What happened to....

...technology helping us to look smarterer and stuff... Now I read back my first US post and I have written "the technology to be enable me..." .... What the hell? I now look like I need to enroll in the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too... And if I try to fix it, it will mess up the order of my posts again. Thanks Steve Jobs, I blame you. Enjoy hell. 

Apologies for the mess up in dates on posts...

I just tried to fix a spelling mistake in an older post and it messed up the order of all my posts.

'First night all quiet' was the 15th April, and then onwards night by night from there... But now I look, the dates are still right now I have re-ordered them... But bear in mind also, I usually finish typing after midnight so today's post says Saturday but it's actually about Friday. Etc. You'll figure it out. 

So I thought I was going to give you a quick run down on my day...

...but I find myself with several ponderings a-doing...

First off I have, I think found my drink of the trip... Every trip has a signature drink, and it should always be your mission early on to find and define and perfect this, and make it unique, and then own it for the duration... Often it is a team effort between you, your companions (if the same way inclined), and more importantly, your bar staff... So I discovered my barman here at the Lobby Bar, when asked for a Drambuie, will not carefully measure a double of the (apparently) priceless amber liquid and pour a little puddle in the bottom of a whiskey glass, he will in fact take a small sized (traditional, not tumbler) whiskey glass, mash some ice into it, and fill it to the top with my beloved... So rather than ending the night on a Drammy (because I can only afford one), I am now getting one (or, in fact, five in one glass, by NZ measures) and sipping on it while chasing it with several beers. I shall call it Dramvegasbrau. Or perhaps something more classy which I will come up with later. I only wish I had some smokes to go with it, as I feel very intrepid and bohemian sitting here in my dark corner watching Vegas roll by while typing my ramblings (like a madman, some might say). Everything always feels more intrepid and dangerous when smoking. Dammit.  

So the official part of my night actually ended up somewhat surpisingly... We finally found the foodcourt in the hotel and decided for a change from Merkan food to get some Chinese... The usual 'three choices on rice or noodle' type deal... And we both got some veg and stuff to try to at least eat SOMETHING vaguely nutritious... All of which was a huge mistake... It was just the most greasy slimey mess... The veges somehow were the worst, greasiest part... The bottom of my container at the end looked like a half full grease trap from a barbecue grill... Blech...

But actually that wasn't the surprising part, that was pretty much to be expected... The interesting part was after we amused ourselves for probably an hour watching obese Americans eat whole massive boxes (or two) of Popeyes chicken and then move on to Krispy Kreme for dessert, we retired, tired, (yes, I do poetry also) to a beer in the room and flicked on the TV, and rolled through a dozen channels of crap before I got distracted for a second and stopped on PBS, and when I looked up, starting was a documentary on Pete Seeger... Actually when it started what caught my attention was a picture of Woodie Guthrie, and being a huge Guthrie fan, and having inherited a lot of my love for and knowledge of music from my travel partner, I asked if he had ever listened to Woodie Guthrie, and he said he hadn't... I wasn't overly surprised, as Guthrie was a bit before his time and probably not that well known back then, where we come from...

Ok time out, just looked up and there are three security guards at the end of the bar... They are all looking at what I think is probably a duty manager over by the reception counters talking serious talk to a young black dude... Shit maybe gonna get all real up in this hizzle.... 

Nope they just walked him off... Oh well.. Retaliation driveby later maybe. 

Anyway, and then, Woodie Guthrie, amazing... But we watched this doco on Pete Seeger who is also a music legend... And let me go no further before saying that until about ten years ago if you had said 'folk music' near me I would have recoiled in horror, and the sound of a banjo or a fiddle would have seen me running miles with visions of inbreds on porches playing hoedowns with uncle dad and cousin sister... But then, in time, I learned that folk music is in fact the basis for pretty much all we hear now, and everything has evolved from it: far from being ignorant and simple hick tunes, it is in fact the music of grass roots subversion, defiance and counter-culture... And much of that is owed to Pete Seeger, along with his friends like Guthrie and those who later emulated him. I could go on for hours - Seeger although you have probably never heard of him wrote many of the songs you know, and could have been massively successful, had he not shunned commercialism (he quit one band he was in when they were #1 in the charts because one of their songs appeared in a cigarette commercial, and he disagreed with smoking... In like 1960) and also been blacklisted from TV for nearly 20 years due to the  communist witchhunts of the McCarthy era, despite having actually given up on communism years before. A man of inspiringly strong belief and principles, even if you don't agree with some of them. So anyway, we both thoroughly enjoyed that, as an amazing example of how one person and some music can literally shape history. Find it if you can, it's two hours well spent. 

I will also point out the correct use of a colon in that paragraph... I know right? A colon? Who does that any more?? And don't get me started in the word colon itself... 

And THEN... I needed scotch, and also haven't told you much about today... 

I just well over-tipped the barman. He pours a lot of single malt for nine dollars

The other thing I was going to say was that while sitting here just before I saw an attractive girl, with a great figure, and she was wearing a hoodie, and baggy jeans, and flat soled boots, and I just wanted to go over to her with an orchestra playing, and give her a hug, and congratulate her, put a crown on her head, and give her some kind of 'The Only Attractive Girl In Vegas Not Dressed Like A Total Skank' trophy and sash to wear... Made even more awesome because it turned out she was waiting to meet her friends, who all turned up dressed like hookers. Runner up was the entirely disinterested looking teen punk girl in a Ramones singlet being dragged past by her parents earlier. 

So by now you have probably all given up, and I am probably talking to myself... If I could make a computer animated purple elephant dance across the screen right now I would... Suffice to say tomorrow we are doing similar stuff and I will catch you up on all that next time. For the more visually inclined...

Sadly the event was plagued by noisy neighbours...

Anyway. Enough ramble. Still not tired hence I keep going. Anyway, keep well all. 

Make up your own joke with the word 'dam' in it...

... cause I bet I saw it on a tshirt in a gift shop today. 

Yes today saw the fulfilling of several ambitions as we finally got ourselves into some of the nooks and crannies of the mighty Hoover Dam... We saw the exhibits, watched the movie, decided not to buy the tshirts, and, after a three hour wait due to the backlog of people taking the tours, we went on the grand extended tour taking in the outside and interior of the dam and the surrounding cliffs... And I am glad to report I recognised much of the interior of the dam due to spending far too much time playing Fallout: New Vegas (it took me a minute to figure out how I knew stuff about the inside of the dam, I thought I was having a past life experience or something for a minute)... But that will come in handy if ever there actually is a nuclear apocalypse, and I survive... And I happen to be in Vegas... 

 

The whole thing is pretty incredible and also amazingly beautifully detailed with deco touches in places and incredible three inch thick marble floors throughout many areas... I am not going to begin to go on about how unbelievable it is this was built 80 years ago with only basic tools and machinery and it only took two years to make the dam itself... Seriously find a book or watch a doco. One interesting point is although the official death figure for workers was around 90, some say the number could be closer to 700... And they were working for around $4 a day in brutal conditions.

So that took up most of the day and we had to put up with an awful lot of Americans being American-ish... By the time we got back to town it was about four pm so I started trying to direct us to a couple of places I wanted a quick look at, with varying degrees of success at first... We also found a supermarket en route and decided to get some driving supplies and stuff... American hotel rooms don't have fridges half the time (if you are in your room doing stuff that requires a fridge you are not spending money in the hotel/casino) so we have been proper kiwis and set up a way to balance our beer and milk on the aircon unit outlet to keep it chilled... But for everything else it has to be kind of impervious to the heat, so in my continued drive to out-'Merka 'Merka I purchased for our lunch the following -

- weird American style bread

- California tomatoes

- Spam WITH bacon

- Cheese-wizz ("You got my Cheese-wizz boy?")

- Half and half milk

Funny side note, I pushed the lift button to come down here to the lobby to type this and was daydreaming away and the lift doors opened and I looked up and there were twenty two large eyes looking up at me from all round the lift... The lifts here are large, and standing all the way around the back and sides were nearly a dozen young-looking girls all dressed in bridal veils and going out clothes and all (oddly) almost exactly the same height...and nobody else... I looked at them, they looked back at me... I looked at the empty space in the middle of the lift... They looked at the empty space in the middle of the lift... We looked at each other... At that moment it struck me, for some reason, that it was like some odd inverse version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves... But in Opposite-Land, with worse odds... I hesitated for a fraction of a second (always a mistake) raised my eyebrows and stepped in, looked at them one by one, probably with something of a terrified look on my face, and shook my head, and turned to face the door... They erupted in a fit of giggles then shushed each other ... I half turned and looked at them all nervously... Surrounded on three sides, all still looking at me like this was the funniest thing ever... I turned away... They whispered back and forth and kept on giggling... Silence... I turned again and asked who was getting married, they pointed her out, I congratulated her polititely, trying to keep a straight face, and turned back... More giggling... To my left a small voice commented on the possibility of me being the stripper, and the entire group lost it completely... At that moment the doors opened on the ground floor and a large crowd of hotel guests waiting to get in witnessed as I stepped out, looking slightly sheepish, and held the doors as eleven giggling hens party members spilled out into the foyer after me...

So ANYWAY after the supermarket today we continued to search for a place that had the particular item I wanted, and eventually we did indeed happen upon the right place, even though others told me I  would not find one anywhere... Persistence always pays off. So then this happened...

Yes, I found my .500 Smith & Wesson.... In fact I found two. And I fired them both. That is the largest handgun in the world, and it is freaking awesome. I want one. Or several. It's a "me" gun. By way of trying to demonstrate the scale exactly -

So for ANYONE coming here I HIGHLY recommend Gun Garage of the LV ranges I have seen... Nowhere near as crusty as others, not reeking of smokes and inbreeding (seriously, one we went to was TERRIBLE) and staffed by a bunch of very helpful, young, and dare I say it, attractive, members of both genders (basically, they know how to bring customers in, the whole setup is totally awesome).

Thoroughly satisfied by that whole thing (there is video, don't worry) we headed back to he hotel, after determining we were too late to visit So-Cal Speed Shop (another pilgrimage for me) until another day. Tired from our day out we didn't want too much fuss for dinner so wandered to nearest takeaways, and I foolishly decided to introduce my companion to FatBurger. That's a story for another time, look it up though... For now I shall leave you with an OMR which seems somehow appropriate on a day we dedicated to the achievements of the honest working man, Uncle Tupelo's classic 'Whiskey Bottle'... For all the working class stiffs trying to make it in today's 'Merka and struggling to hold on... 

A million photos of Death Valley...

.... Will follow at some point... But for now a quick debrief. Our interesting diversion this morning was to rise with the smog and head north instead of east, taking in some interesting sights and some bad roads (I felt guilty for a while, we forsook the freeway direct to Vegas for my diversion and the roads were as bad as the ones at home in places...) but it was worth it to finally see the place, to drive through the barren desert at 200 feet below sea level (yes, in a white Challenger), and to say we felt the noon day sun in Death Valley.... Which was, indeed, warm, and I am very thankful for an air conditioned car not a pony or a wagon train.  

From there it was down to Vegas, and some combination of luck, genius or divine intervention saw us (let's say me, I was driving) guesstimate our way through Vegas traffic directly to our hotel in the city centre with only a vague idea where it actually was. The Excalibur is full strength Vegas cheese with little pretence of class. Right now I sit in the lobby bar, with the gaming area going nuts behind me, and take in the... interesting... sights of the clientele flowing past in front of me. It's a fairly bargain priced joint thanks to our convention discount and while not fancy nor particularly modern it is still a far far nicer place than many I have stayed, indeed about ten times nicer than last night. The benefit of Vegas hotels is good deals can be had if you just make out you are planning on blessing the hotel casino with all your money. 

This afternoon after our eight or so hour drive and looksee we elected to just wander the strip a bit, taking in everything from the Mandalay Bay up to the Bellagio to varying degrees. Some pretty cool looking places around that will warrant some further exploration, and some nice looking clubs I may not get to this time around. For dinner I introduced my companion to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co where I had a not too bad jambalaya. We ended the night with a show at the Bellagio fountains, which would have been more romantic in different circumstances also, but was still cool. 

So I have decided Vegas is quite full of very fake attractive people and very real ugly people... Not sure if it is really my kind of place but I guess it would be fun when in a party sort of mood. The trouble is it is full of a lot of people I don't want to hang out around. There are many, many crimes against good taste and fashion being committed every second of every day. Definitely plenty to see and do though regardless of who you are or what you want (or, apparently, how many kids you drag around with you) and obviously teeming with people even on a Wednesday afternoon.  

I was about to go and donate a dollar or two to the tables just because I figure I should, since I am here, but I realised I left my cash upstairs and only have enough on me for another beer. And we all know I have a strict set of priorities. Which are not this -

Cold beer is going down very well also... Would have been good to have one in Death Valley in fact, just to prove our modern superiority somewhat further, but that may have been too much of an afront to nature and may have resulted in a coyote attack or locusts or something. 

I realise now it's 2315 but my body clock is still refusing to comply and I find myself awake and hungry again... For a long-awaited obscure music reference I give to you something ultra-cute (a break from the norm yes, and also not very obscure given it has 27 million YouTube views) which came on the radio today and reminded me of things back home... I can't link it on this thing but YouTube 'Jorge and Alexa Home' without the quote marks... 

Anyway the beer money has run dry so I guess time to sign off and do some research for tomorrow's travels...