Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve subscribed to too many Las Vegas mailing lists, because the messages I get from a lot of them end up straight in the trash.
But then something comes along that’s just so beautifully random that it makes me glad I bother. Like this gem, just in from Lee’s Discount Liquor.
One of the Ghostbusters is in town on Halloween. Why? As if he needed a reason, it’s to write his name on bottles of liquor shaped like a skull of course.
According to the promotional video for Crystal Head Vodka, which, in my opinion, talks about drinking far too responsibly, the contents is described as "only the most challenging arena in the legal recreational consumables industry".
What a buzzkill.
Dan goes on to explain that it’s top quality, authentic Canadian vodka.
I’m not a vodka drinker, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say that’s an oxymoron. I have to admit I didn’t even know such a thing existed.
I have a feeling you’re not actually meant to drink this stuff though, especially if it’s been signed by Dr Ray Stantz, so it’s probably irrelevant. May as well be a bottle of ectoplasm.
FWIW, I’m on Lee’s mailing list because I love their sub-$20 deals on huge 1.75L bottles of Jim Beam. This is mindblowing to someone who lives in the UK, where it’s considered a premium bourbon and it’s usually twice the price for half as much.
On the other hand, Americans seem to think that Newcastle Brown is a fine imported beer. I guess it’s all about perspective.
I just came across this clip of The Late Late Show, where Mindy Kaling from The Office talks about everything that’s great about Luv It Frozen Custard in Las Vegas.
It’s not just the product, which is unbelievably rich and heavy and manages to sit in your stomach for days, and even though you’re sure it must have melted on they way down if feels like something survived. It’s also the ambiance of the surrounding area, from naked homeless guys to nearby drug raids.
I have to agree, it probably is worth risking your life for. Although to be fair I would probably think twice about walking around that part of town in a shiny dress and high heels.
BMI Diamond Club just really impressed me. I called to make some changes to an award flight and it was incredibly easy. Everything appears to be confirmed already, so credit where credit is due. Good job BMI.
Originally I’d panic-booked some dates for April 2010 as soon as they lit up on the availability calendar. With millions of miles to burn with an airline that no longer flies non-stop to Las Vegas, I was thinking that worst case I’d at least have something to spend the miles on this way, and best case I could just pay the change fee if something better came along.
Something better did indeed come along, and it’s mostly thanks to Claire’s school, because instead of having to teach on the first two days back after Easter they now have “training” days.
Which, to a non-teacher, looks rather like there are no kids there so the staff don’t need to bother turning up either.
The flights I nabbed originally were via Denver on the way out, and via Los Angeles on the way back. The agent actually suggested the same Denver route for the return leg, but I insisted on LA – thinking that the longer transatlantic leg would be better to try to get some sleep after I get changed into my first class pyjamas while someone makes my bed.
It has to be a swanky flight when you’re redeeming miles. It just has to be.
What I didn’t realise until it was too late is that flight UA948, listed as a scheduled flight from LA to Heathrow, actually makes one “technical stop” in Denver.
It’s an interesting use of the word “stop” because to follow that route all the way through, you have to get off a 757 in Denver, wait while it magically transforms into a 777 (with the same flight number) and then reboard it to get you to London.
That 777 is actually the same plane I would have been on if I’d just taken the LAS-DEN-LHR route in the first place. So all in all not the greatest travel plan I have ever put together.
Anyway, a whole bunch of flights had opened up since I first made that booking, particularly via San Francisco. It was showing as available for virtually any date and I got my first choice. Leave on Saturday instead of Sunday, and return Thursday instead of Monday.
Cost to make this change: £40. Can hardly grumble at the price to make a massive improvement to my initial screw up and buy me four extra days of Vegas time!
Neon. It’s just so cool when you put it in a glass tube and give it a few thousand volts.
Of all the places in Las Vegas to truly appreciate the beauty of neon, my favourite is at the intersection of Fremont Street and Casino Center Blvd.
Vegas has neon lights everywhere, but nowhere is it quite as intense as between the Fremont Casino and Binion’s. You have a wall of red on one side and a mass of turquoise on the other. I must have been there dozens of times and it still gives me chills.
Of course my video isn’t going to do it justice. In fact, the key moments last just a few seconds in each direction, and because it was so shaky I had to turn the stabilisation all the way up, which has made it a bit fuzzy in parts.
Hopefully you’ll still be able to see why this is my very favourite stretch of Las Vegas scenery.
Expect more videos to follow as I sort through the randomness captured on my camera.
But let’s start with this one, which is probably the least interesting of the lot – except to geeks like me!
I happened to catch the giant neon McDonalds arch outside Harrah’s when its LED board had flipped into a manufacturer’s demonstration mode.
To be honest, I can’t recall what this bit of the sign usually says. Probably "99c double cheeseburgers" or something. But this time it was boasting such proud features as a serial port, and a whole megabyte of RAM.
I just got a nice short summer haircut, and then walked home in the piddling rain which made it seem a bit pointless.
However, tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas.
It’s one of the most overly-elaborate ways I could think of to reproduce a weather forecast, but I’ll just let this video clip speak for itself. Forget about the big number at the top (it’s only 4:45am Vegas time) look at the coming week’s highs and lows.
It’s not a freebie, but I’m still pondering this offer I had in the mail from the Palms.
Inside, it offered me:
Not a bad deal. In fact, Claire had almost exactly the same offer. Hers said:
Which I guess means the Palms thinks I’m worth exactly $10 more than she is. Bling!
This is notable because, despite playing at the Palms more than anywhere else in town the past couple of years, this is the first piece of mail I’ve had from them for something other than “get a credit card with our logo on it”.
The Palms caters for tourists who want to party and locals who want to gamble. There’s not much overlap, and they definitely don’t seem to care too much about tourists who want to grind out some free shit on a positive play machine. Room offers are something of a rarity so it’s fantastic to finally get one.
Although it’s not a free room, I’d already been considering taking advantage of some heavily discounted room offers just because they’re there, and room rates as low as they are right now can’t last forever.
MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay and Planet Hollywood all currently have offers where you can get a room for $50-$70, with goodies or gambling money back to the value of at least $25. As long as you only stay one night, it’s a fairly cheap way to check out a hotel I’ve never stayed at (I’m intrigued by the movie-themed rooms at the P-Ho) or get access to some nice swimming pools.
MGM Grand works out at (effectively) $24, and Mandalay Bay $44. Anyone can get these deal without needing to be a rated player. Pretty damn good.
So we can add the Palms to that list now too. What’s most interesting about this deal, though, is the rest of the promotion – and the reason for the Southwest plane on the front of the mailer.
As they say, 400 points gets you $1 back in comp or slot play, and as you earn 1 point for every $1 played through a machine, this adds 0.25% to your expected return from a game.
The ability to swap points for slot play is a new thing and is only valid on points earned since June this year, and when this change was introduced we had a bit of a scare. At first they’d said that any older points had to be redeemed within a year or would expire.
After some mammoth sessions the last few trips, Claire and I have nearly $700 between us on our cards. That’s a lot of half price buffets and movie tickets! It’s not that I’m not up for a Brewster’s Millions type challenge, I’d just rather spend the comp the way I want to than be forced to eat expensive meals that I don’t appreciate at restaurants where I don’t really fit in.
When 10,000 base points on video poker gets you a $50 gift card, that’s worth another 0.5% on top of your points value. Where it gets really interesting is if you could combine a triple points coupon from one of the frequent swipe-and-win days – which would take your base earning rate to 0.75%, a total of 1.25% when you include the gift cards.
The very best video poker machines will probably be excluded from the deal, but with 1.25% added to the expectation you could legitimately play 99.2% Bonus Poker – which is never marked as excluded from promotions – with an edge.
Of course, things happen much more quickly if you play slots. One gift card for every 2,500 makes the the promotion worth a hefty 2%! I can’t remember if the Palms has any certified 99% payback slots, but if it does this promo turns them into winners.
The question, really, is what use is a Southwest airlines gift card to me, and the answer is not a great deal. We’ve toyed with the idea of going to Disneyland to get away from… well… the grown up Disneyland but it’s so much easier to drive to California than fly to Florida – where there’s still plenty of good theme parks – I don’t think that’s likely to happen. So I’d be looking to sell them on eBay for about 90% of face value.
It’s definitely a good deal. But whether it’s good enough to justify actually paying for a hotel room to be able to use it, I still haven’t decided.
It’s always sad day when you grab a faithful pair of socks from the draw, pull apart the opening to start putting your foot inside and hear that horrible cracking sound. It’s like fingers on a blackboard to a sock aficionado, and it can only mean one thing – the elastic has given up the ghost.
I’m especially saddened by my latest casualty. It’s my longest serving pair of Las Vegas casino socks.
Say it with me: “Hard. Rock. Socks”.
I can’t put a precise date on how long I’ve had these, but it’s at least five years. Possibly closer to ten. They were the ones that started my casino sock collection, and I’ve been trying to replace them for several years to no avail.
I can’t bring myself to throw them away yet. I’m not sure whether to let them go out with a bang and put up with them slipping down when I wear them for one last outing, or simply to have them preserved.
Would that be called “soxidermy”?
In other age-related sock death news, I think these fantastic Mirage socks with reversible cuff only have one more wear left in them too.
They’re also irreplacable. I’ve checked at every available opportunity the past few years. The Mirage does still sell socks, but only Siegfried and Roy branded children’s socks.
But these ones are threadbare in several places and I need to let them go with at least a little dignity.
I’ve been saying for months that I had more free hotels rooms than I could use during my trip to Las Vegas this summer. Between us, Claire and I have already booked 24 unnecessary nights.
You know – just in case we want to use their pool, or we run out of soap.
Then today (T-12!) another batch of post arrived with even more of them.
First up, it’s an old favourite: Casino Royale.
It’s not the greatest hotel on the Strip, but what their rooms lack in electric curtains and decorative pillows is made up for by the guarantee of a coffee machine and a fridge. For me, that goes quite a long way.
Claire and I both got this offer, and although we won’t use it this time, it’s always useful to know that we still have either 4-6 free nights every month in the bag for when we need it. Casino Royale lets two players combine their comps into a single stay too, which is great.
Next, I got this one from the Fremont casino.
This is a no-brainer. I don’t care about the room particularly. I probably won’t use it. If they still have Pick’em Poker (99.9% payback before slot club perks) I’ll be giving them some more action to hopefully keep the room offers coming, but it’s worth turning up for the free slot play alone.
Which brings me to Laughlin. Harrah’s Laughlin are still sending me so many great “just for turning up” offers that I am having trouble choosing between them. In addition to the $85 cash and $50 food credit I wrote about last month, I can now take another $85 cash (but no food, sadly) on a choice of dates in August.
Then there’s a slot tournament August 7th-9th which includes $100 in free slot play as well as the tournament entry, and a 5x Total Reward Credits multiplier for the entire weekend. That improves the value of their slot club from a paltry 0.1% to a very reasonable 0.5%.
That would be enough to make it absolutely (theoretically) free to retain my Diamond card if I could play it all through on 50-line Jacks or Better at 99.5% payback, but apparently those machines – the ones I hit ten grand on last year – have been downgraded to 97.3% payback.
There are 3 machines left in the casino that would be playable on this offer (“not so ugly” deuces wild – paying 99.7% before perks) but they are $1 single-line machines; so not only would I have a dog-fight on my hands if I wanted to sit down among all the pros wanting to grind their 0.2% edge, it would also take virtually all weekend to pump the required $100,000 through this game, even at $5 per spin. I figure it would take 25-30 hours of play – and that’s if I knew how to play that game quickly. I don’t.
In a similar vein, on selected dates in July I could take part in the Macy’s Gift Card promotion. As well the promise of a $100 gift card to get you through the door, they’re sweetening this one with tickets to a comedy show. In addition, every 250 RCs gets you another $25 gift card.
The value of that is a full 1%, which is enough to turn their 99.1% Double Bonus Poker into a winner – and there are plenty of those games around. Of course, I then have to find something I want to buy from Macy’s to make it worthwhile.
Also at Harrah’s Laughlin, if I stay for 3 nights July 24th-27th I can walk away with a lovely plain white t-shirt with a printed Harrah’s logo on the breast, after I take them for $50 in slot play. This one’s not quite so attractive, but you just can’t grumble at a free $50.
The problem (and, let’s face it, it’s not the worst problem I’ve ever had to deal with) is that I want maximum value without having to spend the majority of my trip in Laughlin. I like the place, don’t get me wrong, but Vegas kicks its ass. I’ll definitely stay there at least once, but for the other offers I have to weigh up the cost of getting there against the value of the freebies.
It’s about 90 miles each way, and it may be two trips per offer if I don’t want to stay three days every time, which pretty much negates all that free money. However, I suspect they’ll screw you if you check out early, as they’re giving you the free room to keep you hanging around their casino for three days. They charge $50 if you don’t cancel a free room more than 72 hours in advance, but whether you can check-in, take the free stuff and check out straight away, I don’t know. Yet…
It’s getting close enough to my next Las Vegas trip (T-20!) that I can start to get excited about stuff I hear about that’s changing over there that will might actually still be same when I arrive.
And, you never know, some of the new stuff might even still be there when I leave – five weeks later 🙂
I’m not even kidding. You just can’t plan that far ahead with Vegas. One of the highest profile examples is at Planet Hollywood, where in April they were getting ready to unveil a new show featuring Mel B off of the Spice Girls. She came and did her turn, but she’ll be a distant memory by the time I arrive in town.
In other news, the impending demise and susbsequent reincarnation of the Excalibur Poker Room is definitely something I can get excited about. Only days after I left last summer, they ripped apart the live poker room, fired most of the dealers and replaced them with Pokertek electronic tables.
Now, just days before I arrive, they’re going to be putting the humans back.
This story was broken last weekend by All Vegas Poker, and I couldn’t be more pleased about it.
The Excalibur was about the closest thing I had to being my local cardroom. I use the term very loosely as I play a nomadic style of poker, often sitting in three or four different games in an evening. However, last summer it was the easiest place to get to from our rented house and a perfect place to begin a poker crawl on the Strip.
Even though the journey straight along Hacienda Ave drops you virtually inside Mandalay Bay, I preferred to swing down one of the back roads to the Excalibur’s garage, which was right by the doors nearest to the poker room. With loud enough music in the car, I could be there, parked and seated in less than ten minutes.
So I’d start at Excalibur, win a bit (of course – it’s impossible not to, isn’t it?) and move on. Going South there’s Luxor and Mandalay Bay – either via the tram or using the indoor moving walkways. Although, as so many people seem to think that the walkways are some kind of free ride (hold tight, this one goes up to 2mph) it’s often quicker to walk on the carpet instead.
Or you can head in the other direction. Sadly, the Tropicana no longer has poker which takes away one possible stop (although not one I made very often) but there’s always plenty of action at the MGM Grand, and if you want to move on from there it’s not too far to Monte Carlo or Planet Hollywood.
Whichever route I decided on, the Excalibur was a crucial hub of the entire operation. Taking it out of the picture makes dotting between games at that end of the Strip a much less attractive proposition. The trek from Luxor to MGM Grand is probably going to take you 20 minutes, even if you get the travelators all to yourself.
I have to confess I never actually played on the Pokertek tables. I walked past several times. I stopped, stared and kept trying to convince myself they were really not that bad. But even though they’d kept the “spin the wheel” promotion, which I love (it almost always pays $20 when you hit quads or better or have aces cracked, but there’s a bit of excitement, and the chance of $30 or more) I just wasn’t buying it.
Excalibur is actually the only place I’ve ever limped in with pocket aces in a super-loose $2/$4 limit game, and it’s because of the wheel factor. However, after 6 other players called and then one raised I had no reason to keep slowplaying. I didn’t get to spin the wheel, but I took down a pretty nice pot!
The best thing about playing at Excalibur, though, is the Krispy Kreme upstairs, serving donuts 24 hours a day. Because what I really need to help me wind down after an intense night of poker… is an extreme sugar rush.
This summer we’re staying in the same house as last year and the Excalibur’s triumpant return to live poker is extremely welcome.
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