Ray's Place: Where True Players Go In Vegas, How to Style a Beanie, A Bad Sneeze Problem

Hi Ray, heading to Vegas for a nerd convention (the kind that RB might go to, to brush up on his skills at deleting Yahoo dating profiles) and am concerned, what's the best place on the strip both for class and quality, as well as protection against nerds? Should I just bring a burner and use such as unwired mp3 players to listen to my tunes on? Favorite maglite is actually the Weltool BB3 surefire clone I built. —GruntyGinMan

Dear GruntyGinMan, 

First of all, no true player is on the strip, so you can save yourself that trouble. The strip is mostly for, like, a guy who owns a seven-man drywall contracting company in Phoenix, and he’s completely tanned and shaved-headed, with an untucked, open-collar dress shirt and those jeans with way too much embroidery on the butt pockets. He is on cocaine, and betting hard at craps. He gets kind of pushy when it’s your turn to throw the dice and you hesitate even like one second to ask a question. He says something pistol-fast sort of to the dealer, like, “talk costs me money,” and it’s a diss, but you can tell it’s just coke flash and not about you. That man is no player. He will lose ten thousand dollars and then, deep in the night, squat on his comped room service steak dinner, pants off, in a garbled display of primal ownership. His anus will touch the sirloin. 

The real Vegas movers are never at casinos. Casinos are a fool’s maze. Everyone should have a foam rat’s nose on, to create truth. Platinum movers are in private suites, single-shakin’ over a pre-ordained deal, one rock in one finger, crystal. Maybe the lesser party — he knows who he is — presents the rankin’ dog with a black-diamond encrusted skull pendant from Jason of Beverly Hills at the Cosmopolitan. A gesture. Somethin’ he can give his maid. Rankin’ dog flies the lucky boy home on his private jet, maybe with Carrot Top as a subtle flex. 

I’m not sure what the other words you used were. But good luck. 

+RaY+     

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What is the correct way to wear a beanie for a haircut blessed with bangs? Hat on top with bangs a-flopping down the front - ala the Fall Out Boys - or bangs swept backwards and the hat in a pulled-back position such that a good inch or so of slicked hairline is visible - ala Harry Styles sometimes? —fionn

Okay, you caught me out here. I had no idea what those bands sounded like, so I queued them up on Spotify. Is Fall Out Boy like Taylor Swift for guys who aren’t old enough to be cops? I feel like I just walked into a strip club where the dancers never take their bottoms off. I could see a Mormon boy hearing one of these songs for the first time and realizing that he can be mad (that it is an emotion you can experience). 

Also news to me: Harry Styles is not Ed Sheeran. Opinion: Somebody else will sing exactly this music next year. 

Your question about hats has made me sad. 

-=Ray’s Palette of Emotion=-

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Hi Ray, I'm turning into my mother—namely, I sneeze too much. It's always 5 sneezes in a row and it's annoying AF to me and the people in the surrounding area. I bought a really expensive air filter (multiple hundo) but the sneezes persist. How do I stop this obnoxiousness? Or how do I joke it away, like Tina's farts? Jenn 

Dear Jenn,

Damn, you had me until the mention of Tina’s farts. I almost capitalized “farts” there, if that tells you anything about how that still lands with me. She never meant to prelude, but the girl’s family was just built that way, I think. Internal construction, and what we now know are colonic flora or whatever. I ain’t blame her, and it wasn’t in the top three reasons we split up, but those memories still pop up in my mind from time to time. 

Hm, maybe there are actually some parallels here, with her fuh-b-b-blaps bein’ a family thing, and your sneezes bein’ a family thing. I know from her not bein’ on Tinder the last eleven months that she’s seein’ somebody new, so maybe she’s finally worked it out. This gives me hope that AI or a Doctor House episode or something can connect the dots for you and you’ll be like, “Me and my mom both sneeze every time we wear the lipstick that has the Bonanza Beetle shell dust in it!” or whatever. Hidden somewhere in your mom’s preferences or obvious quirks will be the answer you seek.  

Okay, I just got distracted by the first topic again, and I ain’t feelin’ this any more. Sorry. Raw years gonna raw. 

R

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Confidential to Orlin275: I don't see the sudden popularity of pickleball as part of a larger conspiracy, no. I think it's just easier than tennis and badminton, and people like that.