vegas, man. the me of two years back would have scowled at the me of now for saying it, but i certainly like going there now. by the second afternoon i was glad i was leaving after only one night, but the one night was a damn good one.

rolled in around 9:30pm, and somehow was nominated the beer car. made the mistake of asking our 20 year old companion to help carry our several armloads of drinks to the counter, and since she wasn’t of age, none of us could buy anything. how technical and dumb is that. part of me wanted to bring her back to the store after we had to go down the street somewhere else and not make the same mistake, then stand outside the first place watching her chug a beer. instead, we just loaded up and went to our hotel room and had several before hitting the strip. perhaps that was the best way to go anyway, cause i was hurting for a drink after the freeway traffic.

left in high spirits though and walked through a few casinos before deciding on one. several people lost fast so we quickly decided on another one. after realizing that on friday night the lowest roulette table we could find was 10 bucks, we sucked it up and sat in caesar’s. i played some lucky numbers and left up 60 dollars, dan lost 100. awww.

since half the party had left already, the remaining 6 of 12 tried leaving caesar’s and got lost in the weird casino layout. after going upstairs for some reason and finding ourselves among a lot of empty banquet rooms, we took an exit door and ended up in the back employee passages of the casino’s underbelly. the walls and floors were all bare white and there was not a soul anywhere, just doors. it felt like the secret passages of the matrix, and us with no keymaster. we must have walked for a good 15 minutes down hallways before ending up in the back at some obscure employee entrance that meant we had to walk around the entire outer edge of the casino to get back to the street. which we did, drunk and laughing, at 4am.

stopping to rest after all that walking, charlotte decided to kick dan into a fountain while he was kneeling down beside it, which left him soaked, her soaked after he chased her down to hug her, and him with a big footprint on his back. he looked as if he were about to shiver to death sitting in the air-conditioned fatburger on the way home. to those of us who stayed perfectly dry, this was all quite hilarious.

sleep at 5:30am, up at 11:30, back down to gamble a little more. i could have walked away 40 more ahead after a table called to me (my numbers came up 5 times before i sat down, and several more after), but kept playing and stopped only 3 ahead. it would have been nice to have made over 100 dollars off the trip but i was just happy not to have lost. after food, josh and i made it home in a killer 3.5 hours, and i went to some bars with jen and michael.

yesterday i lounged and watched akira with josh, which was very strange and as most anime i’ve seen, lacking a very decipherable plot line. very visually impressive though, so who needs to know what the hell is going on.

great weekend all in all. monday is harsh not only because i’m tired and had so much fun friday and saturday, but because apparently i left the dome light on in my car since i unpacked it saturday, and having not driven at all sunday, my battery was drained when i tried to go to work. i had to sit around the garage waiting for someone who could give me a jump (thanks and nice to meet you, ali). will it start when i try to go home today? who knows!