welp, i survived vegas.  it was a 3-day whirlwind trip.  people got married.  i got drunk.  i donated money to the various casinos on the strip.  i won a little.  then i donated my winnings. here are some highlights: the hotel the hotel i stayed at, the luxor, is one giant pyramid.  as i was going up the elevator to my room, i couldn’t help but notice how TOTALLY SHITTY the elevator was.  it was swaying like i was in some creepy warehouse lift.  it wasn’t until hours later that i realized the fucking elevator was going diagonally.  okay, fair enough elevator - you’re allowed to sway a bit.  another luxor fact: there was an entire TV channel in my room devoted to carrot top skits.  i shit you not. party animals friday night i met up with all of the olympia crew at the strip.  it was there that i encountered party wolf, party turkey, party goat, party dragon, and party bird.  i quickly discovered that all of my friends had adopted party spirit animals for their vegas weekend complete with the required animal noises.  i quickly adopted the moniker “party raptor” with a signature shriek.  the highlight of my entire night was shane aka party turkey making gobble noises as we rode the giant rollercoaster at new york new york (only $14 a ride!). m&ms and douchebags saturday’s daytime activities were kinda boring, to be honest.  we hit up the M&M store and the coke store, filled with four floors each of nothing but branded merchandise in various forms.  all i could repeat in my head was “WHO THE HELL BUYS ALL THIS SHIT?!”  in the end, i caved and bought an M&M thong.  in yellow.  (okay, i didn’t do that.)  we went shopping for a while, where i was continually shocked by the level of douchebaggery of just about every dude in vegas and walking through the clothing stores they get outfitted in. wedding time saturday night was nick’s wedding.  in true vegas fashion, we waited outside the little chapel while the previous las vegas 30-minute wedding finished up.  the ceremony, while short, was actually pretty nice.  after the ceremony, we hopped in a stretch limo to the mandalay bay for the reception.  i gotta say - this shit was CLASSY.  we were in a suite at the top of the casino, with a stunning view of the strip, with amazing food, beer, and good times.  i proceeded to go into full awesome mode - trying to start the dance party and borrowing the speech microphone to sing along to phil collins.  i earned myself an epic hangover the next morning. hangover + boredom the last day was ROUGH.  i woke up at 8:00 as my friends (and roommates) luke and heather had to return back to utah.  i couldn’t fall back asleep so i just waited for the aspirin to kick in before i could function outside of my hotel room.  i met up with shane and tiffanie and we proceeded to roam the strip to kill time during the afternoon.  we’d all more or less exhausted our gambling money and nothing’s free in vegas, so we really just kinda bounced around from casino to casino playing our last $20.  i magically stumbled onto this star wars-themed slot machine and said “well shit, i can get behind this.”  turns out it was the best move i’ve made in vegas.  i quickly managed to win my way up to like $65 on this machine because i somehow destroyed the deathstar.  i’m not even really clear on what happened, but i got a shit load of money for it.  i quickly took my winnings to the roulette table to double it by betting it all on red.  as expected, it did not land on red and i was back where i started. i say this on a regular basis: you can’t win all the time. vegas is a great example of this. 2012 is a terrible movie after losing the last of my gambling money, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going to see a movie about the end of civilization.  2012!  i have already espoused multiple opinions about this film here, so i won’t get into it.  but i am still in complete awe of the badness of this movie.  amazingly bad. flight home after 2012, we headed to the airport.  i took the red eye home, which was really pretty brutal.  i slept maybe for two hours tops and then had to turn around and go to work upon arriving in richmond.  i think when i booked the tickets i thought i was 19 and temping and not 29 and working a real job where i have to make decisions and be responsible for them.  fortunately, i didn’t fuck up anything too badly today and made it home safe. in summary, it was a good weekend.  i left vegas with a lot less money, a 4th place win on foursquare, and for a solid 90 minutes, i was mayor of the new york new york casino.  what could be better than that? probably a lot of things. now i’m going to bed.  thanks vegas!

welp, i survived vegas.  it was a 3-day whirlwind trip.  people got married.  i got drunk.  i donated money to the various casinos on the strip.  i won a little.  then i donated my winnings.

here are some highlights:

the hotel

the hotel i stayed at, the luxor, is one giant pyramid.  as i was going up the elevator to my room, i couldn’t help but notice how TOTALLY SHITTY the elevator was.  it was swaying like i was in some creepy warehouse lift.  it wasn’t until hours later that i realized the fucking elevator was going diagonally.  okay, fair enough elevator - you’re allowed to sway a bit.  another luxor fact: there was an entire TV channel in my room devoted to carrot top skits.  i shit you not.

party animals

friday night i met up with all of the olympia crew at the strip.  it was there that i encountered party wolf, party turkey, party goat, party dragon, and party bird.  i quickly discovered that all of my friends had adopted party spirit animals for their vegas weekend complete with the required animal noises.  i quickly adopted the moniker “party raptor” with a signature shriek.  the highlight of my entire night was shane aka party turkey making gobble noises as we rode the giant rollercoaster at new york new york (only $14 a ride!).

m&ms and douchebags

saturday’s daytime activities were kinda boring, to be honest.  we hit up the M&M store and the coke store, filled with four floors each of nothing but branded merchandise in various forms.  all i could repeat in my head was “WHO THE HELL BUYS ALL THIS SHIT?!”  in the end, i caved and bought an M&M thong.  in yellow.  (okay, i didn’t do that.)  we went shopping for a while, where i was continually shocked by the level of douchebaggery of just about every dude in vegas and walking through the clothing stores they get outfitted in.

wedding time

saturday night was nick’s wedding.  in true vegas fashion, we waited outside the little chapel while the previous las vegas 30-minute wedding finished up.  the ceremony, while short, was actually pretty nice.  after the ceremony, we hopped in a stretch limo to the mandalay bay for the reception.  i gotta say - this shit was CLASSY.  we were in a suite at the top of the casino, with a stunning view of the strip, with amazing food, beer, and good times.  i proceeded to go into full awesome mode - trying to start the dance party and borrowing the speech microphone to sing along to phil collins.  i earned myself an epic hangover the next morning.

hangover + boredom

the last day was ROUGH.  i woke up at 8:00 as my friends (and roommates) luke and heather had to return back to utah.  i couldn’t fall back asleep so i just waited for the aspirin to kick in before i could function outside of my hotel room.  i met up with shane and tiffanie and we proceeded to roam the strip to kill time during the afternoon.  we’d all more or less exhausted our gambling money and nothing’s free in vegas, so we really just kinda bounced around from casino to casino playing our last $20.  i magically stumbled onto this star wars-themed slot machine and said “well shit, i can get behind this.”  turns out it was the best move i’ve made in vegas.  i quickly managed to win my way up to like $65 on this machine because i somehow destroyed the deathstar.  i’m not even really clear on what happened, but i got a shit load of money for it.  i quickly took my winnings to the roulette table to double it by betting it all on red.  as expected, it did not land on red and i was back where i started.

i say this on a regular basis: you can’t win all the time. vegas is a great example of this.

2012 is a terrible movie

after losing the last of my gambling money, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going to see a movie about the end of civilization.  2012!  i have already espoused multiple opinions about this film here, so i won’t get into it.  but i am still in complete awe of the badness of this movie.  amazingly bad.

flight home

after 2012, we headed to the airport.  i took the red eye home, which was really pretty brutal.  i slept maybe for two hours tops and then had to turn around and go to work upon arriving in richmond.  i think when i booked the tickets i thought i was 19 and temping and not 29 and working a real job where i have to make decisions and be responsible for them.  fortunately, i didn’t fuck up anything too badly today and made it home safe.

in summary, it was a good weekend.  i left vegas with a lot less money, a 4th place win on foursquare, and for a solid 90 minutes, i was mayor of the new york new york casino.  what could be better than that?

probably a lot of things.

now i’m going to bed.  thanks vegas!