Las Vegas-classic or dud?

I like the extreme tack and excess of nu-Vegas. The tackiness is ceratinly not 'fake'. The Bellagio's art collection is just so wonderfully WRONG.

when we go back in a few months i want to explore the highways outside of the city more. the dead abandoned parts

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I was walking between the Luxor and the Excalibur when this terrific wind arose... I looked around expecting to see a giant dragon fighting a baboon-faced Ra while an animatronic wizard cast balls of fire... But no, it was just a dust storm, pelting my eyes with grit and spinning Fritos bags in a grimy cyclone.

That's when I realized: "What the fuck am I doing in the stupid desert?" It was about 108* and very uncomfortable.

Nevada does have awesome ghost towns and kick-axe buffets...

BUFFETS....

I read this thread, but it does not work for me. I am no hipster! I am not jaded, I am naive! I have a scheduled bedtime! I have only two pairs of pants! I have a lot of stuffed animals! I carry a coffee flask! etc.

(Postponed until further notice)

Of course, not all of that is true.

Pretty much agree with the sentiments of Aaron A. Why visit Vegas at all if not to embrace the tackiness? That's entirely the point of it. It either appeals or it doesn't, I suppose. I certainly couldn't stay there for more than 3 days at a time (and by the third day you're pretty burnt out), but while there I have a blast.

Although the Algiers Hotel looked really great and rundown and had a wonderfully skeezy old-man bar.

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I wish!

Slot A'Fun

i was thinking of l.a. style last night when that lisa stansfield "been around the world and ay-yi-yi" song came on the radio.

So I'm going for a bachelor party in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty terrified. However, we're staying in a couple of suites at the Signature MGM, which is something, no?

I want to go to LV for the foodz. Incl. that Thai place that's supposed to be so good...Lotus of Siam?

'We got the letter from Las Vegas all right, and thought that between gambling (the most uninteresting of all vices: wine, women and murder I can understand, but roulette – the vapidity of it!) and the glaring hideousness of the decorations and surrounding desert and its neighbouring explosions, L.V was about the nearest thing to a nightmare we'd ever heard of. Did you like it'? – C.S. Lewis

WTF, who was he writing to?

I don't know, I found it from this interesting overview of vol. 3 of C.S. Lewis's correspondence.

It is the best summary of Vegas I have ever read.

SPELLING
Lewis was a professional pedant about language, so it is surprising to find him opposing spelling reform, not because it is newfangled, but because there is no particular reason why we should all spell words the same way.

'Who would be a penny the worse if though and tho, existence and existence, sieze, seize and seeze were all equally tolerated....This would save children and teachers thousand of hours' work. It would also force those to whom applications for jobs are made to exercise their critical faculties on the logic and vocabulary of the candidate instead of tossing his letter aside with the words 'can't even spell.'

RIP Danny Gans, I guess.

i was there for a bachelor party weekend a couple months back and it was a pretty good time actually, but the economy might be hitting it hard because i don't remember there being so many nightclub and strip joint street teamers wandering around trying to hand out business cards. i felt like as the night would go on, the sales pitches would get more and more intense?

"want to see a show?"
"hey, whaddya say, how bout a strip show?"
"hey, wanna see some titties?"
"hey, we got tits and pussy, come on."
"want a pussy in your face? want some tits in your mouth? come on, check this place."
"these girls will let you do anything? want to come? no? okay, FAG."
"hey pussy, you a faggot or something? only a faggot wouldn't want to see these titties and all this pussy."

Being taunted into forced heterosexual activities by questioning sexuality as a promotional gimmick seems poor form, even for Las Vegas.

“It’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly. Unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.”

Being of, cough, Italian extraction, I expected to have fun and did have fun. However, it was for a wedding and all my family was there.

My favorite thing, though, was that it was scorching hot - over 100 F every day they were there. We stayed on the quiet family-friendly side. Frankly I liked the alien landscape surrounding the town. I liked listening to the Jewel and getting teary.

The Catholic Church where the wedding was had this giant baptismal "font", the size of a wading pool. Desert culture sure is exotic.

It seemed pretty liberal, but as you can see above, there is a dodgy side that is quaint to this easterner. I don't mean quaint in a nice way. I mean real greaseballs. Whereas pimps I've seen are jaded and bored.

Is Vegas kind of bleh in December? I saw some good package flight/hotel deals for the Venitian, which above seems to have gotten a big endorsement, albeit 10 years ago. Was thinking about taking the fam for a non-gambling Vegas trip. Neither me nor my wife has ever been, and I don't think my toddler has either.

december is a good time to go, the weather should be alright

the venetian is okay but you are giving sheldon adelson your money

Is there a George Soros or warren buffet owned resort I can stay in instead?

A good friend of ours, one of the nicest guys we know, has decided to go all-in cliche with a 40th Vegas birthday, and nothing could bum me out more. It would require taking off work, flying, getting an overnight sitter for kids (them too), all in service of a weekend of imo lame. Promises of drinking (can do anywhere), gambling (don't want to do) and no doubt ample karaoke (anywhere) and joking about going to strip clubs (barf, and not just because the trip includes spouses). They're even adding "baby!' to the end of sentences in the invitation. It's just kind of sad to me. I know they'll have a good time, but it's a bummer knowing at least half of our core group of friends just won't go, on principal and in practice, and the other half is totally able to embrace the party-hardy inanity of Vegas, so no doubt the core group of friends will be divided between us staying behind and those taking home lots of nudge-nudge, wink-wink. Insult to injury is that it's in early summer, so it won't even be cold in Chicago anymore.

I don't know, man. Why do people go to Vegas? It's just a bad, ugly place that symbolizes a lot of bad, ugly things vis a vis a lot of bad, ugly people. And bad, ugly, rich people, too. Yeah, my opinion, my baggage, and I do get it, but still. Just had to vent.

A friend of mine got married in Vegas last weekend, and she said the Elvis-led ceremony and the marriage itself are the only things she doesn't regret about the experience. She wanted Vegas to be cheezy, I think, and got blown away by how fratty and porny it is.

vegas is fun for 24 hrs max after which pt it's just one big nasty ash tray hangover. at least there aren't dudes handing out hooker ads on the corner of every pedestrian thoroughfare anymore

I kept my focus on food and poker and enjoyed my short stay.

The hooker ads abounded when I first visited at like 11 or so, in the 80s; I totally collected them, though even back then I recall overlooking the sexuality and heading straight to kitsch value. Now, man, it just seems a conflation of the worst America has to offer. It's dirty, ugly, filled with frat guys and sleaze and people walking down the street yelling "wooo!" And all in service of different extremes of conspicuous consumption divided sharply along class lines. The high roller rooms and tables, the cheap motels and doller slots. The all you can eat buffet, and some of the best, priciest restaurants in the country. Like I noted, even the weather isn't a good sell this time around.

Dollar, whoops.

dud

dud

the duddiest of duds, nightmarish

it was probably fun in the 60s

i can have fun there, it's still dud, though

the amount of british people who have visited the u.s. multiple times and only been to florida and vegas is truly saddening.

i had fun the last time i went (cf my last post in this thread a few years ago) but it's such a dud city. my memories of that weekend actually don't involve much of the fun i was having but the depressing things i witnessed.

You all are making me feel much better about my decision not to go, thanks.

as an energy efficiency guy I kinda can't even deal with the amount of waste in that city, it's insane