What happens in Vegas goes straight into my blog

[grrgoyl]

Vegas was fun -- might have been moreso if we gambled or drank. As it is, we took a stroll up a few blocks to check out some other hotels, used the fitness center (bloody smug Coloradans), ate dinner and called it a night.  (I wouldn't have minded seeing the street at night, maybe meet a hooker or two, but Tery didn't feel well. Later she confessed she didn't want to expose herself to people getting drunk, so that was all good.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After checking out the Excalibur and New York New York lobbies, I can say without reservation that our hotel was the nicest (in our budget).

Nicest hotel in our budget

Excalibur was overrun with children, and New York New York looked like a strip mall with a strip club in the middle.

Spongebob was disappointingly immune to my advances

Had to take this for kavieshana of course

I tried to shoot Santa on an Orange County chopper and this bitch leaped to intercept. Evidently it's her job to prevent free photos being taken. Consequently I'll bet she's all over the internet

Jellybean Liberty Statue

One of those holographic lucite boxes. This guy will fuck you up and then give you this beautiful tchotchke to commemorate the event

There were these kiosks everywhere selling, I kid you not, flavored oxygen. I'm thinking I should bring this technology back to Denver where it's actually needed

I felt very big deal checking in and getting our key cards. The Luxor's lobby was enormous, and it took us a solid fifteen minutes just to find the registration desk (it turned out they offered 11:30 am check-in, so we dragged our feet from Utah for nothing); one of the biggest problems with Vegas is everything is designed to parade you past as many slot machines as possible.

The room was certainly swank -- not champagne hot tub and heart-shaped bed swank, but for a couple of yankee gals not too shabby (although honestly the Travelodge had a nicer shower head).  But it was quiet and clean, and all the Carrot Top you could stomach on the in-house channels (srsly.  You think Wayne Newton is big in Vegas? Make no mistake: Carrot Top OWNS that town).

My friends, this is a sign of the End of Days

Seeing his bizarre face everywhere was the second biggest problem. The third was the Vegas salesmen everywhere doing their damndest to get you to stay just a few hours longer ("Where are you from? Do you think you'll come back next year? How does a free show sound?")

We didn't see any shows, but in fact the Criss Angel theater was in the Luxor. That was tempting (I don't like him especially but I'll bet he puts on a good show), but I doubt he was the free entertainment on offer. Nor was Cirque du Soleil, probably.

Thank god no one sold a do-it-yourself Carrot Top kit

We dined at the Pyramid Cafe, where we saw this illustration of what technology has done to inter-relationship communication:

This couple sat down shortly after us, and didn't look up from their iPhones for a good fifteen minutes

This couple, by contrast, had plenty to talk about...to each other, even

After dinner we thought we'd throw Vegas a bone and gamble a little. Tery chose a slot machine that looked hopelessly complicated -- lots of flashing lights and sounds, and you had to match five icons rather than just three. She put in a dollar, spun three times and appeared to have lost, but then the machine spat out a little 5-cent voucher. The joke of the weekend then became, "Step aside! Winner coming through!"

She didn't even cash it in. She's a real Miss Moneybags

There was an ATM mishap when she tried to take out $20 and instead got $200. I thought at first the machine had malfunctioned and we had won big, but Tery might have miskeyed it. Or it's a nefarious trick to get you to gamble more (wouldn't surprise me. The machine allowed as much as $3000 to be withdrawn at once). She just ended up using the cash for the rest of the trip rather than her debit card. Sorry, Vegas.

I played some poker slots (I prefer them since you have a tiny element of control over the outcome, or at least the illusion of it). All in all Vegas made about 7 bucks off us. Probably just enough to cover the toiletries we stole.

Can't say I saw a whole lot of sinnin' going on, unless you count the gambling and the Coyote Ugly dancers at New York New York (stay tuned for my video footage). Also didn't see a single wedding chapel or Elvis impersonator (might have had better luck if we deviated from the route between the hotel and the parking garage). We didn't much care to stay, nor were we thrilled to leave, since next stop was my family. But leave we did. It wasn't nearly as easy to get back onto the highway as it was getting off, we suspect another part of the plot to keep you around longer. I sang the line from "Hotel California" as we roamed up and down frontage roads and truck delivery routes. We did get out eventually though (obvs).

And that's where I'll leave things for now.

Next: California, or, Deep Therapy

Comments

[swankyfunk.livejournal.com]

You stayed in a pyramid?? Awesome!

There are many things in this post that made me go "WTF, why does this exist." There's stuff like this at every gambling resort, but of course Vegas is the best at it.

[grrgoyl.livejournal.com]

It's just bizarre thinking there's this city whose only reason to exist is to cater to tourists. I mean, I guess whatever cities Disneyland/world are in are the same, but Vegas is really all the state of Nevada has to offer. Well, that and Reno, where I also believe the only thing to do is gamble.

[metatronis.livejournal.com]

That is a strange array of things! Looks like you had an interesting time, even if you didn't go too far. Would you recommend the Luxor, then?

[grrgoyl.livejournal.com]

The Luxor was fabulous. Really clean, and everything you could possibly need right in the lobby (obvs they don't want you to go anywhere else). Maybe one day we'll stay longer than a night and get to see more, though I doubt it, with Tery's sobriety.

Wait, I thought Carrot Top got slain in the last Stephen King movie.

[kavieshana.livejournal.com]

OMG did you know Dan Savage was on The Colbert Report tonight? If not, check it out tomorrow! Do it.

I'm disappointed that there's only the briefest mention of the whoooores in this post. No pictures, even! At least you made up for it by making me believe for a second that there was a human-sized claw machine filled with Stewie and Brian dolls and that I was living in it.

I did a google image search for the orange sweater lady (Google>Images>'vegas santa motorcycle') and while I didn't see another picture of her I did find this:



Also did you know there's a Santa run? I mean, a run in which all of the participants are dressed as Santas. Imagine the pit stains.

This couple, by contrast, had plenty to talk about...to each other, even Probably don't own smart phones yet. Losers.

Way to go Tery. I hear she also won a marathon or something, but this casino score totally overshadows it.

No such luck. Though I'd pay to see that

[grrgoyl.livejournal.com]

OMG I did NOT. I'll have to watch on the website now. Thank god for the interwebs.

I didn't see any whooooooores. I really wanted to go out, but Tery didn't and I lacked the energy to argue. It's what happens when you get old. (of course, she pointed out we could have seen plenty of whores but not realized they were whores. Though why whores would need to downplay their profession in the only town it's legal is puzzling.)

No, that was not the woman I saw. Hot bod, though. I believe there's a Santa run. Those crazy runners will use any crazy theme as an excuse.

LOL

I'm getting to it! I wanted to wait for someone to notice this post before writing another. This trip with my family has dealt a crippling blow to my self-esteem yet again (evidently we were raised in conditions bordering on criminal emotional neglect).

Re: No such luck. Though I'd pay to see that

[kavieshana.livejournal.com]

I have always run into that problem in my never-ending quest to obtain a photograph of myself and a streetwalker. People say, there are tons of whores out there and you just can't tell who they are. I say, then how do they ever get any business? Is there a certain stance or perhaps a handkerchief code I'm unaware of? Or do they flash a bit of tit every few minutes and that's your queue?

[mmmrorschach.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised the Luxor's lobby is so big. I mean, the way it's shaped, it's not like they can do much with the attic. So, is the Luxor Egyptian themed, or just vaguely pyramid themed?

But I am surprised by how un-hurried orange sweater lady manages to look in that photo, like she materialized in front of you in that exact pose. I know that if I had that job, all the pictures would feature me jumping sideways into frame with my arms up, like a presidential bodyguard.

[grrgoyl.livejournal.com]

Very true. I think the tippy top of the pyramid has some really fancy schmancy rooms for guests, though I have no way to know for sure. Perhaps the windows we glimpsed were decoration only.

It's pretty aggressively Egyptian. Pharoahs, hieroglyphics and Anubi (?) statues everywhere, a sarcophagus for a bureau/wardrobe, etc. Awww, you'll see it all in the video, if I can get around to editing it.

LOL Good point. She was probably helped by my awful camera that takes a solid 10 seconds for the shutter to fire. I like the thought of hundreds of tourist photos of you leaping sideways all action man.

[halfcore.livejournal.com]

Heyyy, Vegas! I've been there, in 2005, stayed there for about a month. It was pretty sweet. I've even been to the Luxor, although I didn't stay in any of its faaaabulous rooms. (I went on a tour through all of the casino/hotels, buying 1 dollar chips for my dad as a present, and have pictures of a lot of them :D ) I did stay at the Wynn hotel (I think? Either that or the Mirage) for a few nights too, just to know what it's like being a whale, haha. No, I wasn't a whale... I did manage to win 12 whole dollars from a machine though! I left Las Vegas a winner.

[grrgoyl.livejournal.com]

A month? Why a month? We were pretty bored after a day, probably due to the aforementioned lack of gambling/drinking.

(I don't get the whale reference?)

12 dollars woot! Big winner! Although I once won $250 on the poker slots in Central City, Colorado (casino mountain town).

[halfcore.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had a friend living there. We went to mountains on day trips, visited Hoover Dam, some kind of ghost town in the desert, Utah for a few days, California for a few days, Arizona for 5 seconds. There was a good amount of things to do to keep me entertained. Oh, and the best sushi place in the world, we went there three times. Yum!

[halfcore.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry.

I believe a whale is what the casino's call a big spender.

Grats on your $250 win! I bow to your mastery of chance.