I was on a boat

Wow, nearly 3 months without an update, a new personal best. I want to say I will try to update this more often but work has been really stressful recently and I just haven’t had the energy to write up one of these things. By the way, isn't that what blogs are for anyway, to only post about why you aren't posting enough? Anyway, now that I'm done with the excuses, on to the blog.

Ok so let's see, what's been going on lately? Well I took a cruise to Cozumal and Progresso last month. While there I picked up a box of Cuban Cigars and a Poncho. And no, I don’t get one of those brightly colored ones either. I got the kind that Marty was wearing when he was doing his Clint Eastwood impression in Back to the Future 3. You know, the duel scene with Biff "Mad Dog" Tannen. Great movie. Anyway so I got those things but I was unable to acquire something I thought for sure I’d be able to find: an authentic Mexican torta house. We must have wandered all over the place looking for a place that sold tortas, but alas, no luck. It was truly a tragedy.

And I wouldn't consider myself a cigar smoker per se, but by golly those were some of the finest smokeables I have ever purchased. Imagine me on the top deck of the boat, in my full captain attire, smoking a big fat cigar. It reeked of classy. I got the cigars on the cheap as well. Talked the guy down from 50 bucks down to 20. I also got a legit pair of cigar cutters in the duty-free area in Cozumel. He wanted 15 but I got him down to 6! Bartering with the locals is a blast!

The cruise was a lot of fun and I can't wait until I book the next one. The next vacation destination for me appears to be Vegas yet again since the good folks over at Total Rewards continue to inundate me with offers for free nights there. That trip will probably take place around my birthday although nothing is set in stone just yet.

Hopefully this post will give me the spark I've needed to get back to posting on this thing regularly. I mean, only 18 posts for all of last year? Pathetic. Ok well that's all for now, hopefully I'll have something with a little more substance next week. Oh wait, you don't come here for substance.

Mardi Gras

Ok so it has been another pretty long hiatus since my last post on this thing for a couple of reasons. 1: Super busy at work. 2. Vacation to New Orleans. And C: No new AdSense money goal. Lucky for you, the viewer, 2 of those things are really no longer an issue. The vacation is over and Christine and I once again have a goal of wasting the money we get from this thing on something awesome. Telling you what that awesomenss is will have to wait. With that in mind, here is a little recap of the time we had in New Orleans.

First off, the drive. We all convened on the wee hours of the Saturday morning before the trip. Knowing us, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me to see my car loaded up with 6 handles of liquor amongst all the other travel related stuff. Surprisingly, my trunk was big enough to hold all the travel gear for 5 people. I had thought that my car might not be big enough to gang bang 5 people into for a 6 hour trip, but luckily I was wrong as everyone seemed to be pretty comfortable for the whole ride. I had also made a badass classic rock cd that lasted the entire duration of the trip.

One quick side note. One of these days, I am going pitch a television show to FOX called: “WTF IS HEATHER TALKING ABOUT?”. It will be just me and Heather walking down the street with a film crew and having some random people talk to us and attempt to decipher what she is trying to say. I’m telling you, this idea is a comedy gold mine. Heather, you are hilarious!

Anyway, back to the story. As you can imagine, the city was quite packed for Mardi Gras. It literally seemed like every street to our hotel was blocked off. Needless to say we eventually got there and, of course, headed straight to the casino. Now for the record, I think I can honestly say that I enjoy going to New Orleans any other time of the year. I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good time this trip, I did. It’s just that it was impossible to get anywhere at all while the parade was going on. In fact, if I see zero more parades in my life it will be way too many.

We, of course, did all the normal stuff there is to do in New Orleans. Casino, Bourbon Street, Mother’s, and Pat O'Briens. There was also this pretty legit sushi place in the lobby of our hotel that hooked us up with free saki because, get this, they couldn’t sell it to us because they didn’t have a liquor license. Oh New Orleans, I love how the rules don’t apply to you.

Speaking of our hotel, due to the people to bed ratio being inadequate, we brought along an inflatable mattress to compensate. Now, I have never really had a good experience with air mattri. They are generally always pieces of junk that deflate within a couple hours of laying on them. However, the one we brought absolutely takes the cake. It was so crappy, in fact, the phrase “Somalia Bed” was quickly coined to use when talking about it. The only upside to brining the thing along was the use of its blower as a hair dryer when it was discovered the one that came with the room did not work. That was my idea, btw…

Another one of the bigger oddities of the trip was the sheer amount of Brother’s Fried Chicken that was consumed. There was this grocery store 2 blocks down from our hotel called Brother’s that made one hell of a fried chicken strip bucket and invariably someone would always headed down there around 2-3 in the morning and literally pick up buckets of it. Our hotel room was literally covered with these boxes of empty fried chicken by the time the trip was over. It was simply ridiculous.

Ok, now for the absolute strangest part of the trip. On our last full day there, Fat Tuesday, we got up bright and early (12PM) and headed to the iHop on Canal Street. After a short wait, we were seated and started ordering our food. QUICK TIP: Apparently unlimited fountain drink refill only applies to sodas….not apple juice. I had to learn that the hard way after getting my check and seeing an additional $7.50 tacked on for the 3 apple juices I got. WTF?! Anyway, so we look over about midway through our meal and take a look at the person at the check out counter. Instead of seeing say your average age person collection money and making change, there was a young girl who was most definitely no older than 9 years old. She was completely running the place. Ordering servers around, yelling out guest’s names whose tables were ready. EVERYTHING! We’re pretty sure she even fired a bus boy…. Just another example of how rules and regulations like child labor laws simply do not apply to this town!

So yes, as you can see, we all had a really good time on this trip. I glossed over some of the more crazy parts as they are probably not even internet appropriate. I sang horrible karaoke one night and completely lost my voice. I got violently ill after returning back to Houston and I am only now getting over it. New Orleans is simply a great place to have a great time. I love going there and I dare even say I like it more than going to Vegas. So yes, there you go. Great story huh?

Here is one more gem before I sign off:

Housekeeping: (knock, knock, knock) “what time are you guys checking out”?

Us: “We arranged late checkout, we’re leaving at noon.”

Housekeeping: “12 noon?”

Us: “……Yes…..12, noon” (as opposed to the other time of the day that is noon…)

I am going to try to write a recap of the winter Olympics soon before I forget about all the stuff that interested me. Hopefully it will not be another month before something gets posted up here again!

My Vegas travel guide

One week ago today, I returned from Las Vegas. Much like my trip last year, this trip was filled with its memorable moments. We spent a great deal more time gambling and less time sight seeing this go around compared to last year. With that in mind, I am not going to give a full recap of the trip. Instead, I will share with you a few of the lessons I learned while in Vegas. Hopefully these will come in handy to you should you ever visit sin city.

I just realized that this post is going to resemble a do's and don't list a la the Travel Channel. Just bear with me. Lol, bears.

DO visit the Minus 5 ice bar in Mandalay Bay. This place was really one of the highlights of the trip. For 35 bucks, they loan you a parka and stick you in this freezer where everything is made out of ice. And when I say everything, I literally mean everything. The tables, chairs, shelves and bar were all made out of ice. Oh, also the cups. The 35 bucks gets you 2 drinks served up to you in tumbler glasses made of ice. When I asked what they do with the cups afterwards, the lady told me with a straight face that they put them in a giant frozen dishwasher. I'm pretty sure she was just joking though...

DON'T get a 100 ounce Long Island Iced Tea at Minus 5. This was probably the worst decision I made on the trip. Failure to heed this warning may result in you being unable to remember leaving Minus 5. It may then also result in you getting kicked out of the Luxor Casino for throwing up all over the casino floor while at the Pai Gow table. I, of course, did not experience that first hand, I just heard it from some random person.

DO throw the remainder of your money on the field at the craps table when you are dwindling on funds. The odds are good that a 2 or 12 will hit and triple your money back up to even. I actually witnessed this twice this trip and it is a guaranteed way to make your money back. Seriously, craps is a hell of a game. Unbelievably fun to play when there is a hot shooter and still only mildly depressing when you run into a cold one.

DON'T play 300 dollars on a single hand of blackjack. This is another one of those "I heard it from some random person" lessons. Just trust me on this one.

DO play the fortune bonus at the Pai Gow table. If you are like me and enjoy Pai Gow poker, quite frankly the only way to win money is to play the fortune bonus. Sure, you might get lucky and win a couple hands to go up a little, but the only sure fire way to win big is to hit the 7 card straight flush with no joker. It pays 30,000 to 1 so on a 5 dollar bet you are talking about $150k. While I was not lucky enough to hit that, I was able to hit 4 of a kind which paid a nice 25 to 1 which netted me a cool $125. Had I been playing the fortune last time in New Orleans, I would have won $750 on my royal flush. I'm never letting an opportunity like that go by again.
DO hit up the champagne brunch at Mandalay Bay. Last year we hit up Planet Hollywoods champagne brunch and were pretty blown away by it. I do have to say, however, that the one at Mandalay Bay edges it out barely in terms of quality and variety of food. You really cant go wrong with unlimited pre-cracked snow crab legs while sipping on mimosas can you?

DON'T go with your gut when it comes to sports betting. I'm convinced that the only way to win at sports betting is to take the same approach that George Costanza took during that episode of Seinfeld: Always do the opposite of what you think is right. Going against your intuition will mean you will take Oakland at +7 over the Chargers and the Bills at +10.5 over the Patriots. I will try this approach next time and let you know how it works out.

Speaking of next time, it appears that I will be headed back to Vegas on or around the 6th of June next year. In the meantime I am pretty burnt out on taking vacations. Traveling all over the place over 5 times this year has taken its toll. And while I wont rule out a quickie trip down to Lake Charles or something, I can safely say that I wont be making any more big trips for a while.

All in all it was a great vacation. Contrary to all of our beliefs, we actually played beer pong in the hotel room and had bacon and eggs in the morning. I would recommend staying at the Jockey Club. We got a great deal and the place even had a little mini-mart in the lobby that was reasonable priced. There was also no silverware was stolen from any restaurants this trip nor were there any bloody noses. I'm already looking forward to the next trip out there....