ass vegas

[rone]

2wanda and i went to Las Vegas last weekend for our 12th anniversary.  We visited her dad, who cooked us some marvelous meals, as he always does when we visit.  Their tortoise likes to come into the house once in a while.

We saw Zumanity and, boy howdy, that was a titillatingly good time.  My only complaint was that it was shorter than your typical Cirque du Soleil show, at 90 minutes.  We also went to Death Valley to try out Kim's new camera (i'm sure she'll write about it soon), and while driving over the mountain pass between Las Vegas and Pahrump, it snowed.  It frickin' snowed a week from June.  Crazy-ass shit.

But enough about the good stuff... god, i hate Las Vegas so much.  It seems to me sometimes as if it's a practical experiment in how unfettered capitalism fails society.  It's an affront to civilization, the greatest karma sink in the nation.  We stayed at the Mandalay Bay and it was the first and, in all likelihood, last time we'll ever stay at a Strip casino hotel.  Mediocre service, a dirty tub, damaged furniture, and one insanely crowded pool that was really making me stabby.  And on the way back, our plane was delayed an hour, so we missed our connecting flight at Mormon Central (don't ask why we got a flight from SJC to Vegas with a stop at SLC; i know that it's stupid, but that's all that we could find), and ended up snagging a flight to SFO so i wouldn't have to try to catch some sleep at the SLC airport and end up going straight from home to work.

Comments

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

I've been to Vegas once, and I pretty much felt the same way about it. The best part of the weekend was riding in a taxicab driven by a cranky 80-year-old who reminded me of my grandfather and told us all about how much better Vegas was when the Mob ran it. I cannot adequately explain why this was awesome, but maybe you understand.

There is one, and only one, circumstance under which I'll go to Vegas again; a friend and I have plans to take a trip there as soon as he's got gainful employment again (this was the other guy from my Bridal Posse). But that's more about the company than the destination.

ass vegas

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

The more mobbish sections of Vegas were, on the whole, more fun to be in, and the atmosphere seemed, if not charming, less like the GIVE US YOUR FUCKING MONEY of the new strip. Recall that the bosses that built those places wanted to establish something they considered "swanky". The Starlight, for instance, had a lot of old-skool awesome and the gamblers were actually smiling and having fun.

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

Las Vegas was exhausting, venal, and toxic in large doses. Eric and I went there on our honeymoon and went from "lovey dovey" to "if I had a gun I would shoot you just to shut you up" in three days. We got the hell out of Vegas to tour the desert, immediately calmed down, and realized that the city's ambiance was the problem.

Also we stayed in Old Vegas. You could smell cigarette smoke from the goddamn freeway exit. UGH

[tinellaq.livejournal.com]

I've heard that it's common practice for musicals to be trimmed to 90 minutes when shown in Vegas; the specific example was Avenue Q. Not quite the same thing, but perhaps that happened with Zumanity?

[thedarkages]

Xpost from Facebook: Only time Beth and I have been there was for Jenine's wedding. It was a lovely wedding, but the Bourbon Street Hotel was an absolute horror. Beth got sick from the smoky air, but the only place for her to be sick was in the room, which had smoky air mixed with evil odor-enhancing "room freshener."

Only good point of the trip besides the wedding was that I found this fantastic Vietnamese restaurant in a tiny strip mall near Bally's. I've never eaten Vietnamese food that good again. It was run by fourteen-year-olds who seemed to have no idea of portion control. Beth's seafood dish had $20 worth of seafood (in 1995 dollars) in a $4.95 bowl of soup.

A friend of mine was flying in the 1970s between Brussels and Bujumbura, and he had this acronym for his carrier: Such A Bad Experience Never Again. That sort of sums up Las Vegas.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

We just got back from the Mandalay Bay ourselves. We tried to visit the pool/beach, but they were doing the soundcheck for Pitbull, a concert booked specifically to please the masses of UFC fans in town for the UFC fan expo and fight. So I got stabby and had to leave.

The room was OK, though. Vegas is what it is. If you don't want to get drunk and immerse yourself in its sordid truth, there is everywhere else in the world that is not Vegas to visit instead.

[chaosrose.livejournal.com]

I love your tortoise.