Tipped off by the kindly, wonderful Sunday Silverman, I decided to head out to Palm Springs on Thanksgiving. I have had luck in the past hitting up casinos for chips on the holiday (Terrible's Roadhouse in Jean NV was one). The card tables are often empty and the dealers and pit bosses willing to make a sale rather than to throw this obnoxious collector out onto the street.

The new casino is down the street from the Cat City Dog Park. Wooof wooof. Meeeooowww! Woof-woof-meowwww-wooffa-bark-bark-bark-scratch-nnnyahhhh! OK, we'll catch up with those guys later.

The casino is on Palm Canyon Drive (the old Route 111) as it runs diagonally south of Palm Springs, near Monty Hall Drive. Surprisingly, the parking lot is outdoors and rather small, although as I predicted, not really full on the holiday. What happens when it fills up if the casino has a special event like World Catnap Day, I do not know. Perhaps even locals are not aware of the opening.

It's a nice place, one-story, and I think may be one of those California Small Indian Casinos - limited to 349 slot machines. There are 8 card tables, all were open, although not much action. The dealers and pit bosses were willing to sell a limited quantity of chips. The tough ones to get were the pink snappers - they would not sell even ten of those - and the surprise $5 Grand Opening chips. All the GO's were mixed into the house red chips, at a ratio of perhaps 20 house to 1 GO. A couple of dealers were not inclined to look through their racks, so I had to spot a GO at the end of the rack and point to it, saying "That's the one I want!" As expected the Pit Boss was keeping an eye on the whole shebang, so the old table-to-table chip hunt was pretty much out of the question, lest I CATch his eye and he CATch on, at least insofar as obtaining a quantity of those beauties was concerned. As it was, my trousers were bulging by the time I waddled out on my one good leg, looking for all the world like Hopalong Catcity.

The inlay design common to all house chips is the Cahuillas' new three-palm-logo, but in pale yellow - doesn't really stand out but maybe that's what they wanted - something unobtrusive but hard to counterfeit. Bottom line is, they are well-made, colorful chips and being Paulson's they should last some years. CAT Track Truck spent the time sunbathing in the lot. On rainy days, casino patrons would have to . . . awwww, nevermind, it never rains in Cat City, right? (Just Cats and Dogs!)