Vegas Baby, Vegas

“It’s hard to imagine how anything I did this weekend could have any positive contribution to my life.” H.M., October 1, 2006, 6:50p.m.

That pretty much sums up our weekend. As I write this, I’m driving back from Vegas Baby, Vegas. Well, to be exact, Hirsch is driving, and I’m riding shotgun in his mom’s SUV. Unfortunately Vince Vaughn had it completely wrong. I’m so NOT money. And I know it.

We arrived at our hotel, the Treasure Island (which apparently now is referred to by everyone, myself included, as TI), at around 10:45p.m on Friday, after a grueling 6 ½ hour drive from LA. The weekend seemed to be getting off to a solid start from a financial perspective. My sandwich at Panera in Fontana had a hair on it, so they kindly gave me a new sandwich, my money back, and as many free cookies as we could eat, which unfortunately was one fewer than they gave us because Hirsch started spazzing when I started to eat a chocolate chip cookie in the car – he’s allergic. Then Hirsch and I won free drinks from Nipa and Ena since we were closer in guessing our arrival time – thanks to Nipa for the $15 mojito and to Ena for all the Goose. THEN the guy at TI whose day we made by throwing some Saved by the Bell trivia into the check-in process gave us a free upgrade to a suite and hooked us up with a bottle of free champagne, which, of course, we drank directly from the bottle while playing blackjack at the Venetian on Saturday night. THEN we strolled in free to Tangerine, the club at the TI, since we were hotel guests. I figure at this point I was already up $50, before even playing a hand.

After all the east coasters finally got to the club at around 1, I made the detrimental decision of ordering 8 Patron shots. $88. Then Anuj (the one from NY) ordered mind erasers. Game over. They might as well call it the “business school loan check eraser”. After wreaking havoc in the club for a few hours, we took off to do what we do at 4 a.m. in Vegas. Actually, what we do at 4 a.m. in Vegas is go to a strip club, but we decided to gamble instead, as several of our regular strip club attendees weren’t arriving until Saturday. To paraphrase the next couple hours, I lost $250, threw my last losing chips in the direction of the dealer, and stormed away in search of greasy food.

Thanks to Terence for waking me up when his flight landed at 11a.m. on Saturday. You owe me $750 bro. Instead of doing the wise thing and heading to the pool to lounge, swim, and stare at hot chicks, we headed over to the Venetian to drink bloody marys and vodka sodas and play more blackjack. Second worst decision I made this weekend, only behind that stuffed slice of pizza I ate at Sbarro this afternoon. I don’t know if it was my aggressive betting, Ronak and Poo’s presence, the three hundred lemon drop shots I drank (all ordered by females FYI), or just general bad luck, but I headed over to the Sportsbook at around 6 p.m. down another $550 or so. I had even started to make a nice little comeback, turning $100 to $350 in two quick hands. Unfortunately, I decided it would be smart to keep up the big bets, losing all $350 in another two hands. Thanks to Ohio State for salvaging me $50 of my Saturday afternoon.

After getting ready, a few of us played some more blackjack and chugged the aforementioned champagne. Lost another $200 or so, bringing the weekend total up to around a G. Then we headed over to Tao, the fantastic restaurant and club at the Venetian. Even from a slightly biased perspective, we looked like total ballers. There was 20 or so us at a long-ass table in its own private little nook of the restaurant, that was at a slightly higher level than the rest of the restaurant so we could observe most of the other diners, Jamie Foxx and Vin Diesel included. The drinks were good, the company better, and the food somewhere in between. Mine was damn tasty – I think I had steak but it was pretty hard to tell in the darkness of the restaurant. Apparently the sea bass was incredible – thanks for sharing Shef 

After finishing up dinner at around 1:30, we had to figure out how the hell we were gonna get into the nightclub part of Tao. Unbelievably, eating dinner and spending around $1,500, didn’t get us into the club. Thanks to Poo and Fake for developing a gameplan and acting on it – that’s what happens when you get a consultant and a trader together. We gave the bouncer $500 - $25 a head – and strolled into the club. For those of you that haven’t been, Tao is a gigantic club – I get lost several times each time I go there (seriously, it’s a HUGE club – it doesn’t have anything to do with the 20 drinks I’ve usually had before going). I’ll keep it brief on Tao because, frankly, I don’t remember much. But apparently the following all happened: we saw a bunch of celebrities, e.g. Lil’ Jon, Paris Hilton, and K-Fed (who, yes, I realize isn’t really a celebrity, but he is famous), Smitty got hit on by a dude, and Atur got kicked out for being too drunk. Keep this in mind – I was drunk to the point that I don’t remember shouting “WHAT?!” when I was next to Lil’ Jon, and I didn’t get kicked out. So the question is - how drunk were you Atur?

Outside of the hardcore gamblers, which would probably have included me if I wasn’t already down a grand, we all drank and danced at Tao until around 5. At that point, T and I had one thing on our mind – strippers. Unfortunately, the 4 hours of sleep I had on Friday night combined with the 17 hours of consecutive drinking had caught up with me, and I was just too damn tired to make it. I’m pretty sure I would have fallen asleep in the middle of a lappie, which has never happened to me, but I imagine has got to be really embarrassing, not to mention a waste of $20. But Terence, congratulations. You made it to the strip club BY YOUR DAMN SELF!!! Very impressive.

After getting 6 or so hours of really shitty sleep on two of the chairs in our room at the Venetian b/c I was too drunk and tired to simply cross the street and go to my room at the TI, I woke up and debated what to do in the few hours I had before leaving. Fortunately we had a good group of people in the room, most of whom were still drunk. The jokes, people falling over themselves, and general silliness in the room were entertaining enough that I didn’t feel compelled to play cards and give more money to the shareholders of whatever big-ass corporation that owns the Venetian and/or the TI.

The only real highlight from Sunday (and pretty much the only highlight from the lowlight-filled weekend) was 20 of us eating lunch at the food court before heading out. As I mentioned, most of us were still pretty drunk, Fake in particular. Keep in mind this is Vegas, and there are families with little kids all over the place. The terms “penis” and “ass sweat” were all shouted loudly enough that some parents are gonna have to have some of those birds-and-bees conversations with their kids about 10 years earlier than they wanted to.

Now we’re stuck in traffic about 100 miles out of LA. All I wanna do is eat, drop a deuce, and sleep. Fortunately the Eagles play tomorrow night, so I don’t have to waste any time watching football highlights when I get back. Pretty much every friend I have in the world was with me this weekend, so checking email should be really quick. And being single, showering isn’t really on my list of priorities right now. Classes start tomorrow, and I’m already behind as I only read about 25% of what’s already been assigned. Yup. I’m pretty damn sure that I’m not money.