What happens in Vegas...goes on the blog!

Well as JT already mentioned, two members of the Awesome Inc. crew hit up Vegas this weekend for some food, fun, and festivalin' as in the Comedy Festival. The basis of the trip was to see quite a few comedy acts, but when Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle sold out sooner than expected, the trip turned into another generally great trip to Vegas with a couple shows thrown in. Here's a much-to-long recap of the weekend's festivities:

Thursday, 17th - I met JT and "The Man", JT's dad, at the airport as our flights arrived at the same time and the plan was to take the free Super 8 shuttle, but that hit a snag when the lady at the Super 8 forgot to tell me the shuttle was in the shop. She must have thought that "It's on its way" meant the same as "It's in the shop and not coming to get you." After a half hour of waiting, I called back and was told the truth about the shuttle and we grabbed a cab instead. Since it's so awesome, I'll give the Super 8 a pass on this mix up. It is the World's Largest Super 8 after all. After arriving at the hotel and regrouping, we headed across the parking lot to one of the greatest casinos known to man, Ellis Island. It's small, but packs a punch. It has $5 blackjack tables all the time and usually wide open, a decent sportsbook for those bets that need to be put in right away, and one of the best restaurants anywhere in terms of value. It's definitely not a place for high rollers, but it is perfect for Awesome Inc.
We had some time to kill before the Dave Attell/Lewis Black show at 10:30, so we decided to eat, lose some money at the blackjack tables, and walk around the Strip. A trip to the Spice Market Buffet was excellent yet again and highly recommended from us here at Awesome Inc. The Barbary Coast is another fantastic smaller casino, but on this day it beat down JT quickly and efficiently before he knew what hit him. We escaped to Caesar's Palace across the street and walked the new Forum Shops. I guess they didn't have enough shops at the Palace, so it was necessary to build a three-story extension that would make the Romans proud. This is where we saw the first of many celebrity sightings. While he's not the most famous face around, he was fresh in our minds since he had just been on The Colbert Report and that face was Greg Behrendt. He was just shopping in one of the new stores, so not the biggest sighting, but started off the weekend. The second sighting was a bit bigger: David Copperfield. I really don't care about his act or anything, but he is a pretty big name and was just standing outside the new Pussycat Dolls club in Caesar's as we strolled past. The evening was uneventful, but the time passed quickly enough for the big Attell/Black show. We had great seats in the fourth row of the ballroom turned comedy club and both comedians were excellent as usual. The show combined with hitting a big 3-team parlay made for an excellent Thursday all around.

Friday, 18th - Any time you can wake up, play a few hands of blackjack with Govind at Ellis Island, and then eat buffet at the new Mirage buffet Cravings you're having a damn fine start to the day! Little did we know that the finish to the day would be even better. After the delicious buffet, we headed over to the brand new Wynn hotel. It's a pretty impressive sight with crazy waterfalls outside and fancy decor inside, but does look very similar to the Bellagio in many respects. It's very nice, but I kind of expected more from a $2.7 billion hotel. Maybe the rooms are made out of gold and we didn't get to see that during the walkthrough. On the way back to the Super 8 we passed George Wallace doing a tv spot outside the Flamingo. Now this is a questionable celeb sighting since he has a show at the Flamingo year-round, but we're still counting it! After a quick nap to recharge the batteries, we headed to the Barbary Coast again to see what this whole "Big Elvis" phenomenon. Well it's a pretty simple concept: take a 600-pound man, dress him up like Elvis, plop him down on the stage, and have him sign Elvis' and other songs like Elvis. It's quite the show and you should check it out next time you're in Vegas! After witnessing some of the greatest singing done by a 600-pound man west of the Mississippi, we decided to head over to Caesar's and just hang out in one of their swanky bars for a drink or two. We decided on the Seahorse Bar which is pretty new and almost right across from the Pussycat Dolls club. That was the club used for VIP with the Comedy Festival, so it was in high demand this weekend with lines that snaked in and out of slot machines and barely moved the entire time we were there. It was a ridiculous site for sure. After drinking the first round of beverages we were thinking of other places to go, but I thought I spotted somebody familiar. It certainly looked like Thomas Lennon, yes THE Thomas Lennon, aka Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911. I couldn't be sure since he wasn't wearing the short shorts, but after a couple walk-bys by JT and me we confirmed it was indeed the great man himself. He was just there with some friends that we slowly began to recognize as well. First it was "The Wiz" from Seinfeld, Toby Huss. (Only now did I learn his name after some research. We only knew him as The Wiz and the crazy guy on Reno 911 at the time) Then we realized the short guy with the pink jean coat was Bobcat Goldthwait. There were probably others there that are famous, but we couldn't recognize them. After an attempt at a picture with Dangle failed and he left, another celeb was spotted: Stephen Root. He is more commonly known as Milton from Office Space or the boss from NewsRadio and that was really fun to see him too. As all this was going on, JT, "The Man", and I kept celebrating with more drinks and it had been some time since we'd eaten, so I can safely say this was the closest I've ever been to being drunk and I can't think of a better reason than b/c I saw Dangle. After the excitement died down, we made our way back to Ellis for a late night $2.95 pancake breakfast (the first of three for myself over the weekend) and then headed to bed. The night wasn't completely over though because a certain infomercial was on tv that kept our attention. "The Chopper Show" is quite possibly the craziest 30 minutes on tv. Just watch the video and sit in awe. "What do you think about a nice and clean 13 G's?" "CHOP IT!!"

Saturday, 19th - Early to rise and early to lose money on college football. A rather uneventful day unless you consider losing money eventful. Lots of video blackjack and comped drinks at the Barbary Coast while watching football before the 8 pm show with Jon Stewart. The brand new arena at Caesar's hosted his show and he was hilarious. We weren't sure what kind of show he would do after hosting "The Daily Show" for so long, but he was excellent. After grabbing some post-show grub at Spago while watching the Reggie Bush show against Fresno State, we worked our way back through Caesar's and once again found some celebs. As mentioned already, Chris Rock blew right past us on the way to the Dave Chappelle show and then we saw Darin Erstad right after that. The odd part is we saw Erstad almost exactly one week earlier in Lincoln, NE after a Husker game at a bar. Going home we saw Jeffrey Ross doing a tv spot, so chalk up one more celeb spotting. Another eventful night without a doubt.

Sunday, 20th - Another day, another rough ride on the sports betting. As usual, the NFL dominated me, but still fun to be in Vegas betting on it. A couple more celeb spottings occurred with Christian Finnegan roaming the Barbary coast and Chris Cornell pushing a stroller at the Bellagio. JT and "The Man" headed back to the Good Life that afternoon, while I stayed behind for another day. After a much needed nap, I ventured out on the Strip to check things out. Didn't find anything other than a totally redone MGM Grand, but did return to another delicious pancake breakfast at Ellis and some more losses at the blackjack table.

So there you have it America, the Awesome Inc. trip to Vegas in a not-so-condensed recap. It was a ton of fun even with the gambling losses and may rank as the best of the seven trips so far. Will #8 top it? We'll find out in March as a huge contingent of Awesome Inc. and friends is making the trip for the first weekend of the Big Dance. If you're in Vegas during that weekend, stop by Ellis Island or the Barbary Coast, we'll probably be there.

BBL