Vegas In My Blood On St. Patty's Day

A quick note before I press forward with the meat and potatoes of this piece. Has anyone seen the new Hanes commercials? There's one with Michael Jordan and Matt LeBlanc or Perry or whichever one Chandler was. And then there's one with Marisa Tomei. I don't know where she's been for the past like, I don't know, 10 years or whatever, but she looks amazing. I remember seeing bits and pieces of her over the past few years and thinking she had started to wear down faster than Freddie Mercury's white blood cells. But wow. I don't know what happened but she looks so tasty in that new commercial. She looks 25 again. Scrumptious.

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[In Irish dialect] Ah, me name is Christ McPuncher and today be the anniversary day in which we celebrate Saint Patrick...

I'm sorry, I can't continue in that voice. My head hurts trying to think of things to say that will sound good in an Irish accent when read silently. So today is the one year anniversary of my last day in Las Vegas. I went to Sin City with a slew buddies, mostly from the U, for (most of our) final spring break. We went for five days and today was the fifth. I remember it like it was yesterday.

We were down on the Old Strip, Fremont St., as it were. We were having a helluva time. It was a gorgeous day in the 80s and there was a live Irish folk band playing out in the street just outside of Fitzpatrick's. They were selling 52 oz. green frozen margaritas...in football shaped plastic cups, which you can see right myah. As you can see, Dana is posing like a tool and I have some weird serious look on my face. I'm not quite sure why I look like that. Maybe it's because there was 52 goddamn ounces of margarita in there and that was my second.

Here, Brody jigs a jig (without a jig!) with a leprechaun and some thick girl. This time Brody had decided it'd be best to stick the straw up his nose.

If you want to see more pictures from that day, you'll have to let me know via that little email tab to the left or IM me (if you're cool enough to know my screenname).

In the prior four days there was much mayhem. Staying up till 9am playing video poker at the MGM because we couldn't check into our hotel for another 4 hours. Then seeing Metallica play at the UNLV basketball arena seven hours after that. Followed by Selection Sunday at the Mirage's kickass sportsbook and a night at Harrah's dueling piano bar...complete with 99cent Michelob's down the street at Casino Royale. There's the next day early round of golf. The 1st tee starter told us at that altitude we would be hitting the ball about 7% farther than normal. We decided that the change in length would be due to our beer muscles. We were pretty suped up on Advil and lip balm at this point. Oh and don't worry, there was plenty of gambling intermixed within all of this. Including Tuesday night's romp through the Mirage in which I racked up $150 in earnings (and bought this cool hat!) playing my new favorite game Spanish 21 (which is basically Blackjack for idiots). Brody won $100, Wilson...eh, not so much. We hadn't heard from Rick or Dana in forever and Dugger was up bigger than all of us. Throw in the Palms 54th story nightclub, $6 steak and eggs, and the Pink Taco, and you've got yourself one helluva memory.

I apologize for the long paragraph but I didn't see any space in which there was a possible transition.

So now it's one year later. The tournament is starting and I'm not fresh off a five hour plane ride that landed at 8am. Oh, yea...I sort of got drunk before that flight. It left at midnight and we had some time to kill. Being drunk makes the flight seem like 15 minutes. I highly recommend it. Here's the evidence.

How bad do I want to get back to Vegas? You have no idea. You have no idea how much my fellow cohorts and I were trying to scramble together a last minute reunion trip. Of course, everyone's different schedules and insufficient funds sort of 86'ed that idea. So I'm stuck in Bristol watching every single 1st round college basketball game...and getting paid for it. Not a bad alternative. But it's no Español Vente Uno. This was way more fun.