After a 3 month hiatus in the Swiss Alps meeting
various Sherpas, learning the ancient wisdom of mountaineering,
and how to prepare a warm Yaqui tea, I decide to get off my sweaty
fat ass and actually do something. So when the fat and pathetic
have nothing else better to do than glue rubber toilet plungers
to their heads and pierce their nipples with rusty paperclips,
they head to Las Vegas for the all-you-can-eat buffets, the non-stop
flicker of 200 flugillion lights sure to send a regular human
into epileptic convulsions, and of course the world of Star Trek.
Take Uncle LaV’s hand once again, this time I promise not
to lick you, and journey with me into the land of Vegas and all
the sights and splendor it doth hold for us…it is good to
be back.
Well, we get up around 5:30am and head out about
6:00am. We were supposed to leave at 4:00am, but I am a big baby
and didn’t want to fall asleep between the two Joshua trees
and get hell cop all up in our mix. I had about 5 hours of sleep
in me so I was up and ready to drive...well, I was up at least.
On the way out of Phoenix there is a community
called Sun City. It is a scary scary place filled with more zombies
than you can shake a stick at. It looks as if we stumbled upon
their morning gorging ritual and just had to stop to take a photo.
Actually my wife had urine slowly dripping out of her eyes so
we had to pull over for a bathroom break.
To drive to Las Vegas from Phoenix it takes
about 6 hours. Those are 6 long hours through the middle of the
desolate desert and Hoover Dam. During the ride there isn’t
a damn thing to do and I am pretty sure I ran around 90mph the
entire way because I never saw a cop. We were able to pickup 2
extreme radio stations, one was some bizarre gangsta rap station
and the other a country station, so we opted for the Tool and
Nine Inch Nails Tape we have in the car. That is correct, my wife’s
Toyota Echo came with a friggin cassette player and we are slaves
to the few tapes I made before we moved to Phoenix about 4 years
ago. Not only does the car have a cassette player, it doesn't
even have a freaking clock. You want to know the time? Get out
and make a sun-dial.
We finally arrive in Vegas about noon and head
straight for the Las Vegas Hilton to check-in. Why the Hilton?
Wel for one it has Star
Trek: The Experience, where we were married and I spend lots
of time there since I am a huge reclusive jackass geek. The second
thing was the price. The Hilton only charged $91.00 where most
places on the strip were charging $175+. We decided to have more
fun with our money and stay off the strip. Plus, I went into debt
just to have 24 hours worth of fun and didn’t want to have
to sell plasma to make my credit card payment when we got back.
Once we settled into our room, which is quite
nice for the price, we headed straight downstairs to play in Star
Trek: The Experience. They have a huge museum filled with all
sorts of props and crap from the entire Star Trek universe. This
is where our first problem arose. I was snapping photos for the
article when all of the sudden I notice that the battery is dead
on the camera. I had charged it the night before, but the camera
is getting old and the battery must be going. Well, I break down
and buy a fun saver Kodak piece of shit for the rest of our trip,
so some of the photos are pretty crappy, but you’ll just
have to deal like we did. If you don't like it there is some midget
on midget on camel porn for you to check out somewhere on the
web.
Star Trek: The Experience is pretty cool if
you are into Star Trek. If you aren’t you might be wasting
$33/person on the attraction. They have two rides that run with
Star Trek themes. One is the original, about 10 years old now,
but is still fun despite it’s age and wear. Basically it
is a motion simulator where you are battling Klingons in the future
and above the skies of the old Vegas strip. There is some wear
and tear on the ride, but the coolest part is where they “beam”
you aboard the starship Enterprise. The ride is SO old it has
one of the marquees on the strip proclaiming the Moody Blues were
playing...hell that is even before my time.
The second ride was just launched in 2004 and
is called Borg Invasion 4-D. It is a fantastic ride with lots
of special effects going on. The story behind this one is basically
that you are being tested because your immune system can fight
off the Borg nanoprobes, little robots that turn you into the
Borg, which are basically cybernetic zombies. The Borg come and
abduct you, trying to assimilate you into the hive collective.
There are lots of thrills and sights to see during the ride and
I highly recommend it. I just said "thrills", I think
I must now go take a NyQuil induced coma nap.
Both rides have live actors playing parts through
your experience. If you have great actors then the rides seem
that much more fantastic, but if you have actors who are just
going through the motions you have a ho-hum-kick-a-street-bum-in-the-face
experience. Other than the rides and museum they have a large
area downstairs built after Deep Space Nine where you can shop
till your wallet has a seizure and loses the will to live. They
also have a restaurant where you can dine in the 24th century
with all sorts of concoctions to drink and eat. I suggest the
Warp Core Breech, a bubbling concoction with dry ice
in it.
Now we get to problem number 2 on our fantastic
journey to Vegas. When I am under lots of stress, like the extreme
amount of stress I have been under for the past 6 months, I can
give my body cool infections. This usually takes shape in the
round and bulbous form known as my stomach. I can actually give
myself stomach infections and those little bastards hurt like
hell. Think several knives placed in your small intestine slowly
being heated up to 400 degrees. Well, while we were on the Klingon
Star Trek ride I feel a pain in my side and sure enough it is
the beginning stages of my infection. I limp through the rest
of our trip, but had to cut day 2 short because I was really concerned
I might have to goto a hospital in Vegas if we didn’t get
home. I like going to hospitals as much as getting kicked directly
in the nuts, plus I hate germs and feel that Vegas is one of the
dirtiest places on Earth. Yeah, my life r0ckz0rs. Yes, I am also
Howard Hughes.
After Star Trek: The Experience we head down
to the Las Vegas Paris to gorge ourselves on their tasty dinner
buffet. For $26.00/person you can eat as much cheese, bread, prime
rib, duck, lamb, and pastries as you’d like. I ate until
my spleen shot across the room and landed in some poor jackass’
soup do jour. I highly recommend the buffet to anyone willing
to shell out some cash and risk internal bleeding.
After we wander aimlessly around the Paris we
roll ourselves over to the Bellagio. Not too much was going on
in the Bellagio except a fat man’s dream. They had these
huge fountains of chocolate that pour like 4 kinds of melted goodness
down 3 stories. It took me about 2 seconds before I had my right
nipple out pressing it against the glass enclosed contraption
silently humming some Duran Duran - Hungry like the Wolf.
Next we slowly wound our way through Caesar’s
Palace. I didn’t think too much was going to go down in
Caesar’s Palace, but was I ever wrong. If you have some
sort of twisted Tom Hanks fetish you’ll love this place.
Not only did I get to see a giant wooden horse at FAO Swartz,
they even let me live out my Big
fantasy by having a huge light up keyboard I could run and slide
across. If I thought that was a blast imagine my shock and utter
amazement that I found a friggin Zoltar machine only a few shops
away. Life is good and when I placed my dollar bill in the machine
so Zoltar could read me my fortune I secretly wished to be "big".
Ultimately my wish was granted because as I waddled down the aisle
in the forum shops I realized that I was indeed one of the biggest
fatassed walrusses around.
After that we pretty much headed back to the
Hilton to run through Star Trek a few more times, play some slots,
eat some pizza, and kidnap small children. The next day I woke
up and my side was really starting to hurt so we had to packup
and head back towards Phoenix. We were supposed to hit Treasure
Island and the Mirage before we left, but that will have to wait
until our next trip, which is in October and I am the bestman
in the Angry
Monkey’s wedding.
*****BONUS CRAP*****
Check out my ultra sweet fortune from Zoltar:
-LaVarious
8-19-06
