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

I've been using Evernote to keep all my snippets organized for this trip. I've used note-taking apps for various phones on previous trips, but Evernote is the best one I've used so far. I'm able to easily add notes from my home laptop and then those entries are synced to both my iPad (which is going with me) and BlackBerry automatically. I'm finding that it's really helpful to remind me of things like making sure to use Player's Club cards wherever I go to eat or drink, and I've also got notes with new bars or restaraunts I want to check out or just general reminders like when my sports teams are going to be playing while there. I've got a note with names and locations of a few off-strip dive bars I may want to check out if I feel like breaking away from the usual spots. Had a plan to do that last trip but ended up in NYNY all day so maybe this time. I've also got a note with current totals of comps, what casinos they're at an...

Raining tits and monkeys today here in SF and I'm stuck home because...it's raining tits and monkeys, and also because if I was out right now (on one of my last two days off before Vegas) I would be spending money that could be spent on the trip, so it's a hibernation day. Have had a really good Vegas playlist that I've been honing over the last few trips and I've been really loving to listen to while I'm in my room there, mostly while getting up and getting ready to go out in the mornings or after a nap and re-shower at night. My taste in Vegas music is a little unconventional I would think, it's bereft of almost all the traditional "whooo parrrrrty!" tunes most people probably would put on a Vegas playlist. You will find no Motley Crue or fucking Pitbull on this list. Nope, I go the other way and try to load up atmospheric tunes that put me into a relaxed, calm state...although there is an uptempo track or two in here. Below is the list b...

Well, this one should be obvious to anyone who's read the blog, like, at all. Solo Las Vegas is how I roll, and I can't really imagine doing it any other way, for me. Sure, Vegas is the stereotypical "girls/guys party scene", and that's fine, but I find it a lot easier to navigate through town by one's self. To be honest, I've never done it any other way, so I don't know that for a fact... So why solo? Well, mainly it's a practical matter; I don't have any friends. Don't cue up the "awww" sound or feel sorry for me, I want it this way. When you combine shyness and moderate insecurity with massive impatience with other human beings, you get a loner. Me. Balancing out the insecurity though is a very well developed sense of who I am. I know my limitations, I know my strengths, and I'm very (maybe overly) self aware and tend to think that my own counsel is really the only counsel I want to follow. That's gotten me to...

Society wants you to be normal. Have a mortgage. Have a wife. Have 2.5 kids and a dog and a cat. Have friends and have BBQ's and have a high-paying stressful job. Have a garage full of useless shit that you'll never use and have crushing debt that you'll never pay off. HAVE. Conform to societal and family pressure to be some ridiculous Cosby Show ideal and be a political "moderate" and live out every sick lyric of "Fitter, Happier". FUCK normal. I say embrace simplicity. Embrace living with freedom. Be solely responsible for your actions and choices and choose to live your life the way you want to. I choose to travel lightly through life. If necessary I could fit what I really feel like I NEED in life into a backpack. I don't own a home, and I don't own a car, ergo I have no mortgage, no car payment, no insurance payment. Everything I own I own outright and fits easily into the tiny room I rent. I have no wife, no exes, no kids, no...

A few of the places I make a point of getting to pretty much every time I go to Vegas, and why. -The Henry at Cosmopolitan. Will always get in here on every trip I take to Vegas. Why? Cosmopolitan was the first Strip resort I set foot in there, and The Henry was the first bar I sat butt in. Even before I gambled a penny there, I lubed up with a couple cocktails here and have always loved the classy yet laid-back vibe of the place. It's just to the right as you walk in the front  (Strip) door of Cosmo, there's always great people watching as the "main drag" of the resort is right behind you, and the service and appetizers traditionally have been amazing. The first handful of times I returned after that first trip I was greeted by name or at least recognized and in a couple cases the tender remembered my drink. That's some next level shit in a place that has that many tourists come through. The formerly amazing app menu has changed for the worse and the sta...

Just got notice that my tax refund is headed to the bank this week, so my take-to cash for Vegas in March will be around $3500. This will be the most I've taken on a trip yet, and it's due mainly to to my anticipating the BS MGM policy of requiring a $100 a night hold on comped rooms, despite my again not staying in a suite or having access to any amenities of any kind. No, I'm not over it. Hey MGM, when you lighten your guest's pocket by $300 before they even reach their room you are not engendering a feeling of love toward your company. Especially when that guest religiously stays at your resorts (despite this fucktard practice) and blows money in your casinos, bars and restaurants. In fact, it makes me want to try out Total Rewards. Just sayin'. OK, for the purposes of this post, I'm over it. So ANYWAY, This will mean a true 1K+ a day in spending money for the trip. Which works out to about a $400 a day eating/drinking budget and around $600 blown on th...

North. That's all. I've gotten into a "rut" (if one can be said to have ruts in Vegas) on my last few trips of staying pretty much exclusively Cosmo and south on the Strip. Cosmo is pretty close to dead center of the Strip, so I'm going to try to get up to the north end this time, at least to the effective north end which is Mirage/Venetian/Wynn; no going up Riviera north or, Jeebus forbid, Strat north. I value my legs and don't want them falling off trying to hike up that far. As far as I can remember I've only been in Mirage once, maybe twice, despite it being a MGM joint and part of my rewards program. I want to get up there and I've never really been into Venetian/Palazzo at all, so I'd like to check them out. I don't really have to do MLife service on this trip as I'll make it to the next color tier just by checking in at Luxor, essentially, so I can branch out to other resorts w/o feeling like I'm missing out on piling up ...