I just got back after a rollicking four day vacation in Vegas, as is our tradition for the NFL’s wildcard weekend. Manoli is all about the journey, so we drove. In an unrelated note, Manolis is insane. Here are the highlights:

Thursday – We drove southeast. Our first stop, a bit past Gilroy, was Casa de Fruta, where I came up with the brilliant idea of buying all kinds of different fresh nuts so I could make my dream mixed nuts bag. Why did I do this? Because I hate pralines, that’s why. I bought super large cashews, roasted-salted almonds, large macadamia nuts and Virginia peanuts. Cost: $23. What a frugal start! Also, we ate lunch at the café there and while the teenage busboy looked like a serial killer, I was much more concerned about the waiter, who had one of those overly quiet, overly polite voices that you know is overcompensating for a dark, troubled past.

After that, we pulled into Fresno, just to see what it’s like. I was a bit apprehensive, because Fresno is like the Armenian capital of California (true story, I once beat a speeding ticket driving through Fresno County by telling a police officer that I’m Turkish and I really wanted to get out of there in a hurry) but Manoli wanted to stop for a soda or something. So in our drive downtown we saw: A prison on Main Street, a Mexican guy pissing into a bush, a homeless guy with a sign saying he wants to buy bullets to rob a bank, lots of sex shops, and scores of ugly people. I’ve never seen Manoli so depressed in my life. We high-tailed it out of there.

In the afternoon we stopped in Selma, the raisin capital of California, because Manoli promised me we could go to my beloved Cattleman’s Steakhouse for dinner. The meal was sensational, if pricy, and our waiter looked like part Dungeons & Dragons nerd and part cowboy. Manoli, who’s a vegetarian now, ordered broccoli and a potato. O how I despise him. We lodged for the night in the town of Tehachapi, named after you know, the Woohoo kind of Indians, and ironically, our motel manager was a Red dot Indian.

Friday – We ate lunch at the Mad Greek Diner in Baker, a town fifty miles or so outside of Vegas. Baker was depicted in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” as a hellishly hot, desolate town with nothing to do, and maybe in the summertime it is, during the winter it’s a tourist spot with plenty of dining options and gift shops. The Mad Greek advertised their gyros and (this doesn’t sound very Greek) strawberry shakes in billboards a hundred miles away and I must say, both lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, we sat next to some bovine family that may or not have been the inspiration for either Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” or the society of “Wall-E.” The Vegetarian had some pita bread with Zaziki sauce.

We took the wrong exit into Vegas so we were stuck in strip traffic for two hours, so I missed most of the Spurs game at Memphis (I bet it was amazing!). We got pulled over by bike cops because he didn’t have his registration, proof of insurance or even a valid driver’s license. He was a gun in the glove compartment away from being Plaxico Burress, basically. The cops actually made me drive the rest of the way to our hotel. Manoli wasn’t pleased and proceeded to take it out on me by being a miserable passenger-seat driver. Apparently I did 47 things wrong during the half mile between where we got pulled over and the Tropicana Hotel’s valet parking station.
Upon checking in, it was more Keystone Kops for us, and this time it was all my fault. First I dropped my driver’s license between the front desk and the trek to our room, then after gratefully hearing my name on the intercom and retrieving the card from the security desk, we took the elevator again, only to realize that in all the panic I completely forgot to ask what our room number was. Another twenty minutes wasted. Finally in the room we unpacked and took a tram over to Mandalay Bay, where we saw the final third of the Spurs game.

After the deliria of that wore off, I spotted a bar called “Eye Candy” that promised titillation and buxom cocktail waitresses in skimpy short skirts. What we got was fifteen minutes of total shunning by all the ladies (who upon closer inspection weren’t all that attractive to begin with). Since we weren’t being served, I went to the bar to get my Bloody Mary and Manoli’s long island. Total cost, with tip: $29. Gotta love Vegas. These same two drinks, with way bigger glasses and way more booze, would’ve cost $13 at my bar, so with tip, like $13.25.

Our watery drinks downed and the Alabama-Utah college game boring us to tears, we walked down Tropicana Avenue to the Hooters casino for dinner. I had some mighty fine wings and some good ogling. Manoli had onion rings. The waitstaff was considerably more appealing than what we saw at Eye Candy, although the outfits can make practically anyone look good, I suppose. I think they make the ladies tape their boobs together really tight and then lift them two feet so they’re at chin level. I think the inventor of the Wonderbra was just some guy who had a hankering for some diarrhea-causing wings one afternoon.

Dinner consumed, it was off to the MGM for poker (they have by far the best setup of all the major hotels on the strip, I think). It was going swimmingly for Aaron at 3-6 Limit. I played very few hands and seemingly every big pot I entered I won. I had one ace high flush and one Broadway (ace high straight) but I won a couple with two pair as well. I was up $170 or so when “the incident” happened.

Manoli violated protocol, simple as that. We’ve always had an agreement that if it’s just the two of us left in a pot in a casino that we would just check all the way. That situation came up Friday night after I raised after the flop to drive the last guy out and Manoli called. Fully expecting him to honor our agreement, he bet and I gave him a look like, “What the hell are you doing?”
I grumpily called, he bet again, I called, and he showed me the winning hand and I promptly told the dealer that I was done and started stacking my chips. Manoli tried to stop me and asked me to talk to him privately, but I wasn’t having it, so he stormed off. We finally talked it over and he explained that he was going to give me the money for the turn and river bets back all along, he just didn’t want it to appear suspicious for us to start checking each other after all that initial betting and raising.

“But you wanting to have a private conversation with me in front of the table after I ask to leave doesn’t look suspicious?” I asked.

Tempers cooled and he admitted he was wrong. Eventually. You don’t just change protocol without discussing it first, kids. The evening ended with me losing a hundred in blackjack. Fabulous.

Saturday – The day started way more peacefully, as we once again rode on over to Mandalay Bay around 11 a.m. or so to visit the shark aquarium they got over there. I don’t know if it sounds unmanly or whatever, but I’m a sucker for a good aquarium. It’s the one rich douche thing I would splurge on if I was wealthy. Well, that and the endless conveyor belt of ass, of course. I castigated Manoli for forgetting his camera, because he’s got one of those really fancy digital ones, and spent the next hour and a half lamely trying to take pictures of unpredictably moving fishies with my cellphone camera.

No, not my picture.

So on it was to the sportsbook to bet on the weekend’s first wildcard game, Falcons vs. Cardinals. I made a bunch of parlays, plus one bet for the Cardinals in the first half (-.5) and one on Anquan Boldin to score the first touchdown of the game for ten bucks at 7/1. Naturally Larry Fitzgerald got the first one. And even though the Cards were up 14-3 midway through the second quarter, a boneheaded Kurt Warner interception late led to Atlanta’s second touchdown and they went to half with a 17-14 lead. D’oh.

The Falcons were dominating the game and the time of the position, so I did what any smart fellow would and bet on Atlanta to win the second half. The first play, the Falcons fumbled, Arizona scooped up the ball and ran it in for a score and I figured it was going to be one of those days. At least the team I was rooting for all along won in the end.

For the second game, it was Chargers vs. Colts. I made a parlay of Indy (-2.5) plus the under. It was secure for, oh, probably the first 58 minutes of the game. But the Chargers punter had the game of his life and the stupid Colts couldn’t convert a measly third-and-two when it mattered and then in overtime San Diego won the coin toss and got like four straight calls from the zebras to get in position for the easy game winner field goal. Oh but losing just this bet would’ve been too easy to deal with my friends. No, the gods truly smiled upon me when the Chargers won in overtime not with the usual field goal but with a rare touchdown, therefore killing all my parlays as well. Well done. I managed to tread water in blackjack, despite some harrowing moments, but lost a hundred in poker.

Oh, and I lost a NBA-Hockey parlay when the Spurs decided to score 893 points in the first quarter and I lost the under (187.5) with them and the Sixers. Silly me, I thought they would be tired in a segababa. We at least ended the night on a good note, having a solid meal at Mon Abi Gabi at the Paris Hotel (who says I hate the French?) where on the way there I totally embarrassed Manoli by joyously accepting all the hooker cards the guys hand out on the street. I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy the hooker cards. I can’t even explain it. It’s not like I’d ever in a million years actually call one of the numbers. But I love collecting them. They are literally my favorite thing about Vegas.

Also, in other gambling news, I managed to tread water in blackjack, despite some harrowing moments, but lost a hundred in poker. I tried to win it back in blackjack, late at night, and at my table some Polish bald guy who went on a run like I’ve never seen in all my years. He lost like ten hands in a row, in every way conceivable, and every next hand he’d bet more. He must have dropped at least three grand in the time I was watching. The one hand he would’ve won, I hit on 12 with the dealer showing a four or something and took the bust card. He called me an idiot or something and I guess I deserved it. I cost the guy $500 and if he did it to me for $50, I’d have been incredibly pissed. I gladly left the table even money and went back to the room, hating the vibes of the Tropicana.

Sunday – We slept in and stayed in the room for Dolphins-Ravens. Neither of us had the energy to even pretend that the game would be exciting. We still made it with time to spare for Eagles-Vikings and I even confidently put a bet down on it. While my Iggles typically did almost everything they could to give the game away, they finally called the screen pass that I was begging of them for two and a half hours to pull away and won 26-14. Yay. Plus somewhere along the line I won like $200 in blackjack. Double yay. Also, pretty much the whole afternoon Manoli was trying to talk me into attending a, get this, a George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars concert, while I was trying to talk him into a No Limit Poker Tournament.

We ate dinner at the House of Blues, a southern-style BBQ joint, so of course, Manoli ordered grits. Manly. They do have kickass cornbread there though, so I’d recommend that. It comes with maple butter so you don’t have to use any of that sticky syrup. Screw you Vermont, I hate that shit. Anyway, we agreed to go our separate ways and I thought that would be that.
So I busted out like 30 minutes into the tournament and he found me making my buy in back at blackjack. He convinced me to just go to the dumb concert and said I’d buy my ticket if I buy him a drink. God, we’re gay.

I still had my bag of nuts with me this whole time (no matter how much I ate them, it wouldn’t empty – I guess $23 worth is a lot of nuts) so I had to check my nuts at the concert for $5. I hate this town. The first hour was okay, the opening band was Bob Marley’s old squad, The Wailers, and while reggae isn’t my thing, at least it was nice and mellow and I could make fun of the dancing.

But then came out George Clinton and his crew. Good god. I swear I thought I’d be at a gangster rap concert before something like this. Or the opera. Or just about anything else. If you don’t know, George is like this old, fat guy with colorful hair and he and his band specialize in “funk” music. I don’t know what that means, but it’s basically a lot of black people with loud guitars. Like ten of them. Simultaneously. And the entire crowd is baked. I think I got a contact high. The only person in the band who I knew about was Bootsie Collins, and he wasn’t even there, so that was disappointing, but everyone went apeshit when Sly from “Sly and the Family Stone” made a cameo. He brought literally nothing to the table. Some woman started rapping about needing to be with a man with a big periwinkle. Another woman was trying to act like a young Tina Turner. It went on, and on, and on.

The P-Funk all-stars played for, by my count, five hours, and they averaged about 40 minutes per song, which were all about either getting high, screwing, or both. You haven’t lived ‘til you’ve heard an old man yell “Skeet skeet skeet.” They played that “Bow wow wow yippee yay yippee yo” song that Snoop Dog used to do, as well as “Flashlight” and “We’ve got the funk.” George Clinton himself didn’t come on until the third song. There is like fifty people in the band, including his son (who’s a complete dope) and his grandkids. About twenty were on stage at any one time, including a guitarist who was doing a bad Prince imitation. They had one acrobatic pimp guy who danced all sexy with some woman and another guy whose specialty was standing perfectly still. That was literally his role. He would point to some person in the audience, get their attention, then not move for five minutes. I’m not entirely convinced these two gentlemen weren’t the same guy. They kind of looked alike and were never on stage simultaneously. Rapid costume changes could’ve been made. Is anyone out there an expert on this band that can help me here?

I spent most of my time ogling and taking pictures of Kim, this one fine little soul-sister (translation: she was white) in the band that was a backup singer-dancer-roller skater. As far as I was concerned she was the most talented person in the band. I think she was coked out of her mind and while she had an amazing body, she was cuter when she had a mask on. Manoli had the time of his life and was drunk and dancing like an idiot. He swears I had a good time, but I was wiped like halfway through. I made it to the front row rail just to have an excuse to not dance. I don’t know much about funk music but I know that George does less shit than anyone in that whole band, even the standing still guy. He literally sings the first three lines of every song and then quits and lets the other people take over. What a life.

Editor’s Note: Hotter in real life.

At least I wasn’t the least appropriately dressed person there, even in my green Brian Dawkins jersey. Some chick in a white David Akers jersey (the kicker!) hugged me out of the blue and briefly I considered the prospect of trying to sneak one between her uprights. But I she came over again later and I found out that she looked like a female Garth from “Wayne’s World” and that she was, uh, taken. So there was that.

And some guy had a Steelers jersey that just said “P-Funk” on the back. I hate concerts.

Monday – Went back to Baker and stopped at some place called “Alien Fresh Jerky.” I bought the “Colon Cleanser” spicy kind and immediately got ill. I can’t handle the hot stuff anymore at my old age. With the alien theme they might as well have just made an anal probe reference here. I paid for this mistake until three days later, believe it or not. We got home late Monday night. All I had to spend was hotel and food money. So roughly a billion dollars. I think only Simmons can afford Vegas anymore.

P.S. Spurs-Clips recap. And more!