Friday July 23, 2010

First of all, who in the hell goes to Las Vegas, Nevada in the middle of July for fun? Christ it’s so hot! I got up to do Bikram but I should have just saved the 20 bucks and done it outside. I went to the Green Valley Ranch location and there was something wrong with their heater so they cranked up the humidifier to compensate for it. It was cooler than it was supposed to be and the humidity was out of control. It was like a fucking rainforest…so awful. I made it through the class but I was miserable. The instructor was a real stickler for everyone doing things in unison also…which is different from the San Diego studio. In the Old Town SD class I get really annoyed because there is this one woman who just does whatever the hell she wants. She comes into class late and gets into each position about 15 seconds late almost every time. It is so distracting and annoying. I mean, she’s only cheating herself, right? There is also another guy in SD who fidgets almost the whole class. During every single savasna he’s wiggling his legs, moving his arms, breathing heavy like he is going to have a heart attack and generally disrupting everyone around him. I try to avoid sitting near either of them. Anwyays, the Vegas studio was nice because she forced everyone to stay together and stay calm between postures, which is half the point of the class: bringing yourself to a calm state instantly.

This is Danny’s one year old German Shepherd, Zeba. Apparently that’s the Hebrew word for “splendid” although I just tried looking that up and found nothing. lol Good one Dan. Ironic that he chose a Hewbrew word for a German dog also. She’s a little retarded to be honest, sweet dog, but mildly dumb.

This is Sophie (I think that’s her name)…this is not the one that Zeba was harrassing all night. That cat was hiding upstairs under the bed. Go figure.
 

We checked into our rooms at the MGM Grand. The underside of a very fuzzy and sleepy lion in their walk-through lion jail.

Rob had never been to Las Vegas so Nikki was bound and determined to walk into every casino over the course of the weekend. First stop New York, New York…. This statue was made out of jellybeans. Pretty cool! But man what a tedious job.

We went over to Aria and City Center to see the hotel and also to Crystals…the shopping mall that I told you about when Lisa Ann and I went to eat at Mastro’s. The mall is so futuristic and weird looking. I can’t decide if I am creeped out by it or like it.

The other side of Mastro’s.

I like the use of white with the dark linear wood.

We went north to Stratosphere so we could get a view of the whole city.

I considered doing the Sky Jump thingy but we saw a guy do it and to be honest, it was slow. I mean you free fall like 800 – 900 feet but he was moving pretty slow. It didn’t seem worth $99.

The big blue building on the left is The Fountainebleau like the one in Miami… unfortunately this one has gone bankrupt and stopped building.

Oh wow, Justin Beiber is working the elevators at Stratosphere on Fridays now.

Nikki insisted that we go into Circus Circus despite my pleas. I warned her that it was full of kids, a waste of time and the clowns would most certainly creep her out. We lasted 5 minutes. Long enough to grab a beer and take a photo of these awesome bar stools.

That is by far the ugliest quinceanera dress I have ever seen.

The Venentian really is the best hotel in Vegas in my opinion. The basic rooms all have a sunken living room, the restaurants are great (esp now that Palazzo is connected to it) and the mall with the gondolas and the replica of St Mark’s Square are just too cool. Being that I spent a week there every January for our annual industry tradeshow, I have a sense of comfort walking in the building. Even the smell of the place immediately brings back many memories for me. Some good, some bad, mostly fuzzy.

I liked the way the water is relfecting on the side of the tower.

I’ve never actually taken one of these gondola rides…one of these days. Or I could save the hundred bucks and save my money and actually go to Italy. lol

We wandered over to Treasure Island for one last pit stop before heading back to MGM to take naps and eat dinner.

Danny and I went to see Daniel Tosh performing stand up at Mirage and I have to tell you. It’s official. I am in love.

I could only snap a pic at the very last second and I wasn’t prepared with the setting so the pix suck, but you get the idea. The show was awesome. So inappropriate and off color on so many levels. He really pushes the envelope and makes people just laugh so hard at some ridiculous things. Thanks again Pat and Ed for introducing me to him just a few months ago. Rich claims that he and Kim tried to tell me about him a while back, but I don’t always listen to people. Sometimes you have to learn things for yourself. Tonight I learned that Daniel Tosh will be my husband one day.

After the show Danny and I met with Rob and Nikki at O’Sheas and I gotta tell you… this is not my favorite spot on the strip anymore. It was like a high school kegger with scattered old folks. It used to be a cool spot to duck into it away from the crowds on the strip, but is now very crowded and kind of icky. I saw my bartender Santos again (who bitched at me again for not bringing him porn) but still hooked me up with a free drink. Rob and Nikki went home. Danny played poker and I made my way back to MGM laughing my ass off at all the wasted drunk girls wearing dresses that look like they should be shirts…carrying their high heels, stumbling barefoot around the streets. I love being sober at this hour in Las Vegas! It was highly entertaining.

Saturday June 12, 2010

Today’s plan to work on our tans by the pool (as opposed to the other days haha!) was foiled by clouds and drizzle. We only got about 45 minutes of sunshine the whole day. Total bummer. What wasn’t a bummer were the hot guys hanging out by the pool for us to gawk at! For example…this Vince Vaughn/Couples Retreat look alike. Delicious. When Lisa sent her business card over via the waiter you should have seen this guy sprint over to our cabana. I mean like full on sprint. That’s the best shot I could get of him since having a big ass camera at the topless pool might cause a ruckus.

Ron Jeremy was being mauled by fans for autographs and pictures.

Here he is having what appears to be a very uncomfortable conversation with a super fan. Moments later he was asked to leave the premises for exposing himself to her behind the cabanas! Real classy.

Dear Lord I hope this guy finds this blog one day.

Billy telling ridiculous stories about a guy in jail. He was telling us all about how he came to own a nightclub in Cancun and how involved he is with the distillery process of his tequila company Ambhar. If you give two shits about tequila it’s an interesting read. Lisa Ann and I are seriously discussing going down there for an annual Friends Of Bill weekend in September. I really don’t know what this entails but it sure sounds like fun and I have never been to Cancun so what the hell.

Billy offered to take us to dinner at a place called Mastro’s in the new super futuristic City Center. It reminds me of the movie Gattaca! So sterile and strange.

The designer of the restaurant’s “treehouse” is David Rockwell.

On a side note I have never… in all the years that I have known Lisa… see her get so excited about ANYTHING, let alone food. She was talking about the food and what she was going to eat the entire time in the cab on the way there. She was mentally and emotionally consumed with the meal that was about to take place and I gotta tell ya… I was a little nervous because she had hyped it up SO MUCH. I really did not want to be let down. I mean steak is steak, right? (ha… you know I am kidding about that)

We ordered the Cosmo served with dry ice for a fun little presentation.

Seafood tower with several different types of crab, lobster, oysters and caviar. Billy looks like he is going to murder this tower.

The guy on the left is someone that Billy calls AJ (Angry Jew) who runs something important over at Venetian and Palazzo. I forget what he does exactly. Interesting dude from Brooklyn… loved his east coast attitude and style. Lisa and Billy were starving so you have 2 very annoyed diners in this photo reluctantly posing for my picture.

From the left lobster mashed potatoes, bone-in filet ( I had never had that before! It was amazing), steamed asparagus (for the first time it did not make my piss smell funny) and the winner of the night: black truffle gnocchi with lobster. I  forgot to order my steak on a cold plate (AGAIN) but luckily they brought one to me pretty quickly and my steak was done perfectly so I was happy. The potatoes were awesome but what isn’t awesome with lobster added to it? And the gnocchi… well that was a religious experience. I literally woke up in the middle of the night wishing that I had stolen the leftovers from Billy’s bag just so I could have the gnocchi. It was out of this fucking world.

Dessert was vanilla bean creme brulee and an unbelievably delicious warm butter cake (their signature dish) with the perfect amount of sweet and salty. Topped with their homemade whipped cream… oh my god. We all left in a massive food coma.

It was still really early so we went back to our hotel/homes to take naps and guess what? I am still fighting this head cold and I knew that my 8am flight would come all too soon, so I chose wisely and stayed in. I guess I am getting old because this is 2 out of 3 nights in Vegas where I am in bed for the night before 9pm.