KOTAKU COMIC VOTE THINGY UPDATE:

Hey everyone, I’m fortunate enough to be in the running for a spot in Kotaku’s “Sunday Comics” section!  Neat!  I’d totally love the chance to make it into their comics segment, and I’m thrilled that I’m being afforded the opportunity.

So… if you’d like to toss some support to my silly little strip, click here to go to the voting page.

Thanks for your support!

END KOTAKU COMIC VOTE THINGY!

LIVESTREAM UPDATE:

My apologies for having to cancel last weeks livestream, I was on a mini-vacation of sorts in Atlantic City for a few days (more on that in a bit).  This week’s livestream will be Friday, December 14th, 2012 at 10pm est!

I’ll be a doodlin’ and answering questions and what-have-you, so I hope to see you there!

The stream can be viewed by clicking here or here.

END LIVESTREAM UPDATE!

Alrighty, on to the meat of this post: the wacky Atlantic City adventure!  Here are (in no particular order) some stories from the trip:

How much crap can a man take before he finally snaps?  Before he totally loses all control?  By “man” I mean toilet, and by “snaps” I mean overflow.

Finally, by “crap” I mean feces.

We were staying at the Bally’s Hotel right above the casino, and the room was pretty awesome: comfy beds, flat screen TV, mini fridge inside the bureau, etc.  As nice as everything was, nothing compared to the bathroom, which featured a sliding main door, glass doors for both the shower and toilet, and multiple sinks.

The ceiling featured a bunch of mold, but I’m willing to overlook that.

Anyways, the second day we’re there, my friend Steve comes out of the bathroom and seemingly everything is fine.  He headed back in a few minutes later, however, to re-flush the toilet, as apparently there was a little clog.

After his second flush, it suddenly sounded like the shower was running at full blast.

And it didn’t stop.

Steve exited the bathroom proclaiming that the toilet was now overflowing.  Sweet!  We called the front desk to alert them of the situation, and were told that maintenance would be there shortly.

Apparently by “shortly,” they meant “not shortly.”

We waited a few minutes before peeking in the bathroom and, once we did, the scene wasn’t pretty; water was spewing out of the toilet at an alarming rate, and there was a growing body of water that graduated from puddle to ocean in a matter of twenty seconds.

Also, there were little bits of human excrement in it.

Naturally, because I’m such a mature guy, my first reaction was to giggle a little bit.  Then I started grabbing all our towels and threw them on the expanding sea of biohazard-fluid.

I believe the towels helped for… oh, about one second.  The water kept flowing and had now reached past the bathroom door, down the little hallway to the room, and began soaking into the carpet.

It was time for drastic measures.

I went back inside the main room, rolled up my pants, donned a pair of shoes, and trudged back into the bathroom.

I needed to go to the source.

Steve and I splashed our way to the toilet, and I took off the basin lid and put my hand in to stop the water flow.  The surge had ceased, mission accomplished.

Though not without casualties.

I had what my college roommate Chris refers to as a “core breach,” which is when water gets inside your shoe.  Those socks will never be worn again.  Steve wasn’t any luckier, he later on (wearing only socks, so they probably soaked quickly and thoroughly) stepped in the water.

Roughly ten to fifteen minutes later the maintenance guy appeared.  Thanks Ballys!

On the fortunate side of things, we were moved to another room, which had much less mold on the ceiling.  In the end, things turned out pretty well.

Later that night was pretty great too.  Steve and I decided to head down to the Casino in order to get some of that Atlantic City experience.  Naturally, this meant we went to the bar first.  For some reason outside my understanding, Steve was carded despite the fact that he’s a few years older than I am.  Minor ribbing followed.

Drinks in hand, we walked the casino floor, and I figured that now was as good a time as any to gamble a little bit.

“And this is how you lose five dollars,” I said to Steve and I put a Lincoln into a slot machine featuring an image of an African Savanna.  As expected, most of my five dollars evaporated pretty quickly.  With just a small bit of change left, I scored three Africa symbols in a row, and a panel lit up on the side asking me to choose between a tiger, cheetah, and elephant.  I haphazardly selected the elephant and then a bunch of noises went off.

And then nothing.

“Maybe you should hit the ‘spin’ button,” Steve suggested, noting that the “spin” button was flashing.  I followed his instruction, the wheels turned, and then…

DING DING DING DING

“Spin” flashed again, and was pressed.

DING DING DING DING

This process repeated a few times until I received no “dings,” but then my money counter started going up.

And up.  And up and up and up.

How much did I win?  Tons of cash?

Of course not, I had made back my original five dollars, and then a dollar sixty-five on top of that.

Good enough for me.  Having just come out ever so slightly on top, I immediately cashed out and felt like a winner.

Steve got in on the action few minutes later, when he turned his five dollars into $8.30.

We were gambling gods.  Despite our incredible luck, and super high probability that we would ride our lucky streak to fame and fortune, we decided to retire from our gambling life.

However, we would always remember the day where we took Atlantic City down.

Down four dollars and ninety-five cents.

Straight up gangsta.