Vegas Weekend In Review
Before we jump into my weekend in Vegas, here are a few quick inferences on the NBA Draft since I didn't want to dedicate an entire column to it:
1. Very uneventful lottery after all of the trade rumors until late at night when O.J. Mayo got traded. By the way, I love how the Bulls and Cavs started the "let's swap really bad contracts" trend earlier this season so that their fans would think they were doing something. I love trades that do nothing in particular. At least the draft night one involved rookies.
2. Stuart Scott and Stephen A. Smith are more annoying than I had previously thought.
3. Everyone who got drafted has good length and a large wingspan according to Jay Bilas.
4. Russell Westbrook and Jerryd Bayless should have switched draft positions. They were the biggest reach/steal picks in my book.
5. I don't like all of the foreigners who are locked into contracts in Eastern Europe getting picked. Who's heard of these guys and who cares?
6. The Lopez twins talk in really funny voices. They sound a little like Cookie Monster. They need to be miked up at least 10 times apiece this season. Bonus points if they like to dance when they're on the bench a la Ronny Turiaf.
7. Lastly, I waited around all draft to watch the Lakers draft the Kentucky kid who's undersized? Does he have good length and wingspan at least? I wanted Bryce Taylor.
Anyhow, I know this is a sports column but quite a few of you have asked for a Vegas weekend in review column so here it is. Don't worry, there will be some sports references mixed in. I lost money at the sportsbook too.
DAY 1
For those of you who don't know, my future brother-in-law's bachelor party was this past weekend in Vegas so we took off Friday afternoon for Sin City. It got off to a rough start before we even touched down in the desert insanity that is Vegas. We hit turbulence which led to me closing my eyes with my head against the seat in front of me trying not to get sick followed by the annoying lady in front of me muttering something about having a phobia of being thrown up on. I didn't get sick, but I wish I had, and if I did, well, you know where I would have aimed. It's bad enough having a rough flight without some lady who wishes she was 20 years younger so she could whore it up commenting on how she doesn't want you to yack on her. Well, I wasn't the lucky winner. Another member of my party made his way to the bathroom after landing to deposit his lunch. Better than using the bag on the plane I guess. Oh, and Reason #1 why you don't check a bag to Vegas for the weekend. One of the guys in our party had his digital camera stolen. Southwest, gotta love it. Do they have to change their slogan to: You're now free to fly around the country unless you need to check a bag in which case we reserve the right to steal your stuff?
We checked in at the MGM Signature and stayed in one of the penthouse suites. Baller tub (which someone used as a bed), shower, den area, two plasmas. All in all, excellent hotel. The walk to the casino is not short, but is helped along by people movers, one of the greatest inventions of all time. No complaints about the MGM Signature. I highly recommend it. After checking in, I went and walked around, did some sightseeing, meandered around the pool for a little . . . ok, maybe I did none of that and headed straight for the craps tables. Here's all you need to know about the craps tables at the MGM. I have never, I repeat, never, seen a hot craps table at the MGM. I swear, they must have a house full of coolers or one of those devices that the guys used in Ocean's Thirteen to make you lose your money. Needless to say, down a couple of bills before my first fifteen minutes. Ok, time to go check my luck at the blackjack tables. I sat down at a table with only one other guy sitting at first base. $15 table treated me fine for the first ten minutes or so. Both the guy and I were treading water and then my least favorite person; Idiot Third Baseman sat down (3rd base is the term for the last person to act at the table). Now, I don't know all of the rules of blackjack as far as what the card says to do in every situation but here were the first two hands the guy played. The dealer shows 4, 1st base stays on 16, I stay on 15, and Idiot Third Baseman hits on 15. I know that it's all luck, whether or not someone makes a dumb hit has no real effect on the cards, blah blah blah. But you know what happened in this situation, Idiot Third Baseman hit a face card, the bust card that the dealer should have received. The dealer of course had 14 and hit a 6, for a 20. All losers, because of that moron. Now any positive momentum is gone. Next hand gives all three of us 20's with the dealer showing a 3. Ok, maybe our luck hasn't been affected after all. Nope, Idiot Third Baseman mutters this pearl of wisdom, "Hey, all we need is for her not to get a 21!" Are you kidding me? He may as well be watching a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings and saying something like, "Hey, only one more out and he has a no-hitter!" Guess what happened, dealer with the 3 showing hits 4 cards to a 21. Of course. I stayed for about 5 more hands to finish off bills number 3 and 4. Rough start to say the least. It was pretty much like the time I went to Vegas with my friend Danny and his first roll at the craps table lasted for 45 minutes netting us about $1200 between the two of us, only the exact opposite.
I met up with the rest of the guys who did the walk around, check out the pool thing that turned about to be much more cost effective. We all got changed into our nighttime attire and headed down to the casino for some more gambling. To spare you the details, let's just say it was more of the same. Worst-case scenario #2 was in full effect. Lost 75% of the weekend budget in about 3.5 hours. Off to a nice dinner with a cute waitress helping us (always a bonus) and then to a nightclub. Just what you'd expect out of a Vegas nightclub. A promoter trying to talk you out of waiting in a fifteen-person line to go buy some Stoli for $350/bottle. There is not a more full of it guy in all of Vegas than the guy whose job it is to walk down the line and try and talk you into bottle service. Hey buddy, we know what bottle service is, if we wanted to avoid the six-minute line we would have found you and asked for it. Favorite line of the night came about an hour after we entered the club. I went up to the bartender and asked him to make a shot that wasn't too bad, but strong enough for my future brother-in-law, (his name is Scott so I can stop typing future brother-in-law) who happens to be about a foot taller than me. So the bartender makes a shot, I bring it over and see a horrid version of the bitter beer face come over Scott as he only manages about half of it. The best part, I take a quick swig and my first reaction is, "hmm, is there cinnamon in this." Scott's friend Jason drinks some and says, "hey, this tastes like horchata." look up "horchata" you'll see that you don't want your alcohol to be tasting like this after you had been sticking to Vodka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horchata). T-minus 10 minutes before Scott hits the bathroom. I must say though, he rallied like a champ. Yada yada yada, on to Day 2.
DAY 2
Day 2 started for me with one of the guys yelling at me to wake up. My body was not cooperating with my mind that was urging me out of bed. Not my fault though, it was only 11:30 a.m. That's about 2 hours before I had set my mental alarm clock. Bad form I guess. The six of us headed down, ate some lunch, then went to the pool. MGM's pool scene is pretty nice. There are a few different pools, a jacuzzi and a lazy river where you can rent inner tubes. Plus, you can buy mini ice buckets filled with beer. Not a bad idea. So that was how the next few hours were spent. Here are some of the things I noticed. First off, I felt naked without any tattoos. I think I was one of about 4 people in the whole swimming area that didn't have a tattoo. The other 3 were under the age of 6. Next, there were a lot of Frat-tastic Frat Boys in the lazy river. I even saw a couple with their frat letters tattooed on them (my favorite tattoo was on a guy whose friends had him jumping through the hole in the inner tube. He was about 100 lbs. overweight and had the U.S. and Confederate flags tattooed on his upper arm. On his lower arm it said "100% American." Something tells me his name wasn't Moishe Abramowitz).
By the way, apparently common courtesy and manners are not required in Vegas. You're just supposed to shove through people and treat all Vegas employees like second-class citizens. I got a couple of free drinks just for saying please and thank you to a couple of bartenders. L.A. might not be so bad after all. Finally, eye candy was everywhere in the pool area. The only problem, in a swimming pool, the Britney Spears era has made it impossible to tell the gambling eligible crowd from the high school crowd. Girls didn't look like that when I went to high school and I refuse to let tattoos be my gauge. I don't want to pull an R. Kelly. Sorry, he was found not guilty. I don't want to pull an alleged R. Kelly. However, the most disturbing moment at the pool occurred right in front of me when I was just lounging on a beach chair. This little girl with her eyes an alarming shade of red comes crying to her mother. The little girl apparently opened her eyes in the chlorine-infested water. The mother, about 15 lbs. too skinny, fake rack, laying there with a cigarette in her mouth while playing on her blackberry, tells the little girl to go rinse her eyes out in the pool and take a nap. What?! I still feel kind of wrong for not saying anything.
Pool overview: Lazy river, pretty girls, ice buckets with beer. Can't really go wrong. Plus, you're not losing money at the craps table at an alarming rate. Even better. The pool was a solid 9.5/10.
Quick gambling lesson from Day 2: Don't bet the over in a Padres/Mariners game. Actually, let's shorten that to: Don't bet the over in a Padres game. Carlos Silva could be pitching and have an ERA of 136.40 over his 0-10 streak, but the Padres wouldn't be able to touch him apparently. Luckily I didn't make it to the sportsbook in time to cash in on my buddy D.J.'s advice of the under in the Giants/A's game that ended 1-0. Thanks for the advice D.J. Unfortunately I should have called you about 8 hours earlier. Hey, at least I didn't bet the over on a Dodgers game, which featured a 1-0 victory over the Angels even though the Dodgers didn't record a hit. 5th time in history a team didn't record a hit but won the game. Sorry Dodgers pitchers, now it's not just that your team doesn't score, now they can't even get a hit. Oh yeah, the Dodgers lost 1-0 on Sunday too.
DAY 3
Speaking of Sunday, what's that? Is that the Rocky theme? Is the comeback kid making his appearance? Yup, that's Eric Rudin walking into the poker room at 10:30 a.m., taking his seat next to the dealer. We'll ignore the omen of a bug the size of a few Monopoly hotels crawling onto my foot in the sportsbook while I was wearing flip-flops. On to the gambling. First five minutes at the no-limit table I lose a big hand to some moron who played K-6 under the gun. Of course he made his two pair against my top pair, ace kicker. Next hand I busted out with pocket queens against pocket kings. Down to my last C-note. Build up the stack a little and get pocket kings under the gun. It was a live table so I just limped. Big baller across from me raised the pot to $15 (blinds were $1 and $2). Three callers, so I move all in. The raiser was the only caller and I knew I had him when before he called he said, "I hope you have A-K." Sorry buddy. Flop comes 6! Wonderful, but wait, there it is! King! I get the overset! He's dead to one card in the deck and the river comes a harmless deuce. Doubled up. I'm feeling good. A few hands later I get 7-8 of spades. I love suited connectors. By now most of the people can tell that I've been playing good hands and the few times I've raised pre-flop and showed I've had high pocket pairs. So, I pick this juncture to raise it to $10 pre-flop. The flop comes 5-9-10 with two spades. I like. Some guy has the nerve to raise my $15 bet on the flop to $30. I call and we go heads up. The turn comes a red jack. I like even more. I check, he bets $60, I raise all-in, he calls. He has J-9 of spades. River comes a red 3, double up again. Now, I'm high chip stack. I muscle into another couple hundred and even my last hand was great. The dealer didn't hear me say that I was leaving and dealt me K-Q suited. The flop turned up nothing but I bet it anyway. I bet the turn, then bluffed big on the river netting another C-note on the final hand. I came up about $450 and it all happened as I got to watch the Euro 2008 Final with a bunch of pissed off people walking around in their nice Germany jerseys. As George Orwell would say, that's Double Plus good. So my gambling experience was like a round of golf where nothing goes right until the 18th hole, where somehow you manage a 300+ yard drive and make a birdie to leave a good taste in your mouth and keep you coming back.
Gambling lesson from Day 3: Never bet on the Padres. Jake Peavy at home against the lowly Mariners and they get killed. I hate the Padres almost as much as the Giants sans Bonds now. They are horrible. As Patches O'Hoolihan would say, they're about as useful as a poopy flavored lollipop.
To sum up the weekend. It was Vegas. Everybody had fun. Sorry I couldn't include more stories from the group events, but you know the deal. Until next time.
1. Very uneventful lottery after all of the trade rumors until late at night when O.J. Mayo got traded. By the way, I love how the Bulls and Cavs started the "let's swap really bad contracts" trend earlier this season so that their fans would think they were doing something. I love trades that do nothing in particular. At least the draft night one involved rookies.
2. Stuart Scott and Stephen A. Smith are more annoying than I had previously thought.
3. Everyone who got drafted has good length and a large wingspan according to Jay Bilas.
4. Russell Westbrook and Jerryd Bayless should have switched draft positions. They were the biggest reach/steal picks in my book.
5. I don't like all of the foreigners who are locked into contracts in Eastern Europe getting picked. Who's heard of these guys and who cares?
6. The Lopez twins talk in really funny voices. They sound a little like Cookie Monster. They need to be miked up at least 10 times apiece this season. Bonus points if they like to dance when they're on the bench a la Ronny Turiaf.
7. Lastly, I waited around all draft to watch the Lakers draft the Kentucky kid who's undersized? Does he have good length and wingspan at least? I wanted Bryce Taylor.
Anyhow, I know this is a sports column but quite a few of you have asked for a Vegas weekend in review column so here it is. Don't worry, there will be some sports references mixed in. I lost money at the sportsbook too.
DAY 1
For those of you who don't know, my future brother-in-law's bachelor party was this past weekend in Vegas so we took off Friday afternoon for Sin City. It got off to a rough start before we even touched down in the desert insanity that is Vegas. We hit turbulence which led to me closing my eyes with my head against the seat in front of me trying not to get sick followed by the annoying lady in front of me muttering something about having a phobia of being thrown up on. I didn't get sick, but I wish I had, and if I did, well, you know where I would have aimed. It's bad enough having a rough flight without some lady who wishes she was 20 years younger so she could whore it up commenting on how she doesn't want you to yack on her. Well, I wasn't the lucky winner. Another member of my party made his way to the bathroom after landing to deposit his lunch. Better than using the bag on the plane I guess. Oh, and Reason #1 why you don't check a bag to Vegas for the weekend. One of the guys in our party had his digital camera stolen. Southwest, gotta love it. Do they have to change their slogan to: You're now free to fly around the country unless you need to check a bag in which case we reserve the right to steal your stuff?
We checked in at the MGM Signature and stayed in one of the penthouse suites. Baller tub (which someone used as a bed), shower, den area, two plasmas. All in all, excellent hotel. The walk to the casino is not short, but is helped along by people movers, one of the greatest inventions of all time. No complaints about the MGM Signature. I highly recommend it. After checking in, I went and walked around, did some sightseeing, meandered around the pool for a little . . . ok, maybe I did none of that and headed straight for the craps tables. Here's all you need to know about the craps tables at the MGM. I have never, I repeat, never, seen a hot craps table at the MGM. I swear, they must have a house full of coolers or one of those devices that the guys used in Ocean's Thirteen to make you lose your money. Needless to say, down a couple of bills before my first fifteen minutes. Ok, time to go check my luck at the blackjack tables. I sat down at a table with only one other guy sitting at first base. $15 table treated me fine for the first ten minutes or so. Both the guy and I were treading water and then my least favorite person; Idiot Third Baseman sat down (3rd base is the term for the last person to act at the table). Now, I don't know all of the rules of blackjack as far as what the card says to do in every situation but here were the first two hands the guy played. The dealer shows 4, 1st base stays on 16, I stay on 15, and Idiot Third Baseman hits on 15. I know that it's all luck, whether or not someone makes a dumb hit has no real effect on the cards, blah blah blah. But you know what happened in this situation, Idiot Third Baseman hit a face card, the bust card that the dealer should have received. The dealer of course had 14 and hit a 6, for a 20. All losers, because of that moron. Now any positive momentum is gone. Next hand gives all three of us 20's with the dealer showing a 3. Ok, maybe our luck hasn't been affected after all. Nope, Idiot Third Baseman mutters this pearl of wisdom, "Hey, all we need is for her not to get a 21!" Are you kidding me? He may as well be watching a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings and saying something like, "Hey, only one more out and he has a no-hitter!" Guess what happened, dealer with the 3 showing hits 4 cards to a 21. Of course. I stayed for about 5 more hands to finish off bills number 3 and 4. Rough start to say the least. It was pretty much like the time I went to Vegas with my friend Danny and his first roll at the craps table lasted for 45 minutes netting us about $1200 between the two of us, only the exact opposite.
I met up with the rest of the guys who did the walk around, check out the pool thing that turned about to be much more cost effective. We all got changed into our nighttime attire and headed down to the casino for some more gambling. To spare you the details, let's just say it was more of the same. Worst-case scenario #2 was in full effect. Lost 75% of the weekend budget in about 3.5 hours. Off to a nice dinner with a cute waitress helping us (always a bonus) and then to a nightclub. Just what you'd expect out of a Vegas nightclub. A promoter trying to talk you out of waiting in a fifteen-person line to go buy some Stoli for $350/bottle. There is not a more full of it guy in all of Vegas than the guy whose job it is to walk down the line and try and talk you into bottle service. Hey buddy, we know what bottle service is, if we wanted to avoid the six-minute line we would have found you and asked for it. Favorite line of the night came about an hour after we entered the club. I went up to the bartender and asked him to make a shot that wasn't too bad, but strong enough for my future brother-in-law, (his name is Scott so I can stop typing future brother-in-law) who happens to be about a foot taller than me. So the bartender makes a shot, I bring it over and see a horrid version of the bitter beer face come over Scott as he only manages about half of it. The best part, I take a quick swig and my first reaction is, "hmm, is there cinnamon in this." Scott's friend Jason drinks some and says, "hey, this tastes like horchata." look up "horchata" you'll see that you don't want your alcohol to be tasting like this after you had been sticking to Vodka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horchata). T-minus 10 minutes before Scott hits the bathroom. I must say though, he rallied like a champ. Yada yada yada, on to Day 2.
DAY 2
Day 2 started for me with one of the guys yelling at me to wake up. My body was not cooperating with my mind that was urging me out of bed. Not my fault though, it was only 11:30 a.m. That's about 2 hours before I had set my mental alarm clock. Bad form I guess. The six of us headed down, ate some lunch, then went to the pool. MGM's pool scene is pretty nice. There are a few different pools, a jacuzzi and a lazy river where you can rent inner tubes. Plus, you can buy mini ice buckets filled with beer. Not a bad idea. So that was how the next few hours were spent. Here are some of the things I noticed. First off, I felt naked without any tattoos. I think I was one of about 4 people in the whole swimming area that didn't have a tattoo. The other 3 were under the age of 6. Next, there were a lot of Frat-tastic Frat Boys in the lazy river. I even saw a couple with their frat letters tattooed on them (my favorite tattoo was on a guy whose friends had him jumping through the hole in the inner tube. He was about 100 lbs. overweight and had the U.S. and Confederate flags tattooed on his upper arm. On his lower arm it said "100% American." Something tells me his name wasn't Moishe Abramowitz).
By the way, apparently common courtesy and manners are not required in Vegas. You're just supposed to shove through people and treat all Vegas employees like second-class citizens. I got a couple of free drinks just for saying please and thank you to a couple of bartenders. L.A. might not be so bad after all. Finally, eye candy was everywhere in the pool area. The only problem, in a swimming pool, the Britney Spears era has made it impossible to tell the gambling eligible crowd from the high school crowd. Girls didn't look like that when I went to high school and I refuse to let tattoos be my gauge. I don't want to pull an R. Kelly. Sorry, he was found not guilty. I don't want to pull an alleged R. Kelly. However, the most disturbing moment at the pool occurred right in front of me when I was just lounging on a beach chair. This little girl with her eyes an alarming shade of red comes crying to her mother. The little girl apparently opened her eyes in the chlorine-infested water. The mother, about 15 lbs. too skinny, fake rack, laying there with a cigarette in her mouth while playing on her blackberry, tells the little girl to go rinse her eyes out in the pool and take a nap. What?! I still feel kind of wrong for not saying anything.
Pool overview: Lazy river, pretty girls, ice buckets with beer. Can't really go wrong. Plus, you're not losing money at the craps table at an alarming rate. Even better. The pool was a solid 9.5/10.
Quick gambling lesson from Day 2: Don't bet the over in a Padres/Mariners game. Actually, let's shorten that to: Don't bet the over in a Padres game. Carlos Silva could be pitching and have an ERA of 136.40 over his 0-10 streak, but the Padres wouldn't be able to touch him apparently. Luckily I didn't make it to the sportsbook in time to cash in on my buddy D.J.'s advice of the under in the Giants/A's game that ended 1-0. Thanks for the advice D.J. Unfortunately I should have called you about 8 hours earlier. Hey, at least I didn't bet the over on a Dodgers game, which featured a 1-0 victory over the Angels even though the Dodgers didn't record a hit. 5th time in history a team didn't record a hit but won the game. Sorry Dodgers pitchers, now it's not just that your team doesn't score, now they can't even get a hit. Oh yeah, the Dodgers lost 1-0 on Sunday too.
DAY 3
Speaking of Sunday, what's that? Is that the Rocky theme? Is the comeback kid making his appearance? Yup, that's Eric Rudin walking into the poker room at 10:30 a.m., taking his seat next to the dealer. We'll ignore the omen of a bug the size of a few Monopoly hotels crawling onto my foot in the sportsbook while I was wearing flip-flops. On to the gambling. First five minutes at the no-limit table I lose a big hand to some moron who played K-6 under the gun. Of course he made his two pair against my top pair, ace kicker. Next hand I busted out with pocket queens against pocket kings. Down to my last C-note. Build up the stack a little and get pocket kings under the gun. It was a live table so I just limped. Big baller across from me raised the pot to $15 (blinds were $1 and $2). Three callers, so I move all in. The raiser was the only caller and I knew I had him when before he called he said, "I hope you have A-K." Sorry buddy. Flop comes 6! Wonderful, but wait, there it is! King! I get the overset! He's dead to one card in the deck and the river comes a harmless deuce. Doubled up. I'm feeling good. A few hands later I get 7-8 of spades. I love suited connectors. By now most of the people can tell that I've been playing good hands and the few times I've raised pre-flop and showed I've had high pocket pairs. So, I pick this juncture to raise it to $10 pre-flop. The flop comes 5-9-10 with two spades. I like. Some guy has the nerve to raise my $15 bet on the flop to $30. I call and we go heads up. The turn comes a red jack. I like even more. I check, he bets $60, I raise all-in, he calls. He has J-9 of spades. River comes a red 3, double up again. Now, I'm high chip stack. I muscle into another couple hundred and even my last hand was great. The dealer didn't hear me say that I was leaving and dealt me K-Q suited. The flop turned up nothing but I bet it anyway. I bet the turn, then bluffed big on the river netting another C-note on the final hand. I came up about $450 and it all happened as I got to watch the Euro 2008 Final with a bunch of pissed off people walking around in their nice Germany jerseys. As George Orwell would say, that's Double Plus good. So my gambling experience was like a round of golf where nothing goes right until the 18th hole, where somehow you manage a 300+ yard drive and make a birdie to leave a good taste in your mouth and keep you coming back.
Gambling lesson from Day 3: Never bet on the Padres. Jake Peavy at home against the lowly Mariners and they get killed. I hate the Padres almost as much as the Giants sans Bonds now. They are horrible. As Patches O'Hoolihan would say, they're about as useful as a poopy flavored lollipop.
To sum up the weekend. It was Vegas. Everybody had fun. Sorry I couldn't include more stories from the group events, but you know the deal. Until next time.
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