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- Denny's #1539
- Carson City, Nevada
- 7 August 2005
- 12:30am PDT
- 2299 N. Carson St.
- (775) 883-6550
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- Attendees: P7A77, AJ, B
- Wait-person(s): Kimberly (Manager)
- What we ate: nothing
- A few of us were spending the weekend driving around Northern California and western Nevada for some Tea Leaf Green shows. On the way up we passed a few menacing black utility vehicles with rather nasty ugly drivers, taking "missionary" work back to the basics. In case you can't make them out, the seal on the door reads "The Great Seal of God - The Sabbath", over the rear wheel is "Jesus Christ Government - Official Use Only", and yes, that does say "Bounty Hunter" up top. Is there some sort of turf battle going on with the mountain militias?
- Thankfully they weren't after our heads, so we head up to the top of a mountain for a rousing afternoon of music. The show in Reno that night was cancelled, but we still had hotel booked and 66.666...% of us were itching for poker. None of us had a map, but we figured, hey, getting down a mountain can't be that difficult. Some meandering and appropriate pitstops later, we arrived at the bottom to realize that yes, indeed, we were on the wrong side. So we stopped in at some local casinos, made some good change in a short time at a table, and headed up on to Reno.
- Nature called, as she is wont to do, so AJ (who was doing all the driving, bless his heart) pulled over at, of course, Denny's. Nobody was eating, and B was asleep, so I just darted in to get the info. I was waiting up front to speak with the manager, who gave me a curious look. I started into my spiel about traveling around and visiting Denny's, at which point she cut me off and asked if I had that web site. I couldn't immediately assess whether she was going to hug me or take a butcher cleaver to my jugular, so I sheepishly confirmed her suspicions, one eye on my exit routes. Well, glory be, she was on happy side of the fence. Yay! She presented to me a clean, cold, crisp carafe and graciously mugged for the camera with me.
- This is why I prefer graveyard shift. I probably should have eaten there, but I was too tired and out of it to think too quickly at that point.
- Once in Reno I immediately lost what I had won, went down some more, and spent the rest of the night climbing back to break even. Perhaps I was up a bit. But not too bad, got to see some shows, have a good time, and a brand new carafe! There was even a WAY factor. Huzzah!
- PS - It should be noted that this was AJ's first exposure to this, er, adventure, and he expressed concern for my sanity.
- WAY: Bill (old GM, now in Sparks)
- Free Stuff: Carafe
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- Denny's #6873
- San Francisco, California
- 25 August 2005
- 7:00am PDT
- 816 Mission St.
- (415) 243-8800
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- Attendees: P7A77, Winter, Illy-B
- Wait-person(s): Teresa
- What we ate: P7A77: Moons Over My Hammy, Hashbrowns, Coffee; Winter: Biscuits, Eggs (scrambled), Illy-B: Grand Slam (eggs scrambled), Large Orange Juice
- So apparently there are these people who are obsessed with going around and visiting thousands of more or less carbon copies of a faceless corporate conglomerate's manufactured style masquerading as low-rent sustenance. Strange but true, and I got to meet one of them, Winter, that guy who does the Starbucks site. He's rather more hard-core than I am. Me, I get to an update when the mood strikes me, which patient readers know can take rather long to come about. Winter works part time and freelance and endlessly criss-crossing the country. That's dedication. He says they open new Starbuckses more quickly than he can visit them, so while he's always attending new Starbuckses, his percentage visited of national total is decreasing. I'd like to see some 3-d calculus graphs of his pattern. The thing is, they're making a movie about his madness, and seeing as we've been around the same amount of time, he wanted to meet up. Sure, what the hell, I still had a city Denny's to visit, works out well. We hung out for a while, chatted for a bit, caught most of it on video. I doubt they'll use much of me, as I tend to ramble and mumble a lot.
- I don't really drink coffee any more. I used to, on cold mornings in Ohio, but in Arizona it was hardly necessary, so I moved on to soda. I've kicked that habit as well, and now only juice up if I'm especially tired. And hoo-boy is it effective. For some reason I decided to get a cup at Denny's. This was ridiculous. I think I even got a refill. Hey, I was up early before work, I had a rather rough night's sleep, I wasn't used to this. But I forgot that after we were done with breakfast, we were visiting one of the Starbucks that Winter had yet to hit. Ooh, cross-over episode! Stay tuned for a scary Vampire show that we advertise in this time slot in order to freak the snot out of little kids absorbing 7th Heaven.
- After a rather... interesting drive through the city, with me not knowing what roads go what direction because I always walk, and Winter's rather colorful driving technique, we managed to park illegally and dart into Starbucks, where I had my first sample of their product. It did about what I expected, which was burn the top of my mouth. Cheers.
- WAY: no
- Free Stuff: meal and coffee (thanks guys!)
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- Denny's #6699
- Concord, California
- 5 September 2005
- 9:00am PDT
- 1313 Willow Pass Rd.
- (925) 798-4040
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- Attendees: P7A77, Pete
- Wait-person(s): undetermined
- What we ate: P7A77: French Toast Slam, Pete: undetermined
- Okay, damnit, I lost my notes on this one. I gotta stop doing that. It hardly matters, because I can never read my chicken scratch, so I usually make it all up as I go along.
- Another publication decided to lose some readership by featuring me in a story. This time, Diablo Magazine thought they had something more exciting than they did. Pete and I met up, ate breakfast, chatted for a bit, and went on our merry ways. It seemed a nice enough place. My French Toast Slam was mighty tasty. I'm not sure I'd ever had it before. Good stuff.
- As is the case when I try to get information from them, they get slammed just as I'm ready to go into it. This is why I don't like morning shift. The article's supposed to be in November 2005's issue, so we'll see if there's anything salvageable. From what I remember, it was a good time, and he had a great sense of humor about the whole thing. Check your newsstands!
- Thanks to Pete for taking and supplying the photographs for me.
- WAY: undetermined
- Free Stuff: meal (thanks guy!)
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- Denny's #0495
- Reno, Nevada
- 1 October 2005
- 11:45am PDT
- 680 N. Wells Ave.
- (775) 322-9039
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- Attendees: P7A77, Scott
- Wait-person(s): Allie
- What we ate: P7A77: Grand Slam (eggs scrambled), water; Scott: Fabulous French Toast Platter, Large Orange Juice, Coffee
- And so back to Reno and poker. I was riding high on all my recent wins at smaller casinos and home games, so figured I was unstoppable. My first few hours in town confirmed this. Did what I expected, was able to pay my share of room and gas immediately. Nice start, gonna be a good weekend.
- Ha. I'll spare the gory details, but suffice to say I played poorly, got pissed about it, and kept throwing money at it. This is what many affectionately refer to as "tilt". And what sucks is I knew I was doing it, but there was nothing else to do. The whole point of the trip was poker with no distractions, and I was already down heavy almost from the start. It was a horrible, gory, disgusting scene.
- I was able to finally settle the hell down and do a slow crawl at the Eldorado for the long haul. I was doing pretty well at it, not going up too much, but not going down, either. Then the table rotated and some drunk guy who kept getting drunker decided I was his buddy, and I was too tired to realize I was getting distracted. I didn't lose to him, but I lost to others, and he won a lot. He had a good drunk style, and yes, I believe it was for real. He seemed to like to drink enough to have his drunk late night techniques worked out. Can't really blame him, it was my own fault for losing, but oh well. Next morning was even more pain and suffering. Thankfully we were scheduled to leave that evil stinky place.
- At the concierge I politely inquired as to the location of Denny's. The guy got a bit of a snooty look. Uh, hello dude, this is Circus Circus, you're not exactly high brow. So the guy tells me there's a Carrow's near by. Okay, nice, where's the Denny's? Well, as it turns out, if I go down such-and-such street and get to the Carrow's, if I turn left, Denny's will be another block down. I confirm the directions, omitting the landmark reference. He says again, "yeah, it's right by the Carrow's." Okay, guy, I get it. Don't judge me!
- I arrived at Denny's an empty man. Don't we all, at one point or another? Scott, on the other hand, was the big winner of the weekend, yay for him. The Denny's itself was standard. A waitress came up to us, looked at us, smiled, and walked to the table next to us without a word. Nice. Once the staff determined we were good enough to dine with them (what, they think they're Carrow's or something?), the waitress they sent over was very smiley and friendly. I figured she was new. You can tell who has the life-force sucked out of them from prolonged exposure to Denny's clientele. Besides, with the turnover at most of these places, practically everyone is a trainee all the time. Everything old is new again.
- I had trouble finding the Grand Slam on the menu. There was the Lumberjack Slam, all shiny and photogenic, but no original Grand Slam. I got a bit panicky. I wanted to close out this suite of entries with the classic breakfast, but it was nowhere to be found. Plus, I was fairly broke, and a man's gotta eat. Allie ultimately pointed it out to me, way on the bottom in the corner, tiny little print. They sure don't want you buying the cheap stuff. Scott chose the Fabulous French Toast Platter over the not quite as fey as the French Toast Slam... well, okay, they're more or less on par there. He remarked that they were, indeed, fabulous, sister. Snap.
- Again, they were way too busy to deal with my questions. I hate weekend morning shift.
- WAY: undetermined
- Free Stuff: nothing
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