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mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

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[Table] I am Dave Plummer, author of Windows Task Manager, Zip Folders, and worked on Space Cadet Pinball, Media Center, Windows Shell, MS-DOS, OLE32, WPA, and more. (pt 1/2)

Source
Note: Based on observing question-taker's profile, he is still taking answers, so two parts may or may not completely summarize the AMA.

Questions	Answers
Space Cadet Pinball, how does it feel to be the most played "bring your child to work day" game? I remember it fondly.	The best part is that I used to "teach" computer lab when my kids were in K through 6th grades, back when Pinball was still included and well known. The kids could care less about anything technically hard or interesting that I'd worked on, of course, but Pinball gave me instant street cred with them.
	Especially cool was being able to walk over and enter a secret code that only I knew that would turn on all the cheats, like infinite lives. They thought I was a wizard at that age!
	The code, by the way, is "hidden test" without the quotes! Then various keys do different things, you can click and drag the ball around, and so on. Google it for the gory details!
	I always like to point out that I was working with a full set of original IP from Maxis, so I had nothing to do with the design of the game, or it's art, etc... that was all done! My contribution was volunteering to port it, including a partial rewrite from asm to C, to work on MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, IA64, ARM, and so on, which was actually a lot of work. But I got it into the Windows box, which is how and why everyone knows it today. But all credit for the gameplay and so on goes to Maxis, all I did was not screw it up in that case!
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To add a bit of detail re Space Cadet Pinball: we built Space Cadet originally at my company Cinematronics and did a deal with Microsoft to ship it with the Plus Pack that accompanied Win 95 and Win 98. While it technically didn't ship w/ Windows, the Plus Pack had something like a 25% attach rate and pinball wound up on most systems anyway. Microsoft actually had an option in our original contract from 1994 to ship it with the OS itself or the Plus Pack. Maxis was our publisher for the subsequent retail version, and later bought my company. More germane to this thread: I believe Dave's port entered the picture a few years later, after Win 98, and was likely critical to pinball continuing to ship on later iterations of the Windows OS (i.e. 32-bit). I definitely appreciate the time he put in to give the game extra years of life on the Windows platform. Kevin Gliner, game designer and producer for 3D Pinball, and co-founder of Cinematronics.	Pleased to FINALLY put a name to the game design! You should update the Wikipedia article for the game, as I think it lists Matt Ridgway, who might have been sound? I've been crediting Maxis for years, not knowing the role of Cinematronics who was who. One thing that confused me: wasn't there a company that did video games in the 80s called Cinematronics? Any relation? Star Castle, Armor Attack, etc...
	As for timing, this likely between the Win95 and Win98 Plus! packs. It was very early on at least, and shipped at least in NT4, and perhaps earlier in "SUR" release that ran atop NT 3.51, but I don't have access to any source files to check dates!
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I keep meaning to fix that wikipedia article, there's a significant number of people that worked on the game and for some reason only Matt (an independent sound guy who did some excellent part-time contract work for us) is listed. There's also a lot of confusion about the timing of various releases and the companies involved, and who owns it now (EA). I actually have all the original source, although no rights to any of it anymore. Hard to say on the timing of the port. I was working in Redmond in '99 when I got word someone had done an NT4 and Win2000 port (I'm assuming that was you), so that was the first time the port showed up on my radar. I have a more confident memory (and contracts, email, etc) of all the events related to how pinball came about and the first couple years after it was released. I like to think pinball was the very first Win95 game (it was fun to watch Gates and Leno pretend to play it on stage at the Win95 launch event), but of course there were other games that shipped with the launch too. You're correct, there was an 80s arcade game company called Cinematronics that went out of business long before we started in 1994, and someone had let the trademark lapse. How we came to be called Cinematronics is a long story for another time...	NT shipped in 96, so the version I did for it would have been done in 95. I remember working on it about the time Win9X was shipping or in late beta. I could be wrong on that part, but Nov 95 would be my guess.
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Damn dude, porting assembly? You are a legend!	Thanks - we actually did all of our debugging in assembler. We didn't have any source-level or line-level debugging at all (except as noted below). So you'd connect to a machine through an ssh-like tool and then, if the symbols were right, you could get a callstack and inspect memory, disassemble functions, and so on. But since we spent much of our day staring at assembly, I became reasonably adept at it.
	I say "reasonably" as I was lazy enough that I would compile the components of interest to me with Visual Studio PDB symbols so that, if I could repro on my own machine, I could then source-level debug it. That made me fast at some stuff that others were slow at, but I likely never got as proficient at asm debugging as someone who never had an alternative. I had a developer friend named Bob whom was an ntsd (our debugger) superstar, and he'd write expressions inside of breakpoints to fire conditionally, that kind of thing. So I did learn that trick, but I'm sure there were dozens I just never knew.
	That all said, we rarely if ever coded in assembly. All coding was in C/C++.
	In the Pinball case, parts of the original were written in hand-coded in asm by Maxis, like the sound engine, and wouldn't have had a hope of working on anything but an x86. Rather than be lame and not have sound on the RISC platforms, I opted to rewrite that stuff in C so that it was portable.
	The RISC platforms also bring their own set of problems like 32-bit alignment for data. And being on Windows NT (now just "Windows") meant being Unicode, but fortunately there isn't a TON of text in a pinball game!
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boytekka: damn, the only time that I did assembly language is when we tried moving a small machine through the printer port.. I miss those days LordApocalyptica: Only time I did assembly was when I wanted to make a game on my TI-84, and decided that I didn't want to. I miss those days too.	First game I wrote in assembly I did in a machine language monitor on my C64. You can't (easily) relocate 6502 so to add code you'd have to jump out, do stuff, and jump back... Crazy!
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If I can ask a question, how does it feels to go from coding with basically zero help to working with modern IDE and code editors that give you a lot of infos, tips, error notifications and so on? I've started programming like a year ago from zero, and I don't think I could be able to program like y'all did 20 years ago or more. Thanks for doing this AMA anyways!	You're very welcome! The progression in tools has been amazing, really. I remember HESMON and my first machine language monitors for the PET and C64, then really nice ROM dev environments, and CygnusEd for the Amiga... all the way up to PlatformIO and Visual Studio Code.
	My most recent "WOW" moment was adding a line to my lib_deps line in platformio, which magically included the library being developed at the URL on github. So you can link to online projects... cool.
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Just wanted to say thanks for the Alpha port!	Alpha AXP was by far the hardest to debug! "Branch later, maybe"
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I just want to thank you for my first experience with pinball. I am now a top 100 competitive pinball player and own 16 pinball machines.	That's cool, which do you collect primarily? I was always a fan of Williams, and am FB friends with a couple of their older devs like Steve Ritchie, Larry DeMar, and Eugene Jarvis (but I should be careful, Bill Gates warned me never to name drop :-) )
	I have a Black Knight 2000 as my own machine right now!
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I have a wide range. Some modern Sterns like Metallica, Jurassic Park, Tron and Iron Maiden. Older Bally’s like Frontier and Fathom. 2 classic Bally/Williams Dr Who and Attack From Mars. Plus a few EMs. I like them all! Attack From Mars was the game that got me into the physical world of pinball. Collecting has been more of a recent pandemic thing since I can’t go out and play. I miss traveling around the country playing in big tournaments. Oh yeah and Steve Ritchie is quite the character. You must meet him some day. I’ve met him a few times and each time has earned a place in my pinball stories I talk about with friends.	Congrats on the collection, that's a nice set! I've never met Steve - I did meet Larry DeMar in vegas. I was playing at a slot machine and he was next to me, and had a name tag, and I was like... "Excuse me sir, but does the word Robotron mean anything?" and it turned out to be him!
Asking as someone pretty new in software development, did you experience impostor syndrome? If so, how did you deal with it?	My first couple of years were very productive, so I wasn't insecure about my output, but even so I definitely experienced imposter syndrome. I think most people who achieve aspirational roles do... I have a friend who was in the NFL who describes the same feeling.
	Being as productive as your peers is sort of the pre-requisite, and if that's true, then remind yourself that when you were in fifth grade, the eighth graders on the playground seemed so old and mature! It's odd in that I started in 1993, but to me anyone who started in the 80s was a "true" Old Timer and remains so in my head to this day. And similarly I'm no doubt the grizzled veteran to people I hired a few years later.
	I know when I started I felt like the dumbest guy in the room, and by the end I felt like the smartest guy in the room, and I don't think I'd gotten any smarter along the way. So it's all relative and perception. Well, that and the stock caused some serious attrition of the "really smart"!
	I remember visiting Google a couple of years ago in the bathrooms they had posters that read "YOU ARE NOT AN IMPOSTER", and info about seminars and so on about it, so it's very common! I wish I had a concrete strategy for you, but I don't other than "It's commonplace, and I bet there are a ton of resources on the Web. Don't be surprised you're experiencing it!"
What would you encourage someone to start learning today related to your field?	I'm learning React at the moment. Let's face it, the web development experience is utter nonsense. So I kept hoping for something that would make it clean, and easy to make components, and to work with REST apis. So I went looking for a solution. Then I read about Angular, and it seemed like "too much" to learn for the sake of making a SPA.
	But React seems understandable enough and solves a ton of problems with web development, not the least of which is being able to intermingle HTML and Javascript (via JSX).
	As for languages, I'd probably start with Python. I prototyped a complicated LED system a couple of years ago and it was admirable what it could accomplish for an interpreted language. And you probably have to know modern Javascript as well.
Now, would you be rather interested in working for windows, macos or linux ?	I work in all three. For my own projects I write to the ASP.NET Core 3.1, and that's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I originally wrote my LED server to it under MacOS, then moved it to Windows with about 5 minutes of changes (related to the consoles being somewhat different). Then I moved it to Linux, where I made it work and then containerized it with Docker. I got it up and running on my Raspberry Pi and in a Windows HyperV and under WSL using Ubuntu. To me that kind of stuff is super cool.
	Once I had it working in a Docker container I deployed it to my Synology NAS, which is some variant of Linux. So my NAS runs my Christmas lights!
	I love stuff like that when it works!
	My main workstation is a Dell monitor that has an internal KVM. I have a 2013 Mac Pro connected to it, which is maxed out and then has an eGPU and eRAID setup via Thunderbolt. And then I have a 3970X Windows PC connected as well, and I can jump back and forth with a button.
	I spend most of my day in Windows now, unless it's video related, in which case I use Final Cut Pro.
Hi Dave, thanks for the AmA! In regards to task manager - often times I have to click the 'end task' button more than once to get the frozen program to actually close. Why is this? Thanks again.	Remember that, at least in my day, End Task is different than End Process. The former sends a "Please close yourself" message to the app, and if it's hung, it should then detect it and so on, but doesn't always. Imagine the app is in a weird state where it's still pumping messages, it's not hung, but it's broken. End Task likely won't work.
	That's when you need End Process, which tears everything down for you. The substantive difference is that the program gets no choice in the matter and no notification. End Task can be graceful. End Process is brutal.
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What about when the task manager stops responding? We need a task manager manager to manage the task manager. Lol	I've never seen that happen, ever, unless the system itself or the window manager is bunged in some way. Your puny Task Manager cannot save you now.
	Then again, nothing can, save a reboot.
What cool new tech are you excited about?	Right now I'm actually trying to productize something of my own, a system for doing hidden, permanently-installed LED holiday lighting. It receives the effect entirely over WiFi, or it can fall back to built-in effects and so on. Quick demo from 4th of July here:
	https://youtu.be/7QNtj2hZtaQ
	I'm done the software on the ESP32 and on the desktop, and working on the phone app now. So the next step is to find someone to manufacture the actual addressable LED strip fixtures. They'd be like under-counter LED strips that snap together end to end, but weatherproof, and with WS2813 LEDs internally.
	In terms of stuff that I'm just benefitting from, the latest CPUs from AMD are amazing. I have the 32-core 3970X and the raw computing power is hard to comprehend. That you can buy a 32-core chip for $2K (or 64-core for $4K) amazes me! Now I need to learn AI or something to make use of all of that hardware...
After the rise of WinRAR, did you continue to use the trial or did you pay?	From: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
	Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 3:14 PM
	To: Dave
	Subject: Your BuyRAR.com Order #: 122229610 License Key

	Attachments: rarkey.rar
	My WinRAR order number, from about 15 years ago, is above. And my WinZip license is much older than that. As someone who (a) made their real living in shareware and (b) worked on Product Activation, I'm the kind of guy who always licenses everything! You'll notice in my PlatformIO/"Arduino" video I even walk people through how to contribute to show how easy it is. I love good, cheap software.
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Would you download a car?	My wife's Tesla downloads update all the time. I'm sure they're just as complex as the mechanical components of the car, so in a sense, we already do!
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But... why did you keep the email?	I have a folder on my OneDrive called Registrations where I keep copies of license keys and registrations. So it was handy. Looks like Telix is my oldest registration from 1989 or so.
Also what was Microsoft really like back in the 90s? As a user of MS-Dos 3.30 forward till now. I’m assuming there has just been a whole tide of changes. Was double space really as funny on the dev side as it was on the user side with the slowness and the pufferfish as a logo :)	I worked on Doublespace in that I wrote a thunking layer that could live in low memory and then moved the rest of the code into the HMA. I didn't work on the compression, but odds are the guy who did is reading along right now, I bet!
	I don't really know if it was faster or slower than its contemporaries like Stacker. I wrote one for the Amiga, though didn't get it quite finished before starting at MS, and it's an interesting and hard problem to do well. At least on the AmigaDOS it was, FAT would be a tad easier.
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I mean for its time it was great. But back then floppy disks and 10M RLL-MFM drives were more the norm. It was actually awesome to have it included IN the OS instead of having to buy stacker. I think this is why I get so much of a kick out of every phishing AD that says download this to double your RAM. It just takes me back.	RAM Doublers are a whole 'nother ball of wax. Raymond Chen, in his blog "The Old New Thing", covers them well. If I understand it correctly, in the most famous case the code to do the actual memory compression was disabled, so it literally did nothing, but did it with overhead.
	On the other hand, I note that current Windows, the HyperV, and even my Synology NAS offer "Memory Compression" now so perhaps there's a time and a place on modern cpus and systems.
I'm an Engineer and regularly use MS Office to produce reports and calculations. Subscript and Superscript are something I use all the time. For at least the last 15 years, in MS Word I can hit "Ctrl +" & "Ctrl Shift +" to make the highlighted text Subscript or Superscript. But MS Word sucks for calculations, so I use MS Excel. But MS Excel it's about 8 clicks to make something super or subscript, and the hotkey technology hasn't made it in. So my question is, why was MS Office 2003 the best version of office that was ever produced?	I retired in 2003. Coincidence? I'll leave that one up to the scholars.
If you could go back and change anything about Windows without consequences or worrying about backwards compatibility, what would it be?	Format! I wrote that and since I was used to using the Visual Studio Resource Editor for dialogs, but couldn't in this case, I just laid out a stack of buttons and labels, content in the knowledge that a Program Manager or Designer would come up with a proper design for it that I would then code up. But somehow, no one did, and no one has for 25 years! So it's a big tall stack of buttons like a prairie grain elevator.
Ever met Bill Gates or have an interesting personal experience with him or another higher up you can share?	Yes, even when I was a new college hire he had the 30 of us or so over for beer and a burger in his back yard. It was a nice touch and quite informal. Obviously, at some scale, it wasn't 30 people anymore and they couldn't continue it!
	Ever play the video game Star Castle? It was like that. Concentric circles of people standing around BillG each armed with what they hope is a question or comment so clever they'll stand out in some way!
If every software you need would be available for both systems. Would you use a Linux distribution or Windows 10?	Right now I'd use Windows 10 because, if the same client software is available, I'd do it on Windows simply because I have a new 3970X w/ 128G of RAM and triple RAID0 SSDs plus an Optane stick. All for about 1/10th the price of a Mac Pro. Since the hardware is so cheap and powerful, it's really hard to resist.
	Even if all the client software were magically available, or Parallels for Linux were a thing, I'd stick with Windows because I haven't seen a Linux UI that I really like. I know everyone has a favorite... if there's an actually good and attractive one that works out of the box, let me know what distro, and maybe link a screenshot!
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Give Mint 20 with Cinnamon a fair shot! I have struggled for years trying to like a Linux distro but never found one that felt and looked right which I think had been the reason Linux hasn't been adopted mainstream but Mint20 with Cinnamon is possibly it..if not its very very close.. Has awesome multi-desltop winodws feature and you can make it basically just like Win10.. Would love to know what you think of it! 20.1 BETA just dropped and has a super interesting feature called Web Apps that needs to be checked out asap! Heres a link to the 20 long term support version.. some people do not like the Minto Logos/Backgrounds out of the box..keep in mind there are a ton of nice ones included and many more you can get quickly if that's something you don't like..what is really neat is that you can make Mint20 look like any OS.. there are themes that make it exactly like MacOS I just have not personally tried those out yet. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3928	Thanks, I'll check out Mint!
I am looking at my copy of Douglas Coupland's "microserfs". Although it's fiction, do you think it resembles the Microsoft Culture of the time?	Lord no, that book bugged me. On the one hand, they're a bunch of pretentious and precocious, annoying kids. I worked on a team (NT) where the tone was set by Dave Cutler and the guys he brought over from Digital, so it was rather different. On the other hand, it's such a big company that odds are those four main people DID exist somewhere in the company. Just not around me!
Why was (is) a monolithic registry preferred over distributing the settings in a number of files like Unix? Why did windows remain single-user focused for so long when Unix was multi-user since the 70s? In my understanding, if there is just one user, that user has to be admin which opened Windows up to security issues. (I don't even recall any sudo-like privilege escalation in pre-XP Windows.)	Windows NT was multiluser from birth. And there's nothing about the Windows architecture that requires users to be admin; the reality, I think, is that most apps started out in Win95 land and just didn't work if they were run as non-admin, so people ran as admin because the apps required it.
	We couldn't just break all those apps and say "Oh well, get better apps" so what you got was a convention of people running as admin. But again, there's no need to. Same as Unix.
	The one exception is that under Unix it's easy to sudo and so admin work briefly. I wish Windows had (or exposed) a simpler mechanism for letting me run as a non-admin credential and escalate when needed. I know UAC does the same thing, more or less, if used cautiously.
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Yeah NT did eventually get around to fixing it. My question was really about the earlier systems, because I think you said you worked on MS-DOS? Since there were existing systems with multi-user and privilege escalation even before the first Windows, somebody must have made a conscious decision to not include that functionality.	MS-DOS was only the second or third OS I can think of for a Microprocessor (CPM, SCP, then MS-DOS). What existed for mainframes and minis didn't matter much in the memory limits available on the desktop.
What was the inspiration for Space Cadet Pinball and what is your high score?	I don't know, I wasn't the designer, the inspiration part happened separate, I provided the perspiration part! I was actually pretty good at the game, since I was literally paid to play and test it... but I don't know the score, sorry! I do have the world high score on Tempest, though! But not Pinball :-)
1. What's something super useful within Task Manager you think even seasoned Windows users don't know they can do? 2. What do you think a future version of Task Manager should be able to do?	I think CTRL_SHIFT_ESC is a surprise to a lot of people!
	I think Task Manager needs Dark Mode, and a way to show who has locked what file or device so you can kill the offender when needed.
Why is it that I can still find dialogs in Windows 10 that were clearly built using 16 bit Visual Studio 97 version?	This should explain it. When you achieve perfection, you leave it alone:
	https://youtu.be/l75a8CvIHBQ
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Please for the love of God, use your Microsoft contacts to stop the snipping tool from going away. It's literally perfect but they keep trying to discontinue it.	One Compound Word: SnagIt. It's what you need to make your life complete.
	After my time, but I heard the new snipping and history that's being built in to replace it is pretty good. It better be if they kill snipping tool!
Thanks for task manager! I use it for so many things. How do you feel about newer versions of Windows de-emphasizing the control panel in favor of their new settings app?	I'm all for it if they made sure they had 100% coverage of all settings. It's sort of weird that in this day and age, with an R&D budget in the billions, we still have a mix of new control panel and old property pages. But I like the new stuff if it covered all cases!
Hello Dave! Why does Windows have such a rough time transferring a lot of small files? Is it a limitation of NTFS?	It's not Windows, it's all operating systems. Part of it is filesystem related:
	Imagine copying a file takes 200ms of overhead plus 10ms per MB. Coping 100M of large files will take 200ms + 1000ms = 1.2 seconds.
	Now imagine you have 100M of 1M files. Now you have 100*200ms + 1000ms = 20000ms or 20 seconds. 20 times as long for the same amount of data.
Did you ever get a chance to work in/on OS/2? I stuck with OS/2 until 2005/2006, before moving onto Linux, and would love to hear any opinions and stories you might have.	I didn't! I used OS/2 a bit but never had a chance to work on it. Many of the people I worked with did, though... but if OS/2 were Kevin Bacon, I'm one degree removed.
I had waited more than 20 years to ask this... What the fuck is Trumpet Winsock?	That's what you need to use TCP/IP on Windows before it was included in Windows. You're welcome.
What was the idea behind having "generic" activation keys starting in Windows XP that would activate any version, it was said they were for [educational purposes], did Microsoft provide them to 501c3/non-profit schools, or was there a different reasoning?	I'm not sure what you mean by "generic". I remember retail and oem, but what was a generic key?
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There was a set of keys that became public knowledge partway through XP life that appeared to activate unlimited machines as valid, though added a banner "For Educational Purposes Only". I remember trying it back in the day and always wondered what the intention was that was important enough the key activations were never blocked. [I did have multiple legal keys, but curiosity killed the cat and I had to swap one to the "educational" key to see for myself, lol]	I don't actually know! But I can surmise that if it was displaying a banner down in the bottom right corner of the screen, it knew it was not licensed and was likely limited or time-limited in some way. Unless you could actually ACTIVATE them with that key, which would surprise me.
How does OLE still work? I can't think of anything else that complex and old that still runs. We've got a legacy piece in our application that uses it and I can build against it using .net 4.0, in an Azure pipeline and deploy to windows 10 hosts and a piece of 90s technology still works perfectly. How and why?	It was complex, but pretty well written and very well tested. That's not to say there aren't a lot of bugs outside the common case codepaths, but I bet if Office used it, it's pretty solid, and will be forever.
Other than your personal phone number, did any Easter eggs make it to general availability?	There was one in the Win9X shell, but I think we removed it for Windows XP and later. So not that I'm aware of!
Have you ever wanted to make a "sequel" to Space Cadet?	There are actually two other tables available in the original Maxis game that should work, in theory, but I think Space Cadet was the best of the 3, so...
Were there ever any 3rd party edit/change to shell that made you think, "Why didn't we think of that?"	Not offhand, but "Stacks" on MacOS where it tries to rescue your mess by grouping things by filetype (Images, Docs, etc) is pretty clever. So that's something I wish we'd though of!
Have you worked at all with Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich?? Also, what was your initial response to Process Explorer /the Sysinternals stuff??	No, but the SysInternal guys are geniuses of the highest order, so far as I'm concerned (and I say that based on their products, no knowing them). They know their stuff.
What are your best/oddest purchases you were able to justify as a work expense (for example, were you able to get MS to buy pinball machines as an R&D cost)?	I had DirecTv in my office! I was working on the Media Center prototype and we couldn't get cable on campus, so I got the dish installed on the roof, etc....
	I had a Tempest machine in my Office but at my own expense. I started right around the days of the "shrimp vs weenies" memo, so they were pretty cost conscious.
Is it true that you and Dave Cutler got into a knife fight over a hand of poker gone bad?	A broken bottle is not a knife.
Was DoubleSpace stolen from Stacker?	No. As I understand it, DoubleSpace was licensed from an Israeli developer. Then I heard that Stacker had somehow been awarded a patent on using a hash table in compression, which sounds pretty ludicrous if true. There was a trial, and even though it revolved around hash tables and math and compression engines, and no one on the jury had been to college, as I heard it. So the big guy lost. That's the story I heard, your mileage may vary. I'm not a spokesman, etc.
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MS-DOS 6.21, the most useless version. I remember writing an extra "2" on my 6.2 OEM disks when the update came out (no point wasting disks).	You say "useless", I say "canonical".
	I think I actually worked on 6.22, not sure. It was 6.2 something. In terms of usefulness, the features I added to it personally were:
	- Moving Doublespace to HMA to free up a lot of low mem, as noted
	- Giving Diskcopy ability to do it in a single pass with no swaps
	- I wrote a new version of Smartdrv that added CD-ROM support
	- I wrote a special version of Setup that worked via deltas and put everything on a single floppy (no point wasting disks).
	Mind you, I was just a summer intern when I did that, and it took me about 3 months.
What are your favorite DOS command-line tricks that still work in Windows 10?	doskey!
What actually happens if someone deletes Win32?	Human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. Do not attempt.
Did Bill ever swing by your cubicle and tell you'd he'd take your assignment home and finish it in a weekend if you didn't hurry up?	Cubicle? It was the 90s at Microsoft! I had a corner office with a table, chairs, a Tempest machine, and a sofabed.
What is the best project you worked on or had friends work on that was canceled, that you would revive if you had the resources?	Windows Media Center, I'd say! And I wish they'd done a great AutoPC that the OEMs could have licensed and made common to most cars.
There has been a lot of hate on Windows / Microsoft from the Unix / Linux advocates. What are some narratives that you disagree / don't think are true?	I used to love the Amiga, so I know what it's like to feel a sense of advocacy for a platform that you feel is superior but overlooked in the marketplace.
	I think the most untrue narrative I've heard about them is that they all have neckbeards. I think it's only "most", not all.
How do you introduce yourself at parties?	"Does anyone here know how to update my Groove subscription on my Zune?"
What OS are you using now? What's your favorite OS of all time? What's the worst OS of all time? What's the worst Microsoft OS (if different)?	The best OS of all time was Windows NT 4.0 with the Shell Update Release.
	The worst OS of all time was the TRS-80 Model 1, Level 1 DOS that didn't have the keyboard debounce code in ROM yet so you couldn't even type on the thing.
[deleted]	No, I never put a true easter egg in anything. Especially in an operating system, I don't believe in them. You have to be able to trust the OS, and I think it goes against that.
How did you get started in this specific field?	I first wandered into a Radio Shack store in about 1979 when I was 11, where I saw my very first computer. It was not connected yet, as the staff had not figured out how to set it up yet. Being somewhat precocious, I asked if I might play with it if I could manage to set it up. On a lark they said, “Sure kid, have a shot”, and ten minutes or so later I had it up and running. This endeared me to the manager, Brian, enough that every Thursday night and Saturday morning I would ride my bike down to the store: I’d type in my crude BASIC programs and they were kind enough to indulge my incessant free tinkering on their expensive computer. So that's pretty much how I started!
Do you ever have moments where you’re like “they have it so easy nowadays” or do you think that because of the groundwork put in place 30 years ago that systems have become exponentially more complex?	Only when someone spools up an entire docker instance to pipe something to it on the command line... then it's like "Really? You're basically booting a virtual computer as a command?"
What's the best C++ expert tip you can share for fellow programmers?	If you make anything in your class virtual, make the destructor virtual, particularly if there's any chance that anyone might delete an instance of your derived class through a base class pointer. Otherwise, the behavior is undefined, I think, but even if it works, it's not what you want!
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Wow this is eerie. I literally fixed a bug a couple weeks ago that was this specific case.	They can be weird bugs to track down, too!
Tabs or spaces?	Spaces on an indent of 4, tabs set to 8.
How can I open an MS Binder file?	Push down on the metal tabs at the top and bottom of the central spine of the binder. That will release the 3-hole punch claws, and then you can remove your printed file.
"It's now safe to turn off your computer" Why was this splash removed?	I think most current BIOSes can do it on their own by now!
Do you have any insight as to why MS decided to build Windows 95 from the ground up instead of building off of an existing *nix system the way Apple did with OSX? Was it just for backwards compatibility or were there other reasons? Also, had you gone this way, how do you think Windows, and the industry in general, might be different? I'm asking as someone who thinks that WSL is the best thing to happen to Windows in years.	Windows 95 was not built from the ground up, but NT was. The most succinct reason (and just a guess, I'm not a spokesman) is that even though MS had Xenix on hand, there were fundamental problems in the way Unix handled SMP multiprocessor locks and so on at the time. I presume these have long since been solved in Linux, etc, but not without significant work.
	WSL is one of my favorite things too, but for the library of tools and software, it makes available to me, not because of some fundamental architectural superiority, I don't think!
What are your feelings about "Microsoft Bob"?	https://youtu.be/rXHu9OmLd8Y
What did source control look like in the 90's? How did MS keep its code from leaking out to the public? How did you handle versioning and different developers working on the same feature?	We used a tool called SLM, or Source Library Manager. It was sort of available briefly as a product under the name Microsoft Delta.
	It was OK for smaller teams but did not support branching, so just before I left we moved to Source Depot.
Why was Ctrl + Alt + Delete changed to Ctrl + Shift + Escape?	It wasn't! Ctrl-Alt-Delete raises the "Secure Alert Sequence" which triggers the OS to switch to the secure desktop, where you have the ability to click a button which will start task manager upon return to your regular desktop.
	Ctrl-Shift-Esc is a feature built into Winlogon that launches a TaskManager on the current desktop without switching to the secure desktop.
	There are theoretically hacks and exploits that can only be caught by switching to the secure desktop, so if you're ever in doubt, ctrl-alt-del is the more secure way to go.
How did DOS ever get away with just pulling device names like "COM1" out of thin air when it came to output redirection etc..?	That's for compatibility with MS-DOS.
What are you currently working on?	Mostly on LED and Microcontroller projects that I detail on my YouTube channel, and the channel itself takes a fair bit of my time! If you're curious, you can check out my current successes and failure adventures at http://youtube.com/d/davesgarage
Did you work with Kris Hatleid on Super Hacker and the game Evolution?	I worked with Kris on an unreleased title called "Commander Video". That's largely where I learned assembly language, since he did the bulk of the coding, I watched and did level design, etc. 1982 or so I believe!
Got any dev back door mainframe access codes for pinball?	hidden test
Dave, how did you manage to do all that without being able to google everything?	That's one of the craziest things... I got a degree in computer science before you could even look anything up!
	The hardest part was OLE2. Coming form a different platform (the Amiga) it was a monster to wrap my head around, and the book (Inside OLE2) was not the best for introducing devs to OLE. It scared me, and I sure could have used a YouTube tutorial or two!
Hi Dave! So here's a bit of an odd one. I loved your Space Cadet Pinball! I must have spent countless hours on it as a kid, and even now I still occasionally try to find ways to boot it up. A legitimate classic. But lately, the version windows offers just... don't feel the same. They aren't as nice. Is there a game you can name that you would say feels like a worthy successor to Space Cadet Pinball? Or even any more general pinball games you would recommend?	I have a real Black Knight 2000 machine here in the house that I fully restored, so I'm a fan of physcial pinball as well!
	I think the two best video games are (a) arcade Tempest, and (b) XBox Geometry Wars 3.
	GW3 is a classic, or should be!
Woah woah woah, University of Regina?!? Are you from here? Cool to see a UofR grad had such a major impact!	Yup! Check out the regina sub for a recent article
When working on MS-DOS what did you think of alternatives such as 4DOS, NDOS or DR-DOS, were they source of inspiration for new features or not at all ?	No in general, but Norton had NCD. It was a change folder command that could jump around the disk, so if you typed "NCD drivers" from the root, it could go down to "C:\windows\system32\drives". Super handy.
	So I tried to write one for NT, but it meant changing the working directory of the PARENT process (cmd.exe) and I could never figure out a clean and elegant way to do it without modifying CMD itself!
Which is the best version of Windows? (Figuratively speaking).	Windows NT 4.0

Leveling, Scaling, and Narrative Impact on Assassin's Creed Progression

Since Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed has been gradually adding more RPG mechanics and part of that has been leveling. While it wasn’t too bad in AC4 where it would rarely ask you to grind a tiny bit to get a better ship, it became a bigger nuisance in more recent titles, Origins, and Odyssey. While the leveling of Origins and Odyssey are very bad, and I will go into that more momentarily, the biggest reason appears to be due to the poor definition of the genre that Ubisoft have confined themselves to.
Assassin’s Creed’s Genre at its core is an action-adventure title, which is a very broad genre to be fair. Ac1-Syndicate are all Action Adventure Sandbox titles though, whereas Origins and Odyssey attempt to be open-world action RPGs. They are not open world though. Sandbox and Open World seem very similar, and they are, but despite many people blending them together are distinct genres and styles of world design. An Open-World is the idea that your game’s world is completely open from the beginning or very near to it. While Zelda Breath of the Wild is called “Open-air” it adheres to this very well. As soon as you get the paraglider, you can go anywhere at all. There is an easier way to do things due to weather conditions, but the tools to succeed are always available regardless of the direction you go in. Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas, are a few more popular RPG examples of an Open World. After you complete the tutorial, you can go anywhere. Some areas are easier than others, but you can go anywhere.
A Sandbox, however, does restrict your movement based on narrative progress. Assassin’s Creed 1-3 all do this where certain districts and cities can’t be explored until certain points in the game. Every Borderlands does this too, with more areas becoming available as your progress narratively. Think about GTA IV how you can’t cross a bridge until certain story moments. I do want to quickly say that you may also hear sandbox be used as a way to describe weapon pools in video games, which is an accurate term, and while AC’s weapon/tool sandbox is ripe for criticism, for the purpose of this post, sandbox will only be referring to an open vs narratively linear structure.
So why am I saying that Origins and Odyssey aren’t really open world? After all, after beating the tutorial you can go anywhere on the map. This is true but only technically. During my first playthrough of Origins right after the tutorial, I turned around to head up the black mountain because I heard there was an achievement up there. On my way up a random large cat spawned from nowhere and one-shotted me on easy. The same happened in Odyssey where I was trying to explore some of Greece before continuing the main story and while I was just riding my horse down the road a random bobcat jumped from the bushes and killed me in 1 hit, on easy. The game doesn’t present physical barriers anymore to prevent travel, but instead a soft one. If you go somewhere before the game wants you to, you will be punished by characters 4 or more levels higher, because once something is about 4 levels higher than you, you literally have no effective way to combat it, even on easy. You do next to no damage to them while they do far more damage to you.
Think for a moment about other good games with similar structures to AC. Was there ever a point where you can’t progress in dark souls because of the level? No, players do Soul Level 0 all the time. What about Skyrim? Nope, enemies can be killed just as easily at level 1 vs 81, or even more so if you don’t reset your combat skills in Skyrim.
But it’s okay in Assassin’s Creed. The leveling system isn’t that bad. Just don’t explore outside the designated areas and focus on the main quest. Except that you literally can’t just focus on the main quest because side missions and PoI are required to be a high enough level at multiple points. This was especially apparent in Episode 7 of Odyssey which had a 4 level jump between sequences and was such a long grind that so many players complained it had to be patched to be fixed mildly.
The grind was annoying in Origins for sure, but it was dialed up to 11 or actually 99 in Odyssey with over doubling your max level while adding next to no extra content. After 100%ing all main content (obviously not radiant quests but all DLC, POI, actual side missions, story, etc.) I was in the mid-60s. I used boosts from the new story mode to get to level 99 which subsequently got me banned from using story modes. Oh no, how dare I try to make the most of my experience by using the tools you provide to reach max level and gain some money because it takes literally a million XP to level up and over a million of a single currency to level up some items and you need a ton of different currencies for every item and upgrade. Gotta have that 1.5 million drachmae, 250,000 wood, and 125,000 metal to upgrade a 3ft sword. Cause that economic system makes sense.
People would constantly complain about how annoying the optional collectibles for old AC games were. But they offered very little in terms of rewards if anything. You didn’t have to collect all the chests or feathers unless you wanted an achievement. But now, beyond just achievement hunting the optional bandit camps aren’t optional. In odyssey, every mission takes you to at least one of the 730+ POI. To stay leveled you’re constantly having to do copy/pasted bandit camps raiding the same camps, killing the same enemies. Now the collectibles just require a little more effort than before. This forces players to play the game for longer than they would normally because they have to do these areas to progress, allowing the leveling system to pad the game time and give Ubisoft a reason to say their game is successful. Sure players are logging 100+ hours in odyssey but a similar percent of players is actually finishing the campaign when compared to AC2, which we can get good numbers on based on the % of players with certain Xbox achievements. I just checked and Odyssey’s story completed achievement was obtained by about 26% of the players; Origins was 27%; AC1 was 27%; and (original release) Brotherhood was nearly 40%.
The unfortunate reality is that beyond good talking points for Ubi execs, the leveling system has another major issue, being that it is inherently shady and addictive. It’s clear that Ubisoft designed the leveling in Origins and odyssey to sell MTX and be addictive. You level up quickly at first and slow down a lot towards the end, which is normal at first glance until you really notice how much you slow down. By that point, the leveling system has you addicted. The bright flashing lights, loud sounds that drown out everything else, this is a regular psychological tactic that slot machines use. While it doesn’t make a lot of sound for losing, you suddenly get a big loud noise and bright colors and flashing for winning. This triggers a reaction in your brain to create a sort of happy high similar to cigarettes and alcohol. So when players see they get rewarded for completing another copy/pasted bandit camp, they care less about the quality and more about the high they’re getting from leveling up. Compare this to the far more user-friendly system in Skyrim which has a medium-sized notification below your compass but decently above your crosshair so it’s not in your direct line of sight, and a single note/tone to denote the skill level up. Dark Souls only gives a basic audio cue for leveling up which has to be done manually in menus at a bonfire where it’s very possible and easy to lose the ability to level up prior to reaching the bonfire. Instead of figuring out innovative ways to level up like in other critically acclaimed games, Assassin’s Creed decided to look towards gambling psychological tricks, and when that leveling high slows down, you can always just buy a permanent boost for actual money. What’s that, you found a way to level up fast without buying our microtransactions? Ban them from using part of our single-player game where they can only impact their own experience.
All this comes at the cost of a sense of real progression. How do you know you progressed in Odyssey? Well, ease of killing enemies isn’t it since all enemies are scaled with you. The best way to know you’re progressing is because the level of enemies is higher and the damage text you hit them with is now saying it’s over 9000 rather than that measly 8500 you hit with previously. New enemies aren’t introduced, and if anything now that grunt that you handled at level 1 is level 99 with you and hits just as hard at level 99 as he did at level 1. New weapons aren’t introduced. Armor more or less looks the same except not it has a gold background instead of purple. Oh boy, really innovative and exciting there.
In the old games, all this progression was tied to the narrative. You want better gear, kill the next target, watch Ezio’s story unravel. You get to see new factions, characters, enemies, and situations that you’re put into. Your skills progress too, with new items like a poison dart or a second hidden blade at your disposal. You feel your arsenal and everything getting stronger as you progress through the story, which makes sense due to the animus having us relive memories. It makes sense that our ancestor would get better over the decades of his life that we spend with him. In Odyssey, though our progression is based on how many bandits and mercenaries we kill. Nothing new is unlocked by progressing the story in Odyssey except more story, which is extremely padded because we gotta have more leveling and go to more forts and camps. This cheapens the narrative impact on the character development in gameplay and story which was intertwined in previous games as a cohesive unit.
I understand if Ubisoft wants to keep AC as an open-world RPG, but it needs to do that right, and completely re-evaluate the leveling system and how it ties to the narrative progression. The current system has less weight in both gameplay and story, and just pads game time rather than helping create a unique experience like Dark Souls or Skyrim do. Players should feel more powerful through gameplay and not because text is telling them they’re doing more damage, and it should scale up at a reasonable extent to not create the toxic relationship Odyssey has with its leveling system. I sincerely hope that the rumors for Kingdom are true in regards to creating a Skyrim based level system where individual skills are leveled up based on use and do not affect your ability to explore the open world.

[NF] Leaving Las Vegas, Smuggled Grapefruits, Airstream Pancakes

When: 2014 or 15, probably April
We roll into Vegas after dark, my friend Jerry driving, I riding shotgun, my then wife rolling around in the back of the ruby red '94 Ford Aerostar on the mattress that replaced the seats.
We are dressed in what can only be described as Trailer Park Hippies. Jerry wears sweat pants (he wore a lot of sweat pants back then), a striped shirt, beanie, and square-frame glasses, as he's blind as a bat. My wife is dressed like a bag lady, a tye dye "Workaholics" shirt, ripped jeans, America Hat beanie hat worn ironically over dirty dreadlocks, and I'm wearing a a lot of flannel and sporting a fiery red Leprechaun beard and hair down to my shoulders.
We have a stash that would make Hunter S. Thompson shed tears of joy. We're cruising in with a few ounces of weed, a tinfoil wrapper full of hash, a 10-strip of LSD, an eightball of coke, case of lite beer, and a laundry basket full of oranges and grapefruits acquired in Arizona.
We had been living off of coke, grapefruits, acid, beer and cigarettes laced with hash.
We were young and ready for what Vegas had to offer.
Jerry drives past The Flamingo and we keep going on to Fremont Street. That is our destination, and we plan on milking it for all the free drinks we can.
We drive around for a minute before noticing a $5-all-night parking lot. Perfect. We figure after we get too wasted and broke, we'll just come back and crash in the back of the van.
Jerry, it's always Jerry, cuts up one hit of acid into three little pieces and passes them out.
Jerry then keys up bumps of coke for everyone.
My wife, DD, rolls a nasty hash cigarette and we roll out of the van and smoke it on our way down to Fremont Street.
The thing about taking a little bit of acid is, is you can drink all night. A half hit of acid and you're ready to drink an Irishman under the table. I can't explain how or why it works, but it does. 1/3 of a hit should do the same thing, and we're feeling good.
Vegas is your typical Vegas that I had expected. There's a Danny DeVito impersonator here, a Boss Hogg there, big-titted Showgirls lined up ready to take your money for a photo. Street performers, some of them fantastic, some of them sad. There is a nearly naked man waving a sign that reads, "Money Activates Me". I put a dollar in his hat, and he starts jiggling and shaking and making weird beeping noises. I am a little sad.
As soon as we arrive on Fremont Street I look up to a giant television prompter on the ceiling with Blue Angels flying across while "America the Beautiful" plays over the loudspeakers. I walk past a large Mexican woman wearing all purple.
Jerry tells us that they'll give you free drinks if you play the slot machines. We decide to investigate and pop into the first casino we see. We each slip a dollar into a machine and a waitress comes over and tells us, "make it at least $3, guys". A little saddened, but compliant, we do as we're told.
We spend the next few hours like this. Hopping from casino to casino, putting in as little money as possible, getting as many free drinks as possible. After awhile, it gets tiresome and we spot a crowd heading towards the far side of the street and decide to investigate.
All night we see this horrible Wook-like creature and he has come up to us and asked us for different drugs at least three times. DD must've taken the biggest 1/3 because her pupils are the size of nickels. The first few times he asked for acid, then he asked for DMT. I had never done DMT at that point, but from what I had heard, it would do him no good here. We think he's a cop. We ignore him.
Drinks in hand, we see what the commotion is about, Cheap Trick! is playing a free show. Hell Yes, we think. We push our way to the entrance and are told we cannot bring the drinks in. We each chug our beers and make our way in.
The crowd at Cheap Trick! is rude as far as rock concerts go. It's a bunch of people way more sober than us and they won't let us pass. We're standing shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of angry looking bikers and decide that Cheap Trick! can go fuck themselves.
We exit the concert and walk to the other end of Fremont Street.
There is another free concert going on, an 80's cover band with the singer dressed like Devo and the bassist wearing stuffed animal pants – that is, Pants covered in stuffed animals. There are only about 20 people in attendance. We're so there.
We walk to the front without any problem and begin our own dance circle.
They have two vocalists, a hot French-looking chick and a man dressed as dollar store Devo.
Jerry thinks French chick is looking at him.
The bandplays a rousing rendition of "Blister in the Sun" and during one of "When I go walkin I strut my stuff and I'm so strung out/I'm high as a kite and I just might stop to check you out" parts, Devo guy holds the microphone out to us and we gargle through it.
He shouts for the band to stop, wait, hold on. Stop stop stop.
"You people are the drunkest people I have ever seen!"
Too drunk to be embarrassed, we continue to dance. We dance until they stop playing.
The acid at this point has all but run its course and the booze is catching up with us.
DD is starting to lose steam.
We decide to drink more.
Walking into a casino, the overhead television plays "America the Beautiful" again as Blue Angels fly and Purple Pants Mexican lady is walking by us again, singing, "Uh-MARE-i-KUH" and crying profusely. She is having a good time.
Unsure of what time it is, we're too fucked to gamble anymore and head to the bar. We attempt to order the cheapest drinks and the bartenders all ignore us.
We get our $2 teas, (“Hold on, I have to make three shitty drinks” quoth the bartender) and walk back outside to get some air. Vegas is starting to spook me out.
People walk down the street and flick a butt, unnamed janitors come from nowhere and sweep it up like it might never have happened. Vegas is like a physics problem. The cigarette butt is like Schrodinger’s Cat. Without the janitor, it may or not be there.
As the night drags on, we see human decency deteriorating.
Having made our way somehow to The Flamingo, we scope out a group of guys who we believe are going to date rape some girl who’s had too much to drink. Maybe it’s the acid enhancing our perceptions, or any of the drugs making us ever more paranoid. Maybe those guys really were out to hurt that woman. We followed them all for some time before realizing we were fucked up and it wasn’t our fight. We needed to get back to the van to sleep.
We make our way back to the van and roll the door open. DD plops down on the mattress, but Jerry and I are determined to gamble and drink more. I promise her I’ll be good.
Just right then two SECURITY dudes on bikes roll by and see the mattress and see the hippie lady sitting upon it. “Y’all can’t sleep here.”
I inform them, but sirs, we paid the $5, and we are way, way, WAY too drunk to drive at this point.
“That’s fine, sirs” he tells me, “but you can’t sleep here. You’re welcome to gamble in our casinos all night, or get a hotel room.”
DD raises her voice to the security dudes and I have to tell her to cool it. We’re out of our element. This is Vegas. We can’t win this one.
I tell them, ok, and they ride off.
I’m too fucked to drive so I tell Jerry he’s going to have to rally and get us out of here. We all begin chugging water, our eyes rolling around in our heads, brains still slightly dripping from the acid.
We’re all yelling at each other that this was a stupid idea. Jerry chugs an adequate amount of water and he climbs into the cockpit. I ride shotgun. We got this.
We drive around aimlessly til we find an indoor parking garage that doesn’t charge us a fee on the way in. We drive to a heavily populated area and kill the engine. Jerry and I fly into the backseat and we keep our heads down, trying to find sleep in what’s left of the night.
We get two hours of sleep when I decide we have to go. Right now.
I think I’m cool to drive, so I start out our journey. The sun is right in my face as I’m leaving and I’m way too hungovestill drunk/fucked up to be doing this. I stop at a gas station for a fill up and on my way in I see a man just grinning at me. I’m in no mood. Who is this asshole just smiling at me at 6 o clock in the morning?
Turns out it was a cardboard cutout of Jeff Gordon. Jesus. Christ.
I pay for my gas and get back to the car. I tell Jerry he’s driving, and I need to sleep.
We drive a few minutes and pull up to an Airstream Diner and decide to fuel up our bellies. The whole night in Vegas we didn’t consume any food, just drugs and booze, and we were in need of nourishment.
We sit at the counter and the man with the plan is an older Hispanic man who appears to be running everything by himself. I order an omelette, toast and hashbrowns, and coffee, sweet, merciful coffee. Biscuits and gravy for Jerry, with “grandma coffee” (that is coffee with too much cream and sugar). DD got a stack of pancakes.
When our food came, the proprietor asks DD if she would like any syrup? She holds her plate above her head like an offering to the man and says nothing. He laughs and asks again what kind of syrup would she like? Blueberry it was.
A little food in us, we begin to feel better.
We hit the road, California Bound! I resign to the mattress in back and pass out, Jerry driving, DD his copilot.
I awake some time later to the sound of metal grinding on metal. The van is moving against its own will.
“What the fuck is going on?!”
Jerry is throwing it in reverse and trying to back up but the damage is already done.
We are in line waiting to cross into the great state of California. I see a sign for “Fruit Inspection”. I look around the back and there’s grapefruits and oranges and peelings and all kinds of citrus just rolling around. We’re fucked. If not for the coke and hash, then for all the fruit contraband.
I try to gather up all the citrus, but when it gets to be our turn to cross, the guards at the window tell us simply to pull through to deal with our accident.
What luck. A wagonload of drugs and illegal fruit and we get a pass because some Rent An RV guy decided to rearrange my van’s front end. Sweet.
We pull through and pile out of the van. I inspect the damage. It’s mostly cosmetic. The plastic bumper is gone, both headlights are smashed and dangling by wires. The blinkers are fucked. I will be using my arm signals for the rest of my van’s life.
I walk up to the RV and pound on the door. An older, Eastern European man, noticeably drunk and shoeless steps out. I ask does he have insurance (I miraculously do). He says yes yes yes, sure sure sure. Why don’t you come into my RV?
No, I tell him. Good out here.
He disappears inside and comes back a few minutes later with a stack of papers, none of which are insurance. After a few minutes of going nowhere, I decide to call it even. I don’t want to attract any attention to us with the cops and would rather just get down the road, blow and all.
The four of us get into our collective vehicles, the Chechen's relatively untouched; ours, a sex crime victim, and we set sail for the promised land - Californ-I-A!
I'm trying to assemble a selection of stories. Heart on Sleeve. Don't be too rough. With love, and honesty

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40 Best Songs of All Times About Poker, Dice, Cards and Addiction

40. Go Down Gamblin’ - Blood Sweat and Tears

Released in 1971, Go Down Gamblin’ by Blood Sweat and Tears is a song describing a gambler who is “born a natural loser.” He never wins, no matter what game he plays, but, he doesn’t feel like a loser. As the song goes – “Cause I've been called a natural lover by that lady over there, Honey, I'm just a natural gambler but I try to do my share.”

39. Gambler - Madonna

Gambler is a song written and played by Madonna, made for the film Vision Quest. Although the song reached the top 10 in the charts of the UK, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, and Norway, Madonna performed it only once on her 1985 The Virgin Tour. It’s a catchy song, we suggest you play it as you spin the reels of some of your favourite retro online slots.

38. The House of the Rising Sun - The Animals

Our list wouldn’t be complete without the 1964 hit song - The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals. Everybody knows the famous lines ”My mother, she was a tailor, sewed these new blue jeans, my father was a gamblin' man way down in New Orleans.” This single had a major success and made it to the top 10 songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the USA. Likewise, the hit was featured in the video game Guitar Hero Live.

37. The Winner Takes It All - ABBA

Whether we admit it or not, we all love at least some songs played by the very well-known Swedish pop group, ABBA. According to some sources, Bjorn Ulvaeus wrote the 1980 hit song The Winner Takes It All which was inspired by his divorce to his fellow band member, Agnetha Fältskog. The winner takes it all is a sort of a comparison to a divorce (especially the part ”I've played all my cards and that's what you've done too, nothing more to say, no more ace to play”), where one of them is the winner and the other one is left with nothing. And things are just the same when it comes to gambling, so we’ve decided to put the song on our list.

36. Shape of my Heart - Sting

We’re all aware of the fact that our gambling behaviour can be influenced by certain types of music and that's because online gambling and music go hand in hand. So, we suggest you start playing your preferred games with one of everyone’s favourite songs by Sting called The Shape of my Heart. It was released in 1993 and used for the end credits of the film Léon. In one of his interviews, Sting explained that the lyrics of the song tell the story of a card player who places bets not in order to win but to figure out something that’s been bothering him - “some kind of scientific, almost religious law.”

35. All I Wanna Do Is Play Cards - Corb Lund

“Well, I guess I really oughta be makin up songs but all I wanna do is play cards. I know it's dumb and sick and wrong but all I wanna do is play cards. Got the studio booked in Tennessee, and my record producer's callin me, the tape will roll in just three weeks and all I wanna do is play cards.” Does it sound familiar? It’s a 2005 hit by Corb Lund called All I Wanna Do Is Play Cards, once you hear it you’ll be playing it on repeat.

34. Gambling Man - The Overtones

When you’re falling in love, it’s perfectly normal to feel like you want to gamble everything just to attract that person’s attention to notice you and love you back. Well, Gambling Man is a lively 2010 song that tells a story of a guy fascinated with his love, so he places all his bets on her, as the song goes - “I played my hand, I rolled the dice, now I'm paying for my sins, I got some bad addiction.” This time, he feels that this love affair is different from any other – “Baby, it's you, yeah, yeah, that's right.” The song was released in 2010 and has been popular ever since.

33. Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Although the Poker Face song is more about the game of romance rather than the game of poker, the catchy refrain that starts with “Can't read my, no he can't read my poker face” kinda reminds us of winning at the tables, so we couldn’t skip it this time. Released in 2008, the song achieved worldwide success, topping the charts in the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and several European countries.

32. Little Queen of Spades - Robert Johnson

Moving on to the Little Queen of Spades, a song title by the American blues musician Robert Johnson who recorded the song in 1937 and first released it in 1938. The first version of this gambling-themed song has a playing time of 2:11, whereas the second one lasts 4s longer (2:15), and is considered an alternate take and first appeared on Johnson's album The Complete Recordings, in 1990.

31. Train of Consequences - Megadeth

Another great song Train of Consequences is the title created by Megadeth, released as the first single from their sixth studio album Youthanasia in 1994. The song was later included on their compilation albums and its music video was the 26th most played video on MTV. There’s this part of the song “No horse ever ran as fast as the money that you bet, I'm blowing on my cards and I play them to my chest” – which is about a person’s gambling problem, who realises something’s wrong with this lifestyle, but it still hunts him down. Could be just the thrill, but he just can’t stop playing.

30. Gambler - Whitesnake

Released on the album Slide It In (1984) and appearing on the compilation album Gold (2006), Gambler is the song by the British hard rock band Whitesnake. These words may sound familiar - “No fame or fortune, no luck of the draw, when I dance with the Queen of Hearts, a jack of all trades, a loser in love, it's tearing my soul apart”. And in case you’ve never heard it, we think you should give it a shot, the chances are you’re going to love it!

29. Gambling Man - Woody Guthrie

Now here’s one single from 1957 - Gamblin' Man. The song was taped live at the London Palladium and published as a double A side, with Puttin' On the Style. Reaching #1 in the UK Singles Chart in the summer 1957, it was “the last UK number 1 to be released on 78 rpm format only, as 7' vinyl had become the norm by this time.” Written by Woody Guthrie and Donegan, this gambling themed song was produced by Alan Freeman and Michael Barclay.

28. Roll of the Dice - Bruce Springsteen

According to Songfacts, Roll of the Dice was the first Springsteen’s song he didn’t write by himself. In fact, E Street Band’s pianist Roy Bittan helped with the music, while Springsteen was in charge of the lyrics, starting with – “Well I've been a losin' gambler, just throwin' snake eyes, Love ain't got me downhearted. I know up around the corner lies, My fool's paradise in just another roll of the dice.” After he broke up the E Street Band in October 1989, Springsteen wrote lyrics for the Roll of the Dice (with two other songs) and liked them to the point where he began writing and recording more songs.

27. Queen of Diamonds - Tom Odell

Here’s one song about a gambling fanatic who’s trying to satisfy his own addiction but also someone else, hoping it’s going to save him. Released in 2018, Queen of Diamonds is Tom Odell’s song from the album Jubilee Road, based on the local characters that inspired this British songwriter to include the whisky-soaked gamblers who regularly visited one betting shop.

26. The Angel and the Gambler - Iron Maiden

Now, this song may divide Iron Maiden fans and it’s most probably because of its repetitive lyrics that can be a bit annoying. The release we’re talking about is The Angel and the Gambler. Truth be told, the melody in general is very catchy and, even a bit similar to The Who in some moments. As the song was released in 1998 while Blaze Bayley was its frontmen, it’s missing the well-known high-pitch vocals from Bruce Dickinson.

25. Ramblin' Gamblin Man - Bob Seger

We’re moving on to a rock single from 1978 - Ramblin' Gamblin Man by Bob Seger. The author meets an old acquaintance, a professional gambler who happens to be a swagger. As such, he attracts people’s attention whenever he bets. Putting so much of his faith in the cards (rather than in people), he walks away every time, just before avoiding loss. Along the way, the narrator realises that, if you scratch beneath the surface, you’ll find he’s a very cynical man, who will never change.
Another gambling-themed song worth mentioning by Bob Seger is Still The Same.

24. Blow Up The Pokies - The Whitlams

Blow up the Pokies is the next song on our list, played by The Whitlams. It is the second single by the group from their 4th studio album, Love This City. Released in the year 2000, the song became a hit and made it to number 21 on the ARIA Singles Chart. According to several resources, the lyrics written by singer Tim Freedman were inspired by the destruction he saw in original Whitlams bassist Andy Lewis's life, due to his gambling addiction.

23. A Good Run of Bad Luck - Clint Black

Now here’s one 1994-song packed with gambling-related terms. As you listen to A Good Run of Bad Luck, recorded by American music artist Clint Black, you'll have a bit of fun as you try identifying what all these gambling terms mean. The song is a bit fast and is about falling in love by using gambling metaphors. The main character is willing to spend a lot of money to win his special lady over and, although he has had a period of bad luck, he is not giving up – “I've been to the table, and I've lost it all before, I'm willin' and able, always comin' back for more.”

22. When You’re Hot, You’re Hot - Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed won a Grammy for the song When You’re Hot, You’re Hot which was released in 1971. Most people remember it as it was a major hit, ranked as number 1 in the country charts, also making its way up the Pop Top 40. It’s an enjoyable novelty song about the ups and downs of the gambling life, about one’s winning streak caught in an illegal game of Crap.
Country star Jerry Reed also came up with a version The Uptown Poker Club in 1973.

21. Lawyers, Guns and Money - Warren Zevon

Next one up - Lawyers, Guns and Money is a song by Warren Zevon, the closing track on his album Excitable Boy, released in 1978. An edited version of this song was distributed as a single and found itself on the A Quiet Normal Life best of compilation on the CD and LP. The song goes like this - “I went home with a waitress the way I always do, how was I to know she was with the russians, too? I was gambling in Havana, I took a little risk Send lawyers, guns, and money Dad, get me out of this, hiyah!”

20. The Lottery Song - Harry Nilsson

According to the man in the 1972 pop-rock song The Lottery Song by Harry Nilsson, there's more than one way to get to Vegas. Addressing his lover, the narrator mentions a few different options for buying a ticket and going to Sin City – “We could win the lottery we could go to Vegas,” and “We could wait till summer, we could save our money” as well as “We could make a record, sell a lot of copies, we could play Las Vegas.”

19. Casino Queen - Wilco

Now here’s one black-humoured gambling-themed song, released in 1995 and titled after a casino. Featuring a dirty electric guitar, Casino Queen was composed by an American songwriter, Jeff Tweedy, who wrote this song after playing a game in a riverboat casino accompanied by his dad. Inspired by the event, the author wrote: “Casino Queen my lord you're mean, I've been gambling like a fiend on your tables so green.”

18. Have a Lucky Day - Morphine

Another song on our list that you simply must check out starts like this: “I feel lucky, I just feel that way, I'm on a bus to Atlantic City later on today. Now I'm sitting at a blackjack table and swear to God the dealer has a tag says, "Mabel." Hit me, hit me! I smile at Mabel, soon they're bringing complimentary drinks to the table.” Check it out yourself - it’s called Have a Lucky Day by Morphine.

17. Kentucky Gambler - Merle Haggard

Written by Dolly Parton and released in 1974, Merle Haggard’s Kentucky Gambler is another song on our ultimate gambling playlist that you should pay attention to. It’s about a miner from Kentucky who leaves his family to gamble, under the bright lights of Reno. Unsurprisingly, his winning streak comes to an end, and he loses all his winnings. All broke, he decided to return back home only when he arrived, he found out his wife was involved with someone else.

16. The Jack - AC/DC

The next song on our list will give you some adrenaline boost, for sure. It goes like this - “She gave me the queen, she gave me the king, she was wheelin' and dealin', just doin' her thing, she was holdin' a pair, but I had to try…” Sounds familiar? This song from the 1975s is called The Jack and is played by AC/DC and there’s no way you can skip it.

15. Blackjack - Ray Charles

Moving on to something a bit different - a melody that blackjack lovers can listen to as they play is Ray Charles’ Blackjack. Apart from being a good quality song from 1955, it carries an important message with an emphasis on how brutal the game of blackjack can be. Some sources say that Ray Charles wrote it after beating T-Bone Walker at a blackjack game session.
Yet another Ray Charles’ famous song about gambling is called a Losing Hand.

14. Ooh Las Vegas - Gram Parson

“Ooh, Las Vegas, ain't no place for a poor boy like me”... is a song-into for Ooh Las Vegas which was written by Gram Parsons and Ric Grech. It was first released by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris in 1974. Playing this song would be perfect for the beginning of the road trip (i.e. to Las Vegas), especially if you have the energy to sing along.

13. The Stranger - Leonard Cohen

Published in 1968 and performed by Leonard Cohen, The Stranger appears in the The Ernie Game movie about a man released from a mental asylum. More appropriately, it is the perfect opening song in the 1971 Western McCabe & Mrs Miller, in which Warren Beatty plays a gambler. As you listen to this song (without watching the movie), it makes you see fascinating images of card games, smoky dreams, and concepts of risk versus safety.

12. Desperado - Eagles

Written by Glen Frey and Don Henley, Desperado song is one of The Eagles’ greatest hits from their 1973 album of the same name. The song features a classic tune while the ballad tells the story of a lone wolf imprisoned by his loneliness. As for the lyrics, they have loads of card references mentioning the queen of diamonds, the queen of hearts, and so on.

11. Huck's Tune - Bob Dylan

The next song on our list is about the risks of poker, money, and relationships, which are precisely what the movie Lucky You is all about. Does it ring a bell? That’s right, this 2007 song is called Huck’s Tune and is performed by Bob Dylan. Each of us can all relate to lines "You push it all in, and you've no chance to win, you play 'em on down to the end." Play the song and you’ll enjoy more than 4 amazing minutes of Bob Dylan.
Likewise, Bob Dylan recorded Rambling, Gambling Willie and Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, both excellent and both inspired by gambling.

10. Four Little Diamonds - Electric Light Orchestra

A song by the British rock band Electric Light Orchestra Four Little Diamonds was released in 1983 and found itself on the album Secret Messages. The single wasn’t so popular in the US, being only 2 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, at number 86, and number 84 in the UK. This song refers to the singer’s cheating lover who tricked him out of a ring which had 'four little diamonds' on it.

9. You Can't Beat The House - Mark Knopfler

Moving on to our next choice for the day, You Can’t Beat the House. It’s the third song on the Get Lucky studio album released in 2009 by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler. The album and the songs received favorable reviews with the album reaching the top three positions on album charts in Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland. The singer’s divine voice combined with beautiful music and lyrics goes like this – “You can't bear the house, you can't bear the house, tell the man somebody, you can't beat the house.”

8. Deck of Cards - Don Williams

Deck of Cards is a recitation song that tells the story of a soldier who gets caught while playing cards in church and then faces a sentence from a superior officer. The soldier defends his case, explaining he wasn't about to deal a hand of poker, but was rather confirming his faith with the cards. Performed by T. Texas Tyler, the song managed to become a major hit in the 1940s and 1950s. Also, Wink Martindale had an even bigger hit with his 1959 cover, with a successful version by Don Williams featuring Tex Ritter and Buddy Cole.

7. Gambler’s Blues - B.B. King

First recording of the song Gambler’s Blues by B.B. King was in 1966, and it was released in 1967. The song appears on the album Back in the Alley (1970). Some say gambling and blues go hand in hand, so if you (gambling fans) haven’t heard it, listen and see for yourself.

6. Tumbling Dice - Rolling Stones

One of our favourite songs on the list is Tumbling Dice, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It tells the story of a gambler who can’t remain faithful to any woman. Being released in the 1970s and featuring a blues boogie-woogie rhythm, the song was and still is one of the greatest singles of all time.
Rolling Stones also recorded Casino Boogie, and it’s from their 1972 album, Exile on Main St.

5. Luck Be A Lady - Frank Sinatra

The next song on our list is about a gambler who hopes that he will win a bet, the outcome of which will decide whether he is able to save his relationship with the girl of his dreams. You probably know what song we’re talking about; it’s called Luck be a Lady released in 1965 and performed by one of the most popular musical artists - Frank Sinatra.

4. Deal - Grateful Dead

Next one up is the song Deal. It was first performed by the Grateful Dead in 1971, as a regular part of the repertoire through their 1970's tour. Although being less common to the fans during the 1990s, the band continued to perform it. The singer opens with the message: “Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose you and me bound to spend some time wondering what to choose,” that later kicks off with a chorus: “Don't let your deal go down...”
Loser is another song first performed by the Grateful Dead in 1971 as well, heavily played during 1971 and 1972.

3. Ace of Spades - Motörhead

Ok, the next song is loaded with some great gambling verses like "The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say, I don't share your greed, the only card I need is the Ace of Spades" will definitely set you in the right mood for hitting some winning combinations. Released in 1980, the song was inspired by slot machines that the lead singer Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister played in London pubs.

2. Viva Las Vegas - Elvis

As soon as you start playing the second song from our playlist “Viva Las Vegas,” you’ll probably picture a huge casino and a great gaming atmosphere. Performed by the legendary Elvis Presley, the 1964-released song brings the glamour of the city, and its beat will get you in the mood for some serious gameplay. This song was written for the movie of the same name starring Elvis Presley, in which he plays a race car driver waiting tables at a hotel to pay off a debt. There’s this famous scene when he performs this song at the talent competition alongside many showgirls.

1. The Gambler - Kenny Rogers

Performed by the legendary country singer Kenny Rogers, The Gambler song is our number 1 - it's full of some betting advice that are relevant today, even though it was released more than 40 years ago, in 1978. Here’s how it goes… “If you're gonna play the game, boy you gotta learn to play it right, you've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” These classic chorus lines were told from the first-person perspective inspired by a conversation the author had with an experienced poker player on a train. Written in the form of poker metaphors, Schlitz wrote the tune in honor of his late father.
Johnny Cash is also among other musicians who recorded The Gambler in 1978, on Gone Girl.

What do you think? Which one is your favourite?

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Feb. 1, 1988

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
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The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82


1-4-1988	1-11-1988	1-18-1988	1-25-1988

The Bunkhouse Stampede Finals and Royal Rumble are in the books, and as a head-to-head it’s best described as a stalemate. Neither show is what Dave would consider among the best cards he’s ever seen, and from the perspective of a tv viewer they were about what you’d expect. No strong overall lineup for either, and what was delivered wasn’t spectacular either. WWF had the edge in glitz, but not as much as usual because of the live factor meaning they couldn’t rely on post-production editing tricks. Here’s a sentence that describes a typical Raw today: “The three-hour show had too many replays and looked like it may have dragged in spots if you were there live.” Dave’s gotten some word from people who were there for the Bunkhouse finals live, and all rated it terribly as a live experience. From the tv viewer perspective, though, it was better than Starrcade despite some major issues (Dave says they owe the audience an explanation for why the Rock & Roll Express and Steve Williams were absent, as well as for the lack of Mike Rotunda vs. Sting which was pushed on WTBS half an hour before the show).
Dave’s tired of writing a lot of the same complaints about NWA, but they do seem to be responding to fans. They’re going to start showing the finishes to matches that go off the air on the following week’s show and have made changes to the announce desk. Jim Ross did a great job on ppv and toned back on calling every match an all-time classic like he did at Starrcade. But there were eight no-shows among the wrestlers and on Thursday night they had a terrible show in Los Angeles. Most of the no-shows were guys they pulled from the card to save money on flights. The Bunkhouse Finals were advertised with a 7 pm start time, but many of the tickets had 8 pm printed on them, and the show itself actually started at 6:35. Pm and ended at 9 pm, so those arriving at 8 missed most of the show. Not all the no-shows can be blamed on the promotion (Mighty Wilbur got injured, Rock & Roll Express appear to have up and quit), but some kind of explanation needs to be made for the fans. Between all that, getting chants of “Refund” after the Stampede and Dusty getting booed (which fans watching on tv heard) when he won the finals, NWA has significantly hurt its position in two of the biggest markets in the country in LA and New York. They’re making changes, slowly, but some changes need to be made or they’re going to sink. NWA fans come for action, but you can’t get the kind of action the fans want with the schedule they’re running (contrast to WWF which can get by with less action because their guys are seen as stars and the fans want to see the stars). Doing cross-country double shots on weekends is killing NWA, and they need to make new stars. Turning Flair face, since he’s more popular than almost anyone else, isn’t even something to do right now because Luger’s turn is in full throttle and they don’t have a heel to take up the slack. They could turn Dusty heel and have him feud with the Road Warriors, but they won’t.
In the past few weeks, NWA has managed to lose several guys they really shouldn’t have. Terry Taylor is gone apparently because the office had it in for him because of when he left the promotion in 1985. Big Bubba Rogers had become a good worker and had a great gimmick going, but WWF poached him. Rock and Roll Express apparently quit because they were unhappy about their push (though Dave thinks despite their ability and work, they’ve been on borrowed time for nine months now). Dave gives Steve Williams 50/50 odds of coming back and just kind of gestures to UWF as explanation. Sean Royal quit, and Chris Champion, Eddie Gilbert, and Brad Armstrong are all but disappeared. And more are looking to get out. Dave hates writing all this stuff about what Crockett’s doing wrong on the front page, especially when he’s been talking about it for months, and especially because he’s a fan of the NWA. He wouldn’t classify himself as a fan of WWF, but they’ve earned his respect with what they’ve done to take the business to another level and in the next two months he expects them to blow the whole wrestling business wide open. But WWF’s success isn’t the reason for NWA’s problems. WWF doing counterprogramming has made Crockett earn less money than he would have unopposed, and Dusty probably books himself the way he does because he knows WWF won’t steal him (spoilers: WWF gets Dusty in just over a year) and it’s hard to leave the limelight, but WWF isn’t the reason for most of Crockett’s issues.
According to the newspapers this morning, Wrestlemania IV will take place in Atlantic City’s Convention Center. Capacity is 16,000. There were rumblings of Vince being close to a deal in Vegas for either UNLV Gym or Caesar’s Palace, so Atlantic City’s a surprise. Wrestlemania is going to be more focused on ppv than closed-circuit this year, apparently. But most of the audience can’t get ppv, so they’ll still need closed-circuit in major cities.
Two weeks after Wrestlemania will be the Crockett Cup. Place is to be announced, and Dave thinks it’s high time Crockett re-establishes working relationships with at least one or two other North American promotions in order to help make the Cup a big event. They just don’t have the talent roster this year to get away with doing otherwise.
A correction on Starrcade: Dave reported a 6.6 percent buy-rate, but the reality was a 3.3 percent buy-rate. Dave heard they got 20,000 buys and just assumed it was of the 300,000 homes available on cable, but forgot to factor in the 300,000 homes it was also available in via satellite. Dave’s received reports that there were 6 million potential homes for the Bunkhouse finals, but that seems high to him. Even matching the buyrate of Starrcade at that number would mean over $3 million in gross revenue, and Dave doesn’t think they were remotely close to that.

- Anyway, Dave goes through the Bunkhouse finals. An estimated 7,000 were in the arena, and the dark match was Sting and Jimmy Garvin beating the Sheepherders by DQ. Nikita Koloff retained the NWA TV title against Bobby Eaton in a 20 minute draw. -2 stars. Larry Zbyszko beat Barry Windham for the Western States Title, with the match starting slow and getting very good in the last ten minutes. 3.5 stars. Road Warrior Hawk beat Ric Flair by DQ in the NWA World Title match. 3.75 stars. Dusty Rhodes won the Bunkhouse Stampede finals. Lots of blood, a lot of guys going the distance you wouldn’t expect to have the stamina to do so (the match was 26 minutes long), and it was exactly what was promised and was good stuff. 3 stars.

Watch: a brief clip of the bunkhouse finals

- As for the Royal Rumble, the crowd appeared to be nearly sold out with almost 18,000 in attendance. Ricky Steamboat beat Rick Rude by DQ. Heavy with rest holds and stalling before the final two minutes had them trading near falls constantly and getting good heat from it. 2 stars. The Jumping Bomb Angels won the WWF Women’s Tag Titles from the Glamour Girls in a 2/3 falls match. They started behind with Judy Martin getting the first fall, then the Angels won two straight falls with each Angel pinning Judy Martin (sunset flip and double missile dropkicks, respectively). It was a good match, but not great - the Angels missed a lot of moves and seemed to be out of shape. 3 stars. Jum Duggan won the Royal Rumble, last eliminating One Man Gang. The match was much better than Dave anticipated, and the match went on roughly at the same time as the Bunkhouse finals match. Better camera work in it, and Dave notes that WWF seems to have fudged the two minute intervals after a bit. 3.5 stars. The Islanders beat the Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers; Dave’s nickname for them is The Barbie Dolls) in two straight falls. He makes a weird joke about a submission actually working on a pushed guy (Haku submitted Roma with a Boston crab) making him go out for “Oriental food” afterwards because it was so surprising. I’m too confused to even know what to make of the line. 2.5 stars.

Watch: the finish to the 1988 Royal Rumble match

Outside the matches, Royal Rumble had some other stuff. Andre and Hogan had a contract signing for the Main Event, where Andre slammed Hogan’s head into the table and pushed the table onto him. Dave’s amazed people buy Hogan as a face, because there’s just something naturally dislikable about people who act the way Hogan does and he thinks Vince could probably get Lee Harvey Oswald over as a face. Dino Bravo attempted to set a world bench press record. Of course, the weights were as legit as the half a million dollars Dusty supposedly won, but Bravo’s supposedly able to bench over 600 lbs legit. Jesse Ventura helped him with “715 lbs” and then claimed he didn’t help at all (the Road Warriors are scheduled to bench on the 30th and were originally planned to use legit weights, but they’ll have to use bogus weights to keep from looking weak next to WWF’s monsters now). Anyway, now they’ll bill Bravo as unofficial bench record holder, and that should get him heat because of the obvious cheating.
Next up then for WWF is The Main Event on February 5. Dave’s told not to worry about Andre, because his back is in much better shape than last year. He and Hogan are practicing daily and have worked out the gist of the match. Dave says you can be sure to expect Ted DiBiase to interfere somehow on the 5th.
Stampede is continuing to do good business and nearly selling out all their big shows. Chris Benoit and Great Gama get 4 stars (from Trent Walters, who I guess submitted the reports for the matches in Edmonton) for their Commonwealth Title match from January 9 in Edmonton.
[Stampede] Jason the Terrible has been made an “honorary member” of Bad Company, Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman’s tag team. So now in addition to the hockey mask he’s also got sunglasses over the hockey mask and a bandana and a black leather jacket. The whole getup is hilarious.
Do you remember Central States? Mike George won the WWA World Title tournament on January 23. They had 800 fans. Match ended on blood stoppage.
Speaking of blood, Keiji Mutoh is headed to Puerto Rico.
Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura won the IWGP World Tag Titles from Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Kazuo Yamazaki on January 18. Riki Choshu and Super Strong Machine were originally slated to face the tag champs, but Choshu injured his knee and had to miss the match. Dave expects Choshu and Machine to face Fujinami and Kimura on February 7. He then goes on about how bad Choshu’s luck has been lately. Dave thinks he was supposed to win the tournament, except the Maeda shoot happened, and he was definitely supposed to win the tag titles (the match was scheduled for his hometown and New Japan actually does nice things for wrestlers in front of their home audiences). And with all the work they’ve put into getting Choshu on tv, it’s surprising they’ve phased him down the card so much from where he was.
Lots of stuff about Vader’s look in New Japan. On December 27 he wore long tights and had Road Warrior Hawk’s hair, and it didn’t get him over at all. On January 4 he had a mask and full bodysuit to hide his size. January 11 saw him ditch the bodysuit and keep the mask. The evolution of a mastodon, I guess.
Antonio Inoki began negotiations with Fuji TV after TV Asahi scheduled NJPW tv to move to midnight Mondays, and TV Asahi caved. They’ll now be on a 5 pm Saturday time slot. It’s not as good as their old Monday evening slot, but it’s not a death slot like midnight Monday.
Akira Maeda turned down NJPW’s plan to have him go to the U.S. Also, he and NJPW are fighting over his contract. They offered him a new contract for 1988 with a 15% pay cut and he’s not willing to sign it.
There are rumors that Inoki will wrestle Koji Kitao (the sumo wrestler mentioned a few weeks back) at the Tokyo Dome in April. Kitao is 24 years old and 6’5.5”, weighing 345 lbs. The story of his exit from Sumo is he apparently lost his temper and started kicking one of his sponsors (who is 92 years old) and the knocked his stable master’s wife through a sliding door. Dave’s been told if this match does happen, it could draw very big. Kitao is denying he’s going into wrestling (nope). Kitao was made a yokozuna in 1986, just before he turned 23, because the sumo hierarchy felt they needed a new young star to create interest in the younger generation of fans. But Kitao liked the party lifestyle and didn’t care for tradition, and sumo does not tolerate that. But you can’t demote a yokozuna, and that made him controversial (it would turn out that most of this was made up because Kitao’s stablemaster didn’t like him and felt he was underperforming and wanted him out - more on Kitao’s sumo years here if you want to read it). Turns out sumo is kind of worked too, though not as much as pro wrestling.
All Japan is promoting a “Martial Arts Olympic” show on April 2 at Sumo Hall, to feature all kinds of stuff. Tiger Mask II and Giant Baba will team against some foreigners, Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (the group running against AJW) will have two matches on the show (Miss A vs. Harley Saito and Rumi Kazama vs. Xochitl Hamada). There will be boxing, kick boxing, the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama’s “shooting” sport he invented, shoot boxing (boxing + wrestling with gloves), and more. The whole show is being billed as a memorial service to Ikki Kajiwara, who created the Tiger Mask cartoon and comic.
When baseball season starts, All Japan’s tv will be moved to 10:30-11:30 pm Sunday nights. Usually they get moved to Saturday afternoon during baseball season, and this shift will lose Baba lots of money and viewers.
While Crockett and McMahon ran big shows on January 24, Giant Baba met with their rivals in Las Vegas. Baba’s plan in the U.S. is to send his guys, as well as Bruiser Brody, Abdullah the Butcher, Jimmy Snuka, Stan Hansen, and Terry Gordy to smaller promotions to help them fight against the big two.
Dave finally saw Hennig vs. Tiger Mask II. Not terrible, but no heat and little action, he thinks. Meanwhile, John Tenta’s improving well, and Baba seems high on Akira Taue, though he’s so new it’s hard to guess what kind of future he has.
[AJW] Yukai Omori’s retirement show will be on February 15. This was announced after her January 15 world title match with Chigusa Nagayo, where she said if she couldn’t win the title she was ending her career. They went 32 minutes to a double count out in the ring after both collapsed.
[Memphis] Lawler vs. Hennig for the AWA Title on January 18 had Lawler’s ring on the line as well. Hennig promised to give his dad the ring if he won, and Larry Hennig was there. The Axe helped Curt win, and Curt gave him the ring, but Lalwer stole it back.
Memphis local prelim wrestler Jerry Bryant has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Global Wrestling in Florida somehow turned what was an awful live show on January 22 into a good tv show. They taped on Friday night and by Sunday had it polished up into a good looking product. The miracles of post-production. Issues with the live show included starting 30 minutes late, long delays between matches, the ring mic not working, and bad wrestlers. What they lack in wrestling talent, though, they make up for in knowing how to make a tv show that’s on the level of World Class and better than Crockett or AWA.
Continental (Alabama) did a bench press contest between Lord Humongous (not Sid, but Gary Nation) and Doug Furnas. They fudged the weights here, as Humongous did 645 lbs and then Furnas did it twice (his best in competition has been 600) before Humongous pushed the bar down on Furnas and “injured his ribs.”
Apparently the Observer was mentioned positively in the Detroit News by Justice B. Hill in the January 17 issue.
Since Dave started writing this issue, he’s been flooded with fans writing about the Bunkhouse finals. The reaction he’s gotten has largely been negative, with those there live being extra negative about it. Crockett really needs to reserve three hours for the next time they do ppv - going too short pisses the fans off, and ppv viewers expected the show to last past 9 pm. Another difference between WWF and NWA is that WWF always gets their hottest acts on the mic at some point during ppvs and big live specials (twice in the case of Hogan and DiBiase at Royal Rumble), while at Starrcade they didn’t have Flair, Dusty, or Cornette talk once. Instead Jim Garvin gave the worst promo of his career, Michael Hayes was quiet for the first time ever, and they shoved Steve Williams and Nikita Koloff on the mic for some reason. At the Bunkhouse Finals they had no interviews, and getting mic time for Flair or Dusty or Luger while they set up the cage would have been a big help. More of Dave wondering when Crockett will realize they’ve killed the credibility of their world champion and thus killed the drawing power of the belt.
Michael Hayes has apparently quit Crockett and everyone expects him to go back to World Class. And if Steve Williams doesn’t come back, they’ll probably just forget about the UWF Title entirely rather than doing a unification match.
A couple letters this week requesting that Dave keep up the coverage of wrestling in Japan. Another couple letters praising how good Stampede has been lately. Canada and Japan, bringing us the best in wrestling.
Another letter writer asks Dave to realize how offensive it is to refer to a wrestling match as “a total abortion” and to consider that he’s probably offended many female readers of the newsletter. Dave apologizes and says he’ll stop using the term, before doing a “well, actually” bit. It’s a kind of weird response. Judge it for yourselves.

I apologize for that one and will quit using the term. Actually the term abortion for a bad match is a business term just like jobber, mark, babyface and the rest. But there are a few business terms (mainly for ethnic wrestlers and ethnic fans) which are in bad taste that I don’t use, so I’ll add that one to the list.

Tickets for Wrestlemania IV go on sale January 30. The best 2000 seats in the Convention Center are being reserved as freebies for casino high rollers. And as a heads up, this is the location it does take place at. They called it Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino during the show, but it’s the same building. More on that as we get to Wrestlemania.
If Dave can find the space next week, he’s going to talk about whether or not “30 minute matches which ‘tell a story’” work for today’s fans. He really enjoyed the Windham/Blanchard match on tv but there was no crowd reaction, so he’s beginning to wonder if this is even a style that resonates anymore.
Everyone’s asking Dave for predictions about Hogan vs. Andre. So here’s his prediction (and he is way off on many parts of this):

DiBiase will interfere and Andre will pin Hogan on 2/5, however Jack Tunney will prove he can’t be bought and hold the title up so Ted doesn’t get the title, and order a rematch in a cage at WM4 so Ted can’t interfere (and also so Andre can lose without doing a job). Hulk will win on a fluke, and they’ll run Hulk vs. Andre over the summer in your local cities after Hulk gets back from playing Hulk Hogan in the movies.

”There was a clip in Detroit about Hogan, saying that ‘he’s nice[r] than Kirk Gibson, but not by much.’” Gibson’s reputation is of being a total asshole to fans, especially kids.
Crockett is billing FlaiAnderson vs. LugeWindham on Feb. 6 as the first time Flair goes against Lex anywhere. It’s forgivable to forget Lex’s Florida days, but they’ve got FlaiBlanchard vs. LugeRhodes booked for February 2.
Apparently Road Warrior Hawk’s neo-nazi line is just a quote from The Breakfast Club. Okay. So I guess the first letter writer was mishearing him and he’s saying “Neo-maxi-zoom dweebie”? TVtropes gives us this, from the October 3, 1987 episode of NWA World Championship Wrestling: HAWK: "WELL, Tony Schiavone, There Are Two Kinds Of People, as far as me and Animal are concerned. Clamheads and Neo-Maxi Zoom Dweebies." (the Road Warriors consider themselves the latter). And corroborating with the WWE Network, yeah, the line comes through pretty clear. Network 4 minutes in, and yeah, he’s not calling himself a neo-nazi. Definitely an error by that letter writer, and what a weird line for Hawk of all people to utter.

THURSDAY: WWF’s Big Four are born; The Main Event; Rock & Roll Express, Michael Hayes, and Steve Williams update; Tenryu wins all the awards in Japan; and more

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