:: So long, Stinktown! ::

I know it's not Friday any longer, but I've been meaning to post this since then. Also, I'm on vacation for the next week, so you can multiply the following e-card's sentiments by 7.



Next stop: Vegas.

:: On our way ::

Tonight after work, we're heading to Bellingham for the night, and tomorrow morning, we head to Las Vegas. On Sunday, while likely nursing a hangover, I will turn 30 years old.

Should be awesome. And a friendly reminder to any of my friends who are coming with us – counting cards is not illegal. It's only frowned upon. Like masturbating on an airplane.

See you guys next week.

:: Guns and Waffles ::

In recent weeks, ever since the countdown to Vegas has got into the 60/50-days to go range (I think we're at 40-something now, for those scoring at home) people have asked me what I want to do for my birthday itself - which is the first full day we're there.

Now, even though it's my birthday and this whole Vegas-for-my-birthday thing was my idea, I don't want to be the kind of person who says "Oh, well we all have to do this and then this and oh, then we're all going to do this, too!"

I mean, there's eight of us there for four days, and I'm sure we're gonna see more than enough of each other - mostly while shitfaced. And then I'm sure there will be other times when people wander off to do whatever they want.

When the 46 of us (it was 46, right?) went to Vegas last April, we did plenty together - gambled, played craps and then all hung out at ESPNZone for Colleen's birthday. And Christene and I actually went about a day and a half without seeing a single other person in our party (mostly because I was uber-hungover... 'twas not good). It was, in retrospect, a pretty damn good mix of organization and randomness.

That said, people have still been asking me what I want to do on my birthday. After careful consideration, I have only two requests for the day I officially leave my 20s behind:

1. I want to eat breakfast/brunch/lunch (whenever we wake up) at the Hash House A Go Go which is located at the Imperial Palace on the strip. I want to go there because I've heard people rave about it, and also I saw it on an episode of Man vs. Food. To put it simply, the food looks ridiculous. Like, enough to feed you for 4 days kind of ridiculous.

For example, take a gander of the following three photos from the Hash House. In order, they are photos of their pork tenderloin sandwich (yes, that's technically a sandwich... see the bun top?) fried chicken benedict; and chicken and waffles.




So yes, I would like to spend the first day of my 30s eating a disgusting amount of delicious yet terrible food. Because if your 30s are supposed to be about responsibility and kids and home-ownership and RRSPs, well I can think of no better way of saying "Fuck that" than by eating any of the three meals you see above this paragraph.

Oh, and there's one more thing, if you'll indulge me. I'd like to shoot some fucking guns.

You see, never in my 29 years on this planet have I fired any weapon stronger than a paintball gun, and while I have no intention of going on Ted Nugent on you, I would like to remedy that situation. Just because, well... just because. I propose we do it here - at The Gun Store.

(Now, I also realize that since my birthday is our first full day in Vegas, we may actually want to do other Vegas-y things on Day 1, so I'm OK if gun-shooting gets delayed a day or so. And if we do in fact delay, I suggest we fill the void by playing Beer Pong at O'Shea's. 'Tis a worthy substitution.)

So there you have it, folks. Guns and waffles. I am a simple man, and I don't think this is too much to ask.

:: Shadenfreude ::

Shadenfreude is described as, to the best of my knowledge without actually looking it up, taking pleasure in other people's misery. You might be surprised to know that I do this a lot.

I bring this up now because at the moment I am sitting in the boarding area of the Bellingham Airport, waiting for my flight, in an hour or so. We got here early - go figure - and as we walked into the terminal, it was the last boarding call for a flight to Vegas. And there is not much funnier than watching people scramble to make their flight.

We saw, in a matter of just a few minutes, three guys race through the doors yelling "last three for Vegas! Last three for Vegas!" and also two older women get chastised by the employee at the counter for being late. They blamed the border lineups. They were awful this morning - we waited an hour; Peace Arch border was apparently a 3 hour wait.

But still, I have no sympathy for em, really. They knew they had a border to deal with, they knew - or should have known - it'd be busy on a Saturday morning. Leave early, like we did.

In the end, everyone made the flight, it seemed. Except about 10 minutes after the plane left, we saw two couples come in, late. They looked stressed, angry, frazzled and unhappy.

They missed the flight, and despite my jerky ways, I felt bad for them. I mean, I feel bad for anybody who gets Vegas taken away from them like that, whether it was their own fault or not.

As they frantically tried to rebook flights for later in the day, I heard the airline woman say the following:

"OK, there's four of you and we have four flights. I can get one of you on every one..... oh, and two of them are tomorrow. That'll be an extra $291.09."

That's when it became funny again.

(See you in a week. Disneyland awaits!)

:: Countdown ::

Countdowns to various events are usually Kelsey's milieu but I thought I'd steal a page from her book this morning because it's less that two weeks until we go to Las Vegas, my all-time favourite city.

11 days, to be exact.

Vegas is always awesome, but I especially like going with people who have never been before, because - with my friends anyway - it usually exceeds expectations. For example, when we drove there from Phoenix about this time last year, Chris spent most of the drive down Las Vegas Blvd with his head almost out the window, like some kind of dog, staring up at all the gigantic casinos, before saying something like, "This buildings are so fucking huge it's almost overwhelming... and people are drinking on the street!"

Like I said, it exceeds expectations usually.

So yeah, 11 days. For those of you (Chris, Jenna, Kelsey, Scott, Katie, etc) who are not going, for very valid reasons (no time off, saving money, living 3,000 miles away, knocked up) well, that's all well and good, but you have 11 days to change your mind and make an irrational, likely financial harming decision to come with us.

Just saying.

:: Songs stuck in your head ::

As I was sitting here, browsing the Interweb for potential housing purchases (I'm moving - perhaps you've heard), my iTunes, which is on random, started playing some late-'90s Korn song that I didn't even know I had in my playlist.

Anyways, the song itself is pretty forgettable, but I hadn't heard it in ages, and it instantly reminded me of the summer between Grade 12 and college. And it's encouraged me to write a post that I'd been meaning to write for awhile (And actually may have written before, but a quick archive search turned up nothing, so I apologize if this is a repeat).

Through the years, there have been a handful of songs - or collections of songs - that instantly bring up a lot of memories, mostly good. And with that in mind, here they are:

1. Cruisin' Classics
When I was a kid, we took a handful of road trips to California - to go to Disneyland, or to visit my family in Northern California. And we had a handful of tapes (remember them?) for the trip, but the one that got played the most was Cruisin' Classics, which I'm pretty sure was bought at a random gas station one day, for about $3.99. Now, anytime I hear any of the songs from this tape - Rock 'n me by Steve Miller; Don't Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin; Kokomo by the Beach Boys, among others - reminds me of sitting in the back of my parent's Volkswagen van for hours at a time, asking "Are we there yet?! Are we there yet?!"

2. Collective Soul
Anything off Collective Soul's self-titled blue album reminds me of Grade 11 spring break. Chris and my parents had gone out of town somewhere for a hockey tournament, so my parents let my stay home for 4-5 days by myself, along with Jay, who was in the early stages of living with us at the time. We didn't really get up to too much debauchery (because we were nerds), but we did drive around a lot in my dad's Hyundai Sonata, and we left the same Collective Soul CD in the stereo the entire time. And listened to it over and over and over again. So whenever I hear a song off that album, I think of that week - complete with drinking, driving downtown for no reason other than because we could (not while drunk though), playing tennis, and Duke Nukem. Good times.

3. Korn
I already mentioned this off the top, but Korn was still pretty popular when I was in Grade 12. I'd switched schools for my final year of high school, and my new friends were big fans of Korn and metal bands. Whenever I hear, say, Freak on a Leash, for example, all I remember is house parties at my friend Brett's house, which almost always got waay out of hand and would end with cops being called, doors being pulled off the hinges and toilets being shattered. Yes, shattered.

After spending the first 16 years of my life being cripplingly shy, this was the year I finally started coming out of my shell a little bit, mostly because Brett forced me too. He was outgoing, fun, and popular with everybody, and even though I was shy and at a new school, he made a point of dragging me along for the ride, including me in everything, and I always appreciated that.

It was a far cry from Grade 11, where I became something of a pariah because I was too smart, too responsible, not cool enough, etc.. (You know how high school works). I don't see anybody from Grade 12 anymore - not Brett either, because he kind of went sideways after high school, but these are the memories I'm left with.

4. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
Anybody who ever played minor hockey will likely have this song stuck in their head for eternity. It was always the default "hockey warm-up song" during the 5-minute pre-game warmup, and was a go-to song at pretty much every tournament you'd ever go to. It was also the "theme song" of the Langley Thunder, back before they were the Hornets and then, finally, the Chiefs. And when I was 12 or 13, I went to a lot of junior hockey games.

5. Apologize, by Timbaland/One Republic
Not a great song, by any means, but it's a more recent memory. Last spring, when Chris, Jenna, TO, Carly and I went to Las Vegas, this song played in the Monte Carlo casino - where we stayed - over and over again for four days. Now, whenever I hear it, I think of sitting in that casino, in front of a slot machine or video roulette table, drinking my face off, and losing money. So no matter that this song isn't that great, and is definitely not my style, it has grown on me because of what it reminds me of.

6. The Distance, by Cake
The first time I heard this song was when my cousin Brian came to stay with us for a week from his home in California. He was up here for a hockey scouting showcase that Chris was also in, so Brian and a couple of his hockey buddies - Marcus and Beltzy (real name also Brian) - stayed at our house, and they had a Cake CD. I'd never heard of them before, and now they are one of my favourite bands. We had a really great week, and even though I keep in touch with Brian on Facebook, the other two guys have sort of fallen off the radar, which kinda bums me out, because they were great dudes.

7. Any weird punk cover of a previously lame song
Mike likes punk music, and he especially likes really weird music. When I lived in Kamloops, he made me a CD with a ton of weird cover songs by bands I'd never really heard of - like Ghoti Hook, Black Train Jack, MxPx. They covered songs from Celine Dion, Paul Simon, and a bunch of '50s tunes. I still have the CD on my shelf, and the songs are all in my iTunes library (Even the bad quality ones, which suck), so whenever one comes on randomly, I think of driving aimlessly around Kamloops with Mike and Shaun, eating Arby's and stealing garden gnomes.

Feel free to add your own songs/memories in the comments.

:: 10 Things I don't understand ::

In light of Christene's excellent 101 Things List, I decided I needed to come up with a new list of my own (I've already done the 101 Things). Now, this list is definitely not going to reach the century mark, but I figured 10 was a good place to start.

So, here I present to you, a list of things that continually baffle me – in no specific order.

1. Vegas vs. Vancouver

For some suburban-types, a night – or a weekend – on the town in Vancouver is a fun thing to do. Maybe you go to a concert or some kind of event or casino, grab some dinner, then go for some drinks. Then maybe you stay at a downtown hotel. Seems fun, right? Well, Vegas – the city I'd call the undisputed champion of fun – is gonna hurt the bank account no worse than that, and maybe even less. (Assuming, of course, that you don't bet your mortgage on the wrong colour while playing roulette).

Forgetting for the moment the cost of whatever show/event you've chosen to see downtown, the cost of a room at a hotel in Vancouver is going to run you about $200 a night, sometimes more. So for a weekend, you're lookin' at $400 right there. Factor in a night of drinking for two people (well over $120 if you're any good at it) and two dinners dinner (another $150  at least), and you're suddenly at $670 without entertainment. 

Conversely, to fly to Las Vegas (out of Bellingham) on a Friday evening and stay at a middle-of-the-road hotel right on the strip, then fly home Sunday night, is only about $300-$350 a person. Sure, you need gambling money and everything, but if you hit up a Vancouver casino on your big night out, it's no different. 

Basically, my point is this: Even if Vegas is maybe $100 more expensive, what would you rather do on your weekend? The fact that the prices between the two are so close absolutely astounds me, considering Plan A includes a 45-minute jaunt on a SkyTrain that likely smells like urine, whereas Plan B includes flying 2,255 km into another country and staying at a nice hotel.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's weird.

2. Women

I think this one is one the list for pretty obvious reasons.

3. Work productivity

Now, I don't want to jinx anything here, but for the last few years it's always amazed me how I can waste so much of my work day without getting noticed. There are more than a few days where I go into work knowing that I have very little to do and that I'm going to have to occupy my time by any of the following: making multiple coffee runs, checking Facebook, browsing Deadspin and the numerous other blogs and websites at left, and, you know, writing blogs. 

I've thought about it, and I think the reason I'm so bored and the reason I'm never caught is the same thing: I'm very productive. I get more work done than most – and quickly. Therefore, my work ethic is never, ever questioned, and in the past, it's actually been applauded. However, like the super smart kid in elementary school who works too fast and then becomes a disruption because he's bored, I find myself with time to kill. 

Now, I could understand if nobody noticed this situation for a week or two, maybe a month. But this has been the case now for a very long time. Just now, for example, about six people have walked behind me and, I assume, seen me typing this on the screen. Not a single person asked me what I was doing, or even offered a glance in my direction. 

Therefore, if they don't care, I refuse to feel guilty about it. (Besides, is it considered slacking if I still get all my work done?)

4. Those new Levi's commercials.

It's a Walt Freakin' Whitman poem! Used to sell jeans. Seriously, what the fuck? 

5. The E-Trade baby.

Where does a kid that age get so much money? And where the hell are his parents while he is puking and/or squandering the family fortune on penny stocks? And in that one commercial, how did that one black baby get there? Public transit? So many plot holes.

6. Fort McMurray

More specifically, I don't understand people's facination with it as some sort of get-out-of-jail free, pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow kind of place. But I've complained and argued this point many times before, so I digress. Still makes my list though.

7. Parsley

There was some in my fridge last month. I can't remember what recipe called for it, but I can guarantee to you that it didn't make a difference. There's a reason it only costs 42 cents a bushel – because it's pointless.

8. Major League Baseball's Gold Glove Awards

By now, the problems with this award have been well documented by people smarter than I, but how nothing ever changes is beyond me. They're becoming a bigger joke than the Oscars (I still stand by my long-held view that American Beauty is among the world's most terrible movies ever made).

9. The legions of teenage Twi-Hards.

My head nearly explodes when I try to wrap my brain around how fans of Twilight think, act and conduct themselves. I get so aggravated by them that I cannot properly express my true thoughts – which are a combination of anger, annoyance, and overall bafflement (and an urge to kill). These fans are this generation's Dungeons and Dragons' kids – huge, huge nerds. For further proof, go to YouTube and do a search for a user named Megster1992. I dare ya.

10. How people afford houses

This is right at the top of my list these days, as I make vain attempts to figure out how I'll ever be able to live in a real house – by real I mean one that has a yard and no strata. I have probably $75,000 in equity in my townhouse and make a mildly-above-average salary; Christene makes decent money, too – and has two jobs. Yet I still can't make the numbers work. 

Yes, I could complain – and do – about how real estate in this city costs way, way, way too much, but other people I know, in similar situations, seem to make it work. I just imagine going to the bank and them saying I can't have any money, because that seems to be what happens to me in such meetings. I just don't know how some folks make it happen. If you have any secrets, lemme know. (Please).

:: Vegas 4.0 ::

So last Wednesday, as many of you are aware, Christene and I departed for four days in my favourite city on the planet, Las Vegas. It was my fourth trip there in less than two years, and Christene's first ever.

And, as always, the city of Lost Wages did not disappoint.

To start things off, when we arrived at the Bellingham airport, the sandwich board at the entrance announced that the United States of Paranoia was on "Orange Alert" for terrorism. This apparently is bad, because orange is, according to the chart, a scarier colour than both blue and yellow.

No big deal, of course - there were no dicey situations with shoe-bombers or sketchy characters - but if there's one thing you do not want to hear while waiting at the gate, in a post-security holding pattern:

"Kuldeep Rahma, please return to security to unlock your bag. Unlocked bags are not allowed."

Now, I'm not one for racial profiling of any sort - Orange Alert or not - but I think it's safe to assume that if that announcement was made for somebody named Tim Jacobs or Billy Jones, I wouldn't have remembered it.

Just not what you really want to hear, is all.

But anyways, on to the trip itself....

Upon touching down in Las Vegas, the trip began wonderfully. We were heading to baggage claim, trailing behind a foursome of swanky-looking 20-somethings who had gotten off the same plane. Then one of the girls began a minor freak out. Why, you may ask? Well, she was wearing white capri pants, and unbeknownst to her, she sat in chocolate on the plane. A lot of it, in fact, so it looked like she had shit herself.

Awesome.

We were also staying at the Flamingo - older, but centrally located - which I'd never stayed at before. And while it was probably on the lower-scale of hotels, it was still nice simply because we upgraded our standard room for a "luxury GO-Room" that also had a strip view, for only $40 extra a night. And it was worth every damn penny.

Our room was awesome. It had a king-sized bed, mini-fridge, surround sound (with a free jazzy CD that they gave us at the front desk... also a good soundtrack for doin' it in front of the window...not that we did, but I'm just sayin'), and a 42-inch flat-screen TV. It also had an amazing view of Caesar's Palace and also the Bellagio fountains.

Also, at night there were lights in our room that, when you turned them on, glowed pink (Flamingo colours) and also the blinds and curtains opened automatically, with a switch on the wall.

Oh yeah, and the best part - there was a TV in the bathroom, embedded in the mirror. To quote Christene later that day:

"You haven't lived until you've dropped a deuce while you're watching TV. Every moment of my life was meaningless up until that point."

She's right. It was freaking amazing.

Also, among the other highlights - neither of us lost much money, and we each had a few decent-sized slot machine payouts... a few $50s, a couple $75s and one $96. Enough cash that it paid for a lot of our eating and drinking, which was nice.

Also, on Friday morning, we decided to take The Deuce to Fremont Street. We wandered around for a few hours, drank some drinks (and Christene did a lot of winning...she had the Golden Touch that day), and then we took the Deuce back to our hotel. It was on this return trip that we were lucky enough to sit behind a sketchy, smelly (Christene: "He smells of ketchups") old guy, who turned out to be a pimp.

As we travelled, we heard him talking on his phone to a person I can only assume was a fellow pimp. For a 10-minute stretch, he discussed loudly how he had a suite at the Stratosphere for only $25 a night, and had "one bitch" who had "a bangin' body" but was getting out of line.

Here's a rambling version of his rant. It's not word-for-word, but it's damn close. Much punctuation is also left out (Grammar Police immobilize!) intentionally, because this is how he talked.

"She's fucking out of control man I mean I fucking put that bitch up in the suite and suites aren't fucking cheap and I don't know who the hell she thinks she is. I mean I paid for her room for her food - I've been feeding her for a week - and that motherfucker thinks she's in charge and running the show that's not how it works fuck. I had two guys up there last night who wanted to party and she just left as soon as we got there. Whatever man, I don't care today is Friday so either way Imma gonna get motherfucking paid tonight."

He then, just as eloquently, proceeded to talk about "a big, fat black bitch" that he had up in the suite the night before.

Then he packed up his backpack (Which was full of those "Girls Direct to You!" trading cards...if you've been to Vegas, you know what I'm talking about) and left. We saw him on Saturday night, too, in front of our hotel, no doubt trying to drum up business for his bitches.

I mean, it was a Saturday, he's gotta get paid. Pimpin' ain't easy, after all.

Other things we did: went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel (We got some free coupons from our hotel, and saved us the $15/each admission), watched The Price is Right show (which was awesome), and ate at a $40/person buffet at the Wynn, and though that might seem like a lot of money, I cannot express in words how amazing it was.

It was possibly the best meal of my life. Here's what I ate, to the best of my recollection: Two slabs of prime rib, 6-8 Alaskan King Crab legs (which were too big for a plate), heaping mound of mashed potatoes, pork tenderloin, piece of pizza, about 20 sweet 'n sour shrimp, 2 Diet Cokes, 10-15 deep-fried shrimp wontons, pasta salad, bowl of ice cream, cookie, piece of chocolate cake, pecan bar.

I think I may have actually blacked out for awhile, so I may have eaten even more. And then we went back to our hotel and I pretty much died. (OK, I didn't die, but I did get to spend some quality time watching my bathroom TV, let's put it that way).

And before we get to the quotes, one more note on the Price is Right: It's cheap entertainment, and I reccomend it. We bought out tickets off Vegas.com a few months ago for only $37 each, which is considerably cheaper than most Vegas shows, and it was pretty kick-ass, even if we didn't get chosen to take part. You even get your own Price is Right-style nametag, and while we were registering before the show, some guys walked by, through the casino, and yelled "The price is wrong, bitch!"

Unfortunately though, only Christene and I laughed. I don't know if anyone else got the reference, which makes me a little sad.

And now some quotes....

At the aforementioned bufffet, near the end of the gluttony....
Christene: You know, that's a no-sugar added dessert you've got. I saw a sign back there.
Me: Good, I'm trying to be healthy.
Christene: Yeah, you're just like Hal Johnson.

"You know what? You kind of have a New York accent." - Christene, shitfaced.

After a drunken walk to The Mirage....
Christene: How the hell did we even get here?
Me: Uhh...we walked here, remember? You bought a giant $17 margarita and talked to all the Mexicans handing out the escort cards.
Christene: I don't remember that at all.

After I lost another $40 and Christene won $50...
Christene: You have to start thinking of it as our money. We're a team!
Me: True, but it's still your money in your wallet.
Christene: No, it's our money in my wallet.

Me: I had a dream that I won $6-million on a progressive slot machine. But in reality, all that will really happen is I'll find a 2-for-1 coupon for erotic massage on the ground outside the hotel.
Christene: Ooooh, 2-for-1. That means I can go, too.
Me: Oh, I was just gonna go twice.

"I wanna get sloppy drunk in someplace fancy!" - Christene, already sloppy drunk, on her way to someplace fancy.

Christene: In case you couldn't tell, I'm trying to put the moves on you.
Me: Really? All you did was rollover halfway and kick me.

And that pretty much sums it all up. We might go back in the spring, so if anyone wants in on the debauchery, keep it in mind. (We're gonna stay at Planet Hollywood next time).

:: Hi, I'm Troy McClure... ::

... you may remember me from "Almost a Month Ago" and "That time that Nick had a frequently updated website."

So, I'm finally back and able to write. However, it's been three weeks since we went to Arizona and Las Vegas (even if it doesn't seem that long ago), so here's why it's taken me so long to post anything: I almost died.

It hit me on our second-to-last-night in Vegas. We'd spent the entire damn day walking about. It was about 10:30 at night when we got back to our hotel, and my legs were extremely sore. I decided to take a short breather, and head up to my room to change and relax for a couple minutes. So up the elevator I went, and almost as soon as I got to my room, I suddenly got the shakes. I'm not unfamiliar with this condition - for me, it's a sign that I'm getting sick; I used to get them when I was overtired, overstressed and overworked at the end of every semester of university.

But I did not want to get them in Vegas. Regardless, it basically ended my night at 11:30 - I made a brief attempt to pull myself together and go back to the casino floor, but I couldn't handle it. The second night was slightly better - especially considering I won a couple hundred bucks - but I still knew something bad was going to happen.

It did, when I got home. The first night, I got home from the airport at midnight, and slept fine, but after that, whatever was wrong with me - flu, plus dehydration - killed me, and I did not sleep for five straight nights. Then, I had a couple decent days, and then the second wave hit me: throat infection, ear infection, and tonsilitis.

I've been on so much medication lately that it's actually making my stomach hurt. It's the sickest I've ever been in my life, and it's just today, three weeks later, that I'm finally beginning to feel human again. Not the way I wanted to spend my birthday weekend, I'll tell you that much. I also had to take two sick days - the first sick days I've taken in nearly five years - and I don't know if that really sat well with people, but there was nothing I could do. Besides, it was two days in five years, I don't think it was too much to ask.

Regardless, I'm on the mend - sort of. Somewhere in all this mess, I've also bought a truck that I don't quite have yet, watched my washer and dryer crap out on me, requiring replacements (Yay, more debt!), and taken about 400 naps.

As for the Vegas/Arizona trip itself, it was awesome, minus the getting sick. (And also minus Carly brilliantly leaving her wallet in an A&W bathroom in Sun City, Arizona, full of all her ID, credit cards and $600). Somebody at the restaurant found her wallet - still with everything in it - and she got it FedEx'd to our hotel in Vegas, so it worked out fine in the end, but wow, was that a tense rest stop at the Wikieup Trading Post in middle-of-fucking-nowhere Wikieup, Ariz.

Phoenix was rad - we saw two Mariners games, Chris almost got sucked into a Hawaiian time share just because he wanted to enter a contest where you guessed how many baseballs were in the case ("Listen lady, I really just wanted to guess the baseballs. I'm not interested in any of this.")

We also went rattlesnake hunting (didnt find any), ate a giant freaking cheeseburger at an unlikely spot, and drank a lot of beer while playing Trivial Pursuit outside in the backyard.

Vegas was, well, Vegas. Pretty awesome - especially because of the five of us, I was the only one who had been there. And it's always cool to see people's reaction when they first hit the Strip. (Chris: "This place is surreal. Everything is fucking massive, and people are just walking around with booze!)

In the end, nobody lost too much money - I basically broke even gambling thanks to my two slot-machine wins on the last night. Most of my money was spent on beer, food, tipping, and stuff like the car rental, parking at the airport, etc... Jenna also had some good slot machine luck - she won $92 bucks on the first machine she played all week, and won about the same on the very last machine she played before we left for the airport.

Also, we saw a douchebag get kicked out of our hotel casino because he insisted he bet on red playing video roulette, but obviously is an idiot and did no such thing. So he caused a scene. It was the highlight of the day - just awesome.

And now, for some old and new quotes:

On awesome weddings...
Jenna: I'm very bitter about Welcome to the Jungle.
Me: Why?
Chris: Because I said one day when I get married I want that song playing when the wedding party walks into the reception.
Me: That's rad!
Chris: I know. It'll play right after Jeremy throws out the first pitch.

"If this was 200 years ago, all those kids would be dead by now." - Scotty, after Katie told him she wasn't allowed to fail students or dock them marks for handing in work late. (editor's note: Scott's right. This system is a joke. Fucking coddled kids get nowhere. Toughen up you pussies)

"She had purple hair. Not bad purple hair, but.... bad purple hair." - Chris, talking about this chick Shannon whom he used to know many moons ago.

"TO is like a kid in a... candy store." - Me, watching TO go nuts at the M&M Store in Vegas.

Chris, acting as Captain Science during our road trip through the Arizona desert....
Chris: See the lines between those rock layers over there? Those are called striations.
TO: Oh yeah? Well do you know what the rings on trees are called?
Chris: No, what?
TO: Birthdays!

"I've never seen so many stupid people in one place." - Chris, after watching the Canucks/Coyotes game from the upper deck with the Coyotes' educated fans. (example: "What's that plastic all around the ice? Does it ever fall down?"

"Jenna, what do your boobs look like when they're just out there? They aren't like a sock with a bunch of rocks in it, are they?" - TO, classy as ever.

"I once dated a girl who lived way out here. She was really nice, but I had to break up with her because she was geographically undesirable. I mean, 50 miles each way!" - TO's Uncle Brad, who picked us up from the airport, which was not in any way close to North Phoenix. Apparently that city is really spread out.

"Hey look - liquor and wine! That's what I do to Carly!" - TO.

Me: If I get a dog, I'm gonna name it Chaser too. That's a rad name.
Chris: Really? He doesn't even bring the stick back.
Me: His name is Chaser. Not Bring-it-back-er.

And then one more story from Brad, who works as a game-day medic for the Coyotes. One day he was at the rink, and he was showing the training staff this new blood glucose tester that he had. It was the kind where you get a pin prick in the finger and it automatically reads your blood glucose level. According to Brad, any reading between 80-120 is good. As he was showing the trainer, Wayne Gretzky walked past.

"Hey, why don't you try that out on me?" the Wayner offered.

So Brad turned it on, and tested Wayne's blood glucose level on the spot. The reading on the little digital screen?

99.

Of course it was. It's in his blood.

:: Vegas, baby ::

Booked my trip for Vegas today, so in 18 days I'll be in the desert, losing all my money, staying up real, real late, and drinking for free.

And, most importantly, it's a few days away from work. Score.

Sidenote: The weekend before I leave is my birthday, so we're goin' drinking. It'll be low-key; there will be no party buses necessary, but we're goin' drinking. Just so you know.

And, now, here's these, which I've been saving a few weeks:

"She's a judger. I call her Philip Banks." - Buchs, talking about A-Scrams

"You're a pretty girl, why do you screw it up by making that ugly face?" - Buchs again, likely about Amanda...again.

Amanda: Everything is sharing...sharing, sharing, sharing!
Sean: If Rachel ever said that to me I'd share a slap with her.

and after we bugged Buch about this excessive "sharing" with Amanda...
Amanda: You think that's bad? Tell him about our joint account.
Buchs: It's a change jar.

Me (when Scott didn't show up to eat sushi with us): Scott's noodles are gonna be cold.
Kels: Scott's noodle is gonna be cold for a long time if he doesn't smarten up.

"I can't believe we used to call you 'Hot Sean' - you're such a weiner." - Amanda

"It's minority central. Why don't they jut bring in a Chinaman, too?" - Buchs, with his take on the Democratic leadership race.

After it was discovered that Sean was at Ian's house sans Rachel, who was on the Island...
"It's weird, that's all. It's just like if Chris is somewhere, Jenna's probably there too. Or if there's Scott, you know Kelsey will be there, or if there's Nick, you know nobody will be there." - Buchs

Ouch.