Vegas Recap

Well, I finally have some time to put up a little something about Vegas... so, here we go. It's going to be really long, but whatever.

Sunday

The adventure starts with QB dropping me off at the San Jose airport Sunday afternoon for my 2pm flight. I go inside and I hit up the kiosk and it prints me out my boarding pass with all the necessary gate information. I'm really, really pumped about this trip, because I know it's going to be a couple nights of ridiculousness.

Okay, so I make it past security and get to my gate, and what do I see? FLIGHT CANCELED Wow, I'm thinking, WTF. So, I go to the lady at the counter and she says to me, "the airline didn't contact you about this?" And, I'm thinking, well... I booked this on Expedia and no, they didn't contact me, and why the F* did the kiosk spit me out a boarding pass? My mind is going a bit nuts now, and I'm just as I'm about to get a bit pissy when she tells me that I need to go back to the main ticket counter and arrange to get on a shuttle to the San Francisco airport from where we'll depart.

After getting back in line and taking care of everything, I end up on a shuttle bus to San Francisco with a bunch of others on the same canceled flight. The airline gave us a $7.50 food voucher, but it wasn't good for alcohol... what's with that? Anyway, lucky for me and my charismatic appeal, I find myself at the bar with a Hawaiian lady who puts all of our drinks on her company's card. So, we munched on some $7.50 snacks and did the small talk thing until we were ready to board. Thank you for the drinks, Mr. Bill Gates! (she worked for Microsoft)

Get to Vegas, and Rowr picks me up in her Lotus. That's just a really cute and cool car. It definitely has the super exotic look. We check into the Mirage (we got a really good deal at $115 a night), and soon after we find ourselves in the casino where all the action is at. I play some $10 craps so that Rowr can see how the game is played (she's never played before), and also for a couple "free" drinks.

$10 craps is really steep, since I pretty much place a Pass Line bet followed by a continuous string of Come bets until we 7-out... with full odds, of course. But, I'm a luckbox, and I walk away with a tidy $250 and two drinks in winnings. Yay!

We meet up later with K and his girlfriend, B to play some low-limit poker. I really wanted to play the 15 over at the Venetian due to their special reduced rake, but no one else was really rolled for that. So, we play over at the Mandalay Bay, where they have a $1/2 blind $4/8 limit game. It's a really great structure if you have a strong post-flop game. You get to see a ton more flops, especially in late position.

It is at this table where a really, really good night of drinking begins, and it is also here that all the players lucky enough to be seated at our table would not lose their money for nothing. Oh no, they'd be provided with hours upon hours of non-stop Comedy Duo entertainment. I should probably take a moment to explain.

Back in the day, Rowr and I were a comedy duo. We'd basically drink a lot and just be ridiculously entertaining (we thought so, anyway) for everyone. Our comedy act was un-boll weevil-bly funny, and ranged from crude jokes (like catching Pink Eye from glancing at the dirtiest of strippers) to Swahili appendectomies. We now return to the story.

So, after a good number of drinks, the Comedy Duo was in full effect. I was the weatherman, and my pre-flop raises were pretty much hurricane sirens. You could choose to fold and avoid the natural disaster, or you could try and face the storm and usually pay the consequences. One memorable hand went down like this... I raise in early, and announce that a Category 5 was about to make landfall. But, all the fish cold-called, since that's what fish do. And, as the big blind was going to call and close the action, I blurted out, "and, you thought Katrina was bad." Ha ha, it got a lot of laughs, especially from this old guy, Howard.

From then on, Howard was our #1 fan. Apparently, he's a regular who plays often, but rarely talks and keeps mostly to himself. But, man, our comedy really opened him up and got him cracking his own slew of jokes. He re-used a lot of material, but that's okay. Also, there was another guy, Scott, that enjoyed our drunken comedy (he later joined our troupe). And, here's his recollection of our table. Every word I speak is the gospel truth... there really was a Comedy Duo, and Captain Kings is K (he must have gotten pocket K's 5 or 6 times in the span of a few hours). His girlfriend, B, was in the 2/4 game right behind us, so she could only guess at why our table was constantly erupting in laughter.

After many more hours, the table eventually broke up. As I mentioned earlier, Scott joined our troupe as we sought more drinks and more fun. So, off to the bar we went. We played some video poker to score a few free drinks, and once that got old, we hit up the Pai Gow poker tables, where we met a big-busted girl and her friend(?). They were from the 626 area code, which was cool since that's where Rowr used to hail from.

So, there we were. The original Comedy Duo, the new troupe member, and two drunks from 626. We played a lot of hands, and we all had a blast. All of this while the flow of free alcohol never ceased. And, we had the most awesome dealer named Luc. The dude was a riot, and I think he was amused by us... really.

Anyway, just as our bodies began to give in, the 626 peeps thought it'd be a great idea to get some shots of Remy. And, believe me, we were all so ridiculously hammered at this point. I mean that in a good way, none of us were really getting sick or anything. Well, Rowr knew she had had enough, so I had to drink hers, and that really put me over the top. It was definitely time to go back to the hotel and crash. Being the luckbox that I am, I wound up winning a little bit at that table. Yay, again.

Monday

The cleaning lady woke us up about 4 times before we got wise and put the Do Not Disturb card on our door. Eventually, we got up around 3 in the afternoon. Neither of us were really hungover badly, but we could totally tell that the night before was pretty rough.

We make it out to Bellagio to meet up with K and B. They were both doing fine, since they aren't drunks like us. We briefly checked out the rose garden, which now has a butterfly greenhouse in the middle of it. Maybe it's been there for a while, I really don't remember. And, before I forget to mention it... the Bellagio snack bar is a total rip off. Who charges $9 for a baked potato? I must admit that the tuna sandwich I got there was very, very good. Not worth the price, but it was definitely up there in taste.

We then went to go gamble in the arcade. I broke even playing Air Hockey, and I lost a dollar showing off my non-moves in the Dance Dance Revolution game. I'm so bad at it, it's almost unbelievable. We were really looking for an old Tetris machine, since Rowr and I have been waiting to do some serious wagering on that game. I suppose she'll keep her money for longer, as we couldn't find one.

Later one, while we were all walking around, I got a call from Duke, a Vegas local. I thought he was out of town, but I was wrong. So, Duke eventually met up with us and K and B went off to dinner. Duke, Rowr, and I then went to the Wynn. We played some -EV table games (but, I'm a luckbox, so it worked out), and soon we were off once again to play some low-limit poker in the same room as the night before. Well, we did make a pitstop to eat a little over at the Raffles Cafe.

This night was a lot more tame, because there was no way we were going to drink nearly as much we had already. But, it was still a good time and a lot of fun. The comedy was still in full effect, but it was nowhere near the level of the previous night.

Now is as good a time as any to talk about the hand depicted in Rowr's drawing. It went as follows... I've got KK in middle, and I raise a couple of limpers. Rowr cold calls on the button, one of the blinds comes in, and it's 5 to the flop. Flop comes Q33, checks to me, and I bet. Rowr calls, as does a Santa Claus lookalike. The turn brings a 3, and Santa bets out. I make it $16, Rowr cold-calls, and Santa calls. The river is some blank, and they both call my bet. I figured they both had Q's, and I was only half right. Santa had a Q, and Rowr shows down pocket 5's ??. After that, she started believing me more.

After we were all done there, we went on a failed mission to find some late night food. It was at the "24-hour" McDonald's where we saw a crazy drunk girl go at it with the cashier. The cashier was really up in the drunk's face at one point calling her "Ms. Kansas." I had no idea what all the bickering was all about. But, it turns out that it's a 23-hour McDonald's, as they don't serve you from 4am to 5am or something. So, we left empty-stomached. We closed out the night with some more blackjack, where I pretty much broke even (I think I won like $5).

Tuesday

Woke up at 11:30 or so, and checked out. We then went to GameWorks to find the Tetris machine, because Rowr really had money to burn. Once again, the machine was not to be found, and so we played some more blackjack (this time, my luckbox skills paid off) before heading to the airport.

The flight was not delayed, and I made it home without any incidents. QB picked me up, and I told her all about the wild time I had in Vegas, and all was good.

The End.