Dracos in Vegas

[Dracos]

Sharing the fun.  Wandered out there with the company this past weekend.  Kind of a ridiculous thing that I wouldn't normally have ended up at.

Shuttles dropped us off at the Cosmopolitian on the strip which is ...extravagant.  The entire strip that is.  If you leave it (as happened later), Vegas becomes a normal city, but the strip is enormous high-rise hotels that are each individually large mall sized on their lower floors with at least 2 casinos and a dozen or more stores, restaurants and show stages.  Prostitutes, drunks, and gamblers roamed the floors and the elevators.  Everything cost way way too much.  I don't think I had a meal there that ..no wait, my sit down with Liddo was under 30 a person.

Anyhow, they have fantastic 'get ticket' options, so on the way to the airport I bought a ticket to Zarkana by Cirque du Soleil.  In many ways I kind of pictured that group as basically trying to create a new form for circus entertainment to avoid competition with the hundred+ year circus kings of the ringling bros circus.  I was not expecting the degree to which I was right.  Let's see before I got to that I wandered by holsteins and had a pretty decent burger and shake that cost a fortune and then Rio's World Buffet which was one of the most varied buffets I've ever been at with some impressive high end options but at the same time, didn't impress on its average.  It was neat though and frankly not all that expensive for a buffet either. 

Anyhow, after that I saw Zarkana which did a lot of traditional circus acts mixed in with an oft incoherent stage performance.  They did them very well (acrobats were fantastic), but at the same time a lot of them felt bereft of well... the context of someone shouting and going "And next we have our amazing trapezee artists" instead of them just suddenly rushing the stage and doing flips.  A few acts had some good showmanship alongside with the great acrobatics but overall it had me nodding rather than awed.  A lot of their best acts show on the giant screens around the strip, so basically if you look at any ads, you have seen the best stunts in the show, instead of ...well, midpoints as they seemed like they would be.

Caught up with Liddo-kun/Rai-kun and his roommate the next morning after crossing their bridges (had a lot better go of doing any walking around on day two).  We headed out and saw Jurassic World...which was lame.  Lots of caricature dependency to deliver their Dinosaur goes amuck plot.  Dino size unimpressive (which well, given they were trying to push Bigger, More Teeth as the driving impulse) was weird.  Lots that was mockable, though not Dark Knight Rises level.  Chris Pratt seemed like one of the few actual sane characters, which made for a ridiculous story.  Good modeling and cinematography but yeah story was not cool.

We then wandered to this bulgarian place (Forte I believe?) and devoured lots of random sausage like fare.  Was not bad :)   Hangout proceeded for a while, gossiping on manga, playing Peach's Cakes, and pretending I am not an anti-social monster.

Followed it with going to the...Oh wait, not the company party but David Copperfield.  Incredible magician, best hour and so spent there.  Guy is a diva (I mean seriously, he stopped the show to lambast some people that came in late), but he is a fantastic showman and puts on an amazing well prepared show.  Good stuff.

Then went to the crazy party.  It was fun, and I wandered in two hours late, grabbed tasty food and whatnot.

Then went home the next day.  Tour over :P  Work says I should get back to it.

[Kaldrak]

Sounds like you've had quite the adventure. Got any pictures?

[Dracos]

I've got the copperfield email, but I'm not really kinda a picture guy.  Life is in the moments, ever passing by :)

[Yuthirin]

So did you guys cause the fire at the pool? :D

[Anastasia]

Sounds awesome. Surprised you didn't do any gambling, though.

[Dracos]

I was out hanging with Liddo when the pool caught fire.  They called me up to make sure I wasn't burned up.

I'm pretty conservative and while I enjoy card games, I don't like losing money.  I have a lot of respect that the people in vegas are far more cut-throat than I would be at the table.  I cede them the win, with 0 dollars lost.  The couple hundred spent on food and shows was enough :P

[Rukatin]

How does a pool catch on fire? I believe it's very hard to burn water.

[Ranma_007]

Cool trip!

[Dracos]

How does a pool catch on fire? I believe it's very hard to burn water.

It was an indoor pool area or whatnot on like the 39th floor.  I take it something in the area was just set on fire.  Can't really say as I was nowhere near it.

[Anastasia]

Fair enough. Ironic timing if nothing else.

So do you want to go back to Las Vegas anytime soon?

[Dracos]

Not particularly.  :)

Seems more a nice once thing.