Las Vegas

Right around 11 o’clock on the night of Sunday, March 16^th, is when my dad and I realized that our iPods had been stolen from our hotel room at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. My dad had left his charging on the bathroom counter and mine had been in the zippered front pocket of my bookbag with my headphones wrapped around it. We both knew immediately that they had to have been stolen, but we still tore the room apart looking for them. And we went down to the rental car and inspected every inch of it. It was laughable, of course. If you know me at all, you know I am absolutely psychotic about losing things.

After about an hour of searching, my dad was ready to go to bed. He had shot a 95 at Desert Pines that morning — his best round ever and first time to break 100! — and knew there was little chance that hotel security was going to care and / or help us at all. I was so angry I couldn’t see straight.
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Last night I finished reading When the Mob Ran Vegas, a great book that I grabbed at the McCarran Airport on my last trip to Sin City. At times the book suffers from some pretty poor grammar and editing, but the stories are so fascinating that you can forgive the author’s quirky, personal style. Plus, I mean, the guy has got to have a contract on his head; there are dozens of personal anecdotes involving organized crime and its perpetrators, and he really lays the lumber to Sinatra a few times. My mom’s side of the family is 100% Italian — the old school Rhode Island kind <wink wink> — so I recognized pretty much all the characters. (Tales of “the Family” were frequent dinner conversation at my house when I was a kid.) I really enjoyed reading about all the connections to Hollywood and the movie industry, too. If you order a copy from the author’s website, he’ll send you an autographed copy.

My dad and I met in Vegas for a weekend of golfing after I visited the huge Con/Agg convention with Kelly and Bill. We stayed at The Tropicana, a classic Vegas hotel that has fallen on hard times. The place is just a wreck. Every night and every morning there was trash in the hallways, bits of paper, candy bar wrappers, ashtrays (on our no smoking floor). Someone had smashed the glass fire extinguisher box near the elevators and there was broken glass on the floor this morning. It was really just pathetic. The safe in our room’s closet was malfunctioning so if I wanted to stash any valuables I was out of luck.

In a decent hotel you’d expect the maid service to do several standard things: replace the towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, and used toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, soap), make the beds, and throw the trash. I’ve been traveling a sick amount in the last six to ten years and I’ve gotten accustomed to getting at least those things done. Not at the Trop. They made the beds. That’s it. No new towels, no shampoo, no soap, trash wasn’t thrown … you get the idea. My dad and I both have pretty short hair, so it wasn’t until Sunday night that we had to call the front desk — press zero on the phone, all of the special phone buttons like bellhop, room service, security, etc. were inoperable — to request more shampoo. And that is when we realized that both of our iPods had been stolen.

His 30GB and my 60GB (with my favorite Sony headphones) were jacked from room 559 at some point between about 6pm and midnight on Saturday. I know it was between those hours because that was the only time period in which my laptop bookbag — where I had stashed my iPod — was not locked in the trunk of dad’s rental car. We took our laptops and stuff like that with us when we went golfing, and left them locked in the car when we were away from the hotel room. Sucks.
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Postings will be sparse for the next few days. I’m in Vegas with my dad. We golfed today and will be golfing again tomorrow … and the next day … and the next day … This is my third or fourth trip to Las Vegas since I moved to LA in 2000. I’m not much of a gambler, but I think I have finally deciphered the game of craps. I turned $20 into $225 and had a blast hanging out with my dad at the new Hooters Casino. I’m taking a ton of photos and will update when I return to the City of Angels.

What a great book! I just finished reading “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions“, and I feel like I need to take a nap. It’s a thrilling, true account of a group of college kids that managed — in two years! — to fleece the big casino corporations out of over $3million by using stastics and good memories to kick ass at blackjack. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, and have you rooting for the Robin-Hood-esque kids the whole time. I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I cut out of work a bit early, hopped on a Hawker 800 with my girlfriend and her family, and flew to Las Vegas to catch Cirque Du Soleil’s “O” at the Bellagio. Except for a quick trip to the Green Valley Ranch last year, this was actually my first trip to Vegas since I moved to LA. (We ate at Michael Mina’s — I had the lobster pot pie; it was incredible.) We goofed, though … dinner ran until almost 8 so we missed “O” — we thought it started at 8 but it really started at 7:30. Rather than cry over spilled milk, we decided to make the most of it and just played in the casino for a few hours. Then we jumped on a Citation XL and got home by 11:30. I had a great time; Vegas is pretty cool. Someday I’m going to have to go for a long weekend or something.

written and directed by Andrew Bergman, 1992
I watched this last week on DVD. I’m pretty certain that I saw it in the theater when it was released, but it was so long ago that I can’t be sure. The flying Elvises (Elvii?) seemed to be in my memory.

This is a pretty funny flick. I love Nicolas Cage when he’s being a comedian. He does a great job as the regular guy in a strange situation. In Honeymoon in Vegas he’s basically trying to get his not-yet-quite wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, to marry him instead of evil millionaire James Caan. During the vacation in which he was about to propose, he somehow loses her to Caan for several days when he inadvertantly uses her as credit in a game of poker.

Hilarity ensues as he frets over whether she will fall for Caan’s charms. Cage travels to Caan’s luxurious Hawaiian hideaway trying to find her. (Pat Morita plays one of Caan’s henchmen tasked with keeping Cage away long enough for Parker to fall under the millionaire’s spell.) Most of the funniest parts of the movie occur here. I’m trying to not spoil any part of the film for you if you haven’t seen it, so I won’t go into too much detail.

I think the film is about five minutes too long to really be considered a great comedy. (A few of the bits between Caan and Parker could have been cut without detracting from the plot.) Cage and Morita really have some deliciously funny exchanges, though, and those alone are worth watching the movie to see.

I can half-heartedly recommend this movie.

Looks like one of us will be in Las Vegas in a few months …

Update: I didn’t go.