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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1995)
Admce on how to succeed at local casinos Thanksgiving was a time to give thanks, and now that it’s over, you can be thankful that none of you were subjected to my column last week. Yes, Thanksgiving has passed, and in the spirit of American tradition, it is time we get back to being irate and unappreciative. The thing I am currently most unappreciative of is money; specifically, loosing all of MY money at a local casino. Last weekend a “friend” of mine and I went gambling, and like all excursions with my “friend”, there were a couple of things I could count on: I was going to have to drive, and more likely than not, I would make an ass out of myself. We went to “CasinOmaha”, which is a baffling name because the casino itself is no where near the city of Omaha. It’s not even in the same state as Omaha. Casino “Omaha” just so happens to be in “Iowa”, which “unfortu nately” for me, harbors the “worst” drivers in the “history” of automo biles. (All Iowans reading this article excluded, of course.) I had never gambled before that night. Well, except that time when, on a dare, I inserted my pinky toe into a light socket. (Note to reader: Do not try this at home or you will discover, as Steve did, that you’ll only succeed in shorting out your blender — Da Editer) The enticing names of casinos never cease to amaze me. Names such as “Lady Luck Casinos”, “Casino Double Your Rent Money”, and “Casino Bill Gates is on Welfare Compared to You”, are not uncommon. If a person is naive (or just an idiot, such as myself), they may take these names as axioms. I have dreamed about gambling before,, but I never fare well in Steve Willey Now, they say you can bet on anything you want, but Ifound out that this is false. You cannot bet on sheep. them. (This is a polite way of saying that in my dream, I loose all of my money in 24 minutes, and spend the rest of the evening asking lambs how much they will pay me to strip.) I had hoped that CasinOmaha would be a turning point for me, but it wasn’t. I tried all the games: Slots, Blackjack, and Roulette — which I am told is a French word for “Mother of Satan”. Roulette is a very peculiar game in which an attendant spins a large, colored, and numbered wheel, and people bet on the outcome. Now, they say you can bet on anything you want, but I found out that this is false. You cannot bet on sheep. No matter how funny you personally think it will be, never tell an attendant that you “want $50 on sheep”. It’s even worse if you clap wildly and chant “C’mon sheep”, like I chose to do. I can attest that the laughter is anything but deafening, and I assure you, nothing brings you back into reality quicker than a bag of quarters hurled into your groin. When it was clear that I wasn’t going to win any money (and none of the strangers I met would “lend” me any), I decided to leave — but not without gaining some valuable insight into the world of gambling. I have, for your use, created a list of tips that will insure financial success in any casino game. Let’s take Blackjack for ex ample. I have found out that only on rare occasions would you want to “Hit” after your cards total more than 37. Also, it’s important to remember to never tell the dealer to “Go Fish”. wnen one plays Craps, the worst thing one can do is put the dice in one’s nose and EJECT them by closing one’s mouth and punching oneself in the groin. It’s only been a week since I left, but already I miss the money I COULD have won. I have a job, but it now seems that the only way I can keep my head above water is by gambling. My father never had financial problems when he was my age. He certainly didn’t have to rely on casinos. He made a good portion of his money by what we would now call “stealing goats and selling them to Australians for immoral purposes”. He did this through an intricate web of underground markets, which according to him, are all located in Indiana. Despite the fact that this last trip to the casino was an utter fiasco, I still can’t wait to get back. There’s just something about loosing all your earthly possessions in less time than it takes a dog to sneeze, that makes life livable. I just hope next time, I’m not the one who has to drive through Iowa. Willey Is a junior ag-journalism major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist ' Huh? Finding answers to future not an easy task My prepared response to everyone who is going to ask me during the upcoming holiday season is this: No, I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. Well, that’s not totally true. Rather, I do know what I don’t want to do. I guess that’s a starting point. I know that after almost three years as a broadcasting major, I don’t think I want to work much pure broadcast journalism. I like my video class, in fact I like all my broadcasting classes, but every now and again I wish that I had majored in news-ed instead. I really didn’t care either way when I came to UNL. Broadcasting just seemed more interesting and more exotic than the news-ed I had done in high school. c,auuu yea, uui u aisu luiucu uui to be a lot more work. I mean, the process of journalism isn’t dissimi lar between the mediums. You interview people, put together the information, write a story, edit and publish it. The difference is there’s nothing quite like lugging 30 pounds of camera, lights and a tripod through a snowstorm in heels - going uphill both ways. Small recorders, notepads and pens just don’t compare. But the point is, I’ve been having lots of second thoughts about what I’m going to do with my life. Growing up I had the same problem. I wavered between wanting to be a doctor and wanting to be a lawyer. I’ve given up on the notion of ever doing anything hands-on in the medical field. Blood makes me queasy and the sight of flesh being cut is enough to make me faint. Law still intrigues me, but that Jessica Kennedy What happens around the third year of college to make you question what you’re doing with your life? would require an additional three very intense years of schooling, and I don’t know if I have the desire at this point to put myself through that. So, broadcasting is out (sorry profs), medicine is out, and law is on hold. What’s left? Well, this summer I got it into my head that I wanted to do public relations. Of course, UNL doesn’t have a program yet, so being innovative, I decided to design my own major through the College of Arts and Sciences. In that major, I was planning on taking a lot of advertising classes, so I then went ahead and added an advertising major to my rapidly growing list of degree programs. What happens around die third year of college to make you ques tion what you’re doing with your life? And why does it have to take so long to have these revelations? It’s expensive to scrap majors after one or two years of classes. So, never being satisfied with the status quo, I dropped the PR major because of the hassle, leaving myself with just two majors. But frankly, as a junior who’d like to graduate sometime soon, I don’t have the time to make more academic changes. So advertising and broadcasting it is. That’s not to say I won’t take the next 20 years to work on a master’s degree. Unfortunately, that takes me back to square one. In order to get a master’s, I need to know what I want to do with the rest of my life. And I don’t. My friends and family are great support — according to them, I’ll be able to do anything I want. I just hope the December 1997 market place agrees with them. Another consolation is some thing I heard in my high school career-education class. (Probably the only thing I heard in that class.) Some speaker told us that a large number of jobs that will be avail able when we’re adults, do not exist now And I guess that makes sense if you look at how fast certain industries are growing. For ex ample, the area of information technology is exploding. With my very variea educational and work experience, I’d like to think that I’ll qualify for a variety of jobs, which will pay enough to keep me off the streets. So, like the information superhighway, I’m going to take the next few years to gain more information and grow. And when graduation comes around, I’ll see then if I can pull it all together and figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. Kennedy Is a broadcasting and advertis ing major and a Dally Nebraskan columnist ...doomed Dec. 10, 1992 A Christmas feast: a gnarly concoction It was years ago. I can’t remem ber. A long time. I was staying at a friend’s apart ment, have I told you this before? It was Christmas Day. It was in my hometown and I can’t remember now why I wasn’t home. I’ve never been a big fan of Christmas, but surely I wasn’t just hiding out, avoiding my parents. Or maybe I was. Anyway I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t eaten in two days, it was a strange time of my life. I often didn’t eat for two days, I was used to it. My friend took off, he was a pretty bow, always had been. And no girl could resist him, really. No woman in the world would let him go hungry long. He brings out the mother in people — women. So he had some chick feeding him on Christmas Day. He al ways had some chick feeding him; the kind of guy who can come into a town where he has no one and find someone to shack up with in 12 hours, a real charmer. I always envied him for that, does it show? Well, anyway, I was all alone in his apartment and starving to death on Christmas Day, which as I say was no great shakes to me — still, it was Christmas — going through the cupboards looking for crack ers, catsup, anything. A crust of bread. There was nothing like that. I remember he had stolen all these sugar packets from Denny’s. And there was a bag of coffee grounds he’d had for more than a year. Isn’t it funny I remember that, when I don’t remember anything else? But he had no food. I wasn’t unhappy. There is this quiet place you get to after a year or so of abject poverty, you kind of enjoy it in a delirious way. I did. You do what comes next. I did what came next, I broke into the church building across the street. Breaking and entering had always been my thing. I just never took anything before, at least, not that I remember. But this time I took things. I took whatever was in the pantry. That church had a kitchen, a Prot estant church, that smelled of stale grape juice. In the pantry was a can of creamed com, a can of green beans and a can of peeled tomatoes. I also stole a pot. I feel bad about that pot, and if I knew where it was today I’d like to bring it back to that church. Leave it on the doorstep on Christ mas Day with a note saying, “Thanks for the pot. It didn’t help.” It was a nice pot. I smuggled it all over to my friend’s place. I had decided to make soup. I don’t know that I’ve seen soup so rich looking and brown before— almost red, like a good red beer. It smelled good too, as I ladled it into woodeyi bowl. ' I emptied the entire contents of the cans into the pot and added a couple of cans of water. I set it on a really low heat and let it simmer. It simmered for hours while I read, I think it was, “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, in the living room. After a long time, I was hun grier now —just thinking I would be eating soon—it started to smell kind of like tortillas and I knew it was the com and that my soup was done. I don’t know that I’ve seen soup so rich looking and brown before —almost red, like a good red beer. It smelled good too, as I ladled it into wooden bowl. I was tantalizing myself, blow ing on the soup. I sipped it from the spoon. Somewhere in the simmering process, something had gone terri bly wrong. My soup tasted exactly like vomit. I don’t mean it tasted bad, this is no hyperbole of mine. The soup tasted just the same as vomit tastes — including the bile at the back of the throat. I thought, “I made this soup from all good ingredients, toma toes, com and green beans. All good food. I could have heated them separately or eaten them from the cans. But if I eat this soup I’m going to vomit, and then what?” i couian i ao it. I left the soup out on the porch to freeze. A month later, before the thaw, 1 dropped the resulting enormous vomitcicle into the dumpster out back. By then I had gotten over it. I’ve learned to cook a little bet ter since then and sometimes I still make soup. But that was one Christ mas this boy went hungry. I’ve included the recipe below, in case you want to try it. It’s my own creation. It’s vomit soup. Recipe: Christmas Day Soup for a warm holiday meal, try this: Ingredients: One can creamed com One can green beans One can peeled tomatoes Pour contents of each can into large pot. Add about three cans of water.. Place on low heat and simmer 1 1/ 2 hours until it tastes like vomit. Season to taste and serve hot. Serves 7. jA : ifiww
