It's tough to remember where I left off as far as tales of last weeks buffoonery, but some some incriminating photos found on my digital camera are helping me put the pieces together.
Lets see, last thing I wrote about was staying at work all night on Thursday when the Mix crowd decided to go back downtown instead of coming out to my casino to play at my table. Well, I got several hours of sleep, which as it turned out was a Good Thing.
I crawled out of bed around 10 am, showered, packed a bag, and headed out to do my errands. The first stop was at the bank where the plan was to take out a cool grand for the weekend's activities. Once inside, I realized I still had $175 in my wallet left over from earlier in the week that somehow I forgot about. So I just cashed a check for $825, asking the nice gal at the counter for the last fifteen bucks in singles. She gave me a knowing look along with a stack of gubmint-issue greenery, and I was out the door.
First stop, Walgreens on Maryland Pkwy and Flaming-O to pick up the last of the essentials for Angy's party later that night. I got a small cart and filled it with more soft drinks, chips, and about 30 lbs. of ice. With surprising foresight, I also picked up an extra-large Foster's-sized can of some energy drink I'd never heard of before, but it touted that it had no sugar or carbs, so I was willing to give it a shot. I got the stuff loaded and was headed to the IP and Angy's room.
Angy met me downstairs at the valet, and we unloaded the cooler, my luggage, the grocery bags, and a big box full of Mardi Gras beads, plastic drink cups, and Girl Scout cookies, along with the rest of the booze that had been riding in my trunk for the previous two days.
A few minutes later the bellman dropped it all off and we set out preparing for the party. Two cases of beer went on ice, along with vodka and Jaegermeister, while we stocked the fridge and freezer with more vodka and soft drinks.
Once that task was completed, we decided to head downtown and meet up with a couple of my buddies for lunch. Ed W of previous trip report fame had just arrived, along with a couple other guys from his office.
We met up at the entrance to the Triple 7 Brewpub there at Main Street Station and were seated pretty quickly. The conversation hovered around our bracket picks, the upcoming party, and life as a dealer in Vegas. And oh yeah, my bbq bacon cheeseburger was fantastic. Angy was distracted by all of the incoming phone calls and decided to bail out and grab a cab, while I opted to stay with my buddies. I told her I'd be back later before the party got underway.
My phone was pretty much ringing off the hook that day--I had something to the tune of 58 incoming calls by 6pm on Friday, but I ignored most of them and embraced the madness.
After lunch, we decided to do a little gambling, and I won $13 at the Pai Gow table before we decided to head over to the Plaza. As soon as we got there, I saw the rest of my gang on their best behavior at the poker table. Well, as best as they could manage--I saw Doc Al, Cyndi, Terry, Jer, Larry, and a few others treating the seats at the green felt as their own personal open-mike night, much to the chagrin of the oldsters who had the bad sense to join them. I believe the saddest thing I heard all weekend was one of them complaining that they were having too much fun at the poker table, and they should stop because he
needed this money. I believe the unanimous response was something along the lines of
then get the hell out of the casino, dipshit.
At some point, I was introduced to Carmen, who is more commonly known by her nickname Sticky Fingers. Not knowing at the time how she got that name, I kept one hand on my wallet for the rest of the afternoon. Ed and I hit the blackjack table, with Sticky in tow, and I managed to double up my buy-in and cash out for something just north of $200 after just 20 minutes or so.
By that time the poker game broke up and everyone disappeared. Ed wanted to go over to the Nugget and hook up with his buddies, so Sticky and I decided to head back down to the Strip and meet up with Angy.
A half hour later we were kicking back in her luxurious penthouse suite at the Imperial Palace, and I decided that it was time to make a few drinks. One of my favorite party cocktails is called a
Spicy Beaver, which is Goldschlager, Captain Morgan, and Coke over ice. I made the first three for Angy, Sticky, and myself while we laughed it up and waited for the party to get underway.
Since it was almost 6 pm by that time, we called room service to bring up some more party favors. We ordered a tray of fruit, cheese, and crackers, three or four trays of hot wings, four buckets of ice and an OJ knife. Luckily lots of folks started showing up immediately and the party was on! I kept busy making Spicy Beavers for everyone, while Terry was armed with a load of shot glasses and an industrial-sized bottle of Patron tequila. By seven pm, there must've been about 25 or 30 people packed into Angy's suite, and making the evening complete, my favorite Vegas girl Andrea showed up ready to rage with us.
Since it was St Paddy's day, there were lots of party favors if not green beer. I was victimized by Angy and forced to play dress up.
This is your humble host, starring in Green Man Group
The feather boa is always a hit with the ladies, but I felt that the green wig made me look a little too much like that dude in the Princess Bride who said
Nobody survives The Machine! It also made my head sweat, so the wig never left the party. Unfortunately, that picture of me is now featured on a dozen cellphones scattered across the country. Senator Reid's re-election is safe once again... But as good as I looked in that wig, I think Andrea looked a little bit better:
The party raged for several hours, lots of shots were drunk, stories told, photos taken, and a few derailments happened along the way. I can't remember having a better time.
I love hanging oot with those friendly Canadians
Of course, nothing says 'good time' like sitting in a hot tub with two hot women, although more water and fewer clothes may have enhanced the experience.
After drinking way too much tequila with Ed and Terry, and way too much Crown with Andrea, we decided to take our buffoonery on the road. Some folks hit another limo ride, others went to the casino, while Andrea and I decided that dancing at Carnival Court would be the place for us. Of course, we were completely drunk, so our dancing skills were much better than normal by that time.
The band was awesome and we were having a great time, and we met some nice girls on the dance floor who liked to practice their mad grinding skillz on me, so I was thoroughly enjoying the vibe. Of course I had to pimp out Andrea to make a few bucks, and she performed like a trooper.
My best-earning girl gets some cab fare for later We'd obviously been drinking pretty heavily by that point, but Andrea had a brilliant idea. We figured that the law of averages was on our side, so we decided that we'd ask ten random chicks if they'd be interested in a threesome with us that night, figuring that eventually somebody would say yes. Unfortunately, the thought of it was too much to handle coherently, and we forgot to proposition anyone. Although we had fun picking out the ones we would've asked.
Sober as a couple of judges, we areI vaguely remember heading up to Toby Keith's bar at some point and getting more Jack & Coke for our already-pickled systems, and seeing the aliens constructing another pyramid:
After that we made our way back to the IP and found a bunch of our fellow buffoons lurking about the casino. Angy needed to get a couple of extra room keys made for her friends Cyndy and George, so we waited by the slot machines while she did that. Cyndy, being complete blonde hotness, was at a poker table taking money off of all the poor schmucks who were hitting on her when they should've been paying attention to their cards. I decided to have a little fun, so I got her room key from Angy and strolled into the middle of the poker room, trailing my green feather boa.
I walked right up to her table, where she was clearly the center of attention, gave her a hug from behind, dropped the key card on the table and announced loud enough for everyone to hear
Here's your room key, honey, don't stay out too late. Me and the boys are going to Cheetahs later--you want me to bring us back a redhead or a brunette this time???Heh.
Cyndi played it cool, like it was a typical conversation we always have, and apparently this pissed off the dude sitting next to her that was trying much too hard to impress her, and he wouldn't move his chair out of the way to let me pass, even after I asked him twice to scoot up for me. So I just leaned down, pushed him out of the way and whispered
You've got no shot, junior before making my way out of the poker room.
After that we decided to go downtown so about six or seven of us got in the cab line. Lucky us, we were behind the girl who decided she needed to puke every three feet. But they wouldn't let her in a taxi, and shortly thereafter we were back at the Plaza wandering around looking for everyone else. We found a group of familiar faces at a poker table, most notably Dougie and Dave (the squid steak guy from that night at Andre's)
While everyone gathered around trying to figure out what to do next, I had to take care of a little drama. At some point, Andrea had picked up a stalker, a married dude no less, who was trying so hard to get into her pants that night that he was starting to creep her out. He kept calling her every five minutes and sending text messages trying to hook up. Finally she'd had enough so I called his ass back and gave him the
Get off my Kool-Aid, bitch! speech and he was sufficiently chastened, trying to tell me that he was just looking for the group so that he could hang out with all of us. But I'd read and heard all the messages he sent, so I knew he was full of shiat. However, after that we never had a problem with him again.
We'd had a bit much to drink over the course of the evening, so Andrea wanted to get some food. So about six or seven of us wandered back to the brew pub at Main Street. Unfortunately, this visit absolutely sucked. Poor service, and the breakfast we ordered was about the shittiest I've ever had. First of all, our food didn't arrive until 15 minutes after everyone else's, and they don't butter the toast. They bring out the dry stuff with cold butter pats. Fucking retards. Worst breakfast ever. Although the food sucked, the company was good and we had a lot of laughs, especially Marty doing his Hef impersonation, stumbling around downtown wearing Angy's Imperial Palace bathrobe.
After breakfast, everyone pretty much split up and went their separate ways. Andrea was needing a place to crash that night--her original plan was to stay at the IP with Angy and the girls, but there were four of them and only three beds, so I stepped up and told her she could hang at the Plaza. Besides, my luggage was also up at Angy's room, so I had to go get it anyways.
So we walked back to the cabstand at the Plaza, and it was so windy that Andrea lost three cigarettes before we got there. We finally made it back to the IP, and we had a room key to Angy's penthouse. When we got in, it looked like a tornado, or at least a mild hurricane, had struck. God what a mess. Feeling bad, we left $40 behind with instructions that Angy give it to the housekeeping staff. We then fetched our luggage and headed for the parking garage.
By that time sobriety had set in, so we drove the sled back downtown. Tired of gambling and drinking, we just went back up to the room. We stayed up laughing and talking until almost 5am when Cyndi stumbled in from the poker room and joined us. Just about the time the sun started peaking up over the Fremont Street canopy we turned off the lights and tried to sleep.
You know you've brought your 'A' game when you can talk a girl into the rollaway bed... But nothing happened--no threesomes, and all she got outta me was a foot rub this night. Even so, you've got to respect that come-hither look she teases me withUnfortunately, I was unable to sleep--my phone started ringing again, and I kept myself busy checking all of the messages from the day before.
I also called Sticky to find out if she was still alive after her derailment at the party the night before--I guess Doc and Angy had to put her to bed at 10:30 the night before and she missed the lion's share of the buffoonery. The lesson here is that there
may be such a thing as too much of a good time... Especially when shot glasses are involved.
But she was alive and kicking and told me that she'd be ready to hang out later that day after everyone got up and moving again.
Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to just get up and take a shower and do a little gambling. I told the girls to meet me downstairs so we could go to breakfast, then I headed to the casino, where I made about $150 courtesy of the blackjack tables at the Plaza.
Doc and Dougie met up with us a couple hours later and the five of us piled into the sled and headed south towards our ultimate destination of the Peppermill, but first we dropped off Andrea at her car in the IP garage and she headed home to sleep for the day.
We got to the Peppermill and met up with Eddie B and Chuck, who had arrived in town late the night before. We had to wait a few minutes for a table big enough to support a group our size, but killed the time by diving into a little hair of the dog and partook of such concoctions like bloody marys and kahlua & coffee.
Breakfast was great, and we had a lot of laughs catching up with Eddie. Sadly, Chuck was a bit of a wreck and couldn't do much with his chorizo & eggs except stare at it and sweat. I think he ate tortillas and water for breakfast. Once the bill was tabulated and the waitress was paid, we headed back down to the Plaza for the Official Travel2Vegas.com March Madness No Limit Poker Invitational, after making a quick stop at Treasure Island to pick up Sticky.
Once we got there and signed in, the smack talk started in earnest, and I heard myself telling Doc that his $50 buy-in would last longer at the Palomino Club.
While waiting to get started, Eddie B hit a royal flush on video poker for a cool grand, so he suddenly felt much better about his chances, while I lost 11 hands of pai gow in a row, again, witnessed by Doc Al and Big Stogie.
I can't say that I was happy with my tournament table draw either--two married couples comprised four of the nine players, but I was most concerned with not being the first one busted out of the tournament nor being the first one busted out of my table. Luckily I was neither, and had a decent run, making it beyond the first break and all the way to 12th place when my jacks ran into Steve B's aces.
On a positive note, my sister Cyndi, who has never played no-limit poker in her life, busted Andrea's stalker out early and we never saw or heard from him again the rest of the weekend. But I was happy with my showing, busting out Larry the surfing sailor just before getting knocked out myself. And I finished ahead of the two people I take the most shit from at the poker table, Dougie and Doc Al. Oh yeah, and Eddie B made it to the final table, but didn't quite make it into the money.
After getting busted out, the folks that run the poker room set up a private table for those who still wanted to play a little low-limit holdem. So I found myself with the mutants at table nine, buying in for a hundo at a $2-$4 game. Ugh. I suddenly remembered why I hate playing such low limits--big hands never hold up, and my pocket aces cost me about $28 or so instead of earning me anything. As crappy as the game is, I sure had a great time and a lot of laughs, although I didn't rake a single pot. Giving up after losing sixty bucks, Sticky, Chuck, and I decided to hit the dice table. We finally found a hot shooter and I made some money back before moving to the blackjack tables and winning back even more.
The tournament went on for about three hours total, and I was there to witness Rambill knock out Steve B on the final showdown by one card. It was pretty damn cool, and Rambill got a bracelet, a pile of cash, and a mini bottle of tequila fashioned into a Special Olympics style gold medal necklace.
I'd have to say that the poker tournament was one of the funnest things that we did all weekend. Out of 27 entries, I knew 23 or 24 of the people there, and the Plaza poker room did a fantastic job of organizing and hosting it. Everyone agreed that we'd be doing it again next year. Who knows, thirty years from now it could get big enough to have at the Rio...
After all that everyone kind of split up to go gambling or whatnot, but we only had a couple of hours before having to leave for dinner at The Palm, so I figured on relaxing a bit before getting ready to go. I invited Sticky to join us, so her, Cyndi, and I went back up to the room to hang out for a bit before dinner.
I showered, shaved, and got dressed, then confirmed our reservations. Everyone met down at the valet at 6pm and we headed towards Caesars Palace. I'd forgotten about Strip traffic on a weekend, but luckily we made it in time, and although the chumps at the Forum Shops valet stand turned their nose up at the ghetto sled, they parked it anyways. Unfortunately, we were a good mile or so from the restaurant due to the crackhead architect who designed the place.
But we made it, well, most of us did, Eddie and Chuck were MIA, but the rest of us got seated immediately.
Our waiter took drink orders, and Doc Al got the ball rolling by ordering at Sapphire Martini, so the rest of us followed suit. That got the party started, and just about that time Eddie and Chuck showed up.
I had a proper-sized shrimp cocktail for an appetizer, and ordered the veal special for my entree. Basically it was a huge veal shank grill with a wine sauce and covered in mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, and served with three large grilled shrimp. To say that it was the best piece of veal I've ever eaten would be a vast understatement--it was fantastic! Everyone else raved about their meals, too, except those that had the pasta special--word was that it was just ok. Everything else was excellent--we had creamed spinach, mushroom caps, and grilled onions with garlic as sides, and Eddie picked out a couple of bottles of excellent Pinot for the table.
The meal was excellent, and of course the good company made it even better. I was joined by Sticky, Dougie, Cyndi, Doc Al, George, Marlisha, Eddie B, and Chuck. I can't remember having a better time at dinner--just a great experience all around.
We even ordered dessert--Sticky and I shared the tiramasu, while other desserts found their way to the table, the only other one that stood out was Doc's creme brulee which I mangled with my spoon while trying to get a rasberry, the 'broken glass', and some creme filling all at the same time. It was good--like Doc says--you gotta respect a dessert that calls for plumbing tools during preparation, but I really liked the Tiramasu much better.
The bill wasn't too bad, about a Benjamin apiece after appetizers, salads, entrees, desserts, and wine, and we were happy to pay it. I wouldn't hesistate to go back there again.
After dinner, we found a shortcut through the bowels of Ceasars Palace, past several 'Authorized Personnel Only' doors and about thirty seconds later we were back at the valet.
We met up downtown for a couple of hours of dice at the Fremont, but we couldn't win a damn thing. People started splitting up and heading in different directions, but I didn't feel like going to a club (Andrea's plan for that night) so Sticky and I stuck together, stayed downtown, and played a bunch of those video penny slots that I don't understand, losing about forty or fifty bucks in the process.
We pretty much lost everyone at that point, so we headed back to the Rio where she was staying. Once we got to the room, we decided we wanted some water, so back downstairs we went. Trying to pay, I freaked out a little because my wallet was missing--talk about panic, I had no idea where it could be unless I dropped it in the bathroom upstairs. We hustled back upstairs and breathed a sigh of relief when I found it under the sink in the bathroom. For a minute there I was a little scared.
After that it was smooth sailing however--we drank our water and stayed up until the wee hours talking and laughing and enjoying the strip view.
Around 5:30 am my phone was ringing--it was Cyndy, Angy, Andrea, and George calling from the hooker bar at the Paris. Cyndy had left me like five messages that night and was pissed at me for not hanging out with them, but I figured that all of the girly-girls didn't need me around keeping them from getting all the free drinks they could with all of the guys sniffing around them all night. But she was drunk and started calling me a loser for not hanging out with them so I ended that conversation right there.
I managed to get a little sleep there at the Rio, but got up and took a shower before putting on the same clothes as I had on the night before. Sticky didn't feel like going to brunch, and had to check out by noon anyways, so she opted to stay behind, while I left to pick up the gang back at the Plaza.
Once free from the slowest valet service in all of Vegas, I got to the Plaza by 11:15 or so and Doc, Dougie, and Cyndi were waiting for me out front. They piled in and it was off to the Sterling Brunch at Ballys. Our reservations were at noon, and we got there just in time. Angy arrived a minute or two later, and George and Marlisha showed up shortly after that.
We were seated in a private dining room, and our wait staff filled our three glasses--one with orange juice, one with champagne, and the other with Evian water. Then it was time to hit the buffet.
Oh hell yeah.
There was some excellent offerings available, and I loaded up--a 'robster omret', some smoked salmon, a country benedict, bacon, sausage, pan seared scallops with forest risotto, beef tenderloin, robster craws, a small filet, some sort of pasta salad, sushi, shrimp cocktail, the list goes on and on... It hit it a couple of times before giving up and going for dessert--bananas foster, vanilla bean ice cream, and a miniature carrot cake thingy dipped in honey. Man, it was soooo good.
Dougie and Angy ate enough lobster to make them an endangered species, and the only bad thing we encountered were the sugar-free desserts. Good god they sucked.
Was it worth $65? I don't know about that--they didn't keep the food stations full enough--the dessert area looked wiped out the entire time, and I could never get seconds on the scallops. For that kind of jack, you'd think they'd be johnny-on-the-spot, but it was a small gripe that didn't distract that much from a great brunch experience. Our servers were excellent, and in order to actually finish the glass of champagne you had to tell them to stop filling it up every time you took a drink.
Would I do it again? Probably, but I'd go earlier I think. It was excellent, and overall I'd give it a B+. I'm glad I could finally mark that one off my list.
By that time I was completely exhausted, having not gotten any sleep at all for the previous two nights. So when we finally got back to the Plaza, I went up to the room and crashed for a couple hours of precious sleep.
It felt like five minutes had passes when the alarm started going off. So I shuffled off to my house, took a shower and went to work. Sitting in the break room before hitting my tables for the night, I was staring at a glass of milk and a sprinkly donut. One of the girls I work with asked why I was just staring at my milk, and I told her it was because that was the first thing since like Thursday I'd had without any alcohol in it.
Work was tough, but luckily I was dealing all Pai Gow that night. I signed up to leave early, and around 11 a few familiar faces showed up to play at my table. I kept kicking Steve B's ass (revenge for taking me out of the tournament the day before?), although Cyndi was winning a little bit, and Doc caught a hand or two. Angy was well into the red zone, so she and Patti took off after about 20 minutes or so.
After an hour with them, I got tapped out and cut loose for the evening. We decided to go down to Boulder Station and play a little there for a few hours.
We found a $5 pai gow table and did that for awhile before hitting the dice table. Unfortunately, I couldn't win a damn thing and lost almost $250 before giving up for the night. Around 3am we headed back downtown, and I said my goodbyes to Doc Al. It was Monday morning and people were heading home.
I got an hour of sleep before Cyndi woke me up--she had to be at the airport at 5am. Luckily, the exodus was still a trickle and not yet a deluge, and I was out of the airport and home in my own bed by 5 am. But I had to get up again at 10 and get Angy. I got to her room by 11:30 or so and she was mostly all packed and ready to go, but I had to get the cooler out to the car, and it was full of all the leftover booze from Friday night. We made a serious dent in it, but with all the stuff Angy had, and all the stuff other people brought, I ended up with another ten bottles of liquor in my collection, plus all of the leftover Mardis Gras beads for future trips.
Her flight didn't leave until almost 4pm, so we had time to get some lunch--so back to Metro Pizza we went. Of course we had leftovers, so between the pizza and the booze, we decided to make a side trip back to the house to drop off the goods before heading to the airport. We got everything unloaded and put away, and sadly it was time to say goodbye.
I dropped her off at the skycap desk and the curtain closed on another March Madness. While it was a total blast, I'm still bummed at the end, regardless of how tired I am. I laughed so much that my cheeks hurt for three days straight, I ate some fantastic meals, and I made some memories that will last a lifetime.
Only 51 more weeks until we do it all over again!
Mikey
