the Star Wars machine is perhaps a more interesting example – if only because it seems not to have been thought out quite as well.

The Star Wars machines come in groups of four, linked together for progressive bonuses. Two of them are themed around Jabba's Palace, and the other two for something to do with the ridiculous prequels. Obviously you'll want to play the Jabba ones.

What's interesting about these machines is the unique bonus system. Getting five scout troopers on a spin gives you a bonus entry; the bonus round is timed, and comes around at intervals. If you have a bonus entry when it comes up, you're entered into the bonus round.

But, if more than one person is playing at the group of four machines, only one of them gets the bonus. The rest, even if they have bonus entries, get nothing. The bonuses, like all progressive bonuses, increase over time until someone wins them.

People are very good at spotting patterns and figuring out simple systems, so lots of people learn how this works. This has created an interesting dynamic, not found elsewhere in the casino: people get mad if someone sits down at one of the other machines while they're playing. Why wouldn't they? The newcomer is threatening to steal their bonus. People who are at the casino with friends will have three friends sit at the other machines – not playing, just preventing anyone else from playing.

So, the system works like this:

• Check the amounts of the speeder bike and shield generator bonuses. If it's just a couple dollars, it's not worth playing; check back later.
• If someone else is playing any of the four machines, check back later.
• Starting just after a bonus round ends is best, giving the most time to score a new bonus entry.
• Play until you get a bonus entry (which you usually will).
• Wait for the bonus round. You can slow-play: there is no point in losing lots of money waiting for the bonus. You have to do a spin within a certain amount of time to keep your bonus entry, but the machine will warn you, so wait for the warning and spin again.
• If anyone sits down and tries to play, ask them to wait their turn. Keep a Taser handy in case they don't listen.
• Now, provided you're still the only one playing, you win the bonus. You always get the speeder bike and shield generator bonuses, and you have a shot at the TIE Fighter, Star Destroyer, and Death Star bonuses.
• If the minimum bonus amounts are high enough, you will have a profit at this point most of the time. Cash out and let someone else play.

If you see multiple people playing in a group of four machines at the same time, they're newbies who haven't figured out the system yet. If there are eight machines together, as in this picture, they are still grouped in two sets of four, so you don't have to defend the machines on the other side while playing.

Whoever came up with this bonus system didn't think about how it would affect peoples' behavior. I don't think it will catch on, but it's definitely interesting.

I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana

All you hear about México these days is the scare stories about the drug war and resulting violence near the border. The way CNN tells it, if you dare cross, you'll be dodging bullets and fleeing kidnappers from the first moment.

Of course, some American cities are more dangerous – but no one tells you not to set foot in New Orleans.

Determined not to let the hype be my master, I set out on foot from San Diego across the border to Tijuana. I'd heard that tourism was down, but thought surely I would be among a group of braver Americans, perhaps locals to southern California – but, no, I wasn't.

Crossing the border is easy enough: you walk through the gate and you're in México. No guards, no passport checks, no one asking your business. Just walk right in. A steady stream of people walked through with me, but I was the only gringo.

That was my first clue that something was wrong. As I entered Tijuana, the route lined with border pharmacies – “English spoken!” “Lowest prices!” – with menus of medication on display like restaurant lunch offerings, it seemed odd that all of those stores were empty. The street vendors had no customers. No one browsed the souvenir shops. I walked several blocks before deciding it was no coincidence:

I was the only tourist. The only gringo. The only one with a camera.

The scare stories have worked. In an area made for American tourists, billed as the most-visited city in the world, on this day there was only one tourist: me.

The streets were not dead; they were more crowded than you'd see in most American cities, in fact. Just not with Americans. You might think this is not odd, given that it's not the United States, but this is an area that lives on the tourist trade, and that created a real problem for me.

As I walked down Avenida Revolución, past empty stores and empty restaurants and street vendors doing no business, I became the center of attention. Every store had a proprietor standing out front, and every one of them tried to get me to come inside. With each restaurant I passed, someone ran out and showed me the menu. Every street vendor, from the legitimate ones with carts to the guy clutching a handful of “silver” jewelry, stopped me to show me his wares. I couldn't walk ten feet without someone else accosting me.

Could I blame them? I may have been the only American they'd seen all day.

I don't react well to this sort of thing under the best of circumstances. Trying to coax me into entering a store is a good way to get me to keep walking. Trying to sell me something is a good way to get me not to buy it. But this was crazy.

I tested various methods of fending them off. The New York City “ignore, don't even acknowledge” method; the polite “no, thanks” method; acknowledge, but don't speak, just a shake of the head; none of it worked very well. Counter-intuitively, replying in Spanish is not helpful: hit him with a no quiero, and he decides you habla Español, which emboldens him further and you'll never get rid of him.

Cable news aside, I can't say I felt unsafe. It was daytime and the street was crowded. But it did occur to me that, if someone were looking for a target for mugging or whatever, I was it. In American cities I can rely on being a six-foot male who doesn't look helpless to tilt the odds in my favor, but here, I was just a tourist. The only tourist.

I just wanted to take some pictures. I managed some, but it was tough, since I couldn't get two minutes of peace. Finally it got to me, and I left. Without spending any money.

Crossing back into the US is a bit more involved than entering México. I stood on line at the border for a good 45 minutes, just me and the locals heading to San Diego to do some shopping. Passport checked, intentions questioned, camera bag X-rayed, and back to the good ol' USA.

Tijuana looked cool. I'll have to go back, at a more welcoming time.

This Is Why You're Fat

This is something called “Carne Asada Fries.” It's half-eaten because that's as far as I could get.

It's a San Diego specialty, not often found elsewhere, consisting of french fries, carne asada, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. I don't think there's anything healthy here, but there's enough of it to feed two sizable appetites. Indulgent food you know you ought not to be eating, but in moderation, it may be the ultimate junk food: there's nowhere else to go from here, junk-wise. Try it.

Then, when the time comes for actual food, in San Diego you can get real tacos. If you think fake American tacos are good, be warned: the real ones may ruin you for fake ones forever.

Creation Museum (part 4)

The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”

– from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

•••

This is Part Four of my series on the Creation Museum and, sadly, the final part. If you're joining us late, you'll first want to read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

In Part Three we learned about the Great Flood and Noah's Ark. In the world-view of the Museum, the Flood explains just about everything, from fossils to the Grand Canyon. The literal truth of the story of the global Flood is fundamental to the Museum's narrative.

Dinosaurs are also central to the Museum experience, presumably because kids love dinosaurs. There were, as it turns out, dinosaurs on the Ark, so while most of them died in the Flood (as did most of the human race) they didn't become extinct at that time.

It's bizarre to me that people are able to accept the notion of dinosaurs coexisting with humans, humans living more than nine hundred years, and Noah fitting all the animals and food and water for them on a boat for months – but unable to accept the notion that Genesis may have been simplified into metaphors for an audience of several thousand years ago. But this is nowhere near as bizarre as some of the stories they've come up with to fit observable facts into the literal truth of Genesis.

I Always Knew I'd Make It To Hollywood

They don't make movies in Hollywood any more, the Industry having moved on to Burbank and elsewhere long ago. The place is sort of seedy now, not as clean as New York and not feeling as safe. I was solicited by hookers and approached by vagrants in the short time I was there – but there were tourists, too, with enough of Hollywood's history still visible to attract them.

I didn't linger long in Los Angeles – it's not a place that's very attractive to linger, and has by far the worst traffic I've ever seen – but I wanted to go to the Santa Monica Pier (the end of Route 66), and Griffith Observatory, and of course Hollywood Boulevard.

One legitimate part of Hollywood history that survives today is Grauman's Chinese Theatre, opened in 1927 by Sid Grauman with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, and hosting many premieres since. It's in front of this theater where you'll find the celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs in the concrete of the sidewalk.

Everyone comes here: you have to. Hollywood is barely Hollywood any more, but you still have to. Whether or not you're willing to admit it, there's someone you'll want to find. Here's mine:

Smokers Welcome in California!

Contrary to popular belief, smokers are welcome in California! Just stay in this three-foot-by-ten-foot ghetto, and you're fine, no problem.

(Seen on the Santa Monica Pier.)

Vegas WiFi Conspiracy: Update

Last year, as part of an ongoing review of the Verizon MiFi internet device, I wrote about what I called the Vegas WiFi Conspiracy. This bit of hyperbole described the combination of $14-15 per day hotel internet access with cellular repeaters inside the large hotels that make cellular data service virtually unusable in the rooms. I sought to thwart this conspiracy by putting the MiFi in the window.

The conspiracy appears to be crumbling, I am pleased to report. At the New York New York hotel, internet service was included with my room – the informational card in the room still indicated a $15 charge, so this may have been because I had a promotional casino rate. At Luxor, though, I can verify that internet service is now included for all.

Note that both of these hotels charge a “resort fee” on top of the advertised room rate. This is a barely-honest method by which they can advertise rates that are lower than they are actually charging, hoping you won't notice until it's too late.

At Luxor, the internet service is wired, not WiFi: an Ethernet cable extends from behind the television for you to plug into your laptop. This cable is just long enough to reach the table while hanging in the air.

Move the table, you say? Great idea – except that the available power outlet is on the opposite wall, just close enough to reach the table with the power cord hanging in the air. The result of this bit of brilliant planning is wires hanging, comically, across the entire room.

It seemed prudent to clear up this accident-waiting-to-happen before housekeeping came in.

But hey, at least it's not horribly overpriced any more.

UPDATE: There is no extra charge now for internet at Excalibur, either.

Only in Vegas

It's the Statue of Liberty. In jellybeans.

Seen at the New York New York hotel (naturally).

Arizona Boycott

I had, literally, just crossed into Arizona, and stopped for lunch, when I heard the news that the state's governor signed SB 1070, Arizona's new “Papers, Please” law. This fundamentally anti-American measure makes it illegal to be in Arizona without proof of immigration status or citizenship, and requires police to demand such proof whenever they reasonably suspect someone might be in the country illegally.

From the Rachel Maddow Show

The law mandates racial profiling while simultaneously forbidding it. (If you think Hispanic people won't be the target of this, I think you're crazy, and the law really does have a racist pedigree.) It overburdens law enforcement at a time when Arizona is having trouble figuring out how to pay even for highway rest areas; and diminishes public trust in police, should they find time to investigate real crime. It panders to populist xenophobia at the expense of the civil liberties of American citizens.

It is a terrifying and offensive government overreach that should never have been allowed to happen. As a US citizen, I am under no obligation to carry identification, nor to provide it to police on request – and Arizona just changed that, singlehandedly. Most Americans use a drivers license as identification, but that won't prove citizenship: many of us don't have a passport and almost none of us carry it with us if we do.

If you find yourself thinking this law is a good idea, ask yourself this: what do you have on you, right now, that proves your US citizenship? If the answer is “nothing,” as it will be for most, then you might get to visit the Maricopa County Jail, one of the worst jails our country has to offer. In practice, of course, this will only apply if you look Hispanic.

As it happens, I do have a passport card in my wallet. But any policeman who asks for it without a damn good reason – like, because I'm trying to cross the border – is a disgrace to the uniform.

Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ-7) is urging an economic boycott of his own state, and others are joining him. The city of San Fransisco is considering doing it. In an amusing turnabout, México has issued a travel advisory for Arizona.

And here I am, as I type this, sitting in Arizona.

I've been to Arizona many times, and I quite like it. I came here to relax for a few days at the Grand Canyon – so at least I've spent my whole visit on federal land, though that doesn't keep me from paying Arizona sales tax and gasoline tax. I had planned to stay in Arizona after this, too: I was going to go camping in Tonto National Forest near Phoenix.

I'm not really the sort to join boycotts. But this is so offensive, so beyond acceptable, that I think it's time to go somewhere else until Arizona decides to stop being a disgrace to my country. I've thought about it pretty much constantly the whole time I've been here. I'll probably have to drive across the state again on the way back east, but I'll try not to spend any money if I do.

For now, I'm hitting the road, westbound again.