Densie's blow-by-blowjob summary

[Densie]

I guess, in summary, the most noteworthy thing about this year's
DLV is that I really didn't take it seriously. I've always been a
hardliner for the "vacation not a convention" philosophy, but it
was more than usual this year, because I really needed a vacation.
I didn't even look at the schedule until I got to Vegas, and even
then, I didn't look at it for every long.

Normally I get my blow-by-blow summary in a little sooner, but I
actually haven't had time. We went right back on the road after
DLV.


Saturday:


What: Rocky Horror Picture Show

The funny thing about this was, it was crossdresser night. The
castmembers were switching gender roles and playing parts of the
opposite sex, and many of the audience were crossdressed. What
was even funnier was, none of them were from DLV! Annie, Tony and
I went, and we looked all over for anyone who was with DLV, and
couldn't find anyone who looked likely, or anyone we knew. This
was not on the activity schedule, but it was announced in both
forums, so I expected somebody to show up.

Afterwards, we went to Crews'n. They were having a little show,
and people were going up to the mic and singing, and...silly me, I
didn't have my music CDs with me! Since I produce international
karaoke, I almost always have my samples with me, but I had left
my purse at the hotel. I vowed never to go anywhere without them
for the rest of the trip.


Sunday:


What: Paris Happy Hour

Tony and I were already at Gustav's bar, which was one of the
highlights of the trip. Tony threw away a spade flush, with four
high cards, to get the royal, and hit it! About 45 minutes
later, he had another spade flush with four to the royal, needed a
ten of spades and had a nine. He threw away the nine, and it
flipped to a ten! I yelled "HOLY *f*ck*!" so loud that people in
Laughlin were calling to complain about the noise. Tony actually
hit one more royal flush the next day, bringing the total of our
winnings up to about $3,000. I have been playing for 12 years,
and have never hit a royal flush, but that is probably because I'm
evil. I did hit four aces several times, though, which is a nice
payout on double bonus poker. I came out about $600 ahead for the
trip.

People started showing up at Gustav's for the dinner, which was
good, because I was hosting it.

I actually chose Paris for the French theme, and it was a major
disappointment in that respect. For instance, the door placards
misspelled "s'il vous plâit" as "si vous plais", and the office
door at the buffet was marker "privè", which is not a word.
"privé" is a word. That may sound nit-picky, but it stuck out
like a sore thumb to me. Many of the signs and placards around the
casino were misspelled, or not proper French. Also, the music in
the elevators was mostly québecois, not French. But, it's
something I can joke about with my friend Xavier, who lives in
Tolouse. I think next time we will stay next door at Bally's, and
walk across the casino to Paris to try those loose VP machines
again.


What: Mon Ami Gabi dinner

Very successful! They accomodated everyone who showed up, about a
dozen of us. Food was very good, but I wasn't impressed with the
waiter. He didn't speak French, and he didn't have the Margaux
that I wanted by the glass, even though it was advertised on their
web page. Someone else asked him if he spoke French, and he
sneered and said, "Spanish will get you a lot further around this
place", which implies, to me, that they hire illegals.

I had a glass of Bordeaux, which was acceptable, and a filet
mignon, which was actually a real filet, and not a "chuck filet",
or "fish steak" like the grocery stores sell. Tony has escargots,
which he said were good, but not as good as the ones that I make.

En actuelement, the food at the little café at the corner of the
casino entrance was just as good, if not better. We went there
the next morning, and I had a salade niçoise, a fascinating salad
with raw tuna, olives, and lots of other stuff. I'm not crazy
about salad, but this was awesome. I also had crèpes stuffed with
canard confit (that's duck, for those of you who don't parlez le
français), with a creamy sauce and raisins, and we both had crème
brulé. Great food, and a bargain for around $40.


What: Alternative Common Gathering
Where: Crewsn

Did I go to Crewsn that night? I don't remember. I think we were
tired and went to the room and crashed after dinner.


Monday:


What: Air Tours

Major disaster. A fuel line in the airplane sprung a leak. I
didn't go, but Tony went to the airport, and then came back about
an hour later and told me that fuel was dripping out of the plane.
Unfortunately, he didn't put it in the shop (was under the
impression that he needed my permission or something), and we
didn't get back to look at it until Friday. The mechanic there
was a young guy, and he mistakenly though that a fitting was
leaking, instead of that hose, and they were going to have to
order the fitting. We just checked back into Paris for two more
days, and then went to the Sahara for one last day.

The Sahara was kind of depressing, because it's closing May 12.
We had a long talk with the bellman, who had been there 45 years,
and he said that they were closing so that they could open back up
in a year or two, with a non-union staff, perhaps using illegals.
We thought about going back to be there on the last day that the
Sahara would be open, in case they would have a party or let
people take souvenirs or something, but I got the idea that it
will be more like, no service, or just encouraging everyone to get
the hell out. They had almost no food service last year when I
stayed there, and this time, there was, really, nothing at all.
We had to go over to the Strat to get dinner.


What: Dinner
Where: Artisan

Excellent food!

Their wine list wasn't that great, at least, to me. They didn't
have a French wine that I liked, so Tony ordered Louis Jardot
burgundy, which is something that I regularly buy as vin
ordinaire, and for cooking. There was something a little surreal
about the waiter passing the cork, showing the label, and pouring
Tony a sniff of Jardot, which is, to me, like Gallo or Carlo Rossi
would be to the average American. It reminded me of the movie Top
Secret, in which the waiter is serving Nick Rivers a bottle of
1984 Ripple Blanc.

The food, however, was awesome! I had a calamari in sweet cherry
tomato sauce that was just incredibly good (we called it "Calamari
Foutu", but I doubt anyone will get the joke). Tony had
something made from raw tuna, and I think I had swordfish for the
main course. I was wonderful.

The group photo and mixer thing wasn't going to happen, for
logistics reasons or something, but that was fine with me. I
didn't really want to be in a picture anyway.


What: Beauty Bar Karaoke

This didn't work out, but I already talked about it on the message
board, and I don't want to say anything negative about what was
such a great trip overall, so that's all I'm gonna say about the
beauty bar.

Where: Shiloh Horse Ranch


I really wanted to do this, but we slept through it. I tend to
get up at about noon and look at the schedule to see what we're
doing that day. In the early days of DLV, I used to get up at
noon, call Annie, and ask what we were doing, so I guess I'm
getting better.


What: Neon Boneyard Tour

Another thing I really wanted to do, but I think we ended up
playing video poker or something instead.


What: Erotic Heritage Museum

I wanted to do this, but Tony didn't, so I guess we decided not
to.

What we did Tuesday night was karaoke at Crewsn, which was great.
The kj was a professional, with a real karaoke machine, so he was
able to play my disks. I did some French Rita Mitsouko, and
Nena's 99 Luftballons in German. I met a cool guy there who spoke
French, fortunately in time to cancel "La Taille du Bambou", which
is a graphic song about giving a guy a blowjob. I normally don't
sing that one if I think someone will understand the words. He
did an Edith Piaf song, which was awesome. I won a Crewsn T-shirt
for my rendition of Les Consonnes, and Tony, with his German
version of Major Tom, won the booby prize, which was a douchebag,
a blindfold, a box of Clorox 2, and a flavored condom.


Wednesday:

What: Madame Tussauds Wax Museum

I wanted to do this, but I really didn't want to get up off my
ass.


What: Sassy To Classy Nite - Talent Show
What: Frank Marino Divas Show


Here, we had a problem. I told Bob and Susan that I wanted to do
the talent show, not realizing that Frank Marino was that night.
I was going to blow off Frank Marino, but we had already paid for
the tickets, so we decided to do Marino and then see if we could
get into the talent show afterwards.

Marino was at the IP, and they had a karoke bar there, so I had
just enough time to do a song. They were able to play my sample
disks, so I did my rendition of Marcia Beila. It was awesome. If
I had known that they had such a great karaoke bar at IP, we could
have stayed there.

After the show, we rushed over to Crewsn to try to do the talent
show, but they were already closing up.


Thursday, April 7:


What: Limousine Tour

We had to call Annie to find out where to go for this, and it
turned out that we just had to walk across the street to Caeser's.
Everyone was leaving Trevi as we arrived.

The limo tour was great, as I recall. I was pretty drunk. We
were drinking cheap champagne, André and Cook's, which was just
fine. The limo tour is not supposed to be about sampling good
wines, it's about getting drunk and riding around in a limo with
your friends.

We played some VP at Bally's and talked to Annie for a while, but
we were losing miserably at the machines, so we didn't play for
very long. I told Tony that we would probably do better over at
Paris on Friday, when lots of people were there, and that turned
out to be correct.


Friday, April 8:

What: Pistol-Rifle Shooting

I wanted to do this, and we were supposed to assist in it, but
when I woke up at noon and looked to see what we were doing
friday, I noticed that we slept through pistol-rifle shooting.

What: Lunch With Ginger
Where: Paris Buffet

We did do this! The buffet was good, as buffets go. I liked the
prime rib with lots of horseradish, and the mediterranean food was
good, but the canard à l'orange (that's duck with orange sauce),
was really, really bad. Variety and selection were good, just
about on par with Bellagio's. I think the cost was about $19, but
our slot card paid for it, as usual.


What: Dinner
Where: Bahama Breeze

This was fun. We got there a little late, but we got dinner, and
some drinks. When we were at the hotel, getting ready to leave,
Annie sent out a chirp saying that she was at the bar, and the
first person to say "I'm thirsty" gets a free drink. So I sent a
chirp from the DLV webpage right away, and Annie honored it when I
got there.

There was a man singing and playing steel drums, and his music
genre was kind of island and Cuba. I produced a Cuban song (with
French lyrics) called Paris Latino, by Bandalero, and it seemed
appropriate, so I took my disc up there and asked him if I could
sing, and he let me do it. I guess I'm just a hard-core karaoke
addict...if I get a chance to sing, I take it.


What: Dancing at Paris

We went to Paris, but didn't do any dancing. The band was pretty
good, but they did an awful job of placing the mics and mixing the
sound, so it sounded pretty muddy. Annie was there, but off on
the other side of the crowd, being antisocial. I'll have to
remember to ask Annie why she didn't join us.

Saturday (extended stay, day 1):

Saturday night, we went to the IP to do karaoke. I noticed that
there were a few good singers, who mostly left early, before the
whole thing turned into a drunken free-for-all.

Sunday (extended day 2):

We went up to the VP and played some more, but weren't really
making any money. We did get a couple of those souvenir Eiffel
tower drinks, full of Pina Colada, so we got good and drunk.

We did karaoke at the IP again, and it was a little less drunk.
The KJ loved my rendition of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, but he hated
a French rap song that I did. Then I did 99 Luftballons, and the
crowd went nuts over it. My last song was Andy, in French, which
Tony and I acted out. I grabbed him by the beard and led him up
to the stage, and we played with the props and acted silly. The
audience loved it. Some people wanted to pose for pictures with
us, and ask questions about our music, which was good for me. I'm
still hoping to sell my work on the karaoke market one of these
days.

Monday (extended day 3):

Although our airplane was repaired on Sunday (hats off to the shop
for getting it done quickly), we had already paid for a night at
the Sahara Monday, and we decided to do it. I would say that it
was pretty disappointing, really. The place was almost deserted,
and everything was closed except for a few tables and machines.
We got some dinner at the Stratosphere, and called it a night.

Our flight back was uneventful. I'm not sure whether or not we
will do air tours in the future, though. We did boat tours one
time, and our boat, which had never given us any trouble, refused
to start on that day. Maybe I'll just sponsor a dinner or
something next year, and if we happen to have the boat or the
plane, and someone wants to ride, we'll set it up as an impulse
thing.

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to make another great DLV!

-densie

[annie]

> We thought about going back to be there on the last day that the
> Sahara would be open, in case they would have a party or let
> people take souvenirs or something, but I got the idea that it
> will be more like, no service, or just encouraging everyone to get
> the hell out.

I was lucky enough to be at the Frontier on their closing night, and it was a major party! Very upbeat!

However, they are saying that there will be no such celebration for the Sahara.

Rumor has it that the MGM is interested in buying the property from the current owners, who are apparently El-Lay nightclub promoters and not casino experts by any means.

> Annie was there, but off on
> the other side of the crowd, being antisocial. I'll have to
> remember to ask Annie why she didn't join us.

I wasn't being antisocial! At first I was camped out at a very conspicuous table up front and collaring our people as they wandered by. I came up to where most of the group was after a while.