Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

The San Francisco 49ers, the #1 seed in the National Football Conference playoffs, had a little bit of a challenge taking on the #7 seed, the Green Bay packers.

I don't have television and was busy with Other Things when this game was going on, so I was able to watch the game highlights spoiler free.

( Spoiler Cut Just In Case You Care )

Meanwhile, my replaced crowns still hurt, but not as bad as they did when they were installed last Tuesday.

Today I went to the dentist to have the two replacement gold crowns fitted. When I was there two weeks ago for the removal of the second crown, I forgot to ask for them to give me the crown, and when I asked about it, they said they didn't have it. I wonder if they actually discard old gold dental work or just set it aside for a party fund or something like that.

Fitting the upper right replacement crown went smoothly. This is the tooth on which I had a root canal many years ago. The lower right tooth, which is still "live," was much more difficult, and I had to ask them to anesthetize it before they cleaned the tooth and fitted the permanent crown.

After the appointment, I went to Reno Gold Exchange to see what I could get for the crown that I did salvage.

( Found Money )

That lower right tooth is still very temperature sensitive, and my jaw does still hurt a bit, although not as much as it did when I had the temporary crowns in place. The dentist said to give it a couple of days and if it hasn't "calmed down" to give them a call and they'll have another look at it.

That money for the crown is "found money" of a sort, and I'm considering if perhaps I should use it to place a bet on the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl. The last odds I heard for the 49ers to win were +175, meaning that my $50 bet would win $137.50 if they take the trophy.

As I wrote at the time, shopping last weekend was very disappointing. Things went much better this weekend. We found a couple of pairs of secondhand jeans at Goodwill and Savers for Lisa that will serve just fine for around-the-house wear. We then went looking for the Levi's store, but the one in Reno has gone out of business. In the same shopping center, however, there was a Lucky Brand Jeans store that, wonder of wonders, had jeans in Lisa's desired size and cut that were also not made in China. (Until now, we've not been able to find anything that met all of those criteria; everything was either wrong cut, wrong size, or Chinese made.) They weren't black, but the dark blue will be okay, and they said they'd have black in stock later this year as it's a seasonal thing. The sales clerk also didn't treat Lisa as some sort of oddity for not being a size 0 or 2 and for not wanting pre-torn jeans covered in rhinestones or something like that. I don't think we'll be clothes shopping at the mall shops again anytime soon. The only drawback is that the jeans Lisa found, which look good on her and fit well, are pricey. They cost more than twice what my work slacks cost, for instance. We got one pair and will keep an eye out for special offers or sales in the future.

We had lunch at the Manhattan Deli at the Atlantis — many Renovation members probably remember this restaurant — and did non-perishable grocery shopping at Grocery Outlet. (The electric ice chest is pending repairs that Lisa expects to make before we leave for Westercon.) Then it was over to the Nugget for the monthly Lightning Loot drawings (we didn't win) and dinner at the Oyster Bar, where the staff (particularly William, the water and bread server) once again remembered us. I even managed to mark a winning Keno ticket (for a net win of $6, but that's better than usual). The Lightning Loot drawing has a woman dressed as "Lady Luck," and we chatted with her before one of the drawings, telling her that we like costumes and such as part of our involvement with SF conventions. She said she liked SF/F too, and seemed disappointed that she hadn't heard about the World Science Fiction Convention having been right there in Reno last year.

So this weekend saw us spending a lot of money, but it was mostly for things we needed, and none of it seemed wasted. We got home pretty late, however, and I was beat by the time I got to bed sometime close to 1 AM.

...and plan on playing while you're at Worldcon, note that the Atlantis has an affinity program (as do all the major casinos these days). The Atlantis' program is called Club Paradise.

( You can skip this if you don't plan on gambling at all )

If you don't plan on gambling, you can just skirt the edges of the casino while you come and go to your hotel room and the restaurants.