Tuesday, April 16, 2013Good morning crew,
Now here is something I did not know; the glitzy Las Vegas you see in advertisements and in the movies with all of the iconic buildings like the pyramid and the Eiffel Tower, that is the 'new' Las Vegas. The 'old' Las Vegas you see in Rat Pack movies, that is a whole other part of town.
After our excellent dinner at the Hofbrauhaus my brother Michael offered to drive us to the old downtown area for a little trip back in time. We all readily agreed.
There are some significant differences between new and old Las Vegas. While new downtown does have the newest and fanciest hotels and casinos, they are also constantly renovating and refurbishing, so even the older casinos look new. Old downtown has that somewhat grimy patina of having given up on pretense.
Every place we walked into had the distinct aroma of tobacco smoke and spilt beer. The tables and slot machines were packed together in claustrophobic jumbles, the patrons were rowdy inebriates and the waitresses and bartenders tended to be rather out-of-shape, middle-aged women in pants suits.
I loved it.
The big attraction, of course, is the giant LED display on Fremont Street. It is a canopy that covers the entire street for two whole blocks, and every inch is covered with LEDs that make up one, big, giant video screen. It is impressive to say the least. They show advertising, of course, but they also do videos every half hour. Let me just say it is worth standing around just to watch them. Plus, the street is closed off so you don't have to worry about getting run over by traffic while you are staring up, over your head.
The whole street has a kind of carnival-like atmosphere. Thousands of people were wandering back-and-forth across the street from casino to casino with drinks in their hands. The experience was so distracting I barely noticed the guy vomiting in a garbage can 10 feet away from us.
But the one constant no matter where you are in Las Vegas is gambling. Val and I continued our lucky streak, which was no small accomplishment, especially considering Michael's strict anti-gambling attitude. Every time we stopped at a table I could feel his presence over my shoulder, sending waves of disapproval crashing into the back of my head.
Despite this emotional handicap we still managed to make a small withdrawal from each casino we visited.
You would think, to read the way I am describing it, that we were raking in a fortune, but when you bet small you win small, and we were betting small. Unfortunately, the realization of this fact resulted in my eventual humiliation, but I will save that story for next time.
Laugh it up,
Joe
joe@gophercentral.comP.S.
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***"I always turn to the sports page first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page nothing but man's failure." --Chief Justice Earl Warren
***"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own short- comings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters." --Margaret Halsey
***"It's the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know -- and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything." --Joyce Cary
***A wife asked her husband, "Honey, could you please run to the store and get a carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get a dozen."
A while later the husband returned with a case of quart milk cartons.
Staring incredulously at the 12-pack case of milk, his wife asked, "Why the hell did you buy so much milk?"
Her husband said, "They had eggs."
*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*As the high school teacher was correcting essays written by her students she read, "Pedro jumped on his burrow and rode off into the sunset."
She wrote at the bottom of the page, "You obviously have problems with homonyms. A burrow is a hole in the ground. A burro is an ass. At your age it's time to learn the difference."