Man, I forgot how hot it gets in the South. I don't mind the heat but a car without a/c is not a good thing. Thus, I'm looking for a new car. It would take almost as much to fix my car as it's worth. I've found one car and I'm trying to hammer out the details. It's a black 2005 Cavelier with under 2,000 miles. It's practically new. If I can haggle the price, I should be closing the deal next week.

Speaking of rides, I want one of those giant iguana mounts in Revenge of the Sith. My review of the movie is Now Playing. Enjoy your weekend.

Thanks to my wonderful wife, with whom I am sharing 100 months of being together today, I remembered that our last hours in Vegas were more than just going to the airport. That morning we enjoyed our first Las Vegas buffet. We had a champagne brunch at MGM complete with mimosas. The buffet was incredible; the spread was almost overwhelming. They had the traditional breakfast foods like eggs, biscuits, sausage, bacon, etc. but, they also had a wide assortment of non-conventional breakfast foods. I enjoyed blueberry crepes and apple blintzes along with some corned beef hash. I passed on the California scramble basically because I didn't know what it was. There seemed to be taco shells and eggs and peppers and meat, but I'm not sure what else was in it. Sitting on the side was a waffle/pancake station and an amazing omelet station. To go along with the breakfast items was a salad bar and a wide selection of breads. Since it was a brunch, they had several lunch items out as well such as lasagna (both meat and veggie ones). I know they had about a dozen different lunch entrees, but I can't remember much more than the lasagna. If that wasn't enough, there was a dessert bar off to the side with a plethora of delectable pies, cakes and cookies. I don't think it's any surprise that we left with full bellies. After lunch, we went over to the lion habitat in the hotel and had our picture made with a lion cub. He was cute; Erika wanted to snatch him up and run. I'll post links to the photos later on this week. And that was the end of our trip to Vegas.

If you haven't looked already, there are reviews for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Kingdom of Heaven in Now Playing. Because the movies are hitting on par of about 2 a week, I haven't had a chance to update anything else. Plus, I am debating what sections to shut down and what new things I can put in their place. Feel free to e-mail me any suggestions. Just click the link on the left under the ads.

Our last day in Vegas was a long one. We decided to travel over to the Grand Canyon for the day. We had reserved our trip well in advance and received an e-mail right before we left saying we would not be picked up at our hotel. Instead, we were to meet at the Monte Carlo by ***6 AM*** to catch a shuttle. Monte Carlo was the next casino up the street from MGM but on the opposite side of the street. Our shuttle was picking us up at the entrance on the totally opposite side away from The Strip. We had to get up before 5 in the morning. UGH!

Our shuttle arrived and we rode to a North Las Vegas airstrip. When we booked our trip, we were supposed to leave at 7:30, but unbeknownst to us, this had changed a few days earlier to 8:30. A full two hours from the time that we got there and we had brought nothing to do. Thankfully, the gift shop had playing cards, so we bought a deck and played gin rummy. We didn't actually take off until after 9 AM. The flight to the Grand Canyon took about an hour, but the tour was really cool. The Grand Canyon is beautiful. We saw several wild California Condors at our first stop flying around. Apparently the squirrels in the area are pretty feisty. We were told to stay away from them because they were aggressive. I read a sign that said about 30 bites requiring medical attention were reported every day. Personally, I think this is where squirrels go to train for the impending world invasion.

According to the web site of the tour company that took us to the Grand Canyon, we were supposed to be back at our hotel 7 hours after being picked up. For us that would have been 2 PM. By 12:30, we had not finished the tour and it was at least a 90 minute trip back to the hotel. Part of our tour included lunch. Unfortunately this was at a pretty bad buffet. I've had worse food, but compared to what we'd eaten all week, this was pretty yucky. We didn't leave to go back to the airport until after 1:30. We were supposed to meet outside at 1:20, but there wasn't a bus there for us. The trip was going from bad to worse. After finally getting a ride back to the airport, we had to wait around for them to find our pilot to fly us back. I think we actually started our flight around 2 PM. I slept most of the way back because I was exhausted. After we landed we hopped in the shuttle to go back to our hotel. They wanted to drop everyone off at their actual hotel which was nice, but as luck would have it, we were scheduled to be dropped off last. We eventually got off the shuttle at a different casino and took the monorail back to MGM. Rush hour traffic on a Friday in Vegas is ridiculous. Had we stayed on the shuttle, it's possible we wouldn't have gotten back until 5 PM.

For our last night in Vegas, we went up to Circus, Circus. We had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant called Blue Iguana. Unfortunately, they didn't have any of their namesake on display. After dinner, we went to the amusement park there. I rode the roller coaster twice. It was supposed to be $6 for a ticket to ride, but they never took my ticket. It was pretty good for an indoor coaster: two vertical loops followed by two corkscrews and a spiral at the end. After the amusement park we stuck around to see the Flying Poemas trapeeze group before going back to our room and packing up.

Thursday we continued our casino crusade. After a filling breakfast at New York, New York, we went over to Excalibur for some photos and souvenir shopping. From there we walked over to Luxor to look at the Egyptian theme and take more pictures. After a stop off at our room to drop off the loot, we took the monorail up to the Venetian for lunch at Delmonico (Emeril's). Before lunch, we took a gondola ride through the canal weaving through the shoppes inside the casino. Our gondolier even sang in Italian for us while we were riding through the canal.

After lunch we went over to The Mirage to look at the wilderness habitat there. The animals there were(are) owned by Siegfried and Roy. You'd think the people in Vegas would take all the different animals at the casinos and create a zoo. After The Mirage we went across the street to the Flamingo to look at the bird habitat. The main attraction (for me) was the penguin habitat. Those little guys are so cute.

The main event for the day was a Polynesian luau at the Imperial Palace. It was a bit cramped. To get up from the table, everyone had to contort around their chairs and try not to fall on the people to either side or behind them. However, the food was good. The dancing got to be repetitive, but it was a decent way to spend the evening. I was a little ticked that they gave us pictures without saying anything about buying them. An hour after we had received the pictures, they came by wanting to know if we were buying them. It would have been nice if I knew this initially. Here's an idea: don't waste all the film (yes, it was a standard 35mm film camera), ink and paper without asking if people want to buy them.

After the luau, we went back to our room, but it was still early so I went back to Excalibur to play poker. It was a very frustrating experience. When I sat down, there were three people in their early 20s just throwing money around hoping to win. I have to wonder if they really knew how to play. They weren't around long, but there were a couple other players throwing money around as well. They were sitting at a $1-$3 table with $200! Why are you sitting at such a low-limit table with that much money? After an hour I left having lost $19. I was very irritated with the whole experience.

Wednesday in Vegas was poker day for me. I took the small walk over to Excalibur ready to test my skills at a real table. Excalibur had the best limit tables with $1-3. I'm not ready to take the plunge with no limit yet. Half the table seemed to be older locals more content to wander off chatting to other locals than actually play. I held my own, finally winning a pot after probably an hour. That really felt good. Toward the end of my 3 hour session, I managed to lose a large chunk of chips. Holding 2 aces with another on the table, and a club away from a flush, I stayed in until the end, but the club never came. Somebody else managed to grab a straight and took a huge pot. It happens I guess. At lunch I went back to the room having lost 24 bucks and ate leftover chicken alfredo from Battista's. After lunch I went back to try my hand at 7 card stud. I played for about an hour and a half before I got a winning hand. I lost about $20 at that session. Wednesday night we went to Caesars Palace to eat at Terrazza and see Celine Dion. Terrazza is an upscale Italian restaurant. I don't really remember what I had to eat, but I remember it was very tasty. For dessert, I had chocolate beignets with pistachio ice cream, a favorite of the waiter who told me several times if I didn't want it, he would be happy to eat it. Celine Dion wasn't my choice (I picked Penn and Teller), but I was man enough to go. It wasn't bad. There were other things going on around her so it wasn't like a typical concert. That was it for Wednesday. After the show we wandered to the monorail and went back to our room.

On Tuesday we headed east to Hoover Dam, one of the seven man-made wonders of the world. It was certainly a site to behold. We were able to go down 500 feet into the rock foundation to see the generators. The generators were about as big in diameter as our apartment. Of course all along the tour we got the history lessons about why the dam was built, why it was built where it was, etc. After visiting the dam, we drove to a nearby town to visit a museum. There wasn't a whole lot there to look at, but some of the exhibits were interesting enough. At the very least, I learned that dire wolves were real and not just a monster to kill in a game. After the museum we went to eat at one of the oddest restaurants I've ever eaten at. The whole restaurant was a soup and salad buffet. Those of you that know me know I'm not a veggie eater. I was pretty concerned about what I would eat when I walked in the door and only saw a huge salad bar. However, tucked around the corner was at least half a dozen soups, a whole bakery section, ice cream bar and several hot pastas. I didn't have much meat, but there was plenty of good stuff. I ended up with chicken noodle soup, pasta alfredo, potato and leek soup with bacon, and several slices of foccacia. To top it off, I had ice cream which is always a favorite. Due to time constraints, we had to skip the chocolate factory and instead drove to Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock Canyon was gorgeous. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky. There was little traffic so it was very quiet and soothing sitting at the highest point looking over the valley below. After a long day of walking around, we headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. That night, we went to a little Italian place called Battista's Hole in the Wall. The restaurant isn't quite like its name implies. It was a little small, but the food was excellent. There was a little old Italian guy wandering around the restaurant serenading everyone while playing his accordion for entertainment. After dinner we went next door to the Bourbon Street casino to see a free improv show. Bourbon Street was more of a hole in the wall than Battista's. Only the budget minded would stay there and gamble. It was on the total opposite end of the spectrum when compared to MGM and Bellagio. And thankfully the improv show was free because overall it was bad. After the show I went to gamble back at the Tropicana across from MGM, but luckily, I couldn't find an open table.

Wow, I never thought it would take over two hours to write a movie review. I guess I've got some writer's block over the past few weeks. I think The Interpreter caused some problems too. I procrastinated writing a review because the movie was so bad. Not the worst, but bad enough. So, I finally decided to skip it. Here's my review: Don't see it. Instead, see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not sure if you should? Read my newly posted review in Now Playing.

If you've never been to Las Vegas, you are missing an awesome time. Other than my experiences the airport, I had a great time. Standing around a baggage carousel with people pushing is never fun. After looking around our hotel and M & M World Sunday afternoon, we went to the Rio, home of this year's World Series of Poker which started last Thursday. We were there to eat at a very nice Indian restaurant and to see Penn and Teller. We actually were sitting 2nd row and had a good time. Monday was one of our sightseeing days. We looked around New York New York, Paris, Bellagio and Caesars Palace. We decided to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower at Paris which provided an excellent view of the city. After browsing through all the casinos we went back to rest and I ended up losing a wad of money at MGM. We ate dinner at an upscale Chinese restaurant called Pearl and went to Mirage to see the volcano and to Bellagio to see the nighttime fountain show. I'll fill you in on the rest of the trip later this week.

I'm back! My bank account is much smaller which is no surprise for any vacation, especially one to Las Vegas. I'm not as tired as I have been after a vacation which is odd considering we trekked many miles up and down the Strip. I'll fill you in the trip as the week progresses.

While in Vegas, I quickly came to the conclusion that table games are just about as wasteful as slot machines. There is more skill involved than in slots, but the skill is minimal compared to the luck. From now on, it's only poker for me. At the very least it's cheaper as I can get out of bad hands without spending any money. Overall, Lady Luck was unkind to me. I dropped $80 very quickly one afternoon because I didn't know my minimums. $10 minimums at a table (blackjack and 3 card poker) disappears very quickly. Poker was a little kinder even though I never made anything from it. I won some small pots, but lost a large chunk on two hands that I had until the last card. And, because of some idiot players throwing cash around like confetti, I folded two other hands that would have won had I stayed in. Good lessons though. The more I play, the better I get. Maybe one day I can just play poker for a living since my dream of playing video games for money doesn't seem possible at this point in my life.

I know prostitution is legal in Nevada, but the amount of advertising that goes on for it is simply amazing. Instead of paper stands with real estate booklets or freebie newspapers, the sidewalk is littered with prostitute and stripper ads. There are sometimes a dozen paper racks on the sidewalk filled with newspapers promoting sex. As if that weren't enough, people are on the sidewalk handing out business cards with scantily clad women wanting your money. I don't know how many people offered me a newspaper or card while walking down the street with my wife. Apparently we look like swingers.

Speaking of scantily clad women, what are casinos thinking when dressing their cocktail waitresses? For most of the casinos, I give them an A on the costumes. I give the Hilton an F for their unflattering black shirt, black pants, gold vest outfits. However, the actual waitresses left a LOT to be desired. It doesn't do any good to have short skirts and plunging necklines if your waitresses are ugly and old. The most disappointing was Caesar's Palace. For such a classy place, their waitresses were the worst. I don't think I saw one waitress younger than 45. The Rio overall had the best looking waitresses. On my way out for the evening, I had an opportunity to see a "slot stripper" (for lack of a better term) dancing on top of a slot pool. However, the Rio also had cocktail "wieners" - male servers. Yuck!

This week is already threatening to be busy. I've come home to a mess. I've already had to deal with a company not shipping something I ordered because the item was suddenly sold out after two weeks, even though they said the item was in stock when I ordered. Tomorrow I need to take my car back to the shop to have them look at the a/c they supposedly fixed 2 weeks ago. Driving home yesterday was miserable because of the heat. We had to roll down all 4 windows to keep the cat from getting too hot. I also have to finish my lesson plans and start prepping for all my classes. Look for my Vegas trip reports all this week and a few movie reviews as well. Now, I'm off to start what everyone says will be my new addiction: World of Warcraft.