The weather here is miserable. CNN shows just about every major city in Europe posting high temps today of 36 deg F (yes, all of them the exact same number, which was pretty weird) — except those in high-altitude Switzerland, of course, where it keeps bungeeing between 33 deg and 15 deg (lower in the Alps), forcing the incessant precipitation to vacillate wildly between various frozen states — and turn everything into a royal mucking mess.

I had an interesting gambling experience last night. I checked out Bern's casino — which to my disappointment had only rooms full of slots, dashing my dreams of doing my best James Bond impression at a blackjack table (only I imagine James Bond would actually win, and also simultaneously trick the leader of SPECTRE sitting across from him to reveal the location of the stolen nuclear devices via a subtle battle of wits and words in a conversation that consisted entirely of discussing fine French wines.)

So anyway, slots.

I watched a few people play for a little while, and it looked pretty easy: you feed one franc pieces to the machine, then sit there slapping the same big, blinking button on the machine while it shuffles virtual cards on the screen and flashes lots of lights and phrases. The point of all this is to distract you from the tiny number displayed in the screen's upper right corner, which represents how many francs you put in, as it slowly works its way down to zero. There are lots of big blinking buttons, but for some reason you never press any of the others, only the one, repeatedly, until you run out of money, at which point you get up to go get more change from the lady at the counter.

So I got some franc coins, and first tried out a few on the traditional slot-type machines that automatically spins little wheels, which in turn all proceed to stop spinning and display pictures of different fruits. You're supposed to get them to all stop on the same fruit, but I couldn't figure out the trick to that. And since I discovered that sadly that big crank arm on the side is now there merely for show — instead, you push, yes, a big blinking button repeatedly — I got bored and went over to those virtual poker games to hit the big button a few times myself.

I spent a few more francs getting the worst poker hands I've had in a long time (who ever heard of not even getting the occasional pair?), then got exceedingly lucky, by which I mean the machine was programmed to cut me a break in order to hook me on it. I got a Full House, which I've only ever gotten once in real poker (actually, I also once got a bona fide royal straight flush, but only my friends Dave and Omri were witnesses and no one else will believe me — plus I believe we were playing for pretzels at the time).

At any rate, I got excited. A Full House! I had won 12 francs! I looked expectantly at the aluminum pan at the bottom of the machine, where my winnings were supposed to be pouring out with that satisfying rapid-fire ching-ching-ching-ching-ching sound. But nothing happened. I got nervous. One of the big, blinking buttons — part of that group of buttons no one else was pushing — was labeled "CASH," which sounded promising but produced no effect. I tried pressing the blinking "HOLD" buttons, but they didn't do anything either. No wonder no one ever used them. Nervously, I finally pressed the big, blinking button everyone was supposed to be pressing (not feeling very good about it, since they never seemed to win, either).

more >>