• Friends Made: Ming the Hooters Casino High Roller who bet $1000 a hand at Pai Gow.
  
• Enemies Made: a black stripper from the Spearmint Rhino and a fat pit boss named Bill.
• Best Quote From Dave: "Right now I have more alcohol in me than sense."
• Best Quote From Erik: "When I see you again I will buy you $100 in bourbon."
• Seen In Abundance: Wisconsin fans, hooker trading cards and fake boobs.
• Seen In Scarcity: Street sweepers, museums and my judgment.
• New Coined Marketing Slogan To Be Sold To The Las Vegas Chamber Of Commerce: Welcome to the Sex Ashtray.
• Gambling Maxims Proven Correct: Never hit on 13, respect the sixes and a "push" is a win.
• Gambling Maxims Proven Wrong: No craps game goes seven straight rolls without making the point.
• Best Casino Game: Pai Gow, which is Chinese for Slow Money Bleed Super Happy Fun Drink Time.
  
• Worst Casino Game: Money Drop, or as it is more popularly known "Let It Ride."
• Best Run: Six and a half hours at a Pai Gow table on $40 that yielded countless free drinks, death threats from dealers named Gene, screams of free Hooters calendars and chicken wings, continual verbal assaults directed towards a fat pit boss named Bill and eventually, free Hooters T-shirts and shot glasses that Ming the Hooters Casino High Roller charged to his room.
• Worst Run: Ten minutes at a craps table that took $100.
• Best Eats: Steaks at Mon Ami Gabi and Bailey's ice cream shakes.
• Worst Eats: My bag of Fritos and pack of Starbursts for dinner and Will's infamous "last breakfast" from Nathan's which consisted of a chili dog, a handful of soggy crinkle fries and twelve over-cooked chicken wings.
  
• Best Sports Bet: Wil for putting it on UNLV to cover the spread versus Wisconsin.
• Worst Sports Bet: Me for putting $20 on the Colorado Avalanche to win the 2008 Stanley Cup.
• Years On My Life That The Trip Took Off : Two.

Labels: dj, drinking, ez, gambling, tomfoolery, vegas, wil

I get lost again walking through the hotel/casino I'm staying at. Never trust Mexican food from a place that sells margaritas by the yard. Never trust old ladies that look like old catchers mitts and carry their cigarettes in sequined coin purses. A man lies passed out on his shoes in the bus shelter by the Bellagio. Past the flash and glitz of "Disneyland" lies north Las Vegas. The crooked past of the city is exposed. The further north I walk on the Strip, the faces look rough and mean. Missing teeth, chiseled age lines, hollow eyes and ruined dreams manifested in each countenance. It costs $30 to go to the top of the Stratosphere. That's Daddy's crap money. I turn south and head back down the Strip after I realize I may get robbed and stabbed. I snap pictures of things and a crack head emerges from the darkness behind a palm tree and quips, 'Take all the pictures you want, baby, they don't cost nuthin'.' A man lies passed out behind the bus shelter across the street from Frontier. I quell the urge to wake him up and tell him it would be more comfortable if he were sleeping on his shoes. Drunk fat girls drinking margaritas by the yard howl and ogle as men walk by. A punk in a Slayer shirt sings South of Heaven loudly in the middle of the street. I get propositioned by another black prostitute over the walkway between the MGM Grand and Tropicana. I hit the craps table thinking I'm White Chocolate. I lose $40 before the waitress brings me my first drink. On the walkway to the Luxor, a fat girl's ass hangs out of her mini-skirt. I'm leaving tomorrow only $39 down. The last thought that enters my head before I drift off to sleep: I AM White Chocolate.

Labels: how design, vegas

I'm in Sin City this week for the 2006 How Design Conference.

This town is a corporate dumpster. Drag queens on the corner ask me for spare change and menthol cigarettes. Children asleep in their strollers as parents walk them back to the hotel after blowing this month's mortgage payment on roulette. Mexicans peddle sex on the street corners that killed our best gangster poet. Ugly people pretend to be beautiful. Beautiful people pretend to be ugly. Underage frat boys watch the Bellagio fountains with a twelve pack of Corona. The well-manicured casino landscaping smells like vomit. A black prostitute propositions me. I say 'No thanks' and she calls me a racist. A man in a wheelchair races his friends on the Excalibur walkway and crashes into the glass doors at full rolling speed. I lose $39 at the craps table. Tomorrow I will get an In-N-Out Burger for lunch.

Labels: how design, vegas

For the next two weeks I will be going on tour like a trashy hair metal band in 1988. Early tomorrow morning, my lady and I are off to San Diego where we will walk on the beach, eat fresh sea bass, patronize the new Padres stadium, visit the San Diego Zoo, watch a live donkey show in Tijuana and drink our body weight in margaritas. Sunday night, my lady flies back to Denver and I will stay in the OC for the 2004 How Design Conference. The HOW Design Conference lasts three days and I will be attending sessions, chilling with my old boss Michael and last year's partner in crime Scott from Minnesota (who won a free pass to the event and will be crashing in my room, assuring me he will not go all Fear and Loathing up in that bitch) and kicking it California gangsta style by the pool with chocolate honeys and bottles of Courvoisier.

After the HOW Design Conference wraps up, I will be catching an afternoon flight to Las Vegas where my good friends Kaye and Aaron will be getting married. I will be staying in Sin City for one night, winning big at various gaming tables and drinking free watered-down whiskey as I insult professional card dealers for giving me trash.

I arrive back in Denver Thursday evening, only to catch a plane to Boise, Idaho the following morning. In a state that is synonymous with potatoes and the white power movement, I will be attending my lady's grandfather's 95th birthday celebration.

On Sunday, May 23, I finally make my way home to Denver exhausted and battered from almost two weeks of traveling where I plan on crawling into my king size bed and sleeping until Armageddon.

Labels: boise, chili dog, denver, how design, kaye, travels, vegas, wife

She Who Will Not Be Named and I had an extraordinary time in Vegas. Many seven and sevens were consumed, fake breasts were flaunted and I broke even thanks to a good night playing Let It Ride and having enough sense to walk away when I was up. Highlights from the trip:

• On Sunday night we ate Mexican food and gambled at Caesers Palace. The casino is a dump and most of the dealers are older than dirt, but I did win $100 playing blackjack. Caesers is building a gigantic stadium for Celine Dion modeled after the Roman Coliseum. According to my friend Jester, "They paid that bitch millions of dollars to sing there."
• Monday during the day, we relaxed by the pool drinking Pina Coladas and sleeping. At night, we attended the La Femme show at the MGM Grand after a gorge fest on king crab legs at the Rio's all you can eat seafood buffet.
• Tuesday we went shopping at the Venetian and toured Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. We also hung out at the pool and took a great two-hour nap. That night, we had an excellent Italian dinner and went to the Spearmint Rhino.
• Yesterday, I turned 27. My parents and She Who Will Not Be Named took me out for a delicious steak and numerous 24-ounce microbrews. It was a nice evening and thankfully I was not tuned up on amphetamines and cutting off my own penis.

One thing being on vacation taught me is that work sucks. I do not look forward to going back on Monday.

Labels: birthday, decadence, drinking, gluttony, she who, vegas

On Sunday, I am off to Las Vegas with She Who Will Not Be Named and I will not return until September 18. I will not be posting until that day. I will be drinking heavily, shooting craps, stuffing money into strippers panties and eating fish at the Rio's all you can eat buffet while you will be slaving away in some godforsaken hellhole carving out a meager wage to support your smack habit. I shall return from my vacation like the prodigal son, more raw, sharp and refreshed than ever before.

Labels: she who, vegas