Wednesday, 19 June 2002
11:59pm
Y
es, I am a whore. I have joined the Netflix affiliate program. If you go to my DVD Review Page you will see Netflix banners. Anyone who signs up through one of the banners on my page will earn me $7. Woohoo. So if you were already thinking about signing up, you might as well get your free trial through one of my banners and make my pockets just a little fatter :)
In other news, Jenny is in town right now, but I haven't heard from her yet. I hope I get to see her soon because I miss her very much. And in other, other news, I have decided to learn how to use Adobe After Effects, mostly for personal enrichment. I've picked up a book and am going through learning the basics. It took several years for me to really master Photoshop,and well, After Effects is quite a bit more complicated. But I'm determined to be an After Effects ninja by the end of the summer. Well, that's a tall order, but hey, I got the time. Then maybe I'll start having some really cool videos to post up.
Speaking of videos, people still download my light saber video (Return of the BryBry)... after all these years... it was downloaded 88 times last week. Amazing... especially when you consider there are so many better light saber videos floating around out there. What else.. I've got a watch tan now. Between my sister's outdoor graduation and driving around a lot during the day, I guess that's what would happen. My legs are still brilliantly white though. I noticed that as I went out to check the mail while wearing shorts today. Maybe I should spend some quality time at the pool this week.

Saturday, 22 June 2002
11:40am

W
ell just guess where this fabulous view is from... About 24 hours ago, my deep slumber was broken by Cami calling me from work. She asked me if I wanted to go to Vegas... that evening. Now what kind of question is that? Of course I want to go! And thus, about 12 hours later, we checked in to the Stratosphere. This is the "downtown view" from our room. It's kinda fuzzy because the window is so damn dirty.
We're out here mainly because Cami wanted to go somewhere away from home... and meeting up with Jeff and company on the return leg from their road trip tomorrow was a good excuse as any to come out to Las Vegas!!! So last night we headed out to Hard Rock because somehow, Cami had never been there before even after coming to Vegas so many times. We ate at Mr. Lucky's and she got that secret "surf and turf" special -- steak and shrimp for $7.77 -- that isn't on the menu. But everyone who watches the Travel Channel knows that already hehe. While we were there I got to see Korea beat Spain in their World Cup match. Woohoo!
This morning we have done nothing but bum around and watch TV. Cami is watching Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on TBS right now. I'm typing on the computer. Some guy just knocked on our door. He was looking for another room. He was standing out there with his bag and a half empty bottle of Seagram's gin, and the breath to match... only in Las Vegas, I guess :)
Anyway, I guess I'll take a shower or something so we can go outside. Bu-bye.

7:00pm

So after bumming around in the hotel room until about noon, Cami and I headed out to Sushi On Tropicana for some all-you-can-eat sushi. This place is tha bomb yo! This ain't no cheesy pre-prepared wack sushi crap, no this is a real sushi bar with a real guy making whatever you want to order for you. In case you ever wanted to go there... it's a few miles east of the strip on the southeast corner of Tropicana and Topaz, behind the Brake Depot. It looks like a total hole in the wall, but it's some high quality sushi for sure!
After that we headed downtown because Cami had never been downtown in the daytime. She wanted to visit the ABC store since she hadn't been there since it opened, and we ended up buying some ABC Store Las Vegas t-shirts. Woohoo!

 

Afterwards, we went to Sahara cuz Cami wanted to learn how to play craps and they got $1 craps there all the time. It ended up that she didn't play... too many crazy things going on, I guess haha. It is a very intimidating game, that's for sure. Then we headed back to the hotel to just rest for a while.
We just got a call from Jeff, Ben and Chris... they got a flat tire somewhere in Idaho... and they have no idea when they'll be getting moving again... we may not even be able to meet up with them on Sunday as we had originally planned as they are stuck about 5 hours from where they wanted to be tonight. Later tonight, Cami and I are thinking about hitting up the Caesars buffet for dinner... yummy... food makes Vegas so good :)
For now though, we're just bumming around the rooma gain, watching Fox's World's Wildest Police Videos. Wonderful. Haha.

Sunday, 23 June 2002
11:40pm
H
ome, sweet home! After a weekend out in the desert... it seems so humid back here in San Diego!! Anyway. We did indeed end up going to Caesars Palace for the Emperor's Feast buffet... and it was as good as ever. How can you go wrong with a whole lobster to yourself? After that we headed downtown to meet up with Clark and Abbey... who were also in town to meet up with Jeff, Ben and Chris on their return trip from Chicago... of course, that ended up never happening, but that's another story altogether. We got some 99 cent shrimp cocktail from Golden Gate and bummed around a while.
Then Cami and I returned to the hotel fairly early because we were both super tired from not getting much sleep the night before. Cami went up to bed, but I stayed downstairs and played some cards for a while. When I was done, I was so tired that I was pratically staggering around, and could barely keep my bloodshot eyes open. I was looking pretty pale too... people probably thought I was on drugs, as evidenced by the two girls I got the elevator with who looked absolutely stunned by my appearance, and not at all in a good way! They looked like they were scared of me! Haha. But I made it up to the room and hade a nice long, uninterrupted night's sleep and woke up refreshed this morning for the drive home.
After we checked out, we had some lunch at Wolfgang Puck's at MGM Grand. Pretty good stuff. From there we could see these guys play at the roulette table nearby. One of them brought a can of Coors Light with them. After lunch we got in the car to start the journey back home.
I don't know about you guys, but I've noticed that when I drive out to Vegas, I always get there much faster than I get back. On the way there I drive fast and make as few stops as possible so I can get to Vegas ASAP. On the way back, I drive slower, and stop anywhere I can make an excuse to stop. I don't really start driving fast until I'm close enough to home to almost taste it. As much as I love returning home... it just isn't as exciting a destination, I guess.
So yeah. We made a lot of stops. First we stopped at the California/Nevada border to ride the Desperado rollercoaster, which was actually open this time. Pulling 4 g's at the bottom of the first hill, and negative g's on the tops of the next few hills... I strained my neck and now it's stiff and painful. I guess I'll never be an astronaut, haha. Amazingly enough, we actually saw the Coors Light guys from the roulette table at MGM Grand! After the ride, I saw this video game that I heard someone talk about before -- Police 911. It's a shooting game, and it has a motion sensor... you have to actually duck and move to shoot.
I thought it was gonna be sorta on/off-ish like Time Crisis, but it actually tracks your movements and changes the camera view as you move!! COOL!!! Unfortunately, the gun on the machine was broken so I only got to get a very small sample of it and didn't get to shoot anything at all. Hopefully I will get to really check it out the next time I pass through.
Our next stop was at the formerly abandoned water park... but you can read all about that on Cami's page. Next... well I don't know if you have a Steer 'n Stein restaurant where you live, but I have never been to one. All I know is every time I drive to Vegas I see the sign for Steer 'n Stein off the side of the road in Victorville, and I always think "that's a strange name"... well today we actually stopped in there for dinner. Not too shabby, especially for the price!
I think that did end up being our last stop, and we ended up getting home at around 9pm... only about 7 hours after we left hahaha. But it's good to be home, and we had a great weekend stuffing ourselves full of such great food... and having fun being somewhere not at home. Yeah. Well anyway. Here are a couple pics. You can see the rest on my big repository of pics.

 

One final note... previously on this update I said that Sushi On Tropicana is on the southwest corner of Tropicana and Topaz. It is actually on the southeast corner. Sorry to anyone who tried to go there between then and now!