Theory for the week of November 9th-16th, 2011
The Fourside Casino used to be one of the most lucrative sources of tax revenue for the city. When you stepped in the door, the sounds of roulette wheels spinning and craps dice would fill your ears and sound like they were coming from the lyre of Apollo himself. Gorgeous, big-hipped young women would come to freshen your ice coffee. The slot machines constantly cycled hypnotically under the heavy usage by the patrons; one of them, a then new-fangled computer-based machine, broke after continual usage as a result of patrons thinking that it gave them the best payoff. All was well until Enrich Flavor lost his position as owner of the casino and was replaced by Monotoli, who cleared the place out and replaced it with a department store. That weird junk behind the department store used to be placed in Mr. Flavor's office as a source of good luck to the superstitious CEO; both the weird magnet rock and the carrot key were found in an expedition he made in the Far East, where he also happened to make it big with a restaurant chain selling "brain food".
Ness's dad had never worked at an honest job, and he deceived his wife and children into thinking he had a position as as CEO of some upstart steakburger chain. He spent all of his time at that casino spending Mr. Minch's money at the poker table, which had increased more than tenfold since the money was first borrowed. When dear ol' dad heard his son was going on a journey across the Earth, he had plenty to give unto his son, and he deposited more into his son's bank account as he heard more success about the journey to save the world. The casino shut down as soon as Ness set foot into Threed; it didn't take long for Monotoli to rise to power after getting his hands on the Mani Mani statue. The father's wealth hadn't been lost as a result of the loss of the casino, but he was still greedy for that cash flow that came from such a workless venture...
Ness's dad stole the broken slot machine from the casino as it was being cleared out to make way for the new department store. He hired a couple of friends to come up with and dress as mascot characters for his latest get-rich-quick scheme; they decided on stereotypical Mexicans with moustaches and sombreros encased in cardboard boxes with slot machine icons painted on the sides. His friends called themselves Pincho and Pancho; he himself was Tomas Jefferson, a Hispanic version of his famous Constitution-writing ancestor (who also happened to be a noted investor in Benjamin Franklin's "Franklin Badge" invention). The slot machine was reprogrammed in BASIC to advertise the Slot Brothers and initiate the primitive game of slots they constructed. Rewards were comprised of random junk they found lying around; the idea was that the quirkiness of the game and the reward you received would be charming enough for patrons to keep trying to see all the crazy prizes the game had to offer. "Tomas" also payed off some buffalo to cause a traffic jam in hopes that it would encourage people to come out of their cars and check out that weird slot machine in their desert location.
Ness didn't realize that his father was one of the famous Slot Brothers until years after the Chosen Four returned to their human shells from the Cave of the Past. He wrote a bestselling novel about the elaborate lies his father constructed, and his parents ended up getting a divorce when his mother read her son's book. This novel killed the success of the Slot Brothers venture; Ness's dad ended up setting up a hotdog street vendor in Fourside, which wasn't anywhere near as successful as his career as a gambler or human slot machine. One day, he mysteriously vanished, stand and all; a strange smell of bacon lingered in the the site of where the stand once stood. Similar disappearances had happened and kept happening, the most famous of which happening to be the disappearance of Dr. Jeff Andonuts three decades later. The true horrors of the mystery were revealed long after the end of civilization as we know it, when the Pigmasks came to Nowhere Islands...
The Fourside Casino used to be one of the most lucrative sources of tax revenue for the city. When you stepped in the door, the sounds of roulette wheels spinning and craps dice would fill your ears and sound like they were coming from the lyre of Apollo himself. Gorgeous, big-hipped young women would come to freshen your ice coffee. The slot machines constantly cycled hypnotically under the heavy usage by the patrons; one of them, a then new-fangled computer-based machine, broke after continual usage as a result of patrons thinking that it gave them the best payoff. All was well until Enrich Flavor lost his position as owner of the casino and was replaced by Monotoli, who cleared the place out and replaced it with a department store. That weird junk behind the department store used to be placed in Mr. Flavor's office as a source of good luck to the superstitious CEO; both the weird magnet rock and the carrot key were found in an expedition he made in the Far East, where he also happened to make it big with a restaurant chain selling "brain food".
Ness's dad had never worked at an honest job, and he deceived his wife and children into thinking he had a position as as CEO of some upstart steakburger chain. He spent all of his time at that casino spending Mr. Minch's money at the poker table, which had increased more than tenfold since the money was first borrowed. When dear ol' dad heard his son was going on a journey across the Earth, he had plenty to give unto his son, and he deposited more into his son's bank account as he heard more success about the journey to save the world. The casino shut down as soon as Ness set foot into Threed; it didn't take long for Monotoli to rise to power after getting his hands on the Mani Mani statue. The father's wealth hadn't been lost as a result of the loss of the casino, but he was still greedy for that cash flow that came from such a workless venture...
Ness's dad stole the broken slot machine from the casino as it was being cleared out to make way for the new department store. He hired a couple of friends to come up with and dress as mascot characters for his latest get-rich-quick scheme; they decided on stereotypical Mexicans with moustaches and sombreros encased in cardboard boxes with slot machine icons painted on the sides. His friends called themselves Pincho and Pancho; he himself was Tomas Jefferson, a Hispanic version of his famous Constitution-writing ancestor (who also happened to be a noted investor in Benjamin Franklin's "Franklin Badge" invention). The slot machine was reprogrammed in BASIC to advertise the Slot Brothers and initiate the primitive game of slots they constructed. Rewards were comprised of random junk they found lying around; the idea was that the quirkiness of the game and the reward you received would be charming enough for patrons to keep trying to see all the crazy prizes the game had to offer. "Tomas" also payed off some buffalo to cause a traffic jam in hopes that it would encourage people to come out of their cars and check out that weird slot machine in their desert location.
Ness didn't realize that his father was one of the famous Slot Brothers until years after the Chosen Four returned to their human shells from the Cave of the Past. He wrote a bestselling novel about the elaborate lies his father constructed, and his parents ended up getting a divorce when his mother read her son's book. This novel killed the success of the Slot Brothers venture; Ness's dad ended up setting up a hotdog street vendor in Fourside, which wasn't anywhere near as successful as his career as a gambler or human slot machine. One day, he mysteriously vanished, stand and all; a strange smell of bacon lingered in the the site of where the stand once stood. Similar disappearances had happened and kept happening, the most famous of which happening to be the disappearance of Dr. Jeff Andonuts three decades later. The true horrors of the mystery were revealed long after the end of civilization as we know it, when the Pigmasks came to Nowhere Islands...
