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

Countdown to Vegas trip #4 of the year in full effect now. Nothing really has changed in the planning. Good eating, questionable drinking, bad gambling. The usual. Have a bit of a life change that will affect Vegas a bit, going to get myself a car now that I'm licensed again. Too damn likely to die as a pedestrian in the City anymore, few days go by that I don't almost get mooshed while walking to and from work. Going to buy one outright via a 401k loan, so the only long-term financial impact is repaying the loan (bout $200/month directly debited from pay) and the insurance payment, which for all the cars I've modeled is less than $50. Looking at used Mercedes or Audis, I've always wanted a real car, no more crappy American or Japanese 4-bangers, and now that I have the means to do it finally, I'm going to make it happen. Good loan rate from Vanguard, less than 5%, better than I could get at any dealership so pulled the trigger. Still leaves a nice chunk in...

Some airline weirdness may have me going to A CITY OTHER THAN LAS FUCKING VEGAS next year. I know, I'm shocked too. So I booked the "out" flight of my March Vegas trip with Frontier Airlines, which apparently is dropping the SFO-LAS route in the new year. The upshot of that is I was refunded the full fare amount, AND was given a $100 flight voucher for anywhere Frontier flies. My first thought was Palm Springs for the tennis tournament down there in March but I will have just come back from Vegas and Frontier doesn't fly there anyway. Also thought Austin for F1 but that's not until next October, I'll be outside the booking window of the voucher. Then I thought "go see my mom", but North Dakota, yeah no. So now I'm thinking a Giants away game. I can't book it yet because it's too far out but the G-men will be in Denver in mid-April, or will be in Chicago and New York in May. Probably would just be a two, max three day excursio...

I'll have thoughts about last night, but not now. All I want now is to get to the weekend, get about 6 bottles of wine and try to forget Tuesday ever happened.

The older I get, the less I give a shit about sports. I've always been pretty selective about what I follow sports-wise anyway. I didn't share my dad/brother's passion for sports as a kid, I was much more interested in playing with Star Wars toys than watching sports with them. I didn't play any sports as a kid, I was in a youth basketball league for one season probably just at my dad's pleading. I sucked at it. I got into martial arts around when I was 13 or so, but that wasn't really a sports thing, it was an idolizing Bruce Lee thing. I didn't play or follow anything sports-wise until I picked up tennis when I was in high school. My mom had been into tennis and I had hit the ball off the garage door here and there but when I finally started playing in my sophomore year, I went crazy. I was obsessed. Played pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day in the summer from my soph year to my first year in community college. When I wasn't playin...

Because, mystifyingly, CET continues to provide me with free hotel rooms for no apparent reason, and because I'm silly, I have booked a March trip for next year. 5 free nights at Paris in a brand new Burgundy room with an Eiffel view. Just paying resort fees again, less than $200 where normies would have to pay over $1200. Arriving on a Wednesday night late and leaving on a Monday. In on Frontier  (UPDATE:Frontier dropped the SFO/LAS route, so had to spend $25 more to go in on Virgin), out on Virgin. Arriving around 10p, so really it's 5 nights, 4 days, then out in the afternoon on Monday. Round trip flight ridiculous at exactly $100 (UPDATE: now more like $125. Still good). All told should only have to take Th/Fri/Mon off work, and it's usually slow around then at my job so no big whoop. Haven't spent much time at Paris in all my trips, so this should be interesting. Good location as it is with PH for Xmas. Again just paying the resort fees for 5 nights, so aro...

Not much of a plan. Pretty unhindered on this trip. No messing around with myVegas, no being tied to Mlife resorts or any resort for that matter. No resort swapping as I have done in the past on Xmas trips, just 5 long, free days at Planet Hollywood. I get in on the Thursday before Xmas, around noon. Probably a little early to try to check in, so I'll likely get the car to take me to the Cosmo, maybe grab a quick lunch at the Henry to get some liquor soaking going on, then have a drink or two at one of the bars before crossing the street to check in at PH. Check in, grab a six-pack from The Store by the lobby to take up to my in-room fridge (a free one with no strings attached!) and head up to check out the Ultra Hip Fountain View room. Unpack, iron some shirts if needed, relax for a little bit, have a beer and check out what should be a pretty great view. Don't think I'll need a nap as I don't have a crazy early wake up call this time. After that I'm fre...

Oh Mlife. I love you and hate you. Was thinking about getting a double book situation going on for the Xmas trip, since I almost always have some sort of Freeplay/Resort Credit in all my offers. Just last week there were still up to three nights and FP/RC in my offers. Logged on to the Mlife site tonight - all gone. I get a "tier discount" of about 5 bucks off on nights I want to book. Just, whatever. I guess I didn't throw enough money away in the trip a couple weeks ago, so now I'm a second class citizen again. In about 2 weeks all my tier credits go away too as they do every October 1st. Wouldn't be surprised if I lose Pearl status when that happens. UPDATE: Nope, still Pearl. Hooray? I don't get the algorithms Mlife uses. After the last time they demoted me I actually got BETTER offers than I was getting at Gold. Now, despite staying and playing at MGM resorts exclusively this year, and staying at MGM resorts on 13 of my 17 Vegas trips, I'm...