Recently, I spent more than a little time at the Harrah's casino smack in the middle of downtown New Orleans, which was unfortunately the only place besides my hotel room floor where I could get some sort level of sanity away from football.

If you have ever been to a casino, you know it is built like a maze to confuse patrons into continuing to spend money they shouldn't be spending, and alcohol is so very, very available.

My biggest vice is playing all the slot machines based on movies or TV shows, because I am stupid and just the kind of idiot fair-weather gambler that the gaming industry loves. If it's not covered in pictures of Fonzie or Clark Gable, I won't sit down in front of it.

"A game based on Ghostbusters?? Here is my debit card! I got paid yesterday!"

So of course, there I was Super Bowl Week, throwing dollars into slot machines, watching guys in Ravens and 49ers jerseys losing their mortgage payments hundreds of miles from home while still repping their favorite teams.

One of the subtle psycho head games that casinos play on their customers is playing unobtrusive music. As this Business Pundit article put it:

They loop a constant mild music with no sharp crescendos, sudden diminuendos or pulsing bass notes. The music aids the gambler in entering a trance-like state where there is nothing but the game -- filling the casino's pockets.

I seem to think that they also have a sweet tooth for AOR and '80s cheese. I even heard 2 Chainz near the poker tables. That would actually be the only rap I heard in Harrah's.

Did I mention that two of the nights I was there I got to hear a live Train concert, and that they covered Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On"? It was shocking and strange, like walking in on your grandmother using the restroom. At least my grandma didn't try to add a dance breakdown to a Zep song.