Coronavirus Theater, Casino Edition...

“But under the beards--and this was K.'s real discovery­ --badges of various sizes and colors gleamed on their coat­ collars. They all wore those badges as far he could see. They were all colleagues, these ostensible parties of the right and left, and as he turned round suddently he saw the same badges on the coat collar of the Examining Magistrate, who was sitting quietly watching the scene with his hands on his knees. "So!" cried K. flinging his arms in the air, his sudden enlightenment had to break out, "every man jack of you is an official, I see, you are yourselves the corrupt agents of whom I have been speaking, you've all come rushing here to listen and nose out what you can about me, making a pretense of party divisions, and half of you applauded merely to lead me on, you wanted some practice in fooling an innocent man.” -- Franz Kafka, "The Trial"

I'm sick to death of all the tomfoolery surrounding the Chinese Bat Pox.

It's about time this nonsense came to a skidding halt, and those responsible for the absolute SCAM that has been perpetrated in the name of winning an election should be taken out and beaten bloody.

Twice.

The final piece of silage which resulted in the dromedary's destroyed lumbar region came yesterday over a game of poker.

Your Overlord loves a good game of poker. It is one of his few healthy outlets, the remainder being so drenched in debauchery and inhumanity as to defy comprehension, but that's for another time.

Suffice it to say, an evening of GOOD poker (so many of you play the game badly, IMO) is a remedy to all of life's little turdburgers, particularly if the game engenders camaraderie and jokes. One does not enter upon a game of poker to remain silent: it is a social occasion as much as a game of chance and skill.

Needing the therapy of taking other people's money while risking my own, I took a trip to America's Greatest Seaside Cesspit (sorry, San Francisco). I put my Worn-Out-By-Coronavirus-Butt in the Nissan Tie Fighter, pointed it south, and eventually found myself in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they are at least TRYING to hide the smell.

Before making the trek, I availed myself of the casino's website where The Rulez promulgated by Obergruppenfuhrer Murphy are posted so as to avoid a) the keen and feeble wailing of any potential Karen I might encounter, and b) a fistfight with any potential pantybunched libtard who might be lurking in the room to virtue signal over a mask while striking a blow for the Proletariat by playing roulette in the very sinhouse of Capitalism.

Both have become very common occurrences here in the Northeast.

According to Da Rulezzzzz, I am to wear a mask at all times while in the casino; I am to maintain "social distancing"; and having entered the (shit) Garden State from another, I am to quarantine myself for 14 days, regardless of the fact that I am far more likely to contract any number of deadly cancers than I am the Bat Pox from merely spending a few hours in America's Toxic Waste Dump.

The ride down was pleasant, if only because the State of Emergency meant no traffic -- even during Rush Hour -- and even better, no New Jersey State Gestapo...erm...police...to create dangerous situations on the roads by tailgating out-of-staters in unmarked vehicles at high speeds over several miles because they lack radar guns and intelligence (I'll tell you about that incident at a later date).

I probably managed about 90 mph the entire way down, and made the trip in just about an hour and change.

I arrive at my favorite casino (I shall not name it because I really DO hate giving autographs and posing for selfies), easily find a parking space, and enter in anticipation of a rousing afternoon of poker.

I am greeted by the de rigueur squad of temperature-takers and mask-scolders, all offering hand sanitizer (just in case you've missed all the dispensers posted every 20' or so), who have to instruct you on how to properly wash your hands. Yes, I got a lecture on personal hygiene from people who got far too personal and whose own hygiene is highly suspect.

I arrive on the casino floor to discover the poker rooms are closed. This means no Hold 'Em. The poker tables are open, but the games I like to play are not available. They will be later on, I'm told, but to judge by the complete dearth of human beings there, I have the feeling no one is in a big hurry to open a Four Card Poker table for one guy.

The problems begin at once.

The casino has erected cubbyholes at the tables for their players. You are now semi-encased in a plexiglass pseudo-shield that appears as if it was last cleaned sometime last century. Someone has left their unfinished drinks in most of them, not to mention paper napkins which could contain any number of pathogens (good thing everyone got the lecture on hand-washing, though. Good call!).

Before touching anything, I remove hand sanitizer from my own backpack, disinfect myself, and then put on a set of rubber gloves. This, apparently, annoys the dealer who fears I shall not be able to pick up my cards properly, leaving them bent and disfigured in the process, and I'm told I must remove them.

I refuse to do so as a) those chips have been through countless hands, and b) until someone cleans this filthy pigsty I'm sitting in, my fucking gloves are staying just where they are. I have an invalid at home who is susceptible to respiratory infection and I'm already risking radiation poisoning just being in New Jersey. I don't need to bring home The Ancient Chinese Secret on top of it.

Speaking of Chinese....there are none.

Typically, you find more Asians on a casino floor than you will in a Tokyo subway station, but they are curiously absent. It has been my experience (and no, it isn't racist to point this out) that casinos are often bursting with Chinese, who are inveterate and enthusiastic gamblers. Also, the sight of the Masked Asian in the northeast is about as common as a democrat on welfare, even when there hasn't been a panic about the Wuhan Flu. Many of these communities already were (are) dealing with endemic levels of tuberculosis and other nasty lung-destroying maladies for decades. An Asian wearing a surgical mask is almost always part of the background in New York City, and has become such a regular thing that it's become something not worthy of note.

Until now, when their disappearance from the Public Square becomes noteworthy.

Some wiseass will tell me this lack of Diversity will have been caused by "the backlash" suffered by Asian communities over the Orient Distress, but this is largely bullshit. There are no Eastern-oriented pogroms taking place here; Koreans are not being tragically beaten to death after being mistaken for Chinese by bands of roving rednecks frightened of the General Tso's Sicken.

That's what we have ANTIFA for, after all.

That sort of thing happened in the aftermath of 9/11, unfortunately, where Sihks were often confused for Arabs/Muslims and subjected to torment. It is NOT happening to Asian communities in and around New York City, which is strange when you stop to consider Andrew Cuomo has killed more people through sheer incompetence and fucktard with an Asian pathogen than Osama bin Laden did with a deliberate program of Kamikaze missions.

But, I digress....

Back to the poker game.

There are signs posted everywhere that one must never remove one's mask while on the casino floor...but then they offer you free drinks while you're playing. Since straws have been classified as assault weapons because a) Climate Change and b) they are a natural source of infection if left laying around, one must consume one's free drink by momentarily lifting one's mask, drawing the ire of the previously-mentioned Karen, and despite the proclamation of Gauleiter Murphy that consuming food or beverages outside of an established, previously-approved, Corona-free environment of a restaurant operating at 25% capacity for all the social distancing, is strictly verboten.

But, of course, if I want to smoke, I'm free to do that...provided I go outside and lift my mask on the boardwalk.

Where all the people are.

And smoking is normally allowed at the tables. So someone has their priorities and diktats confused.

Anyway, the poker experience sucked ass. Hard. This sometimes happens; the cards do not go your way, and Lady Luck has decided to bitchslap instead of blessing you. This is the risk you take -- it's why the enterprise is called "gambling", after all -- and if keeping your money was your primary objective, well, you had the option to stay home.

Just as an aside, the Overlord -- veteran of many a gambling session gone wrong -- has two hard-and-fast rules regarding this situation :

1. Never arrive at the casino with more money than you can afford -- or intend -- to lose. Never bring a credit or debit card with you, either.

2. After you've lost the first $300, stop gambling for a bit. Take a break, and then return. After you've lost another $200, it's time to call it a day. Hope may spring eternal, but it doesn't fix a busted flush. If you're chasing your losses, you'll probably only lose more.

Which brings us to Rule #1. It did not take long to lose that first $300. I either didn't get the cards, or I did, but the dealer got better ones. So, time to take a break and I'm hungry, considering I haven't had anything except a cup of coffee and a bottle of Gatorade all day.

And... the restaurants are all closed. Except for the one bearing the name of a "celebrity chef", where they serve "gourmet" sandwiches (the mayonnaise has horseradish in it? What a fucking culinary genius!), consisting of "shaved prime rib" and french fries for $25 a pop. Two things:

1. If I'm paying for prime rib, you give me a decent portion of prime rib. You don't slice it paper thin, stick it on two pieces of industrial bread (I don't buy for a second the idea that the staff of your establishment, which looks like it was all drawn from the same lower-rung of the socio-economic scale, or the local prisons, or perhaps both, is actually BAKING fresh bread from scratch), and slather it in cheap ketchup mixed with cheaper tartar sauce or whatnot, believing I'm stupid enough to pay big bucks for pretense. Your name on the marquee is not worth it.

I know because I've eaten here before, and you never answered my scathing letter on the shitty "Minty (boiled within an inch of becoming snotty-looking sludge) Peas" and the maybe-microwaved Fish and Chips served upon a plastic cutting board covered in wax paper and leaking 30-weight, you fucking fraud. Only a fraud or con artist "shaves" Prime Rib.

2. If I had wanted "sliders" devoid of meat, but some sort of meat substitute pretending to be lamb and beef, I can go to White Castle and get them for $1 each, and the heartburn and non-functioning bowels comes free. 24 hours a day.

This is another issue I have: the casino is empty. I assume the hotel associated with it is, likewise, devoid of human life. You have been pestering me via e-mail for the last month to come throw my money away on the off chance that I might "break the bank", and then when I get there, my only food option (other than to leave the building) is overpriced shit that I'm supposed to be impressed with because the name over the door is some guy from TV? So impressed that I'm going to willingly shell out $50 on lunch just because "it's an experience" to eat "food" that is only vicariously-related to the "celebrity" who is a partner in your scheme to part the gullible from their cash --- inside an establishment that already parts the gullible from their cash?

Fuck no.

Food being out of the question and all the bars being closed (social distancing!), I took a walk on the Boardwalk to, at least, enjoy the sunshine and comfortable temperatures, only to come face-to-face with the reality of what Atlantic City always was, but which the current situation makes manifest for even the stupidest of people.

It's a fucking sewer. A festering cold sore on the face of Mother Earth. It is where the Middle Class With No Class is served by the Underclass Without Underwear in faux marble and gold-colored plastic splendor while flocks of diseased gulls congregate to feast upon the discarded fast food, cigarette butts and occasional dead vermin that one finds while walking the Boardwalk.

And I have to quarantine for 14 days? As if.

Now, I imagine some bespectacled, bearded nerdling, or an unattractive femzilla (they could be the same person, nowadays, so who knows?) is reading this and thinking to zherself, "my, this poor bourgeoise, white supremacist, patriarchal privileged douchebag has some nerve! Complaining about where the oppressed and underprivileged live, and how his recreation was spoiled by the reality of rules and regulations required to save people's lives (he can eat shit and die, of course), nor is he sufficiently sophisticated enough to enjoy the cuisine of the enlightened elitist snob -- ugg, he's eating fucking meat, too? -- and how he lost his precious, stolen-from-others, built-on-the backs-of-slaves wealth? That NAZI.

And I would respond:

Not at all. Grow up, get a job and have someone teach you how to be an adult. Move out of Mommy's basement, while you're at it.

No, my point is this:

We have been steadily robbed of all that makes life worth living. The excuse has been a disease, but the real cause of this problem is a series of weaknesses in Human Nature. The first being the belief that we should all have the right to go through life in compete safety, and that in lieu of doing something to ensure our own safety, many have decided to leave this important job in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians, who, on a good day, might be able to scratch their own asses without assistance.

The Second weakness is an inability to separate our subjective feelings (in this case, fear) from objective reality (i.e., the statistically-provable case that a healthy person has a better chance of being killed by ANTIFA than they do of dying from Coronavirus).

The Third is made obvious by the current state of Atlantic City: boarded up businesses (and it appears many of them have been looted, not just closed due to regulations or lack of customers). A proliferation of beggars fighting seabirds for scraps. Underworked pedicab drivers waiting on long-for-social-distancing-rules lines for customers who fail to materialize. Contradictory dictates regarding food and beverages, required lectures on hygiene, the macabre kabuki play that requires a disturbing balance between an often-communal activity and the need to isolate individuals. The restrictions and orders regarding travel between states.

I can afford to lose $500, so the money is not the issue. As I've said, if money was an issue, I could stay home and not risk any at all. Unlike many I'm still working and still have an income that doesn't consist of government cheese and cash handouts distributed in thimbles and which arrives at the whim of Nancy Pelosi whenever she gets finished playing politics with the relief funds.

I'm upset at how the world has shrunk and shriveled. I'm angry at the loss of fun. So that even an afternoon in a casino is a drab, colorless, slog, made more difficult than it needs to be by other people's irrational fears. I'm sick to fucking death of being told what to do and how to live.

It is the loss of freedom and the ability to enjoy what little -- of both life and liberty! --  is left that truly bothers me.

No, it's not about "saving lives". Even people who don't play poker in casinos have caught this virus (and the vast majority survive), so making me wash my hands in a public restroom to handle chips and cards and slot machines touched by countless strangers while mandating masks and banning gloves and offering drinks to people who are not supposed to remove their masks for any reason, is all a bit much. Being told that after spending 4 hours or so in my own car, crossing state lines for a brief period of about five hours, during which I am constantly offered hand sanitizer, reminded not to remove my mask, and lectured on how to wash my hands, somehow requires me to spend the next two weeks hiding in a closet enclosed in Saran Wrap, is all a pile of horsehit.

It's time this farce -- which is not a "public health emergency", it's the fucking flu, you pussies! -- ended.