Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

11:45 a.m. Twin River:

The piped in music of ``I'm a Stranger in Paradise'' drowns out the television commentators as history unfolds on the big screen suspended over the smoky lounge floor.

Few of the 200 slot players notice. They center their gaze on the video screens in front of them. The machines blink and beep, the quarters disappear.

Walter and Helen Okolowitcz, however, are moved enough to move to the circle bar where two smaller televisions offer a hint of volume.

``We're in our 80s and we never thought we'd see something like this ever happen in our lifetime,'' says Walter Okolowitcz, 82. ``I guess Martin Luther King was right. He had a dream and it's being lived out now.''

In the slot parlor's food court, where the din of Muzak is softer, Dina Warchal of Norton, Mass., leaves her plate of Chinese food to stand beneath a wall television as President-elect Barack Obama is about to take the oath of office.

``Can someone turn this up?'' she asks when she can't find a volume switch. As the new president says, ``I do,'' Warchal applauds. ``Amazing,'' she says. ``Wow.''

Back on the gaming floor, the speech of the new president remains muted for several minutes before someone eventually flips a switch. As soon as Mr. Obama is finished, the volume goes mute again and the Muzak reins again.