Leaving Las Vegas

A couple of things I learned during my most recent trip to Las Vegas:

-Treasure Island (and I refuse to call it T.I.) has totally lost all of its charm since it ditched all of the skulls and bones to become more upscale. And that's bullshit.

-And, speaking of which, while most of the resorts in Vegas are now attempting to abandon their once-ridiculous ways in order to become more "refined," Caesar's Palace just gets more preposterous. Here's the new foyer to their shopping mall:

Here's the Victoria's Secret in that same mall:

It's good to see that someone thinks that "flashy" is still good.

-I thought Anne Ramsey was dead, but, sure as shit, there she was, working in the box office at Harrah's. No signs of Sloth, Chunk, or the rest of the Goonies Gang.

-Las Vegas now has more nightclubs than every other city combined. "That was a bathroom last time we were here. Now it's a club." The ratio of clubs to Starbucks is now 2:1.

-Taking your style cues from any of the Gotti kids is a bad, bad, bad idea.

-Fernando Vargas is short.

-"I hate this airport. What kind of respectable airport doesn't have a McDonald's?" Apparently, Vegas' McCarran Airport, which makes due with two Wolfgang Puck restaurants. What a shithole.

-The pigeons in Vegas are black. No shit:


-Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill is very un-country and western. It's more Chateaubriand than country-fried steak.

-The bottle-flipping bartenders at Harrah's make Tom Cruise look like the fag he is.

-I'm not sure what Steve Wynn paid to build Wynn Las Vegas, but I'm pretty sure you could have paid off at least half of the national debt with that same money.

-If you want to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel, be prepared to be isolated from anything resembling civilization.

-"Greg" is not as common of a name as I thought.

-The Hooters Hotel and Casino contains more orange and laminated hardwood than I thought it would, if that's possible.

-Louis Vuitton is expensive.

-The Boardwalk, the one of the last "crap"sinos on The Strip, is gone:

It will almost assuredly be replaced by some anonymous mega-resort, which are now a dime a dozen.

-The new Cirque du Soleil show, The Beatles LOVE, is outstanding. It doesn't have as much of the spectacular acrobatics as the other shows, but they don't feature two hours worth of Beatles music. Worth every penny.

-Surprisingly, the waitresses at Gilley's wear the skimpiest outfits on The Strip. If Gilley's had the bartenders from Harrah's, it would be the Greatest Bar in the World.

-The Beyonce mannequin at Madame Tussauds is good times. I'm thinking of getting one for the house.

-The billboards outside the new Trump Tower claim 64 floors. I counted about 15.

-Sephora is a great place to freshen up after a long day's walk. I know, technically, it's stealing, but they wouldn't leave the testers out if they didn't want you to use them.

-I won $5.50 on the stupidest sports bet in history.

-And if one more person tries to sell me a fucking timeshare, I'm going to kill someone.

Great time; can't wait to go back