I would make this an Enter the Caption, but I'm afraid of what some of you will say. However the question remains: Is this guy sleeping or did he get busted by the AP?

I made it back home about 6 p.m. this evening and after punching out an 18-inch follow up on the fight, I went home and slept until 2:30 a.m. Oh well, at least I caught the second showing of Entourage.

I don't want anyone to think that because I cut my trip a day and a half short that I didn't have a good time. That's actually far from the truth, I had a great time. However it was so damn hot that it ruined my Sunday plans, which are to walk down the strip and check out as many hotel lounge acts as I can. Also I wanted to get home before early Tuesday morning.

But I go to hang out with my good friend Brew for the first time since he left Florida. And I really got to meet his brother, who I knew but didn't really KNOW. Kyle is a funny cat too. I can really see the similarities between the two of them, it was a good time.

I also got to do a bit of clubbing with Jessica and it's always a joy to spend some time with her. Oddly enough Brew, Kyle and Jessica are all from Kentucky although Jessica will probably only claim California as her home.

So without further ado, more Vegas tales.

Best Food

...Definitely a cross between the fruit plate at Raffles Cafe (Mandalay Bay) and the Garlic Chicken Pizza at Wolfgang Puck's Grill (MGM Grand). Now I never thought a fruit plate at a cafe would get best food honors, especially a fruit plate that runs $11. But it was a massive dish of fresh, delicious watermelon, pineapple, papaya, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cantaloupe and honeydew. It came with raspberry shebert and banana nut bread. This thing was freakin' awesome. And healthy to boot.

The Garlic Chicken Pizza just melts in the mouth. I never thought I'd taste a slice of pizza that good outside of Brooklyn.


Best Gambling Story

...Friday night at the San Remo capped a terrible blackjack weekend. I didn't stand a chance at the tables. I'd throw down a $100 and be gone in ten minutes. Cotey faired no better but at least he could've gotten up.

Ok, after dropping an initial 50-60 at blackjack, Cotey went up against Remo's closer. Now you all remember this woman, I described her on a previous trip. Calling her a closer is a baseball term for the pitcher that closes the game because their stuff is unhittable. Well this closer had already beaten me and Cotey in past trips and I wanted NOTHING to do with her. But Cotey decided to go after her with a small investment (50) and to my surprise, he was beating her solidly. He actually had regained the money he lost in his first trip to the table that night AND he was up about $20-30.

He should've walked away.

The Remo, sensing that their closer is tired, sends her out of the game and brings in the lefty. The lefty is their other closer, way younger, WAY cuter. After a couple of "feeler" hands, Cotey places $25 down and draws an 11 with the dealer showing a 5. Cotey decides to double and draws a 9 for a 20. Should be a winner and the extra $50 will surely send him home happy.

Nope, they pushed. No harm, no foul...No extra $50.

So Cotey, undeterred throws down another $25 and draws a blackjack. Great that's $37.50 in the post unless....

They Pushed.

So basically in two hands Cotey has lost $87.50 of almost guaranteed profit.

And then the closer gets aggressive. She pulled 20 or 21 on the next FIVE hands, leaving Cotey with nothing more than his pride. After the final hand Cotey says "I hate the fucking Remo". Amen brother.

...You end up at McCarran International Airport waiting for a flight to Tampa. Thank god for WiFi or I'd be up shit's creek.

Here's my latest Vegas trip in a nutshell.

The Gambling

...Sucked ass. I couldn't get anything going and basically quit before I lost too much money. On Thursday (since I was much too tired to gamble Wednesday), I lost $120 at the blackjack tables before breakfast. After breakfast I did a little better at Craps, winning about 30 back.

On Friday I went back to blackjack, lost 100 bucks and that was it. Seriously. I can take a hint, if I don't even stay at a table with my initial investment long enough to meet the dealer, it's not going to be a good gambling trip. So after winning 23 bucks at electronic blackjack and another $50 on Jermain Taylor. I was down about a $100. Not bad when you think about it. I'm a cautious gambler and I don't believe in working through a losing streak. I get over on blackjack regularly but this wasn't the week.


The Weather

...Read like youth league bowling scores (116, 118, 113, 115) were the daily highs. Dry heat or not, that's fucking hot man. And it is a dry heat so it's like a hair dryer effect. Any breeze in Las Vegas is completely unwanted because it's hot and suffocating. Wednesday at midnight I walked three blocks from the MGM Grand to the closest Walgreens in 97-degree heat and didn't sweat a lick. That's freaky man. Freaky. The humidity here is about 7%.


The Boxing

...Terrific, especially because my man Jermain Taylor won. I enjoy covering the big fights whenever I get a chance, especially when it means a trip to Vegas.


The Hot Spots

...Decent, on Thursday night, I went to Ghostbar at the Palms Hotel/Casino with a couple of friends. I saw Hulk Hogan there, he's like 55 now but he's still a big MF man...damn. Anyway the cover for the bar was only $10, which is surprisingly cheap for trendy Vegas. However the first round of drinks for three (Cap'n & Coke, Kamikaze on the rocks and something else) came at the price of $29. $29 for three drinks! Typical Vegas hustle. Great hip-hop DJs but the club wasn't designed for much dancing. Definitely a place to be seen at more than anything else.

I went to RumJungle/MIX (Mandalay Bay) with my friend Jessica and her assistant Heather on Friday night. Jessica won a ton of cash playing craps for an hour and she was eager to toss it around so we had Grey Goose bottle service all night. It was a cool atmosphere, lots of sexuality everywhere. Very attractive, high-maintenance women.

I also caught a few lounge acts. The Klique (Hotel San Remo) was excellent, playing all kinds of great dance music. They are from Hawaii and they really knew how to work the crowd at the Remo. I was impressed.

Purple Reign (Boardwalk Casino) is a Prince cover band that actually covers all the looks of Prince from his early days on American Bandstand to the New Power Generation stuff. And they sounded great, drew a pretty big crowd too.

The Checkmates (Ceasar's Palace) are a Motown cover group that plays requests. My friend Cotey and I kept requesting songs by the Supremes and Martha Reeves just to piss the guys off. However once they said they would do non-Motown soul we hit them with Al Green and they delivered strong.

I didn't catch any shows. Dennis Miller was in town for a stop through the MGM Grand. There is also a new Cirque de Soleil at the MGM called "Ka", but for tickets at $175 and up I said "Na", besides I doubt it's better than Zumanity (New York, New York) and I saw that for discounted rates in November. So "Ha"!

Overall Vegas is as good as ever and even though they killed me at blackjack, I'll be back for more real soon. Vegas baby.

As for Florida, I'll be back at 6 p.m. Sunday evening. Talk to you all soon.