Showing posts with label LINQ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LINQ. Show all posts

Sunday, February 5, 2017

What Happens in Vegas...


…is worth every penny, as pure entertainment.

 It’s been a couple three years since we last visited Disneyland for Grown Ups, and it is still the most entertaining place on earth.  There's a grand variety of professional entertainment (Willie Nelson, sold out, Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz, sold out, some guy named Keith Sweat, pass, Keith Sweat? from
The giant sentinel guarding the entrance.
the original Perspirations? Donnie and Marie, um, oh, they’re off right now, that’s ok I mean darn it!), but the tourists who come to LV,
 they are the real entertainment.

We begin with the Las Vegas Debutante Parade.  While in LV, Mimsy and I maintain our ‘old people from the Midwest’ schedule, that is, we are heading out on Midwest morning time when many of the previous evening’s revelers are attempting to return to base.  This trip, that included a gaggle of highly inebriated debutantes who found themselves stranded (OMG!) in the middle of the night (OMG!) outside our 22nd floor door.  There was a highly emotional and generally senseless conversation that reached an emotional and clueless crescendo --like an old ScoobyDoo cartoon adventure--when the leader of the pack (a.k.a. the “quaggle” or “queen of the gaggle”) cried out in exasperation “GIRLS--SOMETHING’S WRONG!!!   I’ve searched this whole floor… EVERY F&%kIN’ ROOM STARTS WITH  22!!!

 THERE IS NO 2319!!!”   

Later that morning, as we headed out, we were treated to the Miss Las Vegas Runway Walk. This is where pairs of young women, dressed to the nines and in unequal states of inebriation, test their homing instincts. The more highly impaired of the two is linked to a designated walker, the one who is less smashed.  Trudging along zombie-like, the impaired ones cling to their handlers, their survival instinct in full deployment, telling them  that should they let go they have no hope of finding nor passing out in a bed.

We also witnessed a new phenomenon: the late night indoor drunk driver.  This antique degenerate came flying around the corner of the main floor hallway on his Rascal  pedal to the metal, barely conscious and wholly unconcerned and unaware of pedestrians.   We pressed against the wall as he flew by, oblivious, careening toward parts unknown. We hoped he would not encounter a gaggle of zombie girls.  Oh, the humanity…

I was certain the High Roller would be
a failure.  It has instead become one of
the best know Vegas attractions. 
This was the week leading up to Super Bowl (or “The Big Game” if you are not a licensed user of NFL properties), so there was an influx of young men arriving throughout the day on Friday.  This group is a walking social evolution study.  They are partial towards wearing backwards baseball caps, making them look like big hairy ten year olds, strolling along with cans of beer, held out in front of them, like the morning coffee brigade does with their Starbucks, except this is all hours, morning, noon, and night, everywhere they travel.  They also wear sunglasses at night and inside to reinforce their display of machismo and tend to be donned in pastel polo shirts, mismatched shorts and rubber Nike shower sandals.  It’s “a look”.  They are generally genial as they amble about in small pods. When they gamble at a slot machine, there is a predetermined formation : one gambles, two stand behind the gambler to watch and grunt while swigging their beer, and the fourth member, who displays aggressive verbal traits,  waves his beer in the air and stomps around screaming encouragement like “HIT THAT MOTHERF&%KER,  MAN”  and “F&%k YEAH,BITCH” and “YEAAAAAHHHHH, BABY” and, of course, “WHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”.  This all takes place while he is being ignored by the rest of the pod, raising the question of whether he is a pod member or just a young vagrant in search of a pod.  Further study will be required.

Older folks are fun, too.   One senior couple displayed their “assume the position” slot mode.  The gentleman admonished his spouse (yes, ladies, he was being an asshole) “THE SYSTEM! STICK TO THE SYSTEM!  LEFT HAND ONLY!” as he took up his position standing behind her, slightly askew to her right, supervising as she awkwardly fed the ticket into the machine-- left handed—pausing at the choreographed moment  to allow him to light his lucky cigarette (do they still make Lucky Strike?).Then and only  then did the woman begin to  push the wager buttons- left handed only- as he supervised and smoked. 

They got crushed.  Maybe they need a new system.  Maybe she needs a new partner.
How I remember my room
number since it's not on the
key card.  Take a picture. I
don't really need to know
anything anymore if I have
my phone. 

Mimsy killed it at the slots, winning about 2:1 what I lost.  That’s our system.  I just shut up and try not to do too much damage.  She wins, I should stay on the sidelines reading the “Welcome to Exciting Las Vegas” ad magazines.

We migrate from one casino to the next.  At one point, we had to pause for Mimsy to rest a moment, and we happened to be at Casino Royale. We plopped down at one of those enormous old Wheel of Fortune games, the kind where the players sit around the perimeter of the wheel that must be 20 feet in diameter.  In a couple of minutes, I won a spin of the big wheel as Video Vanna clapped and offered encouragement.  

BAM—I won $100!  Nice, huh?

Not more than a two minutes later, Mimsy hit a spin of the big wheel and BAM BAM--won $200.

 You got yer winners and you got yer losers, see?  Stick ta da system.

Other sightings:

·       the security guard in one of the casinos on our early rounds radioing to his supervisor “we’ve got a sleeper-we HAVE a sleeper”, as he prepared to roust a comatose drunk left over from last night

·       the guy trying to celebrate a straight flush big win at Mirage,  with words of encouragement from his pal “maybe you can buy back the guitar now”

·       a hooker throwing a fit when her young client demanded she return his leather jacket as she departed MGM, 8:30 a.m.

·       two old queens throwing a hissy fit at the airport, 5:00 p.m. Hilarious.

·       the unfortunate maintenance crew at Linq Promenade assigned to vomit patrol, and finally

·       a woman at McCarren Airport security loudly protesting “PROFILING!!!” and nobody-neither TSA nor travelers- giving a shit.

I love Las Vegas.