Domo-Kun visits the Palms!
Thursday, 15 May 2003
3:30pm
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So far I've been eating a lot of food, playing some games, and mostly doing a lot of bumming around and relaxing. The weather is absolutely fabulous. In the day time we're getting low 90's, which in the dry air of the desert is actually a nice, pleasant warmth, especially in the shade, not a sweltering heat as it would be in more humid climates. Evenings bring on low 70's or so. Nice for driving around with the wind blowing through your hair and such.
I stopped by the Main Street Station buffet for lunch today, but they didn't have the tofu dish that I loved so much during the $100 Dollar Vegas Trip that Scott and I took in February, but it's still the best damned $8 lunch buffet I've ever been to. In honor of Jenny I've been ordering Corona beer at the tables, although I still do order my usual Dewar's Scotch Whiskey every once in a while.
My Downtown View
I'll be staying in three different hotels during my stay here. This "downtown view" room that I am in right now has more of a "I-15 traffic view" but if I look all the way into the right edge of my window, I do get a fairly decent view of downtown. I also have a pretty good view of the roof of the parking garage, though not a single person is actually parked up there... who would want to when there's plenty of covered parking spaces?
Last night I ventured back to the Palms resort. This was the first time I'd been there since they first opened nearly 2 years ago. And back then, I gave it a pretty bad review, citing the fact that they were looking to steal some of the young hipster market from Hard Rock, but the one time I went there it was full of 30's and 40's locals, and I stated on my update here that they had missed their mark.
Well, that was before the Palms was ever featured on MTV's The Real World: Las Vegas, and now that it has gained much notoriety from that nice little piece of exposure, it's a haven for young hipsters who wished they could be on MTV. Well, that, and a lot of celebrities seem to be hanging out there a lot too. So the eye candy level of the patrons has certainly improved by leaps and bounds compared to my first visit, but I think I still prefer the overall decor and ambience of my old favorite, the Hard Rock Casino.
Well I've been here almost 24 hours and I still haven't even hit any of the casinos on the Strip yet (so far I've visited Hard Rock, the Palms, Main Street Station and Las Vegas Club), so I'm gonna head out and do some of that right about now. Catch y'all later!
Friday, 16 May 2003
3:30pm
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Jeanette attempting to distract her mostly male opponents...
Of course, it's by no means a serious match, I mean, Jeanette spends most of her time trying to coyly distract her opponents who sometimes fall prey to her little antics. After that I headed in to the tournament room to watch George play his match against Mika Immonen. He went down by 3-0 early on, but battled back, going 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, etc, but after a couple of bad turns, he ended up losing and getting himself eliminated from the tournament. But again, not a bad run for a guy who has been out of the professional loop for some years!
George Breedlove
After the match, I headed back to the Palms for a little blackjack and some late night snack action. As much as the makeup of the crowds have changed since before the MTV days, I still think the decor of the place makes it look like a shopping mall food court.
Hmm. So now to what I've done today. Like I said, I checked out. Then I headed over to Terrible's which is located at the corner of Flamingo and Paradise, to try out the $4.99 Half Chicken special. Ever since that $100 Vegas Trip with Scott, seeking out these kinds of deals has become a new sort of hobby of mine. Just knowing that I'm paying so little for so much is entertainment in and of itself, even more fun than getting free comped food from the casinos!
Anyway, this deal is located at their cafe on the second floor, and due to the similarity in the prices, I will compare it to the $4.95 steak special from Ellis Island which Scott and I enjoyed in February. Well, first of all, the restaurant facility itself is a lot nicer than the one at Ellis Island. And I gotta say, it is a ridiculously large amount of food for the money. You get a soup or salad, plus bread, and your main course includes the half chicken, a whole corn on the cob, plus beans and tortilla chips with guacamole and sour cream.
But. The chicken ain't that great. At least when I had it, it was dry and rubbery. But still a pretty good deal for the price. Just not as good as the deal at Ellis Island which features meat that actually tastes great.
After lunch, I headed over to the Sahara for some $1 craps action, when I found that they no longer offered such a thing! Sahara, the last bastion on the strip for the extreme low rollers has forsaken me, and raised the minimum bet at craps to $3! Maybe they'll still have $1 craps during slower periods, but this was something of a disappointment for me. Still, I bought in $40 and ended up winning $95, so I guess I don't have too much to complain about!
Sunday, 18 May 2003
6:00pm
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I had dinner at the Bally's Big Kitchen Buffet, my first time there. I was hoping that it would be of similar quality to the buffet at Paris next door, but, well, it wasn't. It wasn't particularly bad, but it was a bit small, with not that big a variety. They do have peeled shrimp and crab legs though.
Later that night I ended up waiting around about 20 minutes for the Bellagio water show to start, which runs every 15 minutes, but there was no show. Wondering what happened, I looked at my watch and realized it was 3:00am... the shows stop at midnight. Time sure flies when you're having fun?
Feeling worn out, I pretty much took it easy yesterday. I didn't wake up until about 1pm or so, and I hobbled over to the Denny's to get some breakfast at around 2:30PM. I didn't end up leaving Casino Royale at all until around 4:00 when I went over to the Riviera to meet up with Jeanette again. After hanging out for a while, we located her husband, and we all took off to the Venetian Canal Shops for a little while, before shuttling off to Sam's Town to catch one of 30 showings of The Matrix Reloaded they had that day.
I gotta say, this one wasn't as good as the original. The movie took waaaaay too long to get going (how much Neo/Trinity making out/sex do we really need to get the point?) and then once it did finally get going, it's like they slammed on the brakes and stopped it again, before letting it really get to the meat of the story. There were definitely a few interesting twists to the story, but I just don't think the movie presented it all in the best possible way.
Shortly after that I sent Jeanette and George on their way to the airport so they could head home. I returned back to the Strip and did some more wandering around, though I didn't stay out as late as I did on Friday night.
This morning I checked out of Casino Royale, had breakfast at Denny's again, then I played a $5 match play coupon I had on the pass line. The shooter rolled a 5, and a few rolls later, made the point. Thanks to the coupon, my $5 won $10! I held on to my original $5, and played a little more with the $10 I just won, and a few minutes later my original $5 became $16. Nice! After that I got into my car, and headed downtown, checking in to my third hotel.
Since then I've taken a little walk down Fremont Street, but mostly I've been vegging out in my room. It's been a long week, and I'm pretty darned worn out now. Tonight I don't know what I'm going to do or what I'm going to eat. So I'm just hanging out here in the hotel room typing this.
11::59am
It's acutally 1:12am, but it's still "tonight" to me! So I ended up going to the Pink Taco at Hard Rock. Actually I wanted to try eating at "Simon" but I showed up to Hard Rock at the worst I'd ever seen it... it was full of hundreds of conventioneers who all looked like... well... office people. And they had pretty much crammed both Simon and Nobu full. So I decided to check out Pink Taco instead.
I had never actually eaten there before, so it was new experience for me. The range of food and the prices on the menu seems to be about the same as an "El Torito" restaurant, but the food is better. I had the carne asada platter, which also comes with a chicken and cheese enchilada, tortillas, beans, rice, and guacamole. The meat was very juicy and flavorful, but the enchilada I don't think was too great. Overall I had an enjoyable experience. Plus it was free because I used a $30 coupon I received in the mail.
Right after that I headed into the casino, to use this $30 free table bet coupon that came in the mail with the food coupon. I put it on the pass line at the craps table, and the shooter came out with an 8. He then immediately sevened out. Oh well.
One of my favorite bits of the decor at Hard Rock are these lamps made out of cymbals. Very, very cool, in my opinion.!
After dinner I headed to the Las Vegas Hilton to go to the Star Trek Experience area. It's literally been years since I last visited, and while I didn't do the ride, I did sit down at Quark's Bar and had a couple of drinks with the Domo Kun. After that, It was back to Fremont Street where I actually waited around for once to see the Fremont Street Experience. I also got a lot of strange looks due to my toting around the Domo Kun all over vegas. I swear one Japanese guy passed by me 3 or 4 times, with the grin on his face getting larger with each pass!
And now, I'm back in the hotel room. Ready to go to bed a little early for Vegas, so I will be ready for the long ride home tomorrow. It's been an awesome trip.