It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

4th and final Vegas trip of 2013 done and did. Good but exhausting trip. Flight in was fine, took a shuttle from the airport to MGM and hung out at the new Whiskey Down bar in there since I was way too early to check in. Personable bar staff, had a couple shots and beers, then proceeded to throw my first (of very, very many) hundie into a machine outside and promptly lost it. This will be a theme. Then made my way over to NYNY to check in. The room was comped, and I was staying in a standard room, so I was expecting to pay the resort fee and be on my way up. I get told, despite not being in a suite, that I will again have a $100 per night hold to pay before checking in. Apparently when your room is comped you get charged this fee. This bugs the shit out of me, and despite protesting to the clerk and a "customer service" manager they will not reverse the hold. This despite the fact that there are no amenities in the room, not even a bloody coffee maker. I get the cha...

36 Hours until Vegas trip #4 of 2013...can think of no better way to end up the year. This whole year has been a bit of a Vegas year for me. Trips in April (Luxor), June (Excalibur), October (THEhotel) and now December (NYNY) have been the highlights of an otherwise unremarkable year. Work is unchanged, same dead-end but at times rewarding job. Same tedious cycle of work 5 days, have Wed/Thurs off, never a weekend off, seldom doing much of anything noteworthy. Same invisibility to the opposite sex. Unless lightning strikes in Vegas, this will be the first year I can remember that I won't have gotten laid. At all. It may have happened in the past; I am, after all, old, but it's been very few and far between if at all. I've had a couple random smooching sessions, and truth be told, I could have taken advantage of a couple situations this year to get the deed done if that was my sole goal, but in every case getting my peener wet would have come with other baggage that put ...

How I roll. I've touched on it in previous posts, but I'm a pretty, erm, basic guy when it comes to how I present myself in the world. I try very hard not to put on airs, and often find people who are wearing designer clothes and driving Porsches to be pretty high up on the douche scale. It's just a world that I have never found myself in, and if I did, would feel pretty uncomfortable in. I'm not a particularly sociable guy. I try to avoid "gatherings" whenever possible, unless I'm completely comfortable with the situation and the with the people who will be attending. I like going into bars but tend to bail out when they become very busy and crowded. I greatly prefer being one of just a few people in the bar, where you're able to have a conversation with someone and not be drowned out by bad karaoke or someone screaming in your ear after one too many Fireballs. I do a lot of daytime drinking for this reason. Fashion-wise, I have no taste bey...

Starting to formulate the gurgling, bubbling protoplasm of a plan for the Xmas Vegas trip. It involves meat. Lots of meat. The big meaty extravaganza will be on Xmas day, as my Xmas dinner reservations will be at Gallagher's Steakhouse in NYNY. It has good recs on the review sites, and seems to be fairly unpretentious, which is what I look for in steak joints. If I have to wear a tie, it just ain't happenin'. It's certainly local to where I'll be staying (uh, NYNY), and fills my desire to have more than just a taco and a Corona on Xmas. I'm not remotely a religious person, but the holiday is the biggest in the US, for better or worse, so I feel like I kinda have to not just slum it. Doubt there'll be any turkey happening, but I'll definitely kill me a sirloin that night. So that's Xmas dinner, but that leaves me with at least 5 other meals to be had during the 3 1/2 days I'm there. I'm reading a lot about Vegas becoming one of the burger...

Vegas is changing. Again. As referenced in the previous post, Vegas seems to be again looking to re-define it's public face. From the OG "Wild Wild West" period pre-Strip, to the Mob era, to the Family-fication period in the 90's to today's apparently waning "What Happens In Vegas..." phase the Strip has always aggressively marketed itself to a certain demographic. Outlaws, drifters, families, High Rollers, Britney fucking Spears, you name it, Vegas has pandered to it. That makes the current trend toward upscale retail a little confusing. Almost all the modern Strip casinos either have now, will soon open or are planning big, multi-level, mainly upscale retail shopping areas. NYNY/Monte Carlo, the Trop, Linq and others will join established retail players Caesar's, Mandalay, Crystals, Miracle Mile, etc. So...what's the demo the Powers That Be are going for here? 30-something female ad executives? Metro-sexual trust fund bros? I mean, I'...

I am by no means a wealthy person. I work as a Inventory Manager for an entertainment company. I make somewhere in the neighborhood of double the San Francisco minimum wage, which I'll let you do the research on. While SF minimum is among the highest in the country, living costs in the City are also among the highest in the country, so it all pretty much washes out. My living situation is a compromise. My rent is low, but the price I pay for having low rent is having a tiny, tiny living space. Not including a separate bathroom, I live in roughly 150 square feet of space. To contrast, the average square footage of a hotel room in Vegas is probably in the 450-500 ft range. Yeah, I live in Celine Dion's closet. It's (barely) enough for a full bed, small desk, nightstand and a bookcase. Now, the good thing about this, is that a bed, nightstand, desk and bookcase are about all that I own. When I moved here from the South Bay everything fit in a 10-foot U-haul truck. One ...

I'm in the Mlife program for MGM resorts. So far it's gotten me 3 fully comped (aside from the resort fee) resort stays and varying amounts of additional swag. I've cashed in offers to stay at Excalibur, Mandalay Bay (THEhotel) and, next, NYNY. The best one thus far was the last one, the suite at THEhotel, $125 in "resort credit" which is basically a food credit, and a little Freeplay. I was also able on the last trip to build up enough Express Comps to pay for another meal while there, so with the around $50 in play I cashed in almost $200 in comps, plus the close to $500 that the room would have cost me. That's pretty damn good for a low roller like me, and I still have a little bit of Ex Comps and Freeplay for next trip built up. The NYNY trip I have coming up I'll only have an extra $25 of Resort Credit, so not even one meal but still, the room for 3 nights is free. The program has definitely served its purpose, I do feel like if I'm spendin...

Most of my life, I live in a rut. My life here in the City is so mundane...I'm surrounded by great things to do and see here but hardly ever take advantage of them. 5 days a week I go to work and come straight home, then on my 2 days off I go out and drink one day in the same neighborhood I always do and spend the other day at home, then it's back to work. Week in, week out, same thing. Vegas every 6 months or so (or less) gives me something to break out of that rut, something to look forward to. When it comes down to it I suppose I love Vegas b/c it makes me feel like such a facsimile of an adult. I've never really traveled anywhere in my life and by nature I'm not a very adventurous person. I tend to choose the safe, easy option in life. Vegas allows me to break out of that shell for a few days a couple times a year, to leave the job in the company that someone else owns and the room in the house that someone else owns. I can spend a month's salary in a f...

So next up it's Christmas in Las Vegas. Heading to town again, arriving on Xmas eve and will be there for Day and day after. Going to be staying at NYNY, first time there and continuing with my theme of staying at a different resort every time in Vegas. I've been gravitating toward NYNY the last couple times in town, it always seems to have a great atmosphere and I love the Sporting House bar on site. Mandalay was nice enough but the place is pretty bereft of excitement, the casino is kind of dead and boring. NYNY's always seems packed and full of people having a good time, though I've never won any money there. It also seems more aimed at singles for some reason, or maybe that's just a perception as it has a lot of bars I can hang out in. Not really sure what to expect of Xmas in Vegas...I've read that the place will be packed or that it will be empty. No conventions obviously, so maybe the people there on the Strip will mainly be locals. Have read a lo...

I took this with my own camera. About 5:30 in the afternoon. Probably the single most amazing man-made view I've ever had eyes on in my life. Truly unreal. you can just barely make out the tip of the Stratosphere in the middle behind the hulk of the unfinished Fontainebleau. 4 MILES AWAY.

Vegas, late October. Overall good trip, fairly uneventful, if that's possible in Vegas. Arrived as planned at about 11:00a on Wednesday. After getting pretty comprehensively lost I quickly gave up on my plan to walk out of the airport and caught a cab. To MGM. I was staying at THEhotel at Mandalay and didn't have enough sleep the night before so I decided to head straight over and try to get lucky w/a room. Had a slightly bitchy check-in girl and was charged a $100 hold per night for incidentals, so that started off the trip on a bummer note. I am under no circumstances a wealthy person and I always have a very carefully planned amount of money that I take with me, so losing $384 of that (resort fee on top) was a shocker. I know it's just a deposit but I don't like having cash taken out of my pocket in Vegas w/o being aware of it beforehand. Anyway, got there so early that no Strip view room was available, so I just said fuck it and took a room on the 13th flo...

When I go to Vegas now, I have been taking in the neighborhood of 1K a day as my drink/eat/gamble budget. This time it will be $933 per, so I'm in that range. The first time I went I had around $650 a day, but I only stayed for two nights. Not sure how I didn't freak out having that little. I like to feel like I can pretty much do whatever I want as a non-whale gambler who has no card skills and likes to play penny or nickel slots. When it comes down to it, while I go to Vegas ostensibly with an amount of money that I'm prepared to blow, I do like to come back with at least a little left over. This time I will also have $125 in resort credit for MGM joints so I should be able to squeeze a couple good meals out of that as it'll be just me going. All I will really need to pay for is the resort fee for 3 nights, and one of those will be covered by the MLife points I have built up so I'm looking at about $50 of actual onsite obligations as everything else is paid for;...

This time will go according to plan, damn it, or if it doesn't, it will be because something better overruled the plan. Day 1: Will get into Vegas via Jetblue at about 10:30a, walking out to the Strip (b/c fuck $40 taxi rides that go 2 miles), should take about an hour. Will be too early to check in to THEhotel, so will go to PH and pick up my TR card, then want to stop somewhere to pick up liquor; will be good this time to be pre-partied up before heading out, and will save a little money. Then will saunter over to Mandalay and pre-register or possibly check in, at least being able to drop off bags. Then it's off to find a bar and maybe drop a hundie on slots while waiting to check in. Once I get into the room (hopefully up high, and w/ a Strip view) It's unpack and iron clothes time, then maybe take a short two hour nap if I need it. Next, I'm going to take a FUCKING BATH. THEhotel suites have an actual bath tub. I don't know why I'm so pumped to do t...

This trip was fun, but I made it hard on myself. First mistake was booking Megabus to get me to/from Vegas. Megabus is a Greyhound-type service that goes from SF to LA to Vegas for super cheap. My round trip for the whole shebang was $80. Cool right? I'll be able to sleep on the bus overnight, I get to see the Mojave desert, which I never have before, sure it'll take a little longer, but road trip, right? Wrong. The bus was super crowded, uncomfortable, and for some reason I could NOT sleep on that fucking thing. I got on the bus at around 10p here, and didn't get to Vegas until 1p the next day. 15 fucking hours on that bus; sure I got to see the Mojave, but that motherfucker is overrated. You seen 1 mile you've seen them all. And I saw them all. To be fair none of this was Megabus' fault, it was actually on time the whole way and in reality once we got past LA and dumped off all the beautiful people it wasn't that crowded for the last leg. It just would hav...

Previous to this trip I have stayed at some of the most bargain-basement "resorts" on the strip. Here are some condensed post-mortems based on really just my impressions of the resorts, cuz my memories of the actual trips are pretty fuzzy. -Rumor, a boutique place about a mile east of the strip. This was my first trip to Vegas. It was really cool/funky, bit youngish of a vibe for me and I learned later that it caters to the LGBT community (whatever). The room was beautiful but you could tell the resort itself was a converted Rodeway Inn or something. Has a little apartment complex pool and no real lounge or restaurants to speak of. Check in desk is about 10 feet wide and right behind it is a 15 foot long bar with a little outside deck where people were clustered looking uncomfortable and listening to a sad little DJ. I came back to the bar on my way to the room at about 3a the first night I was there and the bartender and I were literally the only people there. Anywhere...

Many facts about me that you will find endlessly fascinating to the extent that you will forget them immediately. I live in San Francisco. BTW, no one from San Francisco says they are from San Francisco, as we all just refer to it as The City. As if there are no other cities, just this one. So, for fear of breaking some arcane social contract I will, forever more, refer to San Francisco as The City. Despite this, this blog will have almost no mention of San Francisco. So never mind. I've been to Vegas 6 times in the last 3 years and will be going for the 4th time this year in 2 months (Dec '13). You will hear a lot about Vegas on this blog. I loves me some Vegas. My life consists of going to work, going out to get drunk on days off and saving up for/going to Las Vegas. No joke. I have no hobbies or interests to speak of. ERGO, this blog will consist mainly of posts about my personal adventures in and endless obsessing about Las Vegas. In fact, to call it a blog is a bit...