As some of you know, I was recently in Las Vegas from July 11th to July 18th. Details are still a wee bit fuzzy, as it's quite possible I consumed enough alchohol to kill a small village. But I will certainly try my best. So here it is, day by day, in all it's glory:

Day 1

My wife and I arrived in Vegas around 10:00am their time. It wasn't long before I realized that the Vegas airport was really fucking huge, to top it all off, I packed WAY too much shit. You'd think I was going on a month long trip instead of a week. I suppose I was showing my feminine side or something. My wife, true to woman form, also packed a fuckload of stuff. It was all good when other people were handling the majority of our luggage, but 2 of us carrying all this crap around? Not a chance. So I spent $3 on one of those nifty little cart thingies, I think their technical names are "haha you dumbass, you packed too much shit, now give me $3". That's the rumor anyway.

So I load up the cart with our monsterous luggage and head toward the Dollar Rent a Car line. First of all, I would have gladly paid much more than a dollar to not have to wait in the fucking line for 90 minutes. Second of all, the cars do not cost a dollar. I will begin suing for false advertisement ASAP. So we finally get our car situation figured out, even with the extremely rude gentleman at the front desk doing nothing whatsoever to actually help us out. Off we go to the Dollar shuttle! We arrive at the parking lot where I am greeted by our new vehicle. I figure the guy at the front desk saw my feminine amount of luggage and picked it out just for me. That fucker. It was a light lime green looking color, and it was a Dodge Stratus, which is just barely more heterosexual than a Neon. Barely. I vowed to get even with the rental car guy someday, but right now I needed air conditioning to not die from the 106 degree heat.

My wife and I load up the car, amazingly enough we manage to fit all of our luggage into the trunk. And off we head to the Best Western of Champions. When we arrive at the hotel, we immediately figured out that their version of "walking distance from the Strip" was not the normal people version. I thanked Satan that we decided to get a Rental car. The hotel looked like complete shit on the outside, but I must say, the rooms were very nice, and very cold. I didn't really care anyhow, as I knew that the time spent in the room would be negligble. After getting settled it was gambling time!

We drove down to the Strip and parked in the MGM Grand parking garage. I wanted to go to the Luxor as I heard they had a pretty decent Poker room. My primary goal on this trip was to play as much poker as humanly possible. So we walked from the MGM to the Luxor. I sat down at a $1/$2 table while waiting for a $2/$4 seat to open up. It was pretty uneventful, and the players were absolutely terrible. The dealers were nice, and the waitresses were very nice to my wife who was sitting behind me watching the game. They even offered to bring her drinks, which is a rarity when you're not actually playing the game. 2 points for the Luxor! I played for about 90 minutes and ended up ahead by $1. Yep, that's right, $1. I AM THE BEST POKER PLAYER EVER!!! *ahem* Basically right as aI was about to leave some jackass with J3 offsuit called my preflop raise with AQ offsuit. The flop came Q J x, I bet, the Turn was another J, I bet again, and the River was a blank, I bet and he called. He never raised, he just check called me all the way to the River for bad beat # 1. No biggie, I was still a winner!

We left shortly after that last hand, my wife has never been to Vegas before, so she wanted to walk around and see EVERYTHING. It made me cry. We walked from the Luxor all the way down to the Flamingo, and all the way back to the MGM before returning to the Hotel. One thing of note on our little sightseeing trek, the Strawberry Smoothie at the Bellagio is fucking awesome.

That was the end of Day 1, I ended up down about $15 after the smoothies and tips and the cart for our luggage. We also ate at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM, which was goddamned expensive, but good nevertheless.

Day 2

Early Monday morning, like 2am, I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep. I had read on the net that the Excalibur spreads a $100 buy-in No Limit game, so I took a shower and drove over there. I played for about 3 hours and won $60. The big hand I remember is myself holding Pocket Jacks UTG. I raised $10 preflop, I get one caller on the button. The dealer turns over the flop, and the first card I see is a Jack. My feet were doing the happy dance. I bet out $20, and he called! I was trying to figure out what he could have, but nothing could beat me, I had the top set. On the turn a Queen came, and I bet $20 again, and he called again. The river was a blank, and I pushed in the remainder of my stack, and amazingly he called with Pocket 9s and lost about a $150 pot to me. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside, well that, and the beer. Shortly after that hand, I drove back to the hotel to get some more sleep.

I woke up a few hours later, and spoke with my buddy Aaron, who would be our gracious host for the better part of the trip. His parents own a pimp ass house in Boulder City which is about 25 miles away from the Strip. Very nice indeed. We agreed to meet up at the Monte Carlo after he picked up Justin and Jeff. After getting there, Monica and I decided to grab some Sbarros pizza before beginning to piss away my money at Blackjack. It was like $20 for 2 slices of Pizza and 2 drinks at Sbarro. I was like wtf!? But then the cashier screwed up somehow when I gave her money and the cash register said that she owed us like $168 in change. I started screaming that I hit the Sbarro Jackpot, she was not amused. Neither was my wife. Sheesh. We met up with the guys at a blackjack table and I sat down with $40. I lost a little, but I was still up overall with my Poker winnings from earlier that morning.

We decided to walk around for a bit and play a little more blackjack. We needed to pick up Ron soon, so Aaron was going to do that, so I figured now would be a good a time as any to play poker! I sat down at a $1-$5 Stud table while I waited for a hold 'em seat to open up. My second hand, I am dealt K5 down and a King up. I raise and get 2 callers. Next card is a blank for all of us, one guy is showing 2 spades. I bet out, they both call. Next card does nothing for me, but spade boy catches another one. I will not be defeated!! I said to myself. I bet out, he called, the other guy folded. 6th street brings utter crap for me, and spade boy catches his 4th spade showing. I weakly check, he bets $5, I fold. I guess I will be defeated. Luckily, my hold 'em seat came open right after that hand, and I was able to make up for my losses there.

After Aaron picked up Ron, we decided to head back to Aaron's house, after more Blackjack play of course. I left my wife at the hotel as she had to be up at 6:45am for her convention thingy. After hanging out at the house for a bit, we decided more gambling was in order. We went to this place called The Sunset Station. It was about 15 miles from Aaron's house, and off the Strip. We sat down at a single deck $5 BlackJack table. About the second hand or so, Aaron gets Blackjack. However, the dealer only paid him what he bet, usually when you hit blackjack they pay out 1 and a half times your bet or 6 to 5 sometimes. Aaron was like, where's my money?! The dealer calmly informs us that this is "Super Fun" Blackjack. Aaron clamly said, "I'm not having any fun, much less Super Fun". It was a riot. We read the little pamphlet that explained the rules. It turns out it was a pretty cool little variant. First of all, you play with all the cards up, which is a rarity in single deck BJ. Also, you could double down anytime you wanted, so if after you get 3 cards you get an 11, you can double down. Pretty nifty, and FUN! We played for about 4 hours, and I won $100 even. Aaron was down a bundle, somewhere in the neighborhood of $350, and it was only his first day! The best part of the night was, there was this insanely hot waitress waiting on us. I mean like, you never see this kind of hot in real life type of hot. After several drinks it was pretty goddamn impossible to look her in the eyes. Aaron went so far as to stare directly at her chest while handing her a tip for the drink she just brought him. so when she came back, she brought him a bib and told him that he could use it to wipe up the drool off his chin. It was hilarious, and I immediately tipped her $5 for making me shoot white russian out of my nose.

Another interesting moment, I got dealt A9 in blackjack and I drunkenly said "hit me", the dealer was like, wtf? Sir, you have 20. I was like oh, and Aaron was like dude, balls to the wall man, balls to the wall. So I hit anyway, I got another freaking Ace for 21, unbelievable right? Well, I doubled down, and pulled a Jack for the second 21, it was truly idiotic and wonderful.

I took the long trek back to the hotel after taking those guys home.

Day 3

Day 3 was pretty typical up until pretty late. Jeff's brother Mike was coming in around 10:30 or so. So we headed to the Excalibur to wait for them to get back from the Airport. Upon their arrival, we decided to play some 3 Card Poker, at the urging of Aaron of course. Mike, at one point was up about $225. He lost it all and his buyin. I, on the other hand won $265. The dealer dealt me 3 7s which pays 30 to 1. I actually stood up and did the bull dance in the middle of the Casino during that hand. It was pure joy to win $200 in one insatnt.

Day 4

Wednesday we had to check out of our hotel, so I was up early. Way too early. After getting checked out I ran over to Luxor and entered their $25 Noon tournament. Basically you get $250 worth of chips, and you can tip the dealer $3 and get $50 more chips for a total of $300 worth. Only one guy at our table didn't do the $3 thing. Coincidentally, he was the first to bust out. That Karma will get ya, you cheap bastard. I did really well, I was literally crushing my table, I had over 2000 chips when they broke us up. I eliminated 4 people myself in the first 40 minutes. The blinds started going way up, and my good cards had all dried up, I moved all in with Q 10 off suit when I was down to 900 chips and the blinds were 200/400. The big blind called me with K6 suited. Neither of us hit, so he eliminated me with King high. Not good, not good at all. I then dropped $20 playing $2/$4 before I decided to call it quits. I drove out to Aaron's house and took a much needed nap.

We ate at Gameworks that night, that place kicks ass, they were extremely accomidating, there was no one in the bar area but us. All the video games up there are free, so Aaron and I beat House of the Dead 2, which if it were not free, we each would have spent $50 doing. The bartender let us sit in the VIP room and be pampered a bit. Was a blast, and Ron and I pwned at 4 man air hockey, which has become a JoV gathering tradition.

Days 5 - 7

More of the same for these remaining days, and I am lazy, and this update is too fucking long. Some things of note:

I hit a straight flush at $2/$4 poker table at the Luxor. Not only did I drag a huge pot, but they paid me $50 from their High Hand Jackpot. It was freaking awesome. The whole table was stunned, especially because I used both my hole cards to make the hand. 6 - 10 of diamonds. I held 7 and 9 of diamonds, the 6 came on the River. It was beautiful.

On Friday, at the Sunset Station, I bet $10 in one hand, I got 2 2s, the dealer was showing a 6, so I split them, and got another 2, and split it, and got ANOTHER 2, and split it as well for 4 hands totalling $40. I then proceeded to get 4 face cards in a row for 4 12s. No big deal right? He's bound to bust with a 6 showing right? Wrong. He had a 7 under there and pulled a freaking 20 out of his ass. Talk about bad beats.

I got pulled over in Boulder City doing 51 in a 35 and miraculously the Cop gave me just a warning!

We saw 4 Rams down near Aarons house, I thought they were statues and when one of them moved I nearly wrecked the damn car.

Justin saw a Roadrunner early one morning by Aaron's pool.

There are so many hot women in Las Vegas that it is impossible to keep your eyes to yourself. I still have bruises from my wife catching me looking.

Dueces Wild is a really fun game to play, but when you're up over $200 from your initial buyin, you should stop fucking playing. At least I got "free" drinks the whole time right?

All in all, we had one hell of a time. Vegas is like a whole nother reality, everything is just so surreal and lit up and awesome. I don't know how to describe it. I can't wait to go back.

-Joe

I'm sitting here at work occassionally looking up at CNN Headline News and I see a clip of a racecar catching on fire. This thing is totally engulfed... I mean billowing smoke and flames some 10-12 feet in the air.

Now, some jackass safety worker is standing there waving a caution flag. BROTHER I GOT NEWS FOR YA - if someone doesn't figure out that the huge flaming wreck 10 feet to your right is reason for caution, your little yellow flag isn't going to do jack shit.

Just had to share.

- Nighthawk

07.14.04
And you thought pking was evil...

I've done a lot of different stuff in MMORPGs. I've done rl sales, been an anti, a pk, a craftsman, an administrator and just about every damn thing in between that I could think of. But, apparently there is a new game coming out called Sociolotron (currently in beta) that will allow the seriously sick minded fuckers in the world to go even further than I ever went... or wanted to, for that matter.

If you're anything like me, after you read that article you sat there wondering to yourself "why in the FUCK would a game allow virtual rape?" Keep in mind that it's not just male raping female - it's also male raping male. Mmm fun! Anyhow, so I'm pondering why they would do this and I came up with a couple of answers.

Most obvious is that there are some messed up people in this world that will find this sort of thing amusing. But, beyond catering to the lowest common denominator, there has to be a better reason. Maybe they think that it's better for people to act out rape virtually rather than wishing they had an outlet and eventually doing it in real life. Personally, I have high hopes that just because you don't have a virtual outlet to force sex on someone that doesn't mean you're going to do it irl.

In the end, it has to come down to two reasons in my mind. First, this game wants purely to have shock value. Shocking people gets your name out there and as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Secondly, they are doing it because they want something to set them apart. I suppose it's become harder and harder to find something new and exciting that every other MMO on the market doesn't have. Maybe they should stop and think why rape ISN'T possible in other games.

Ugh, I just thought about players screenshots. *shivers*

This actually makes the mistakes OSI made seem pretty tame. :/

- Nighthawk

07.07.04
Good Advice

The picture pretty much says it all.

Amen.

- Nighthawk