in this day and age, five hundred bucks won't get four people very far.

you can probably each get a frapuccino from starbucks, or decent meal from mcdo. you can share a pizza from yellow cab, but the money wouldn't be enough to cover everyone's drinks.

five hundred, by today's standards, is admittedly just not enough to make a group of four happy.

however, being the fun kids that me, my brother, my favorite cousin, and his wife are, well, we had the funnest time with our five hundred bucks playing the 50 cent slot machines over at the westin casino.

at first we thought we could have the five hundred bucks changed into tokens and we could split it four way. however, it turned out that we had to put the entire bill in the machine and the machine would automatically deduct it for us. and since we only had five hundred bucks between us four, we slipped it right in and, well, we played a single machine. we'd alternately hit the button, betting differently each time. when we'd win, we'd all let out a little hoot, and when we'd win big, we'd clap and cheer and what not.

the people were looking at us funny, and it was all too soon before we ran out of money, but while the big rollers won thousands of pesos, us four had the biggest smiles on our faces when we stepped out of the casino.

and you know what? the fun we had ...that's something not even the jackpot can match.

(well, maybe. but since we lost, we wouldn't really know now, right?)