oh my goodness... where to start? this was such an amazingly wacky weekend that i'm going to have to break it into parts. this entry we shall call part the first.

also first, is a little bit of background... this weekend in vegas was the concurrence of the adult video news (aka porn) awards and the CES (aka consumer electronics show). my pals amy and nick were going to go so nick, who reviews porn for the village voice, could attend the show. how could i resist? i had to go!

i land in vegas around 2:30pm and rush over to harrahs to meet nick and get into the room that i'm to be sharing with tim, the man from vail, phil, the benz guy, and joanne, super editor from LA. nick rushes off to take care of some intimate business and i duck in to clean up and change. feeling refreshed after all of that, i walk on over to paris to meet phil and tim at their winning blackjack table and to commence the gambling. not a big blackjack player, i go play my favorite game, craps, and quickly win $100. i jump on over to the black jack and just as quickly lose $200 - doh! thus ends my gambling for the day.

eventually, we meet back at harrahs and all of us, amy, nick, phil, tim, joanne and myself make our way to meet up with justin and his two pals at joanne's dad's korean restaurant - the ok korean restaurant. after a crazy drive in justin's jetta, we make it to the place and proceed to gorge our uncouth roundeye faces on wonderful korean bbq.

after our super-satisfying meal, and feeling more that a little tipsy on shoju (think korean sake), we decide that it's a good idea to go en masse over to the statosphere and ride up to the top to overlook all of vegas. two words: bad idea! let us just say that the stratosphere is among the lower tier of what vegas has to offer. a few elevator and "thrill" rides later, i lost all our pals. grr! after about an hour of wandering and mingling with the walking dead and other outcasts that find themselves caught in the stratosphere's gravity well, i was ready to kill or be killed. seriously. finally, phil first, and then the others found me and we made our way back home to harrahs.

justin and pals split off, the gals were tired and ready for bed and just where was tim? if memory serves, it was about 1am. phil, nick and i were no where near ready to call it a night... in fact, for us, the night was just beginning. seeing as the pornstars were all staying in the venitian, we decided that would be a good place to go gamble and drink the night away. en route to the venitian we see some dope cars and then... *time passes*

it's now about 3am. we've been eyeing pornstars and drinking like fish. we find ourselves sitting in the lounge, listening to yet another silly lounge act. at this point we're kinda loaded and the drinks just keep coming. the band plays "candy" by cameo as older white people dance like old white people. i'm starting to get the fear and perhaps the loathing - or is it the other way around? the urge to flee came suddenly, or maybe it didn't... in any event, the band stopped playing and before we could rejoin the fray on the main casino, we met three techie girls from san jose... nick and i made small talk while phil and the cute, most available girl latched onto each other. and talked. and talked. and talked. oh dear god did they talk - forever it seemed. we finally dragged phil out of the lounge, but the phil/girl attraction soon turns into a soap opera. phil just won't give up, and the girl isn't sure if she wants him to.

meanwhile, nick and i are getting fully sauced. it's at around 5am that glass bottles start breaking and we seperate phil from the girl. nick has been talking to some pornstar (for his review/interviews - remember that part?) and finds out that there's a porn party at the barbary coast. we go out to the cab line and nick "the glassbreaker" pegs phil with a beer bottle and it smashes all over the place. we toy with the idea of hopping in the lambos and benzes and other sweet rides out front, but instead seperate phil and the girl once more and hop in a cab to the coast.

6am. the barbary coast is full of dorky dudes trying to get into the porn party. phil sits down to play/lose hundreds of dollars at blackjack, nick just sits down woozy. heh. after waiting in line forever (or for 30 mins) nick and i give up and head back to harrahs and bed. nick is trashed. pete is exhausted. it's 6:45am and the sun is coming up.

end night one. whew! i'm going to take a break and get working on part two...

it's 10am. i start to blink into conciousness. egg and joanne are stirring in the room and messing with my laptop. thank god i shut the blackout curtains three hours ago when i went to sleep. i sense that my tech support is needed and i drag myself out of bed and over to connect amy to the internet. did i mention i *heart* my vaio tr1a and sprint cdma card? anyway, amy's doing her work and joanne is calling the airlines trying to get a later flight home. they mention breakfast and tim lurches awake, "breakfast?". i realize that i'm not getting any more sleep and get dressed for breakfast. phil is comatose on the bed. he's not getting up.

as we wait for down at the buffet for amy, who is upstairs rousing the "not to be moved" nick so he can make it to his noon interview w/ a porn starlet whose name now eludes me. tim worries about his patriots and the sports book. joanne wonders about her flight home in two hours. i wonder if i want buffet or denny's. we all wonder wtf is taking amy so long upstairs?! we finally blow off the buffet and head to denny's. amy FINALLY shows up after we've ordered. the waitress hates me. joanne wonders if she should go bet on roulette and if she wins, stay another day. we decide that's a great idea and that although yesterday's color was black, today's is RED. wow - why does the waitress hate me so much?

our posse heads on over to the mirage to see the white cats (don't kill the tiger! - tim) and drop joanne's money on the table. she craftily picks an empty table and tells her sob story about wanting to stay, but having to go... unless this guy helps her win $100. it's a good thing she wanted to bet $100 - that's why this table was empty... $100 is the minimum bet. joanne plops her dough on red and abdo spins the wheel... 0! doh! oh wait - 0 means you get half your bet back. hmm, does joanne bet the $50 to get back to $100? or take the money and run? she bets red again, and wins! and again and wins! woohoo! go joanne, you're staying!

after all that excitement, we head back over to harrahs to wash up and get ready for the day. by this time phil is awake and nick is back from porn. nick puts on phil's fly track suit, some gold beads and my kangol and struts like he's snoop dogg.

ok. everyone is clean, dressed and awake and we're off to paris for gambling and fun! amy jumps off ahead while nick, joanne and i swing through harrahs dorky outdoor court area to try to find the worst cheap sunglasses we can. nick settles on some extremely fly/dorky as hell j-lo glasses and i snag an orange tinted eurotrash pair. excellent! once at the paris, tim and phil head for the blackjack, amy and joanne settle into their seats at the roulette wheel, and nick and i bolt for the cafe. at the cafe we ask why they don't have a croque monsieur on the menu? the waiter sighs and says that although they used to have an authentic french menu, the STEWPID AMERICANS didn't want authentic, they wanted familiar. stewpid americans.

so we rejoin the gambling already in progress. nick plops down at blackjack with the boys and i float over to the girls to bring them over to the glory that is craps. the same crew is working the table as yesterday, a good omen. an even better omen is the jolly asian man at the end of the table. i had bet with him the day before and he is a stud at the craps table. we start training the girls on the arcane intricacies of the game and they are slowly catching on. i'm up about $100 and i notice that joanne is really getting into the game. i feel the urge to scoop up my winnings and take a walk - a good thing to do in vegas. for the next few hours, i flit between the guys at the blackjack table, who are laughing loudly and telling bad jokes (getting the blood out of your clownsuit), and the gals over at craps, making sure i'm collecting free drinks on both sides. it seems that everyone still playing is losing money, go figure. amy and i finally need a rest and sit at the slots near the craps table and continue on the free drink tip. joanne keeps on rollin' and will not be deterred. could it be that her asian blood is channelling the ancient spirit of GAMBLOR?!

heh. we finally drag gamblor away from craps and leave the guys at blackjack to go back to the hotel. joanne is off the hook hilarious decrying her losses... "don't worry baby, momma's gonna get that money... don't cry i'll get back your college money... i lost my life savings... etc". classic. people are walking by and taking in the plight of the (artificial) unwed and now broke mother. hehe. we loudly head back to harrahs and naps and readying for the big night out. *time passes*

suitably rested... or as rested as we're going to get anyway. we all get pretty for the big night out. nick has to run off to the avn awards - he's the only one of us in the press or with a ticket. phil and tim are going to the buffet to use their food coupon they got from the hotel for the unsanitary unpleasantness on thursday night. the girls and i decided it was good dinner night and we headed over for delomonico's in the venitian. a swarm of seemingly lost and staggering people fill the venitian's halls as we weave amongst and through them. damn. delmonico's is closed. the faux-class of the las vegas trained hostess as she blows us off, "thanks for inquiring", reminds us - this is a place separated from reality.

on past gaudy blue and forgettable, we hit pino's brassiere and settle into the comfortable, upscale (looking) french joint. then we wait for a small eternity for someone, anyone to notice us. staring... waving... damn near shouting... nothing seems to be able to draw the attention of any server, runner or bus boy. finally, our hostess, you know - the cute one with the strange mid-belly rack? yeah her. so we finally flag her down and let her know what's amiss. she looks genuinely horrified and dashes off to find us (after 5 more minutes) the dour and near silent server who partied too much last night. so yeah - it took for fucking ever! the fois gras, filet and chateaubriand were all wonderful and the 2002 la crema pinot noir was a las vegas steal at $35. then it was out to the bar for coffee, chocolate, muscat and a smoke.

about this time, we noticed the immense lineup of dudes outside the "windows" of our cafe. qu'est-ce que c'est? oh - it looks like the avn awards are letting out and the attendants/winners were parading right past our location and seeping into our bar. thinking quickly, i hopped up and shoved my camera gripping fist into the mob and snapped some really crappy pictures.

caught up like flotsom in the jetstream, nick finds his was to our table. apparantly the awards were boring as hell, no clips or anything. hilarity involving a newly acquired lipstick personal vibrator occurs and we're off into the casino and the avn post-party at the guggenheim. our group then attracts justin and then his pals from the other night. they tell us that the avn party is a sausage party with little in the way of eye candy. boo. we meander and cocktails occur. *time passes*

everyone is feeling the effects of that time passing. drinks are starting to slosh dangerously over the lips of glasses. no attempt is being made to gamble. pornstars and the like fill the casino or dash to the elevators to partake of delights and freaky scenes in the rooms and suites upstairs. even though the awards and such were lame, it adds a sinfully relaxed air to have that many porn people rubbing around. we then start making contact with the oqo posse and hear that tim and phil are off at the palms. the decision is made to grab one for the road and meet the oqo gang at the bellagio. definitely seeing deliberate splashing at this point. there's the wheelchairs i wanted all week! we're picked up by rickshaw/wheelchairs and carted in style to the very steps of the bellagio! yes!

inside the bellagio, we see yet another huge line of dudes outside the club. luckily we're meeting jory, rusty, vance, nick, nasseem, travis and the rest of the oqo's in the sportsbook next door. the oqo's are positively glowing - they've won best in show for their new device! awesome! we celebrate their win and have a kickass little party. good times. smiles and laughter all around. zach and neck phone in from l.a.. what the hell am i thinking not pulling out my camera and taking pictures of all these happy people for you to see? shame on me. whoops! someone sits in the middle of the table. with a crash, a hail of tumbler shrapnel arcs up and hits the floor! an estimated thirty glasses and bottles have shattered in a ring around the now supine table. oh i know who did that ... the glassbreaker.

"party's over said the lady!"... in the ensuing chaos of glass, revellers and cleaning staff, oqo's start to slpit off and that's when amy notices her wallet is missing! the cleaning staff suggest she call security, "cuz we gots a whole lot of cameras in here". security quickly arrives in the form of a big guy in a suit. amy goes off to the security hq and the rest of us take off or look for amy's wallet. we turn the whole place upside down, but no luck. we keep tabs with amy. we hear that she's cancelling all of her credit cards - and oh shit! how is she going to get on her plane in ten hours?! where did nick go? is he ok? we wait for a long time staring at the dale chihuly ceiling of the lobby. no nick. tim and phil last seen at brittany spears' fav hotel (and wedding chapel), the palms trying to get into rain.

finally we grab a bewildered amy and head back for home and harrahs. no wallet, no nick, and now joanne's gotta rush to catch her 6:45am flight. amy has no room key or idea, so hopefully nick is in the room. i run joanne up to the room with my key and horror of horrors, we're locked out. a blinking orange light is the key's only reward. espn blares from inside the room. the front desk informs us that a blinking orange light means that the room is locked from inside. we call phil and he's at the palms. he swears he saw tim far from harrahs like 20 minutes ago. either tim can fold space or phil has lost track of time. soon,our pounding and yelling attracks a security guard who attempts to let us in using his master keys. one of them finally works, but doh! the inside top latch is locked. tim is inside. just then amy comes upstairs and then so does another security guard. turns out she was locked out too and nick was asleep inside. well, at least we know he made it home safe.

back to the latch. as it turns out, there is a trick to opening those latches that involves a credit card and a little finesse. by this time, joanne is seriously running the risk of not making her flight. the security guard tries his luck, but it doesn't work. he calls for backup... in the form of the maintenance guy who ambles up from the bowels of the hotel and tries the trick again, slowly. it works! we storm in and find a strange scene. the room is in disarray. tim is face down on the bed, thankfully fully clothed, and there's a strange sight on my laptop screen. more on that in a minute.

joanne tears into the room, runs over to tim and slaps him hard on the leg! tim shoots up as he rolls over with a stunned look on his face. as he does so, he falls back off the bed... right into the ironing board, knocking the iron off the board, squarely onto his head. pure chuck jones. we gaze back at the laptop, and this is what we see...

now we're a bit drunk and tired, but that's a picture that kinda looks like nick and a note that says it's from nick... we don't have time to closely examine anything, instead we rush joanne and her bags down to the taxi stand. bye joanne! now it's time to get medieval on tim for locking us out! lucky tim passes us in the casino on his way out - he's also late for his early flight. back to the room. strange, the photo looks a lot like nick. how did he figure out how to use my webcam or set the desktop image? why did that handwriting look just like his? how did he get home and into the room? tim? no matter. bedtime is way overdue. goodnight day two.

holy crap! we've made it to day three! the denouement!

everything that has a beginning, has an ending...

wake up at 11am. joanne made her plane. no word from tim. phil is back in the room. amy and nick want us to meet them down in their room for room service breakfast. phil confides in me that the pics are someone else. heh. funny! we dismantle the room for checkout and head down for food.

nick is sheepish. heh. we all have a good laugh and phil tells us his story from the night before. as it turns out, he bought his way to the front of the long line at rain, the pretty people club at the palms. there were super hotties everywhere and phil was making excellent time with a gorgeous girl. that's where his story gets fuzzy. next thing he knows, he's waking up in the arms of a bouncer. as he's being dragged out, the bouncer tells him, "what kind of fucking idiot passes out during a free eminem and 50 cent show?!" phil is speechless. those are his two favorite rap artists (remember that track suit?). he's done the worst thing imaginable - he passed out on that hot girl and missed an entire free surprise show. doh!

we get all packed and down to the lobby. i send the kids off to the airport and then there was me. i drop my luggage off at the belldesk and head for the CES. oh, i almost forgot... sometime the previous night, i had found a CES press badge. where? whose? i just don't know. this will come in handy. so yes, i cab on over to the show. it's massive and porn on a totally different level. so much cool stuff. plasma displays everywhere, cool toys stretch as far as the eye can see. i spend an hour or so wandering among the vendors (they all want to talk to the uber dork disco godfather wearing the s3krit press badge) but spend the most time on the asian gadget vendors (my favorite part) looking for deals on this and that before heading to the central hall for the microsoft booth and my pals at oqo. it takes forever to walk through the halls, but i finally find vance surrounded by people trying to get a look at the device.

vance has a few more hours to work so i wander around looking for more deals and impressing people with my badge. i get good news from amy on my voicemail - the lost and found at the bellagio has her wallet! she's missing the $200 cash from inside, but at least she can get on the plane. nice. i duck outside for a bit and come across a cool vendor selling vehicles. of all the gadgets at the show, i think the one i could most use in new york is this little electric moped. i'm starting to get really tired. the loudspeakers announces, "attention all show exhibitors and attendees, please keep in mind that the security line at the las vegas airport is three to four hours at this time". ugh. the vendors are packing up and i'm getting ready to go meet vance when i see mike tyson. he is as they say, an odd bird. i kept a careful distance.

i wrapped up the day hanging in the oqo suite and eating with vance and his pal john. john gave us a ride back to the main strip in his 1958 land rover with the wirebrush paintjob. the harrahs valets were thrilled to see us, "ufo!" they cried. i left for my 11:25pm flight at 7:30pm so as not to get caught in line. of course when i got there, no lines to be seen. sitting for four hours at a bar seemed to be the perfect prelude to eight hours on a plane. but then i was back in brooklyn and home sweet home. for i think the first time ever, i actually felt a tinge that i missed vegas.

thanks to nick and amy for the awesome time and the great idea! big ups to eveyone else involved... you know who you are.