11.6.07

Las Vegas: Poker, Death, and Boobs (Update #2)

D Fo, Tempo, M Fo (our friend and D Fo's bro), and I all left for Las Vegas on Wednesday. The flight was gloriously uneventful and I slept most of the way. Slots are the first things to greet you out of the airplane. Awesome. I could tell immediately how dry it was compared to Chicago. Vegas is the farthest west I’ve been so the hot and dry weather was new but was exactly as I expected it to be.

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed straight to the casinos. The Vegas strip was smaller than I expected but made up for it in it’s compactness. The casinos seemed to all mesh together and it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.

First stop is Caesar’s. We go straight to the poker room. This will be our bread and butter for the trip. The first night was the most fun for me. I was making money, and most importantly, I liked most of the people at our table. I took this latter point for granted at the time. We were seated there were a few lawyers and a couple relatively cool people on vacation. Later in the trip I realize this situation is an exception; Las Vegas has it's fair share of freaks. Well, I guess anywhere has a lot of freaks. The difference is you are forced to interact with them at the poker table.

The main problem with Caesar's was the cocktail waitresses were *busted*. There were some that had to be pushing 50, although there were some diamonds in the rough. I use "diamonds" loosely however. I don't really care though. Just bring me my drink. But at the Wynn, however, they are ridiculous.

The first night was probably the most fun for me. I was up pretty decently and was pretty drunk. The next morning I woke up on my own at like 830. I was wide awake. Tempo asks if I want to go work out and I say "YEAH!" immediately. M Fo comes out of nowhere and says "YEAH!" as well. We were all wide awake. We thought there was something in the water. I never work out in the morning. I wish I could because you can lift more during the day.

That day we went to the Mirage, I believe. I did not like this place at all. You definitely get into more of the "fanny pack" crowd here versus the other casinos. The poker room was total clownshoes because it was clustered in with the rest of the hotel and the people there were especially lame. I hate it when people get a few good cards and lucky hands and they automatically think they're badasses. You're not a badass. This is low limit. Plus you don't understand the game. Over the short term it's all about the cards.

That night at the tables there was this kid from Texas who was getting a bunch of shit from this huge older woman seated next to him because he hunts. She’s giving him a really hard time about killing innocent little animals or whatever and the grizzly-looking older guy next to me says under his breath “I hunt people.” For a second I think he’s joking so I laugh, but the laugh transitions into a muted nervous giggle as I start to realize this guy is scary-looking enough to be serious. I assumed he was in Vietnam, but when I asked him he said he served in the FBI. He was in drug enforcement, apparently. I though that’s what the DEA was for, but what do I know. I believe this guy. He goes on to say how he was undercover and doing this huge drug deal. He had half a mildo in his car and someone rolled up on him and shot him twice in the chest to steal his flow. Our guy, however, was able to draw his gun and shot him right in the eye. Good. Lord. I just came to have fun and play some cards...

The next day we were playing at the MGM Grand. The guy next to me lost a hand and said it was easier to lose that given he just got an unexpected 150K. I ask how he got it (after I ask I immediately regret it bc I see what's coming) and he says very casually and somewhat jovially "my aunt just committed suicide." I just came to have fun and play some cards...

We went to BOA on Friday night. I had a Kobe steak. It was tasty.

The last night of cards was brutal. I was up money but I started to crash physically. The vodka Sobes (they didn't have red bull so they used sobe energy drink) started to wear on my stomach and weren't keeping me awake. Plus there were some total lameasses at our table. The most glaring was this 32 year old woman who was acting like she was 12. She kept giving me and Tempo shit for no good reason. The pointless banter was getting really annoying.

We leave the table and go to meet up with the rest of the crowd at Casino Royale. Tempo and I are crashing fast. There's this big dude named Chris who is with D Fo at the craps table. I knew he was from the south since he was giving me shit for my pink shirt. "Orson" from college football blog edsbs.com and his wife were with M Fo across the room. It was cool meeting him bc I read that site on a regular basis. If you like football at all it's worth reading the site. Good stuff.

Tempo and I leave early. Finding a cab is rough but we eventually get home. I feel *really* close to death. I had awful nightmares.

Vegas was *awesome* but getting home was great. When I got to my place I felt like I had been gone for-ev-er.

Other Notes:

D Fo said that the exchange rate in LV is 75c on the dollar. I would say this is a gross understatement. Vegas made me feel *poor*. I was playing on the kiddie (read: low-limit) tables and that was pushing my tolerance for monetary swings and risk. D Fo lost $100 in like 15 minutes next to me at the Mirage (I call him out on this only because he was up a bajillion dollars on the trip as a whole. Winning a multitable poker tournament helps.) Plus the minimum per hand at the black jack tables at these casinos was $15, so money goes flying.

There's something about Vegas that makes girls bust out as much boob and leg as humanly possible. Girls who normally dress like this:


start dressing like this:

I think most girls have a wardrobe and then a separate wardrobe, which is maybe in a separate drawer or something, labeled "vegas" that has a completely different set of clothes. I say this because basically everyone was dressing ridiculously.

We didn’t do the obligatory strip club trip mainly because we are not shady enough or in the mood to blow even more phat cash. Probably the latter rather than the former but whatever. That was ok wit me since I’m interested in only one girl. =).

…she's a stripper named Candi with an “i” and she wasn’t in town that weekend. Haha, ;-).


Update:

Tempo reminded me of a sequence of events that I had originally forgot to mention. One night I got pretty damn wasted and got in one of my semi-belligerent yet playful moods. This one guy across from me got some Scotch and I said something like "that's my boy" because I was likin the Whiskey play. However he just nursed the shit out of it for the next couple hours and it was slightly bothering me. He lost a hand and I said "You would've won that hand if you would drink your drink." I didn't realize this was somewhat "dick" when I said it but I understood once I guaged J Tempo's reaction.

Another time our dealer summoned a cocktail waitress really quitely and I called her out and said "they might hear you if you speak louder."

The third event was when Josh won a hand I was in. I don't rember exactly what he had or what went down but I do remember saying "fuck you" to him after he won the hand. Again, like all the other instances this was playful, but the dealer effectively "shushed" me and told me not to swear. I was utterly dumbfounded by this and said sarcastically "I'm sorry. I forgot I was in a casino!" She did not appreciate this.

Also, Tempo called D Fo winning the poker tournament that night. Good call. Although not surprising really.

To give you a good idea of how intense our poker playing was (and how unlucky M Fo was), M Fo woke up screaming one night due to a bad dream about a poker hand. Awesome.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate you and Fotopoulos A. McDavidson.

-P

Sizzle said...

The next time you are in Vegas, you call me! I live only 4-5 hours away and am, in fact, going there tomorrow!