Viva Las Vegas!

Well as you can see I’m in Vegas and having a good time. Actually at the moment I’m in LA at my sister’s place. We drove in from Vegas yesterday. I flew into Vegas on thursday and my brother in law Ben picked me up at the airport andtook me straight to the casino New York, New York. We watched the Pat’s/Raider’s game at the ESPN zone and walked around the casino a bit before heading over to the MGM. After losing $20 in a Pamela Anderson slot machine I vowed to never play another slot on my trip(I never win at slots) and I’m happy to report I didn’t. Instead I opted for texas hold ‘em. I think it’s more fun to play with real people. At least that way if you lose money you lose it to other people and not the casino. And plus, low stakes limit hold ‘em is a lot of fun because nobody plays it to win big; they play to have fun.

Friday Ben and I headed over to the Palms hoping to run into Jenny McCarthy... we didn’t. But we did play some craps. I had never played before but Ben coached me. I decided to stay conservative with my betting until I understood the game better. So I just bet the line, which was a good thing since shooter after shooter rolled sevens without ever rolling the point. After a couple of rounds of this I was beginning to think craps was crap. So I stopped placing any bets and watched as shooter after shooter hit their point and avoided a seven for a dozen rolls or so. Ben and everyone else was loving it but I stuck to my guns and decided to just watch. However, I could only hold out for so long and decided to again play the line. Once again the shooter rolled a seven right away and the table was cleared. Apparently I’m a cooler when it comes to craps because once again I left the table and the shooters got hot again. I took all of this as a sign and vowed to not play craps anymore -- and I didn’t. After Ben had his fill of craps we headed over to the Aladin to check out “X, an Erotic Adventure” -- a show Ben had won free tickets too. It was quite a show but I have to admit I found it to be more of an erotic sojourn than adventure. What can I say, I have high standards and a healthy imagination. The picture at the top is of me with two of the showgirls from X. Sorry, no pictures from the show... that was not allowed. After the show we played some more texas hold ‘em at the Aladin. They have a really nice poker room. I did pretty well for awhile but lost a big hand to this mouthy brit -- whatever. Aside from that Ben and I had a good time and didn’t leave the strip until 6am. The sun was coming up and we hit McDonald’s for breakfast on the way back to his place.

Saturday my sister drove up from LA and drug Ben and I to this magician/comedian guy’s show. Ben and I wanted to go to Hooter’s and watch the Iowa/ISU game but Janet would have no part of that. It was probably for the best since Iowa lost, and the comedian turned out to be pretty funny. After that we headed over to the Venitian. Here’s a couple pics.

Janet and I

Ben and I

Inside the Venitian

From there we headed up the strip to the brand new casino the Wynn. It was unreal... very, very fancy. It has this really nice patio complete with waterfall. Here’s a picture of Janet and Ben in front of it.

Here’s another one from the Wynn.


After that Janet insisted that we go tour “ghetto vegas”. Somehow she convinced us to go tour the casino ‘Westward Ho’ -- home of the giant $1 margarita. Let’s just say you get what you pay for. Let us also just say that going from the Wynn to Westward Ho was a stark contrast. Ben and I sat down at the lounge in the back where “Super Shock” was putting on their ‘rock show’. It was something else. The people in the lounge were entertainment enough but Super Shock consisted of this dude with a mullet wearing tight (fake) leather pants doing lots of finger tapping and wammy bars on his cheesy 80’s guitar, and some blonde chick on the keyboard. They even had a fog machine in the back and some ‘hi tech’ lighting. Here’s a couple of pics.


Ben, enjoying Super Shock while drinking his margarita.

Some crazy old lady started dancing around at one point but unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture. But here’s one of some couple that started making out on the dance floor to some crappy Journey song.

Though I had had my fill of ghetto vegas, Janet had not and forced us to go check out Circus Circus.

Upon entering Circus Circus I realized that I had just hit my 48 hour mark with Vegas -- that’s the point at which people say you begin to have enough. Let’s just say that it was a nightmare in there. The first floor was full of people playing slots while the upstairs ‘midway’ babysat their kids. It was loud and obnoxious and full of screaming kids. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We then headed over to the Paris casino, which was amazing. After briefly touring the casino we decided to have dinner on the front patio which sits directly across from the Bellagio and has a great view of the fountains and the strip. For some reason I find this picture really funny. That’s the Bellagio’s fountains in the background behind the ‘girls direct to you' truck... are the girls in the truck?

While we were sitting there enjoying our excellent food (it’s the place to eat on the strip if you want a good view and amazing food) I noticed the woman sitting at the table next to us with like 10 guys. She looked so familiar and suddenly I realized it was the comedian Kathy Griffin. I remembered seeing her on Too Late with Adam Corolla a few days ago and she was talking about how she had sold herself on Ebay to raise money for Katrina victims. She said she would tour Vegas with the group of gay guys that bid the most (I’m not sure why they had to be gay but that’s what she said). So the guys at the table next to us were obviously the winners. I tried to sneak a picture but right as I took it someone passed a plate right in front of her face.

I waited a bit and tried again. In this one you can tell it’s her.


From there we walked through Bally’s on our way to the Bellagio. I got some really nice picturess on the bridge over to the Bellagio. Here’s a few.




The Bellagio was spectacular. The casino the nicest one I think I saw anywhere. After walking around a bit we stopped for a drink in the casino’s club ‘Caramel’. There was quit a mix of people in there and it was cool but a bit loud. Here’s my sister and I.


We then went to our final destination, the Luxor (the giant pyramid). It was every bit as cool on the inside as you would expect from the outside. The inside is an open atrium all the way to the top and the rooms are staggered up the inside walls. Here’s a few pictures of us inside the Luxor.



Ben and I played a little more hold ‘em while Janet played a few slots. Ben and I were both up early and there were some fun people at the table so we had a great time. I probably should have quit while I was up but it was my last night in Vegas so I decided to press my luck. A little while later I found myself back to even but starring at a pair of Aces. The flop wasn’t anything special so with a pair of Aces I figured I was in the driver’s seat. Most of the guys folded right away but two others stayed in with me. I raised on the turn card and one guy folded. Things were looking good. And the river card didn’t look like it could help anyone. So I bet knowing this would be my last hand and then I’d cash out my winnings. I could hardly believe my eyes when the guy dropped a straight which he picked up on the river card! I couldn’t believe this guy had stayed in the game chasing a straight. Well that’s Vegas I suppose. After losing that hand I decided to call it a night... well actually a morning since it was about 5am at this point.

The rule I kept hearing over and over was that three days is enough for Vegas and I think it’s exactly right. While I had a great time I was ready to go. After sleeping in ‘til 12:30 we hit the In ‘n Out Burger (two thumbs up!) and then the road. The traffic wasn’t too bad at first but it started getting a little congested and we got into a fender bender. The car in front of us stopped real fast and Janet couldn’t stop in time. She barely tapped the guy but then a minivan hit us from behind. Everyone was ok but the minivan’s front end was all bashed in. Amazingly Janet’s rear bumper barely had a scratch while her front end took some noticable damage. It was a little scary (I’d never been in a car accident before) but could have been a lot worse. After exchanging info we got back on the road and the traffic actually let up a bit. We got into LA (Glendale) around 7:00 and met up with a couple of Janet’s old friends from her U of Illinois days. They seemed pretty cool and one of the guys is going to be Johnny Depp’s sidekick in the next two Pirates of the Caribbean movies but after a couple drinks we decided we’d had enough and met up with a friend of her’s from St Olaf named Kurt who’s going to be in a couple of Reno 911 episodes next season. We had a good time and I decided to sleep in today and rest from all the running around in Vegas while Janet went to work. The power was off for awhile this afternoon throughout most of LA but it’s back on now. Well I’m not sure what we’re going to do tonight and tomorrow but I will be sure to report on it.