Vegas Recap 2007

Not sure how coherent (but is it ever?) this is going to be... still dragging my feet from our long weekend in Las Vegas... but I will do my best.  The gambling part was pretty horrific, so don't have much to say about that... upon arrival got myself into a quick hole and just managed to dig myself deeper in, but at a slower pace.  I had some nice hits here and there, but never enough to make any good progress back to even... granted  it was what gambler's anonymous calls "money you can afford to lose"... but still it is never fun to lose!

But alas there are plenty of other things to do in Vegas and those all proved to be a whole lot better.  My birthday dinner was a Samba, a Brazilian steakhouse at The Mirage.  We did the traditional "radizio" ... which translates to a meat gorge-fest!   8 different kinds of meat brought to your table in random (and sometimes repeated) order.  Of course, they are not full portion sizes of each meat... and believe me a sample size is more than enough... especially after you get to those later meats!   Also, it came with salad and sides of beans and rice, creamed spinach, glazed carrots, and fried plaintains.  We also opted for a small pitcher of sangria to go along with dinner.   While we agreed it wasn't the best meats (steak, chicken, ribs, etc!) we've ever tasted... it was still quite good and the sheer quantity of it made it a memorable dinner.

After dinner, we stayed at The Mirage for the latest Cirque du Soleil show, Love featuring the music of The Beatles.  If you've ever been to a Cirque show and liked it, it is always a safe bet that you'll probably like what they've cooked up for another show.  This one seemed a bit more dance-oriented and bit less "circus act" than the other shows I have seen... but still plenty of people flying through the air and doing amazing things.  The opening was an incredible and indescribable visual explosion... we both agreed we couldn't believe our eyes... it all seemed very tame opener and then... boom!  Now it's all still a bit WTF? and artsy-fartsy... but the recognizable music of The Beatles made it a bit more accessible than the new age-y stuff from other Cirque shows.

Saturday night it was over to the LV Hilton to see the legendary Barry Manilow.  I expected the crowd to be a bit heavy on middle-age (I guess I better watch who and how I use that term!) women... but there were plenty of husbands and boyfriends dragged along from all kinds of age groups (though definitely skewed to older) and even a smattering of male couples.  The 90 minutes show was a whole lot of fun with Barry running through his greatest hits and also doing cover versions from his more recent recordings featuring the "greatest songs" of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  It was a bit worrisome that Barry sounded pretty hoarse whenever he spoke the audience, blaming it on a cold and the unfriendly dry (and polluted!) Vegas air that is pretty unfriendly to vocalists... but amazingly his singing voice was just fine when he sang and very clear and smooth high/long notes.   Now it was a bit of a cheese-fest... the audience was given glo-sticks to wave, there was the over-choreographed back-up singers and finally, even some ass-shaking and at least one crotch-grab...  but that made it even more fun!

Okay, I guess that is enough for now and certainly the "highlights" of the weekend... I am sure there is still some more stuff to tell... but can fill you in on that later... oh, before we left Vegas there was a bit of drama with the Cooper... again!   I will save that for another post... not too too bad, but still slightly traumatic and VERY, very annoying.