Ok here it is, much delayed, and long and rambling, Our Trip To Vegas. 

Every year one of the must-see events for the professional Game Geek Retailer is the annual GAMA Trade Show. The Game Manufacturers of America trade show is a showcase of the gaming products that are due to be released in the next year. This is a professional only event, catering to Retailers, Distributors, and Manufacturers in the Gaming field. Notice I say the “Gaming” field, and not the “Electronic Gaming” field. This is the show for board games, card games, role playing games, war games, etc, etc. The “Electronic” game geeks have their own trade show: E3. GAMA is a little more personal; there are no flashy booths, no booth babes, and no celebrities to promote their upcoming titles. Unless you count the lesser-known celebrities of the gaming geek world, like Steve Jackson.

We attended the show last year, and had fun. Cheap hotel, 2 meals a day, free product to demo and take home, and informative seminars relating to our business. Oh wait, and it’s VEGAS. Gambling! Drinking! Warm Weather! Gambling! Buffets! Gambling! For as fake as the town is Vegas rocks. Attractive women in tight fitting cocktail outfits bring you free drinks while you gamble. I’m sure that somewhere out there in this big world of ours there’s a better place. But I haven’t seen it yet. So plans were made to attend, dates were set, tickets were bought online via Expedia, and we took a break from our usual gambling action to build up the good juju for Vegas. Speaking of gambling: I know some of you live in the Bend area. We host a semi-regular poker night. If you want to play just drop me a line. We purchased the cheapest tickets we could find, which meant flying United. Not the best of airlines in my experience. Due to the cheapness of our tickets our route to Sin City meant we weren’t flying directly there from our departing point: Portland, OR. Instead we would fly from Portland to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to Vegas. Theeen, on our return trip we’d fly from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, LA to Frisco, Frisco to Portland. Woo! Why this saves the airline money I’ve no idea. Whatever, I saved at least $50 a ticket! Woo! 

Day One

With our bags in hand, the stores in the trust hands of Kim and Tessa, and a tank full of gas to get us to Portland we set off. The esteemed Dustin Murdoch, bartender extraordinaire and grappler supreme, had promised to take us to and from the airport, in addition to letting me park my car at his place. Jon was in search of a belt, so Dustin headed his car in the direction of downtown. Now let me ask you my fine readers, if you need to go to a particular store to get a particular item, do you: A.) Park in the parking garage across the street. B.) Park on the street itself in front of the store in which you wish to purchase your item. Or C.) Park 11 blocks away. Hmm…guess which option Dustin chose? Yup, that’d be option C. That Bastard. We’re Geeks! We work in a fucking comic book store, we don’t walk any further than the mailbox or the food court. But with no choice we make the trek for the belt and begin to feel the pain our feet will later inflict on us. 

Then it’s off to PDX. We revel in the glory of escalators, and moving sidewalks. Ahh, technology is grand. But what to do in a strange airport? Head to the nearest source of booze of course! This happened to be Reds Bar & Grill. OJ, Screwdrivers, and Porter was poured. It’s an airport bar, overpriced and watered down drinks. But relaxing none the less. Steelgirl stickers were covertly stuck on items, Dustin sets off the metal detectors, pictures are taken, Superfreak Secret handshakes are given, and then we were on our flight. Jon got the window, I got the middle, and a nameless yuppie got the aisle. A shotglass sized cup of OJ is dispensed by our helpful stewardess, who also hands out small packets of Pretzels. Pretzels are nowhere near the equal to a nice pack of honey roasted peanuts. I settle in and take up where I left up in my copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and take the occasional look up at what the fellow next to me is reading: a copy of the newest issue of George magazine. I realize that he hasn’t turned the page since the last time I looked up, so I decide to read his page. I get finished, and turn back to my book. He turns the page, and I do the same thing. Again, I finish the page several minutes before he does. The yupster is either incredibly stupid, or incredibly smart and gleaning way more than I did off the pages. When he turns the page again and I glance up at him I can see his lips moving ever so gently, like a small retarded child trying to read Dick and Jane silently. How sad. This guy’s watch alone is worth more than everything I’ve brought with me on this trip, yet he can’t read without moving his lips.

We begin to see the lights of the Bay Area below us. Millions of tiny lights. I can see the bridges spanning the bay and I’m astounded at how large they appear even though we’re so far up. I’ve got this weird dueling mindset about Society in my head. I can look to my left at the city below the plane and be amazed by what we’ve accomplished in the past 100 years. We’ve done so much in so little time, and the pace at which we’re accomplishing new things is only increasing. But then I hear the open-mouthed breathing of the Manicured Ape sitting next to me and I think about what a waste most people are. It’s then that I wonder if we’ve really bettered ourselves in an important manner at all. Are we living in a Golden Age or the beginning of the end? Then I realize I’m rambling. Enough of that.

Upon arriving in SFX we learn that our flight is going to be delayed for two hours. Great. Now we won’t hit Vegas until at least 1:30 in the AM. What to do, what to do? Hit the bar! The closest one to our gate was the Crab Pot Brew Pub. Another OJ, and a double screwdriver. Again, overpriced. So we sit at the window looking out into the airport and wait. Airports are a great place to people watch. When I’m a dirty old man I’m going to just sit in Airport bars and stare at the never-ending myriad of women who walk by. But you can only have so much of this before it just get's old. So we decided to check out the exhibits they had set up about Design. I unfortunately didn't pay any attention to what they were supposed to be representing. We just took pictures. Bad, poorly lit pictures. I'm with the clocks, Jon's with the Luggage. Both apporpriately themed as we were waiting for our late plane while traveling. 

We hit the plane to Vegas. I score a window seat this time, Jon’s in the middle, and another nameless yuppie-looking woman has the aisle. She has on more makeup than should be allowed by law, and as the plane starts to taxi out she busts out a compact and puts on more. I don’t know whether to be amazed at her skill in applying the crap while in a bumpy rolling airplane, or disgusted by the sheer amount she already has on. 

The plane makes good time, and soon we can see the lights of the strip as our plane starts to land. The first thing I recognize is the upwards pointing spotlight blaring out of the top of the Luxor pyramid. The second thing I can accurately identify is a fucking 7-11 by the airport. And then we’re down, and immediately confronted by rows of slot machines in the Vegas airport. Slot machines, gift stores, and giant cement desert animals. 

Again, poor dark pictures do nothing to represent the sheer beauty of a gigantic Tortise & Hare sculpted in desert rock....Ok, they were kinda lame. But hell, weez geeks! We've got to take pictures with cheesy tourist stuff. We grab a shuttle to the airport the convention is being held at-the Orleans, check in, and head up to our room. It’s a long, long walk from the elevator to the room. (More on this later, I’m sure it’s just another scheme by the hotel designers to keep you in the casino and other spots designed to take your money.) It’s a little after 2AM, my feet hurt, and I’m too tired to go downstairs and gamble. Sleep. 

Day 2.

Wake up with a  killer headache, take some drugs (legal ones mind you, I’m a good boy), hit the shower, shave, etc, etc. We head downstairs to get some crappy, overpriced breakfast. Then it’s off to the convention. We check in, pick up the badges that Identify us as Geek Merchants and stop to see what’s on the agenda for today. Hmm, tough choices abound. Learn how to sling geek stuff better, or hit the strip and gamble? Hmmm…we really only have one sensible choice. The Strip! We head downstairs to the awaiting shuttle bus that’ll take us to one of the Orleans’ sister casinos-the Gold Coast. From there we hit yet another shuttle to the Barbary Coast, which is on the strip. After doing a quick walkthrough of the Barbary we decided to head north to the next casino in the line: The Flamingo. We wander around for a bit, trying to get a feel for what game will start out our gambling on this trip. As we’re walking through the floor I spot a game that’s unfamiliar to me. “Casino War”. I stared at the rules for a moment and they confused me. They just seemed far too simplified, and I assumed I was missing something. Noting the confused look on my face the dealer sez “Throw down some money, learn while ya’ play.” Ok, I thought, why the hell not? So Jon and I threw down our bets, and play commenced. The dealer dealt each of us, plus himself, one card. Face up. Our cards were both higher than the dealers card so we won. That’s it.  Yes kids, that’s it. Just like those games of War you played as a kid. Utterly amazing that such a thing exists in a casino. But I guess it works. Arguably the fastest, and easiest (unless you try to make too much of it like me) game to learn in any casino, Casino War kinda sucks. Unless you’re retarded, or really drunk. We decided that this was our signal to leave and hit the next casino: The Imperial Palace. We hit a blackjack table, order a Bud and an OJ and start the gambling action. Blackjack treats me decent, up a whopping $5. Yeah! Woohoo! We realize that time is short and we should hit at least a few of the seminars at our trade show, so we head back to our home base, the Orleans.

            3 workshops, and 3 hours later I don’t feel like I’ve learned anything truly important. And now it’s time for the WOTC hosted dinner. Free food. Free food good. So, like sheep we all head towards the banquet hall where the dinner is being held. Man is a herd animal. Follow the herd to the food. Follow. It’s not a surprise to find that dinner consists of snack type foods and pop. Who cares, it’s all free. Wizards of the Coast put on a decent show, outlining some of their upcoming products for the year. More Magic: the Gathering products, more Pokemon, more D&D, more Star Wars. Pretty much nothing new except for one thing-Chainmail. WOTC is going to be bringing out their own tabletop miniatures board-game. The truly pathetic thing is how similar it appears to Game’s Workshops Warhammer. The free food is eaten, the WOTC boys have given their spiel, and we’re ready to hit the town.

            I wanted to check out the Luxor Casino, it’s exterior is a big black shiny pyramid, and they’ve got a monster spotlight shining out of the top pointing straight up. So we hit the shuttle down to the Barbary Coast again. Our driver tells us of the existence of a Trolley that goes up and down the strip. This sounds perfect. Supposedly there’s a stop in front of the Bellagio, so off we go in search of this mystical ride that will relieve us of our burden, and get us off our blistered feet. We stop in front of the Bellagio and watch their incredible fountain show. This show is truly incredible, and even my jaded dumbass was impressed by it.

          We started off looking for the tram, and decided to simply suck up the pain and hoof it to the next casino down the line. Past convienience stores, and car rental places featuring Ferrari's, Dodge Vipers, and similar rides, and a host of crappy tourist souvenier stands. I realized something while we were trudging up the strip. If you're ever lost in a city you should always follow the first group of cute girls you see. Theres several reasons for this: A). Cute girls generally are going somewhere for a reason, and that reason is usually to have fun. So odds are they know more about whats happening than you will. B). It's entertainment. We wound up behind a group of about 5 girls, and the resulting whistles, catcalls, and propostions coming from guys driving up the street was hillarious. C). You get to follow them. And if theres nothing else interesting to look at you can at least look at them.

          We came up on the next casino and were greeted by the sight of a giant clown heard at the doors to the Boardwalk Casino. Right away I knew we wouldn’t be stopping to gamble here. Perhaps this was a rash decision based on the bright lights, pastel colors, clown motif, and the smell of sugar in the air. But I don’t think so. Maybe next time I’ll sit and give their table games a whirl, but not this time baby, we’s got stuff to see. So we exited the Boardwalk without even stopping, in one door, out the other. And off we went to hit the New York, New York. This casino’s theme is based on, surprise, New York. No, there aren’t muggers and taggers and cabbies oh my. It’a pretty swank place, built up to resemble the NYC skyline on the exterior, while the interior has mockups of neighborhoods, as if you’re walking through NYC. It’s pretty cool. We hit a few tables, got checked out by some scary old women, and decided to hi the first bar for some cool beverages.

          We secured a decent table and sat back to watch the show, which consisted of a halfway decent cheesy cover band. The lead singer was a woman who was most likely into her late 30’s, had far too much makeup on, and was dressed like she was much, much younger.   The band played nothing but cover songs. A blend of 80’s, 90’s and 2000 pop hits. There’s something disturbing about watching a 40 year old woman singing Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera hits, while undulating like the teen divas do in their videos. So I started paying attention to the crowd instead. There I hit the pay dirt. Sitting slightly off to the left of us sat a group of 5-6 men. I’m judging that they were in construction, but from the cracks they were displaying they could’ve been plumbers as well. Now, this in itself wasn’t too funny, but the group of college aged girls sitting with them was. “Whores?” I asked Jon. “Or college girls looking for free booze?” Regardless of the answer, there’s nothing more entertaining than watching middle aged, balding men trying to dance with younger women. And if the men in question are dressed in slacks, with a button up shirt barely containing their sizeable girth, unbuttoned down to midchest, showing off their chest hair and gold medallion? Well that’s just sheer hilarity.

            The singer started in on her rendition of Genie in a Bottle, and began to shake it, and we knew it was time to leave and find some gambling fun. So off we went across the street to the MGM Grand. Walking across the bridge to the entrance of the MGM I stumble slightly, and the blisters that have been forming on my feet break. I know this isn’t going to be good. I’ve reached the point where I’d much prefer to walk and hope my feet decide to go numb, rather than sit and rest for a bit. The MGM is might swank, but as we didn’t hit it until midnight or so we didn’t get to see many attractions. We saw the cage for the lion Habitat, and the entryways to a few other attractions, all closed. But our mission at this point wasn’t to see tourist crap, but to gamble. And gamble we did, hitting the first Pai-Gow table we could find. The MGM treated us very nicely and we finally stumbled back to our hotel several hours later and several dollars richer.

            Socks are removed. Feet are inspected. And we hit the sheets. Tomorrow is the big day, the opening of the exhibit halls.