Las Vegas 03/14-18/03

**Disclaimer**Really, this isn't gonna be much of a Vegas page. I decided at the last minute to leave the Mav at home this time. Instead, I opted to buy a couple of those cheap disposable cameras. I think I'll take the Mav next time. Enjoy.

Day One 3/14: We arrive in Vegas around 6pm. We had exactly two hours to get from the airport to our hotel, the Flamingo, and book it over to the Hard Rock Hotel to see Ozzy Osbourne. We get there with a half hour to spare. Ozzy played at The Joint, the music venue at the HRH. Pretty small, capacity 1400. Really a sweet place to see a band. Ozzy rocked the house down. This was Rob Trujillos last night with Ozzy. He is left the band to go join Metallica. Excellent show! Afterwards we head back to the Strip. The HRH is too far from everything, and their casino is too small for me. We wander around for a bit before calling it an early night.

Day Two 3/15: We head over to Caesars Palace to catch The Wild Celts, a local Vegas band doing an instore at the Virgin Records store. Oprah was there at the same time interviewing Celine Dion about her new gig. Lots of middle aged women everywhere waiting to get in. Matt was gettin excited. (not really, just threw that in) We walked around the Palace shops for a bit. We got back to the Flamingo just in time to catch Bottoms Up, the only mid-afternoon booby show in Vegas. It was pretty cool. The jokes were bad, but I guess it's a trade off. After that, we retreated back to the room where I promptly took a power nap. I woke up and we headed back to the Hard Rock Hotel to see Audioslave. This show was kick ass! We got pretty close to the stage, which was sweet. Here's a pic of Chris Cornell I took.

Notice the crappy exposure. Yeah, I know. You expect better from me. Sorry.

After the show, we headed back to the Strip. We decided to walk a ways down the strip and check out the neon. We walked all the way down to the MGM, then we crossed over and made our way back up the other side. After that, we were damn thirsty. So we wandered up the street to O'Sheas Casino. Not one of the classiest places in town, but the beer was cheap. And plentiful too. After losing a few bucks to the slots, we called it a night.

Day Three 3/16: Sunday was a good day. We decided to walk down to the south end of the strip again to check out the Celtic Feis at New York, NY. We hung out on the Brooklyn Bridge for a bit before deciding to go inside to see how Ohio State was doing in basketball. They were doing crappy, so we wandered around some more. We spotted some bagpipers here.

We caught the tail end of their performance, which Matt caught on his camcorder, but that doesn't do me any good here. Piper down.....We have a piper down.

After that excitement, we went back out to the Brooklyn Bridge to get some cheap beer. Matt also got a new hat.

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It was starting to rain at this point, so we headed down to the Luxor. Matt had some weird notion that a fortune cookie told him to go here. I kid you not! We settled in at a blackjack table and had a great time. We probably played for a couple of hours. I broke even, and Matt was up around 80 bucks. Damn, that fortune cookie was right! We took a cab back to the hotel and then headed to the Rio, where we were going to see Penn and Teller. I really wasn't too impressed with the Rio. I guess I like being where all the action is. Penn and Teller put on a great show. We ended up getting their autographs afterwards. Teller actually spoke to me. I'd never heard him speak in all the years that I've been a fan. We didn't stick around the Rio too long. Back to the Strip. I was dead tired, but Matt wanted to go out, so I crashed.

Day Four 3/17 *St.Pattys Day* : I couldn't get Matt outta bed, so I went out adventuring on my own. I walked up to the Venetian, where I'd never been before, and checked it out. I took a tour of the Houdini Museum, which I highly recommend if you like magic. I took a few pictures of the gondelas, but none of them developed. Crappy cheapo camera! It was cool...they dyed the canal green just for St. Pattys Day too. Definately takin the Mav next time! Walked back to the hotel around noon and Matt was still in bed. He finally got up and we went and ate the buffet at the Flamingo. One word of advice, skip it -- wait! That's two words. Save your money. It sucked. Cheesecake was good tho. We walked around some more, and then I went to take a power nap. Hooked back up with Matt later and we headed downtown. I love downtown. They were filming a pilot for NBC while we were down there...pretty cool. We hung out downtown for a while. I had a good time...and I've got proof....sorta...

What? You want more proof?

I made it back to the hotel around midnight and crashed. Matt decided that Vegas hadn't taken enough of his money yet, so he hit the blackjack table til 5am. We had to be up at 7 to catch our plane home, so needless to say, we both woke up late and had to hurry to the airport. We made the flight tho, no problems. It was a good time, can't wait to go back.