My Not Sober-Fest weekend began on Friday afternoon at 1:30. I was to meet Marty and the gang at Grand Luxe Café at the Venetian for a kickoff lunch. I arrived on time and shortly thereafter saw Marty lurking around. While we were chatting it up next to the slot machines, Shock walked up and introduced himself. Kikky called, saying her and Silversmiff were running late and to just go ahead and get a table and they’d catch up to us.
We waited just a few minutes before they led us way back deep into the bowels of the restaurant and hid us in the corner away from the proper guests. Apparently somebody had tipped them off.
Our waiter came by and introduced himself, and Marty and I, both ill-mannered louts, couldn’t help but laugh at the guy. He was the most overtly stereotypical gay man you could possibly imagine. Seriously, the guy who plays “Just Jack” on Will & Grace looked like Charlie Sheen at the Playboy Mansion compared to our waiter. He was just a little too eager to put the napkins in our laps, and when we stopped him from doing so, he looked genuinely hurt.
As far as the meal goes, I can’t remember what everyone else ordered, but I stuck with my Asian Nachos and a Coke.
Kikky and Silversmiff found us after a few minutes, and we had a pleasant conversation over lunch. I happened to say something about how I wished Angy was there, and before I knew it, she had called. We passed the phone around the table, and before the meal was over, frequent flyer miles were used up, a ticket was booked, and Angy was on our way to join us! Woo hoo—Party on, Garth!
Marty insisted on paying the lunch tab with his winnings from the dice tables if we would cover the tip. Sounded like a bargain to me, so I think my meal at the Grand Luxe cost me a grand total of about four bucks. Nice.
We all had to go our separate ways after lunch, so we split up, agreeing to meet up at Paris at 9:30 that evening for our party bus ride.
I headed home, threw some laundry in the washer, and packed a bag with a clean shirt or two, a jacket, and a couple other essentials just in case I didn’t make it home that night.
Sticky’s flight landed at around 5:30, so I got to baggage claim a few minutes before she did. We found her suitcase without too much trouble and before we knew it we were heading to NYNY with Elvis tunes blasting on the cd player. Welcome to Vegas!
There was no line at the registration desk at NYNY, and it took us a grand total of five minutes before we had keys in hand. I was dying of thirst, ready for my first beer, but we had to wind our way around to the Chrysler tower. The elevator bank is right next to the Zumanity Theatre in the rear of the food court, and everyone was lining up and waiting for them to open the doors. As we were cutting through the line, I said something along the lines of ‘Damn, them nekkid acrobats sure are popular’ which earned a chuckle or two.
The room was damn near on the penthouse level, way up on the 35th floor. Luckily it was literally ten steps from the elevator, although the view of the I-15 interchange was less than ideal.
We dropped off the bags, changed clothes, and headed back downstairs. The first order of business was to get a beer, so we went back to the lobby bar for a couple of bottles of suds. Then it was off to find a penny machine that would become Sticky’s personal ATM for the weekend.
Video penny slots are a total f*cking mystery to me—I have no idea what pays what, and I can’t tell the difference between a winning screen that pays a thousand credits or a losing screen that takes all your money and leaves you feeling a little violated. But Sticky is a pro, and found one of her favorite Money Storm machines, so we sat down. Part of her package she got for the weekend was $100 in free play, but it was activated by your first cash bet. So we put $5 in the machine and in about half an hour we’d built it up to over $160, with half of her free credits still unused.
Cocktail service was good, and we’d had a few beers in us before moving on and wandering about the casino. We hit a few more machines before deciding to head down to Paris, and I think Sticky was up $175 after the first couple of hours.
We cabbed it down to Paris and did a bit of walking around and browsing in the shops and such. I tried to convince Sticky to play some Pai Gow with me, but she insisted that she’s a slot freak and didn’t think she’d like table games. We tried for a few minutes, but she wasn’t into it. I, however, made about $50 and gladly cashed out. We wandered over to the sportsbook to use the restrooms, and while I was waiting outside for her, I got a text message from Kikky saying “Party Bus is HERE!”
So I stuck my head inside and yelled, “Hey Sticky, the bus is here!!!” which earned me a few confused looks from all the ladies standing around inside. She emerged a few minutes later, and our chariot was awaiting us outside. Not everyone had arrived just yet so we didn’t climb in right away, but when we saw Marty and Tonya walking down the sidewalk toward us, the party was on.
We climbed aboard and realized that there was the party bus was stocked with nothing but ice and plastic cups. What the…? So we told our driver to get us to a liquor store post-haste. We ended up at the one across the street from the Hard Rock, and we poured out like a bunch of kids on a field trip needing to use the facilities. We descended upon the liquor store like locusts and stripped the shelves not-quite-bare, grabbing bottles of The Captain, some mixers, and a few smugglers worth of tequila and bourbon.
Back on the bus, the party mix cd was cranked up, and Marty started pouring the drinks. Much dancing, drinking, and general buffoonery ensued as we made our way up and down the Strip. Well, I think it was the Strip. We could have been circling the parking lot at the Motel 6 on Tropicana and wouldn’t have known any better. Eventually we found our way to the airport, and a few minutes later Sin bounded up the steps, downed a quick Corona and started grinding on every available lap.
We drove around some more, made a few drunk dial phone calls, had another drink or two, and before long we were back at the airport for my third time that day. Sticky, Sin, and I went up to baggage claim to fetch Angy, and Marty was kind enough to pour a nice and strong Captain and Diet for our latest guest of honor. Gotta love the T2V crew takin’ care of each other at the airport—the rest of the fellow travelers at the baggage claim were very jealous of the booze delivery.
But we got out of there again, and spent another hour or so driving up and down the strip, looking at the pretty lights, dancing, drinking, and yelling random obscenities and propositions out the windows to people on the sidewalk. At some point, the Sharpies made an appearance, and several of our crew were sporting home-made tattoos. My personal favorite was the one on Sin's breasts that said "Doc Al Was Here". We also made it down to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign for a few pictures before wrapping up our limo ride.
We got dropped off at Harrahs, and gave Angy’s luggage to the bell desk. Sticky and I were fairly drunk by that time, and the lunch from several hours earlier was long digested, leaving me nothing in the tummy to filter all of the alcohol through. She hadn’t eaten all day, so our mission at hand was to find something to grub on. Unfortunately, there is no quick food available at Harrahs. So we wandered up to O’Sheas. On the way up there, I saw Scotty Nguyen and his wife walking towards us on a collision course, so I gave him the ‘Hey Scotty! What’s up?’ as we walked by. He patted me on the shoulder and said ‘Good to see you, Mikey!’
Actually, I made that last part up. I only met him once before—we shared an elevator one time back in the day, he just said ‘Hey Bro…’ But he*did* pat me on the shoulder…
Anyhow, we eventually found our way to O’Sheas and had some pretty shiatty pizza. It filled the hole, so we can’t complain too much. But I had better back in my high school cafeteria.
After we ate, we went to look at the tables, thinking they might have a $3 craps game going, because Sticky wanted to try dice, but only on a low low low limit table. Unfortunately, as big of a dump as O’Sheas is, their craps game was a $10 minimum. Oh yeah, Mandalay Bay minimums with Westward Ho ambiance. No thanks… We left, went back to Carnaval Court and found ourselves on the dance floor a few minutes later grinding away with strangers and friends.
A couple of previously unknown hotties were groping me and being naughty, and it turns out that it was Cheran and her friend Jamie. We got a few drinks, did a little dancing, and then eventually a bunch of us decided to take a break from dancing and just grabbed a table.
I still had a couple of Sharpies in my pocket from the limo ride/tattoo fest, and Cheran had those damn nametags she threatened to bring like we were a church bingo group on a tour of Graceland. But between us, we came up with a few pretty funny nametags to stick on each other and a few more on random passers-by. Sticky had a couple that said “If found drunk, please return to Canada” and “New Sugar Mama”. I gave Angy one that said “Old Sugar Mama” and she was none too pleased. Jamie had one that said “Buy Me A Drink” and “You Know You Want Some of THIS”.
I ended up with one stuck on my zipper that said ‘Sticky was here all night!’ which, like a dumbass, I forgot about until several hours later when a dealer at NYNY asked me what was on my crotch…
I can’t remember what we put on Cheran, but rest assured that it was off-color and somewhat humorous. We also stuck one on Silversmiff that said “Chicks Dig Me” which seemed extremely funny at the time.
We also played a little blackjack—the $15 limits pretty much turned everyone off on playing, so after an hour or so they lowered the table limits to five bucks and that got us involved. Sticky actually won a few bucks, and I won over a hundred, so it was nice to cash out with some small wins before calling it a night. Angy got up to use the bathroom, and a few minutes later she was hanging over the rail behind us telling us that they wouldn’t let her back in.
Apparently, we’d closed the joint down. Somehow in the course of the evening, we’d lost Kikky, Sin, and Marty (later finding out that they were hungry too and went to Ellis Island), so Angy, Sticky, and I headed back to NYNY.
We wandered a bit, stopped in the Big Apple in front for a couple of drinks, and I won a quick ten bucks while waiting for my ‘free’ drink for playing the VP machine. I cashed out, and Sticky and I went to find a Pai Gow table. Angy had two guys hitting on her there in the bar, so she stayed behind to drink free and tease them a little.
We made a few bucks at pai gow, but after an hour, we were spent. We cashed out, hit the cage (I won again), and headed for the room. Angy stumbled in sometime later, but had managed to ditch her suitors. We got a (very) little bit of sleep, but woke up again the next morning around eleven, raring to go.
After getting dressed and such, back downstairs we went, in search of a decent meal. I’ve wanted to try America there at NYNY, because lots of people have been singing its praises over the years.
We were seated immediately, but our server was obviously none to happy about it. Sticky ordered coffee and I ordered a Coke. But NYNY is a Pepsi joint, so he brought me out two glasses of that vile shiat. I ended up sharing Sticky’s coffee with her. We waited for-frickin-ever to get our food, and the damn waiter even dropped off the bill before our food ever made it to the table.
Sticky had a club sandy and fries, while I had a roast beef with horseradish mayo on rye. I asked them to add a slice of Swiss cheese, but it was delivered with both Swiss and American. The top slice of bread was also stale and dried out, too. I would’ve complained, but our waiter never came back to the table once he delivered the food. The sandwich had potential, except for the ungodly amount of red onions piled up on it, but I scraped them off.
The bill came to about $25, and we left the waiter a more-than-deserved $1.40 tip. Dirtbag. Overall, I’d say our experience at America was pretty crappy. I probably won’t be going back there again anytime soon.
After our meal, we fetched the truck from the valet and headed down to Treasure Island. I’m thinking of staying there for March Madness, and was hoping to give them a little action and maybe get some room offers in the mail. Sticky also wanted to maximize her play at MGM/Mirage properties, so it seemed like the place to spend the day. We wandered around quite a bit looking for suitable penny machines to play, and settled on one that she’d hit on previous trips, some dolphin-themed machine she referred to as ‘Marty’. But the dolphins were not in a giving mood, and we lost a few bucks before moving on.
We bounced around the casino, trying different slot machines, but we found no success. I finally convinced Sticky to give the green-felt games another try, and we found seats at one of my favorite $10 Pai Gow tables. Sticky was a little less intimidated by this time, and after awhile she was doing really well, even helping out some of the other players when they had questions with setting their hands.
She also liked the fact that cocktail service was a little more frequent at the tables than it was on the slot machines, although after a couple of hours I switched to bottled water due to the fact that I had to drive.
We camped out at that same Pai Gow table for a few hours, but eventually figured we should probably get back and find out what Angy was up to and also prepare for our evening at the Rio with the rest of the Buffoons. I actually made about $80 profit there at Treasure Island, so my winning streak there remains intact.
We colored up, cashed out, and hit the road. I just dropped Sticky off at NYNY—she said she needed a nap, while I took off and headed home—I needed a change of clothes, a shower, and my phone charger. I got home and cleaned up, packed a bag, checked messages, etc. Just as I was about to hop in the shower, my phone was ringing, and it was Sticky calling to tell me that she put $5 into that same Money Storm machine and cashed out for $150. Woo hoo! Yep, that whole nap idea went out the window.
I was back at the hotel less than two hours later, cleaned up, pretty, and smelling good. I dropped off my bag in the room and we decided that this time we should probably eat some dinner before our night of debauchery. We wandered around the casino a bit, undecided as to where we should go, before finally settling on Gonzalez y Gonzalez, the Mexican joint at NYNY. We put our name on the list and only had to wait about ten minutes for a table.
To be continued...
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