Justin Bieber Isn't Helping My Video Poker Game

I like my mornings in Vegas.  Although Lori and I organize the trip for everybody, we tell everybody up front that they're on their own until noon.  This is good for them, as for some insane reason most of them like to hang out by the amazing pools, and good for Lori and I as we can sleep, shop/gamble, or go anywhere we like that might not interest our friends.  Given my preference though, I like to play video poker in the morning.  There's almost never anybody else around, and I can get whichever machine I feel like playing.  Most importantly though, I can hear the music that the casino is playing.  I love hearing songs while I'm playing, but I don't like wearing headphones as you miss everything else that's going on around you (like the cocktail waitress).  I do, however, have a request of whoever chooses the music for the casino.  I like to sing along to whatever is playing.  Not out loud, but just quietly in my head, although my lips will move.  While this may seem strange, in Vegas it's pretty low on the bizarre scale.  This morning I was snapped out of my video poker trance by some laughing (which I hope wasn't directed at me, but I imagine it was) and found myself swaying back and forth singing along to Justin Bieber's "You Smile, I Smile.."  This is not quite the manly image that I would like to portray for myself, so I would like to ask the music director of the casino to only play artists who are actually old enough to legally enter your casino. 

The girls all went shopping this morning so me and the boys headed to an off strip casino for a while.  If you're the kind of person who hates reading about all the big wins that people hit when they go to Vegas then you can just carry on reading because the video poker has been terrible so far this trip.  I haven't been able to hit anything, and I think the machines are taking some sort of perverse pleasure in teasing me with "almost" hands.  You know it's bad when the casinos are giving you little trinkets for your play, and you're trying to find a way to value them for what you lost playing.  This is my $50 spinning photo clock.  You'd pay that for it right?

We spent the evening at the Rita Rudner show at the Venetian.  Lori and I saw Rita about 8 years ago when she was performing at the New York, New York casino and enjoyed her quite a bit, so we were happy when she extended her contract to perform in July while we were there.  While I think all of us enjoyed the show, I'm pretty sure our friend Mark got the most out of it.  We had seats down front, and Rita decided that Mark was the guy she would go to for all of her audience participation needs.  Whenever she was talking about women she would ask "Do you know why we do that Mark?"  and when talking about men it was "What's going on in there Mark?"  Lucky Mark got to participate in conversations on shopping, shoes, cleaning, cooking and menopause.  Sorry about that Mark, but better you than me.

A lot of people wonder why we would choose summer to go to Vegas for this trip.  Well for starters, there are 4 or 5 teachers in the group, so the timing works out well.  It's also easier to do things with our kids on either side of the trip so that they don't feel like we're having all the fun.  I assume most people's bewilderment at our choice of summer is based on the fact that the average temperature here is around 100°F.  It is hot but pretty much everywhere here is heavily air conditioned and there's plenty of ways to keep cool.  There's lots of places to get a drink, there are misters outside everywhere, you can always go inside a store, or, if you're truly crazy, you can always go down to the pool.  It's going to have to get about another 20°F hotter before I'm willing to go that far to stay cool.