Monday, September 12, 2005
Wanawow! Weekend in Vegas!
I left work early on Thursday to attempt to beat LA traffic both out of LA and up to LV. During these long weekends a *lot* of Los Angelinians head up to Las Vegas, and you do not want to get caught in that traffic crunch. It’s unpleasant. Well, I made it up to LV without incident and got to see my Aunt. I stay with her essentially every time I’m up in Vegas. It was great to see her, of course, cause she’s awesome, and it was also great to see her CATS! Because I love CATS, even though I can’t quite have one of my own yet. I petted a lot of hair off those guys while I was up there, which unfortunately meant Aunt J had to do some vacuuming. (Man, I never noticed how many people I know whose names begin with the letter J. Heh.)
Friday I was out on my own, so I slept in and then went out to Chinatown! Chinatown in LV isn’t particularly big, but they’ve got some neat Asian markets, and it’s always fun to go into those places and try stuff you’ve never tried before, or even better, stuff that you can’t even read. That’s an adventure. I tried three things. The first I dubbed ‘Lychee Newtons’, because that’s pretty much what they were. They had a strawberry version, too, but I’ve had strawberry Newtons before, and I have no idea what a Lychee fruit tastes like. Turns out it tastes kinda fruity, but that makes sense, cause it’s a fruit. A touch bitter, but just a touch. Neat stuff. Thing two was a random pastry-looking thing I pulled off a shelf. It was called Bibingka. I had no idea what it was at the time, but it looked kinda tasty, and I’m all about adventure! It was a tasty little cake, really, with an inside that was soft and almost cheesy. Three stars! #1 Weird, though, was definitely the drink. I picked up a can of ‘White Gourd Juice’. I didn’t even know you could get juice from white Gourds or any Gourds for that matter. But evidently you can. You know what it tasted like? Gingerbread. Yeah.
After that I strolled down the street and wandered into a place selling fantasy knives, swords, airsoft guns, and the like. I stayed for about an hour-and-a-half, and not for the knives, either.
The guy behind the desk introduced himself as a student of the martial arts and we started chatting about our respective arts and other related stuff. When I say ‘we started talking’, I really mean ‘he started talking’ and ‘I started listening.’ When I told him I do TKD, he asked if it was one of those ‘contract black belt’ things, and I said no. For those of you that don’t know, a contract black belt is essentially something where you walk in and sign a contract that says if you attend a certain number of classes in a certain amount of time, you are *guaranteed* a black belt, sometimes in as little as a year.. It’s absurd, and fairly insulting to those of us that actually work at ours. So I started off thinking this guy might be all right. That turned out to be an incorrect view. Here are some of my favorite lines. They’re not literal quotes, but you get the idea.
“The law is that if you train in a martial art for more than 6 months, your hands are deadly weapons. That’s bull****. Cops told my friend he should have shown more restraint cause he’s a martial artist. But sometimes you can’t turn your back on a guy, cause he’s Philipino and he’ll stab you!” (The guy behind the counter was black.)
“I’m going to Thailand for a month. I’m going to go so crazy. I’ll probably catch some STD, but I don’t care, as long as it’s curable.”
“My female friend was like ‘yeah, that guy’s hot’, and my guy friend was like, ‘yeah, he is’. And I’m just like, ‘Dude, you’ve slept at my house, you’re never coming over again.’ That’s like…uuugh.”
Yeah, raging homophobe, borderline racist, and of questionable drive. If martial arts is about self improvement, he’s still got some work to do. I didn’t say anything, though, I didn’t half to. For the last hour of the conversation I don’t think I said ten words. He was telling me about Thai Chi, and how a lot of the moves are about just stepping to the side and letting your opponent make a fool out of his or herself. I wanted to see if he’d realize that’s what I was doing with our conversation, but he never picked it up. He just kept talking, and I just kept staring at him and smiling every time he said something foolish. He never stopped, just kept talking at me the whole time. He might have been bored, though, no one else came into the shop while I was there.
Friday night, we went out to visit my cousin, who also lives in LV. We had some dinner, played some dice games, and chatted and had a good time. I also got to see my cousin’s house, which is nice and huge and new and awesome and would have cost, I’m sure, about 550,000 in LA. It was much cheaper in LV. That’s why I’m hoping for an earthquake. It’s the only way I’ll be able to afford a house down here. Okay, I’m not really hoping for one, but I am realistic about the housing market down here. It’s foolish.
Saturday, we hit an open-air, public swap-meet. Imagine 500 people coming together and having the cities biggest garage sale, and you’ll have a sense of what it was like. People were selling everything, and a lot of them had permanent booths set up for selling music, or clothes, or hardware, or movies, or pretty much anything else you could imagine. Aunt and Uncle piled up a bunch of their junk, as well as many of my Uncles Collectables (coins, silver strikes, and old hot wheels cars; actually collectable stuff!) and rolled out to the place. They were selling things off; I was looking for cheap deals on neat stuff. I looked at airsoft guns for a while. They make great movie props, but I figured if D and I ever make another movie, I’d rather do more fighting than shooting. Some of the airsoft guns were pretty silly, though. You could pick up a pistol, but it came with a scope, laser sight, flashlight, extended clip, extra handle, bottle opener, knife sharpener, and so many other attachments that it started looking more like a rifle than a pistol.
The one thing I did pick up was a game. When games go out of print before they hit their stride, you get a big demand, but a short supply. There are some niche games out that that you can sell for a really big lot of money. One of them is Gitaroo man. You can buy it on Half.com right now, but only if you’re prepared to pay $125 for it. They were selling a copy at the swap meet for $18. I almost felt bad paying so little for it, but not really. I just know my market.
The swap meet was HOT! I went through about 7 or 8 bottles of water, equivalently, and never once went to the bathroom. Made sure I had plenty of sunscreen and a hat, too. I was sweating, but we were in the desert! It just dried right off of me. Anyway, I came away unscathed.
Saturday evening I took Aunt and Uncle out for dinner. We went to a clam bake place and I had some fantastic clam chowder. My all time favorite clam chowder was some that I had in a restaurant in Pismo Beach, but this was definitely up there. We were going to try and hit up a movie afterwards, but Aunt was feeling a little down, so instead we went home and watched some DVDs. I saw ‘Get Shorty’, which was an excellent movie all around, and ‘Be Cool’, the sequel, which was an okay move, but a pretty darn funny comedy.
Sunday morning was a slow day, but Sunday evening I got to go see T and J (another one!) get married. It was a relatively small ceremony, just a few friends and family, and it was held in a little chapel near the LV courthouse. The kind of place that does weddings every hour, on the hour. Heh. We had a big dinner, then, with everyone at a restaurant at the Belagio, and then had some cake and plenty of socializing up at a big suite at one of the top floors up there. It was awesome-wicked-cool.
Next day, spent the morning relaxing again, and then the afternoon we met at the Belagio Buffet. For those of you that have never experienced this before, wow. The place is huge, there are tons and tons and TONS of different kinds of food, a huge sushi bar, a huge salad bar, more deserts than you can shake a stick at, just food for miles. My recommendation: just take small bits of lots of different things. Try stuff out. That’s pretty much the point.
After that food-fest, we all got into taxis and went down to the Luxor and saw Blue Man! I’d seen it before, but it’s a really fantastic show anytime. After that, we all moseyed back to the Belagio, hung out in the hotel room, watched the fountain from the window, ate gobs of cake (I even got sent home with some) and then all went our separate ways. I woke up in the morning and just drove home (no traffic, again).
And here’s something that didn’t get reported from a few weeks ago. I made Krub! It’s something of a tradition in our family. Food-processed potatoes, salt and flour, wrapped around seasoned pork. It’s pretty bland on its own, but you eat it with butter, which makes it fantastic. I even captured the moment on film.
Siblings of mine may wish to check out my image directory, got some new photos on there from various vacations. I didn’t take any from the wedding itself, because I am a bigger fan of remembering stuff than I am of photos, generally, and because everyone else there was clicking away like madmen and madwomen. Those pictures will be collected together before too long, and so if you’re curious, I can point you in the correct direction.
Not a bad entry. Cheers!
-N
I left work early on Thursday to attempt to beat LA traffic both out of LA and up to LV. During these long weekends a *lot* of Los Angelinians head up to Las Vegas, and you do not want to get caught in that traffic crunch. It’s unpleasant. Well, I made it up to LV without incident and got to see my Aunt. I stay with her essentially every time I’m up in Vegas. It was great to see her, of course, cause she’s awesome, and it was also great to see her CATS! Because I love CATS, even though I can’t quite have one of my own yet. I petted a lot of hair off those guys while I was up there, which unfortunately meant Aunt J had to do some vacuuming. (Man, I never noticed how many people I know whose names begin with the letter J. Heh.)
Friday I was out on my own, so I slept in and then went out to Chinatown! Chinatown in LV isn’t particularly big, but they’ve got some neat Asian markets, and it’s always fun to go into those places and try stuff you’ve never tried before, or even better, stuff that you can’t even read. That’s an adventure. I tried three things. The first I dubbed ‘Lychee Newtons’, because that’s pretty much what they were. They had a strawberry version, too, but I’ve had strawberry Newtons before, and I have no idea what a Lychee fruit tastes like. Turns out it tastes kinda fruity, but that makes sense, cause it’s a fruit. A touch bitter, but just a touch. Neat stuff. Thing two was a random pastry-looking thing I pulled off a shelf. It was called Bibingka. I had no idea what it was at the time, but it looked kinda tasty, and I’m all about adventure! It was a tasty little cake, really, with an inside that was soft and almost cheesy. Three stars! #1 Weird, though, was definitely the drink. I picked up a can of ‘White Gourd Juice’. I didn’t even know you could get juice from white Gourds or any Gourds for that matter. But evidently you can. You know what it tasted like? Gingerbread. Yeah.
After that I strolled down the street and wandered into a place selling fantasy knives, swords, airsoft guns, and the like. I stayed for about an hour-and-a-half, and not for the knives, either.
The guy behind the desk introduced himself as a student of the martial arts and we started chatting about our respective arts and other related stuff. When I say ‘we started talking’, I really mean ‘he started talking’ and ‘I started listening.’ When I told him I do TKD, he asked if it was one of those ‘contract black belt’ things, and I said no. For those of you that don’t know, a contract black belt is essentially something where you walk in and sign a contract that says if you attend a certain number of classes in a certain amount of time, you are *guaranteed* a black belt, sometimes in as little as a year.. It’s absurd, and fairly insulting to those of us that actually work at ours. So I started off thinking this guy might be all right. That turned out to be an incorrect view. Here are some of my favorite lines. They’re not literal quotes, but you get the idea.
“The law is that if you train in a martial art for more than 6 months, your hands are deadly weapons. That’s bull****. Cops told my friend he should have shown more restraint cause he’s a martial artist. But sometimes you can’t turn your back on a guy, cause he’s Philipino and he’ll stab you!” (The guy behind the counter was black.)
“I’m going to Thailand for a month. I’m going to go so crazy. I’ll probably catch some STD, but I don’t care, as long as it’s curable.”
“My female friend was like ‘yeah, that guy’s hot’, and my guy friend was like, ‘yeah, he is’. And I’m just like, ‘Dude, you’ve slept at my house, you’re never coming over again.’ That’s like…uuugh.”
Yeah, raging homophobe, borderline racist, and of questionable drive. If martial arts is about self improvement, he’s still got some work to do. I didn’t say anything, though, I didn’t half to. For the last hour of the conversation I don’t think I said ten words. He was telling me about Thai Chi, and how a lot of the moves are about just stepping to the side and letting your opponent make a fool out of his or herself. I wanted to see if he’d realize that’s what I was doing with our conversation, but he never picked it up. He just kept talking, and I just kept staring at him and smiling every time he said something foolish. He never stopped, just kept talking at me the whole time. He might have been bored, though, no one else came into the shop while I was there.
Friday night, we went out to visit my cousin, who also lives in LV. We had some dinner, played some dice games, and chatted and had a good time. I also got to see my cousin’s house, which is nice and huge and new and awesome and would have cost, I’m sure, about 550,000 in LA. It was much cheaper in LV. That’s why I’m hoping for an earthquake. It’s the only way I’ll be able to afford a house down here. Okay, I’m not really hoping for one, but I am realistic about the housing market down here. It’s foolish.
Saturday, we hit an open-air, public swap-meet. Imagine 500 people coming together and having the cities biggest garage sale, and you’ll have a sense of what it was like. People were selling everything, and a lot of them had permanent booths set up for selling music, or clothes, or hardware, or movies, or pretty much anything else you could imagine. Aunt and Uncle piled up a bunch of their junk, as well as many of my Uncles Collectables (coins, silver strikes, and old hot wheels cars; actually collectable stuff!) and rolled out to the place. They were selling things off; I was looking for cheap deals on neat stuff. I looked at airsoft guns for a while. They make great movie props, but I figured if D and I ever make another movie, I’d rather do more fighting than shooting. Some of the airsoft guns were pretty silly, though. You could pick up a pistol, but it came with a scope, laser sight, flashlight, extended clip, extra handle, bottle opener, knife sharpener, and so many other attachments that it started looking more like a rifle than a pistol.
The one thing I did pick up was a game. When games go out of print before they hit their stride, you get a big demand, but a short supply. There are some niche games out that that you can sell for a really big lot of money. One of them is Gitaroo man. You can buy it on Half.com right now, but only if you’re prepared to pay $125 for it. They were selling a copy at the swap meet for $18. I almost felt bad paying so little for it, but not really. I just know my market.
The swap meet was HOT! I went through about 7 or 8 bottles of water, equivalently, and never once went to the bathroom. Made sure I had plenty of sunscreen and a hat, too. I was sweating, but we were in the desert! It just dried right off of me. Anyway, I came away unscathed.
Saturday evening I took Aunt and Uncle out for dinner. We went to a clam bake place and I had some fantastic clam chowder. My all time favorite clam chowder was some that I had in a restaurant in Pismo Beach, but this was definitely up there. We were going to try and hit up a movie afterwards, but Aunt was feeling a little down, so instead we went home and watched some DVDs. I saw ‘Get Shorty’, which was an excellent movie all around, and ‘Be Cool’, the sequel, which was an okay move, but a pretty darn funny comedy.
Sunday morning was a slow day, but Sunday evening I got to go see T and J (another one!) get married. It was a relatively small ceremony, just a few friends and family, and it was held in a little chapel near the LV courthouse. The kind of place that does weddings every hour, on the hour. Heh. We had a big dinner, then, with everyone at a restaurant at the Belagio, and then had some cake and plenty of socializing up at a big suite at one of the top floors up there. It was awesome-wicked-cool.
Next day, spent the morning relaxing again, and then the afternoon we met at the Belagio Buffet. For those of you that have never experienced this before, wow. The place is huge, there are tons and tons and TONS of different kinds of food, a huge sushi bar, a huge salad bar, more deserts than you can shake a stick at, just food for miles. My recommendation: just take small bits of lots of different things. Try stuff out. That’s pretty much the point.
After that food-fest, we all got into taxis and went down to the Luxor and saw Blue Man! I’d seen it before, but it’s a really fantastic show anytime. After that, we all moseyed back to the Belagio, hung out in the hotel room, watched the fountain from the window, ate gobs of cake (I even got sent home with some) and then all went our separate ways. I woke up in the morning and just drove home (no traffic, again).
And here’s something that didn’t get reported from a few weeks ago. I made Krub! It’s something of a tradition in our family. Food-processed potatoes, salt and flour, wrapped around seasoned pork. It’s pretty bland on its own, but you eat it with butter, which makes it fantastic. I even captured the moment on film.
Siblings of mine may wish to check out my image directory, got some new photos on there from various vacations. I didn’t take any from the wedding itself, because I am a bigger fan of remembering stuff than I am of photos, generally, and because everyone else there was clicking away like madmen and madwomen. Those pictures will be collected together before too long, and so if you’re curious, I can point you in the correct direction.
Not a bad entry. Cheers!
-N
Comments:
Post a Comment
