Randoms in a Bar
This was last night in San Francisco but I can’t be arsed to update that page any more.
BTW – if you think that is red eye in the picture on the bloke next to me, its not. They are engineers from Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK.
I lost my heart luggage, in San Francisco
Our time at the airport started well until Tub went to look for a sandwich and I saw the sign saying that the plane to Vegas was very full and they were looking for people to put their carry on luggage in the hold instead of take it on the plane.
Here is where we differ. In my mind as a Scotsman I paid $25 to put one bag in the hold and now I I can put another one in for free, plus I won’t have to carry the stupid bag around and argue with mentally retarded people on the plane about who gets to put their bag in the overhead locker.
Tub has a different world view, she wants to keep the bag that she put all of her jewellery and valuables in close to her.
She came back.
“Where is my fucking bag?”
Awkward.
Thankfully when we got to Vegas both bags turned up. Tub also managed to leave my laptop sitting on a counter in the car park but luckily someone chased her down to give it back.
I’ll settle for a score draw with that one.
Las Vegas
This city has slot machines. Lots of them.
No, that’s not a casino. That is the baggage carousel at the airport.
Our hotel is on “the strip” also known as Las Vegas Boulevard, which is the only street here so it doesn’t really need a name. It is $40 a night but its at least as good as the Hilton in San Francisco and with less crack addicts. I was expecting Vegas to be like Surfers Paradise without the class but its actually pretty good.
This is the view from our balcony (the Hilton didn’t have a balcony).
Everything here is completely genuine. We went to a real Egyptian Pyramid Casino©. Here is Tub pointing at a naked man’s knees for some reason.
We also met the Statue of Liberty who was taking a few days off.
And we had a beer in a casino bar.
Nothing says Gangsta Lifestyle like $5.
I love American bars. No responsible service of alcohol crap and no system of measurement. I asked for a whisky without specifying how much and they gave me a furlong.
Tub doesn’t approve of me drinking whisky. The fact that I call it fast forward juice could be part of the reason. Once after drinking whisky I time travelled forward 3 whole days.
After the whisky I was very happy.
Then we went to see a show. It was a medieval themed dinner which started at 6pm. The reason it started at 6pm was so all of the kids there could get to bed on time. However I don’t think any of those kids will ever sleep again. The show involved knights from different countries riding around on horses and dancing. The first horse to come out was clearly a bit nervous as he shat all over the arena. This was followed by more dancing and sing along songs and general merriment. Then we each got a whole chicken to eat and the show turned a little darker.
One of the knights went round trying to rape all of the women from the other countries and then the lead singer from Kiss arrived on a horse and chopped the kings head off. A huge battle erupted and I counted at least 9 dead characters getting dragged off through the horse shit. The four year old next to me turned a funny colour and nearly choked on a chicken leg.
For some reason the French knight got booed by everyone whenever he came out (even the section who were allocated to cheer him). The Americans seem to have forgotten who won them independence from Britain (so much so that the British General who surrendered did so to the French leader in the room and not the American). They should also give back that statue. But… the guy was pretending to be French so I booed him too. “Fuck you, you Froggy bastard!” I shouted with gay abandon. “Oh, sorry kid. Here have some more chicken.”
After that we wandered home along the strip.
No Mickey, I didn’t say Minnie Mouse was crazy, I said she was fucking Goofy.
Clippy from Microsoft Office.
I have no idea who this is. Must be a chef or something. Time for bed.
Tuesday – just like any other day
Oh, except for Elvis.
Unlike the first time we got married at least today I didn’t need a note from my mum to get the day off school and Tub wasn’t pregnant so she could have a drink.
As the ‘limo’ drove us to the chapel passing the bail loans office and the queue at the pawn shop (that’s pawn with a “W”), I couldn’t help reflecting on how lucky we have been over the past 27 years and thinking that if one of us doesn’t get our finger out soon we’ll be stood in the same queue. Thankfully now that I don’t work in Investment Banking the chances of me going to prison have greatly reduced.
Elvis was in a bit of a rush so here is the whole ceremony.
I found the whole thing a bit shocking.
After that we got a taxi back into the strip (the driver had pawned the limo to raise money for his grandmother’s bail).
We had a look at Caesar’s Palace.
And then had lunch in a Gordon Ramsay pub. Shepherd’s pie, a salad and two beers for only $85. Thank fuck it was happy hour.
I think I have changed my mind, Vegas isn’t as good as Surfers Paradise. It might be if you were interested in gambling but apart from gambling, getting married and gambling, there isn’t much to do here. The main activities are driving sports cars in the desert and firing machine guns. Surfer’s has a beach. Remember that America the next time you build Vegas.
Tomorrow we are off to the Hoover Dam.
Wednesday
Don’t speak too soon, but I think the jet lag is finally beaten. Today we got out of the strip and headed to the Hoover Dam. After inventing the vacuum cleaner and capturing John Dillinger, one day J Edgar Hoover dropped an oversize dildo on his stiletto and shouted “Damn!”. His assistants jumped into action and now we have the Hoover Dam.
Its only 30 minutes from our hotel but it took 2 hours to get there as we had to get picked up, dropped off, talked to 3 times about what a great day we would have and finally got on a bus to take us there. All the Americans were joining in with the cheering and whooping, but Tub just kept saying “For fuck sake” and “Jesus Christ” increasingly loudly.
After a couple of weeks with just our own company Tub finally connected with someone else. There was a very nice tattooed lady in our party with two kids by different fathers and a wonderful Australian bogan accent whose kids were running around breaking things. For Tub it was hatred at first sight. Let’s call her Bacardee (A name I found on the great web site thingsboganslike.com).
Opposites attract, they say. On the bus Bacardee and her kids (Rogue and Jack Daniels) sat behind us kicking Tub’s chair.
We got to the Hoov and got immediately put into a group of people for a tour. Nice. This should be great. Bacardee, Rogue and Jack Daniels were in our group too of course. We got a very brief glimpse of the dam through a window before they shoved us into a lift to go into the bowels of the thing and see pipes. “Where the fuck are we going?” said Tub, “I’m not a bloody mole, I want to see the dam.”
We got taken down to something from a Bond villain’s lair.
For all I know we visited a sewage plant.
Finally they released us and we got to go outside and actually see the Hoover Dam. The thing that amazes you, even after all the hype, is the size of it. This thing is very, very, very… small.
Its only 220m high, the tower at the end of our street in Vegas is 350m. It takes less than 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It may contain 4 trillion furlongs of concrete and in its day it must have been good but things have moved on. Here it is next to the Burj in Dubai.
In Australia we have dams bigger than that that we haven’t even given names to.
Are cracks a problem in a dam? I hope not.
They were offering helicopter rides over the dam (to make it look even smaller) and Tub signed us up. There were 7 people doing the helicopter ride, us, a nice old couple and of course Bacardee and the kids. There are 2 types of bus trips you can do. There and back, or add on lunch and a trip to a chocolate shop and a casino. We were on the simple one but Bacardee was doing the lunch trip when she added the helicopter. I don’t think this works. You are on a helicopter when everyone else is doing other things. There was a lot of discussion about how she would rejoin the other group after the helicopter. Not my problem.
We got to Boulder Airport and the intrepid flyer group was dropped off while everyone else went to eat chocolate and gamble. Thankfully we all got mixed into a much bigger group but of course as you can guess when they called out the names we were on a small helicopter with just us, Bacardee, Rogue and Jack Daniels. Rogue and Jack Daniels spent the whole flight shouting at each other through the communal headphones and the pilot, who couldn’t take his off, had the best flight of his day. Bacardee just spent the time dropping potato chips on the floor.
Despite Tub’s snarling, we enjoyed it!
When we landed, and after Tub had told everyone how much she hates fucking children, we waited for the next available bus to take us to the strip. The bus was held up while they searched for 3 passengers. No prize for guessing who, and they were the first to be dropped off so we had to go out of our way to finally get rid of them.
When we got to their drop off point. The driver said “Here you go. The rest of your party should be back in an hour or so, but that’s definitely your bus. I suggest you wait on the shaded side, its pretty hot out there.”
Tub cackled all the way home.
In the evening we went back to Caesars Palace for dinner and a show. The food so far has been awful and expensive and we weren’t expecting much this time. We went to a Wolfgang Puck restaurant (no idea who he is but he must be famous because he’s got lots of restaurants here). It was an Italian place called Spago and the food was excellent, the wine was relatively cheap and the service was great. Finally somewhere that beats the 24 hour Mexican diner where we had breakfast on the first day.
The show (Absinthe) was brilliant. Its a travelling home for retired gymnasts and tap dancers with some very funny comedians including this guy who was siting next to me.
After that we walked home past the water show. Ok, Las Vegas, you win. Provided we don’t spend the whole day here, this is a fantastic place. I’ll admit it is even better than Surfers.
We are thinking of introducing a new segment called “The Real Thing or Vegas?”. For example is Tub in Italy or Nevada in this picture?
Tomorrow is our last day here. We are going to play bridge and then find a show to watch. Maybe Rod Stewart or Sigfried and half of Roy.
Thursday
Having successfully beaten jet lag we didn’t stop there and are now well and truly into sloth. We didn’t wake up until 9am and only left the room about 10:30. It’s hard to blog about being asleep, although I’m sure somebody does it, so lets skip forward a bit.
After 4 days in Vegas we finally made it to the card tables.
We are still tracking well in our attempt for the world record of finishing last in bridge games in different parts of the world. Last time it was definitely my fault but this time the honours were shared. Like all team games, you don’t mind coming last if it is someone else’s fault.
Tacky hotel in Vegas or the Cistern Chapel? Who would know.
Mickey Mouse still isn’t speaking to me after the “What do you call Mickey’s dog?” joke, but Darth and a Stormtrooper were out. There were a lot of scantily clad women around too but Tub seemed to get a bit violent when I suggested getting my picture taken with them.
Plenty of people of the strip are completely hammered at night, but this guy was nailed. Boom! Boom!
The homeless people in San Francisco were covered in boils, wearing ragged clothes and twitching. In Vegas they are better dressed than me and sit on the bridges with the same sign that says “Need money for weed”. In the Homeless People Best City ratings, Vegas must be a long way above San Francisco.
In the evening I slept through a tribute show dedicated to Ray Charles, who had “Georgia” on his mind. From what I remember of the film about him, he wasn’t too fussy who was on his mind but did like to grab women’s wrists when he met them to make sure they weren’t porkers. They had lots of personal stories about Ray between songs but as far I can tell the closest any of the people in the show ever came to meeting him was catching the bus passed his mum’s house once.
Goodbye Vegas! See you again one day, don’t be naughty while we are away. Stay classy!
We are at the airport and one of the airlines here that keeps making announcements here is Legion Air. Think it through people, what next? Ebola Travel?
We are flying with Spirit Air – at least they are honest.
I’ve certainly got a lot less money than before I checked in. $45 for a checked in bag. $35 for a carry on bag and $10 each if you want to sit together for the 3 hour flight. Credit cards only, no cash, and a surcharge for paying by credit card. I’m going to try Black Death Airways next time.
We are sitting in the airport watching the groups of young people arrive for a weekend in Vegas. I taught Tub the game where you take a group of 20 years olds and try to guess which ones will get fucked this weekend. After 4 groups we haven’t had a no yet.
9 October 2014 at 7:48 am
How many fast forward juices had you consumed by the time you met “the chef”?
10 October 2014 at 1:47 pm
I only know that we met the chef because I found that picture.
9 October 2014 at 8:35 am
Dear Guthrie and Julie,
Thanks for the inspiration on what to do this weekend. I think Scott and I should get married again. At 41 weeks pregnant and Scott in his Batman shirt you gave him combined with some naughty children running about it will be a truly romantic affair.
Keep up the educational blogs
Love
Amy
10 October 2014 at 1:42 pm
I read this while drinking your wine and eating your hot sauces. Officially living through you kids now.
3 November 2014 at 2:17 am
SOOOOO Sweet! Love, love, love!!!!
8 November 2014 at 5:18 am
Looking good, Boss!!! I can feel and see you’re really having fun 😉