viva las vegas!

view of the mid-strip from the stratosphere tower









three feet from a 400 pound lioness at mgm grand











shark tank at mandalay bay







alright... here i am in vegas. i had hoped to blog a little more often here, cuz theres lots to say, buts its actually hard to find a connection in vegas - if it doesnt have to do with gambling or shopping, they dont want you wasting time on it. seriously, you need major directional skills (of which i have none) just to get out of one of these casino-complexes. and just because two casinos are across the street from each other, dont think it wont take you twenty minutes to get between the two.

anyway, the drive to vegas was my favorite so far. i had spent saturday night in st george, utah, aboot eight miles from the arizona border. once in arizona, you descend some mountains, which is a lot of fun. then theres aboot 80 miles of nevada to go before vegas. but aboot fifteen miles before vegas, you pass a mountain, and the town just appears. its a neat trick. a few miles before the city i stopped at a gas station to pee and get a newspaper - it was like gas was an afterthought for them though. more like they were saying 'you want gas? are you sure you dont mean slot machines and hookers?'.

anyway, so i got into town with a little time to kill before checking into my hotel, so i went to see the corpse bride. obviously one cant see it without comparing it to a nightmare before christmas, and its nowhere near is good. as with any tim burton film, production design is awesome, but aside from that i found it a little boring. plus, they smoothed out the stop-motion, which makes it look more like cgi, which is bad.

i spent my first night on fremont street, which is the old vegas section, north of the strip. it was awesome. i urge anyone coming to vegas not to skip this section. they have a six block closed street with a ceiling that has light shows every hour. and theres dingy old casinos and junk stores a-plenty. my favorite place was called la bayou, which was a slots-only casino, but had the most delicious frozen drinks in yard glasses.

yesterday morning i finally made my way to the strip and started with the north section. the stratosphere has a 112 story tower with a roller coaster on top. at over 1100 feet, its the highest one in the world. im not super into roller coasters, but i figured i couldnt pass up the opportunity. its a very weird feeling to be whirling around outside when youre up that high. later i went to the souuth strip area, where i stayed at the tropicana. the casinos here are nice - i went to mgm grand, mandalay bay, the luxor, new york, new york, etc.

today i went to the mid strip, which is where the nicest casinos are. i went to paris, the venetian, caesars, bellagio, etc. all nice, but its a lot of walking around. like i said earlier, just crossing the street can be a major chore. tonight im staying at the excalibur, which i visited last night and liked a lot.

im reminded of a comedy routine of patton oswalts in which he compared los angeles to a demon-cock. but he said at least its not vegas, which is a demon-cock dunked in glitter and deep-fried. anyway, tomorrow i go to la. hope its nice demon-cock.