Why I Love Vegas

I realized today just how much I've been slacking here.  I hadn't sent a Tweet in 6 days (follow me) and I haven't posted a blog here since before I went away on vacation.  I went out to Vegas for a week.  I had a lot of fun even though it wasn't particularly profitable.  I played one really good tournament, finishing 12 out of 137 at the Venetian's noon tournament one day.  BTW, the Venetian runs the best daily poker tournaments I've ever played.  They also have one of the nicest poker rooms I've ever been in.  Anyway, the rest of my poker results were pretty horrific.

This was my third time out to Vegas.  (Technically it's the fourth, but the first time was twice in a week, so I just count it as one.)  I've done a lot of the sightseeing stuff in earlier trips, so I didn't do too much this time.  Still, I always have to see the Bellagio fountains at least once.  I also rode the New York, New York rooftop roller coaster again.  

I saw Cirque du Soleil's "O" at the Bellagio.  The Cirque shows are fantastic.  "O" is the water themed show, and it was very cool.  Still I think "Love," the Beatles Cirque show was better, and I'd really like to see it again at some point.

Anytime I go on vacation to someplace new I have this stupid habit... I like to eat at the fast food chains that we don't have here in NJ.  In Toronto, it was Tim Horton's.  In Houston it was Whattaburger.  I've been to all of them before, but in Vegas I got Jack In The Box, Del Taco, and In 'N' Out Burger.  (Side note, Jack In The Box really needs to expand out here.)  Also Dunkin Donuts has finally started adding some locations in Vegas, so I finally got a decent coffee.

There is one really silly thing about Vegas that I just love, and that's the music you hear in the casinos and the parking garages.  A couple of years ago, it was "Glory of Love" the Peter Cetera song from the Karate Kid Part 2 soundtrack.  This time, I took notes on the bizzare stuff.  It took me about two minutes to realize I was singing along out loud to Cheap Trick "Surrender" in the MGM Grand parking deck.  There was Fleetwood Mac "Little Lies" in the halls of the Bellagio as I looked for the "O" Theater.  (If I remember correctly that was followed by a Roxette song, but I didn't make a note of that.)  I heard Richard Marx in the Venetian poker room.  I found that to be particularly odd after they played O.A.R.'s "Shattered."  Mr. Mister's "Kyrie" in the halls of the MGM Grand was another fun one.  The absolute strangest song though had to be in Paris in the walkway back to the parking deck at about 3 in the morning.  They were playing Letters to Cleo "Here & Now."  I seriously doubt most people have any clue who Letters to Cleo are.  I can't, for the life of me, figure out why they'd be playing such an obscure band in Paris, of all casinos.

Anyway, I've been back for a couple weeks now.  I'll start getting caught up with new posts.  I'll probably skip writing directly about the TV stuff from the past few weeks and just pick up with the new episodes.  I also have a few new CDs I've been listening to (but haven't ripped to iTunes yet) so there'll be more reviews coming there too.