My wife and I haven’t been to a local casino for a few months, not because we have been trying to stay away, just haven’t taken much time for ourselves. It was Kara’s birthday earlier this month and she had a free gift at one of the local indian casinos, so we stopped by, grabbed some lunch, played a little Keno (she won $13, I lost $28) and then checked out their new non-smoking building.

If a business is going to separate the smokers from the non-smokers in a casino, the only effective way I’ve seen is using a complete non-smoking building. I have nothing against smokers, was one of them myself many, many years ago, but it’s a hopeless cause trying to mix smoking and non-smoking areas in the same building.

My wife played this Clue slot machine and I decided to try my luck at the $1 Double Jackpot slots by putting in $30. The screenshot to the right, for those interested, is from the Masque Masque 101 Bally Slots (Win/Mac) (affiliate, $19.99). It’s not the exact game I played in the casino, but it’s pretty close. If you are looking for some fun, authentic casino slots to play on your Windows or Mac desktop I’d recommend the Masque line of games. We have bought all of them. Since it’s not real gambling, you have nothing to lose.

But I wasn’t at home playing a game yesterday, I was gambling with real money. At $3 max bet per game I didn’t expect I’d last long. I know, don’t have a loser’s complex when gambling, but to my surprise I got the blazing 7s and two double bars, which equalled 4x payout!

$120 x 4x = $480 — SWEET

I played two more games ($6) and then cashed out with $501. Told Kara excitedly: “Let’s get out of here.” She thought I won $200, not $480, and was even more pleasantly surprised later when I showed her the cash. Before leaving I stopped at the craps table and they quickly swept away $70 of my winnings. Don’t you just love how the craps tables are always close to the casino cage? Fortunately, my wife won another $40 on a slot machine making our total winnings that we exited the casino with well over $400 for a couple hours of fun and lunch.

We took the casino’s money and some of ours and bought our second HDTV. Not one that is 1080p, we’re still looking for one of those, but a 27″ Samsung HDTV with two HDMI, two composite and three AV inputs. If you see any good deals with sub $1,500 1080p HDTVs please let us know about in the comments below. Cheapest 1080p TV I’ve seen inside a retail store available for purchase is $1,399 (Westinghouse 42″) from Fred Meyer. Online my friend JP found the 37″ Westinghouse LCD TV 1080p for $1047.88 at Sam’s Club. Anybody reading have a Westinghouse HDTV? Are they any good? I have a Westinghouse LCD monitor bought last year that I was a little disappointed to learn didn’t include a cable.

We put the Samsung HDTV in our bedroom and moved the PS3 there with HDMI connected cable. Even though it’s not full 1080p, my son and I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance (MUA) at 1080i for over 4 hours last night (and we’re still not done with the game). Was so engrossed I didn’t stop and take any pictures, but will get some the next time we play. Said this the other day, but MUA really reminds me of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, only with better graphics. Most fun I’ve had playing a cooperative multiplayer game in a long time. We now have four PS3 games: Resistance Fall of Man, Need for Speed Carbon, Tony Hawk’s Project 8 and MUA.

Thanks for helping to buy our new HDTV, ye wise and venerable casino gods.

• Coffin nail sales at 55 year low
• Montenegro says no more smoking in public
• Daly likes the $5,000 slots a little too much
• HDTV still a rare site in homes
• Foxwoods controversial web Keno results
• Is there such a thing as birthday luck?