August 2, 2003
The Wizard is on vacation!
The Wizard is on vacation with his family at a secret undisclosed location and he left me in charge. Whoo-hoo! I've been rifling through the files trying to find anything juicy but it's mostly just boring math that I don't understand anyway. I've had more fun playing with the cat and swimming in the pool.
New thrill ride
While I've temporarily hijacked the newsletter I'll take the opportunity to tell you about some cool stuff that you wouldn't hear about from the Wizard. Let's face it, he's a straight-laced mathhead, and he typically doesn't get excited about exciting things. He probably wouldn't tell you about the crazy new thrill ride on top of the Stratosphere, let alone ride it himself. Me, I've ridden the original ride (The Big Shot) three times. Don't get me wrong, the Wizard's a great guy, and I can overlook his non-thrill-riding ways because he's a math genius and a tireless consumer advocate, and I also admire his honesty. But anyway, if you want to calculate your velocity as your hurtle through space on one of these rides, the Wizard's your man. If you want to know how cool they are, then talk to me.
Okay, so let's talk about the Big Shot first. A few years ago the Stratosphere put this ride on top of their tower. And the tower is tall, over 1000 feet high. So you start out about a fifth of a mile from the ground. You're strapped into cars with no floors (your feet dangle), and then it shoots you straight up, 160 feet in two seconds, at 4 G's! This would be scary enough starting at ground level, but starting a fifth of a mile from the ground, it's terrifying!
The Big Shot is acclaimed by aficionados as one of the best rides on the planet, and for good reason. I didn't think they could ever make a scarier ride than this one. Looks like I might have been wrong. The Stratosphere just unveiled plans for a new ride called Project XSky. This one sends you over the edge of the tower, heading down at 30mph, with nothing between you and the ground 900 feet below! Just looking at the promotional rendering of the concept on their website made me clutch my souvenir Fitzgerald's Casino teddy bear even tighter. Unfortunately the ride isn't slated to open until the end of the year, but that may be okay, because it'll probably take me that long to work up the courage to ride it.
For more info, check out my guide to Vegas-area thrill rides.
This week's special offer
Wouldn't you know it, right after we sent out the last newsletter with the special offer from Swiss Casino, the casino went and changed their URL's, so many of you couldn't click the links. Don't worry, the offer is still good, and this newsletter has the updated link below.
So here's the deal: Get a 100% bonus on deposits up to $150 at Swiss Casino for new players. The first $100 will be automatic, e-mail the casino for the other $50. The play requirement is 20 times deposit and bonus. You can even play blackjack to meet this requirement, even though blackjack is disallowed for some other Swiss Casino promotions. (Does the Wizard hook you up or what?) You gotta through this newsletter to be eligible — clicking through on the website won't do it. If you have trouble with the banner below you can download the software here.
Speaking of banners, I'm using the tiny banner below instead of the humongous ones you usually get in the newsletter, so it doesn't take forever for you to load this email. I figure you're gonna click the banner or you're not, no matter how big the banner is, right? Anyway, the Wizard's gone, so he can't do anything about it. Well, I guess he can fire me when he gets back to town, keep your fingers crossed for me.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, set your expectations high.
-- Michael Bluejay
Wizard's Apprentice
In the next issue: The Wizard apologizes for giving some crazed freak access to his mailing list.