Nerd Vegas, Day 1: Gamer Nerds
While some of you were in the middle of the desert at AniZona, g-mal, jinyo, rurouni-jedi, and scruffyrebel spent a few days in the middle of the desert in Las Vegas. Their launch point was scruffyrebel's house, which (thanks to an early Thursday departure time and g-mal's beautiful car and maniacal driving) was just over three hours away from Vegas. Three hours!! Man, I gotta go more often..! As G-Mal drove, Rurouni Jedi annoyed the others with country music, Scruffy Rebel read a Stephen King novel, and Jinyo wrote and posted Drama Thursday, thanks to the magic of Verizon BroadbandAccess, high speed internet pretty much anywhere. Las Vegas was sunny and warm, with more to see and do than our small band of nerds could reasonably fit into a long weekend.
They stayed at the Luxor, the Ancient-Egypt-themed hotel casino. Their room was in the pyramid, up on the 18th floor, from which they could look down over the vast interior of the pyramid.
One unique feature of the Luxor pyramid is the slanting outer walls, where the windows are. They kind of remind me of the slanting, windowed bulkhead of the cabins on the Enterprise-D, on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But this is not the day for Star Trek nerding. The nerds took a moment to enjoy the slanting view of Mandalay Bay and its new all-suite extension, THEhotel.
Scruffy Rebel got into the pyramidal theme, wearing the hotel's free shower cap on her head. Um, I think you need to remove it from the pyramidal packaging.
G-Mal noticed a gap about eighteen inches wide between the bed and the wall. So naturally he thought it would be a good place for a nap. G-Mal seemed so comfortable that the other nerds decided to try it too. At the same time.
More than anything else, Las Vegas is famous for gambling. So naturally the nerds had to try their hand. Most of the modern slot machines work by pushing a button. They don't even spit out money if you win. They just tell you how much you've won on the digital display. Some machines don't even give you money when you cash out. Instead, they print a ticket which you can then redeem for money at the cashier cages. How boring is that? Fortunately, the nerds managed to find one old-fashioned slot machine with an arm you could pull and reels which spun.
After losing all their money (what little of it they had), the nerds spent the afternoon sightseeing. The princesses took a moment to rest outside the castle of Excalibur.
An abrupt change of pace, they then showed their tough, Big Apple attitudes at New York New York.
Rurouni Jedi demonstrates her supermodel style in front of the giant (empty) Coca Cola bottle. Nothing goes with sightseeing like shopping, as she demonstrates with her new sunglasses.
Why is there a giant Coke bottle on the Las Vegas Strip? No, it's not part of a soft-drink-themed hotel-casino. This used to be a Coca Cola store, a museum in tribute to Coke, complete with a store full of Coke-branded toys and apparel. But now the Coke bottle building houses a discount ticket vendor. There, you can buy (relatively) cheap same-day tickets to many live shows. I think it would be a good place to go if you decide to see a show at the last minute. But I'm sure your seating choices are more limited than if you bought your tickets at full price, in advance.
Also in the same building as the giant Coke bottle is GameWorks, a video-arcade/restaurant/bar similar to Dave & Buster's, and Jillian's. They had a bunch of cool videogames, so we decided to settle there for a while and play. Since it was a weekday afternoon and not prime hours, the nerds got a real bargain in terms of game play. The four nerds didn't even exhaust their $10 game card by the time they got too hungry to continue. (They came close, though.)
The arcade had a bunch of cool games. There were your typical arcade favorites, as well as some more unusual games, such as a fighting game which players controlled with their body movements. Rurouni Jedi had a kick playing this one.
And seeing how much fun she had, Scruffy Rebel had to try it too, as G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi looked on like proud parents.
Jinyo gave it a shot too, but proved that, while he can strike a mean pose, he can't play games worth a damn. You're supposed to keep one foot in the circle, dumbass!
One of the most fun games in GameWorks was the Initial D driving game, which was in a driving motion simulator. The seat would pitch, roll, and yaw as players drove, making the crazy driving feel that much more realistic. The simulator was fenced off to prevent bystanders from being injured by its wild movements. G-Mal took it for a spin, pulling some maneuvers he would never try in his own awesome car.
Then Rurouni Jedi took her turn. Nothing sexier than a hot babe in a sports car! Too bad this isn't a sports car. And she's not a hot babe.
What better way to round out the spectrum of gaming experiences than by shooting some zombies? G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi took aim at the amazing graphics in the big-screen House Of The Dead 4 game.
They were frightening and grotesque, with vivid gore and fangs! But enough about G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi, let's talk about the zombies... The graphics on this game were so amazing, and helped by the fact that they were on this huge rear-projection screen. Zombies were never so fun to shoot!
Scruffy Rebel and Jinyo took their turn at the triggers, as G-Mal hovered over them, dispensing Obi-Wan-like advice. "Squeeze the trigger, don't jerk it." "Don't fire until you see the green of their slime." "Oh, you are so fucking dead."
It was a pleasure to be able to kick back and blow off steam in the arcade. After a hard day of gaming, the nerds were hungry. And where better to eat than that Las Vegas staple, the casino buffet? They went to one of the best-known buffets in town, the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio. At $24 per person for a vast array of foods, it was worth every penny. The variety was quite good, the quality of the food was generally very high, and there was none of that cheating where both halves of the buffet are identical. Plus, the watermelon was excellent. After tasting one bite, G-Mal got himself two heaping bowls of it.
After the buffet, the overstuffed nerds took a leisurely sightseeing drive down Las Vegas Blvd. From the newer, south end of The Strip, as it's called, to the older, north end, they gawked at the over-abundance of flashing lights adorning the casinos and planned their next days' activities. By the time they arrived back at their hotel, food coma had settled in and left them dreaming of their nerding to come.
Next time...
Nerd Vegas, Day 2: Cosplay Nerds
.
They stayed at the Luxor, the Ancient-Egypt-themed hotel casino. Their room was in the pyramid, up on the 18th floor, from which they could look down over the vast interior of the pyramid.
One unique feature of the Luxor pyramid is the slanting outer walls, where the windows are. They kind of remind me of the slanting, windowed bulkhead of the cabins on the Enterprise-D, on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But this is not the day for Star Trek nerding. The nerds took a moment to enjoy the slanting view of Mandalay Bay and its new all-suite extension, THEhotel.
Scruffy Rebel got into the pyramidal theme, wearing the hotel's free shower cap on her head. Um, I think you need to remove it from the pyramidal packaging.
G-Mal noticed a gap about eighteen inches wide between the bed and the wall. So naturally he thought it would be a good place for a nap. G-Mal seemed so comfortable that the other nerds decided to try it too. At the same time.
More than anything else, Las Vegas is famous for gambling. So naturally the nerds had to try their hand. Most of the modern slot machines work by pushing a button. They don't even spit out money if you win. They just tell you how much you've won on the digital display. Some machines don't even give you money when you cash out. Instead, they print a ticket which you can then redeem for money at the cashier cages. How boring is that? Fortunately, the nerds managed to find one old-fashioned slot machine with an arm you could pull and reels which spun.
After losing all their money (what little of it they had), the nerds spent the afternoon sightseeing. The princesses took a moment to rest outside the castle of Excalibur.
An abrupt change of pace, they then showed their tough, Big Apple attitudes at New York New York.
Rurouni Jedi demonstrates her supermodel style in front of the giant (empty) Coca Cola bottle. Nothing goes with sightseeing like shopping, as she demonstrates with her new sunglasses.
Why is there a giant Coke bottle on the Las Vegas Strip? No, it's not part of a soft-drink-themed hotel-casino. This used to be a Coca Cola store, a museum in tribute to Coke, complete with a store full of Coke-branded toys and apparel. But now the Coke bottle building houses a discount ticket vendor. There, you can buy (relatively) cheap same-day tickets to many live shows. I think it would be a good place to go if you decide to see a show at the last minute. But I'm sure your seating choices are more limited than if you bought your tickets at full price, in advance.
Also in the same building as the giant Coke bottle is GameWorks, a video-arcade/restaurant/bar similar to Dave & Buster's, and Jillian's. They had a bunch of cool videogames, so we decided to settle there for a while and play. Since it was a weekday afternoon and not prime hours, the nerds got a real bargain in terms of game play. The four nerds didn't even exhaust their $10 game card by the time they got too hungry to continue. (They came close, though.)
The arcade had a bunch of cool games. There were your typical arcade favorites, as well as some more unusual games, such as a fighting game which players controlled with their body movements. Rurouni Jedi had a kick playing this one.
And seeing how much fun she had, Scruffy Rebel had to try it too, as G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi looked on like proud parents.
Jinyo gave it a shot too, but proved that, while he can strike a mean pose, he can't play games worth a damn. You're supposed to keep one foot in the circle, dumbass!
One of the most fun games in GameWorks was the Initial D driving game, which was in a driving motion simulator. The seat would pitch, roll, and yaw as players drove, making the crazy driving feel that much more realistic. The simulator was fenced off to prevent bystanders from being injured by its wild movements. G-Mal took it for a spin, pulling some maneuvers he would never try in his own awesome car.
Then Rurouni Jedi took her turn. Nothing sexier than a hot babe in a sports car! Too bad this isn't a sports car. And she's not a hot babe.
What better way to round out the spectrum of gaming experiences than by shooting some zombies? G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi took aim at the amazing graphics in the big-screen House Of The Dead 4 game.
They were frightening and grotesque, with vivid gore and fangs! But enough about G-Mal and Rurouni Jedi, let's talk about the zombies... The graphics on this game were so amazing, and helped by the fact that they were on this huge rear-projection screen. Zombies were never so fun to shoot!
Scruffy Rebel and Jinyo took their turn at the triggers, as G-Mal hovered over them, dispensing Obi-Wan-like advice. "Squeeze the trigger, don't jerk it." "Don't fire until you see the green of their slime." "Oh, you are so fucking dead."
It was a pleasure to be able to kick back and blow off steam in the arcade. After a hard day of gaming, the nerds were hungry. And where better to eat than that Las Vegas staple, the casino buffet? They went to one of the best-known buffets in town, the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio. At $24 per person for a vast array of foods, it was worth every penny. The variety was quite good, the quality of the food was generally very high, and there was none of that cheating where both halves of the buffet are identical. Plus, the watermelon was excellent. After tasting one bite, G-Mal got himself two heaping bowls of it.
After the buffet, the overstuffed nerds took a leisurely sightseeing drive down Las Vegas Blvd. From the newer, south end of The Strip, as it's called, to the older, north end, they gawked at the over-abundance of flashing lights adorning the casinos and planned their next days' activities. By the time they arrived back at their hotel, food coma had settled in and left them dreaming of their nerding to come.
Next time...
Nerd Vegas, Day 2: Cosplay Nerds
.