Snarkastic

When I knew we were in trouble: Denouement

I'm forgetting half the weekend already. I just know it. Omissions brought to my attention include this incident, the guy at Casino Royale who hit on a passing skirt by telling her he liked her TOE RING, Blackjack Switch and The Word's Most Liberal 21 Table (Kanu, 'splain, brother; it's all a blur), and the dashing combination of Spencer's velour blazer and Kanu's seersucker pants. I should've written this right after it happened...but Sunday was the day that saw all three of us collapse onto a grassy median across from Mandalay Bay in the middle of the afternoon, dead sober but punch-drunk.

I'm getting ahead of myself. One last time, the facts are these:

• After a bare few hours of sleep, we reconvened with Nathan at Mandalay Bay to take in the last games of the weekend.
• We met an amaretto-swilling broad getting hot and heavy with a schlub in one of those polo shirts designed to look like the American flag.
  HOLLY: That looks new. How do they still make those?
  SPENCER: Hilfiger knockoffs never go out of style.
  HOLLY: Or maybe those colors don't run.
• At the comparison of La Bayou to Claire's, Kanu went to the zoo. Where "went to the zoo" implies "put his face down in his sandwich and howled."
  
• Tennessee managed to knock off a team from something called "Butler University". I told a gaggle of Loovll girls on the way out to enjoy their victory next week.
• Swung through the casino on our way out. This was right about the time Kanu convinced Spencer to put his entire per diem on one roulette spin. Sorry about the camera work; I was convulsing with silent laughter.
• We re-emerged into the late afternoon sun, and hit the wall. There was a rational explanation at the time, involving a very large cup of tea and a wait for a nearby bus, but the grass was SO SOFT. If I hadn't been freezing in a trashy sundress I would in all likelihood be there still.
• After staggering to our feet and enduring the world's longest bus ride, it was time for me to say goodbye to LV.
  
• The boys, not so much.
• I hate flying. I don't have to self-tranq to hop on a plane or anything, but if there's a reasonable option to drive, I'll take it. I do great thinking and writing with the double yellow line for company. After basically being up for three days straight, the four-hour trip back to LA seemed like a terrible life decision, but the same stretch of desert that washed away the emotional abuse of my work week on the way up seemed to start to cleanse some of the system abuse on the way back. By the time I hit the Sunday night 11:00 gridlock just outside the city limits, I was dancing my ass off to Adam Freeland's latest Radio 1 set and feeling very fine. (Sidebar: "They Live" by Evil Nine is featured prominently in this mix, twice. If They Live scared you half as much as it scared me, I cannot recommend putting yourself in a position to be surprised by it in the middle of a pitch-black desert.) Before I knew it, I was cresting the hill into my veryown hood.
  
• I returned to California armed with $60 in winnings, a third of it in quarters, and a slew of knowledge:
  • Fremont Street > The Strip
  • The Imperial Palace has phenomenal water pressure for a place that looks like a Chinese restaurant the size of a small city. (Also, my room was right behind the letters on the building, and there was a Close Encounters-y neon purple spotlight shining through my window.
    
    On Saturday night, I actually outlasted the lights of Sin City. I win Las Vegas.
  • Best sports book: Caesars. Best camping spot: Paris. Strongest cocktails: Mandalay Bay.
  • Pleasantest culture shock: Traveling with hypercommunicative bloggers means everyone is on their iPhone/BlackBerry/Palm all the time, and no one glowers at you for being antisocial or rolls their eyes when you Twitter message someone from five feet away.
  • Sole regret: Not visiting Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, which bills itself as "North America's Only Predator-Based Aquarium."
  • Which just means I've got to go back, right? See y'all lawyas in the fall.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. This multiplatform new media future journalism production has been brought to you by Tylenol Cold Multi-Symptom Citrus Burst cough syrup, the official drank and miracle cure of EDSBS.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Posted by Nastinchka at March 26, 2008 09:38 PM