Las Vegas

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

We went to Las Vegas on Saturday and flew back Monday.

I would like to discuss prices for a moment. Everyone knows that it used to be cheap there in like the 1970s, I guess. And then they figured out, hey, we'll all go anyway, you don't need to make things cheap for us to go. But goddamn have they taken it to a new level.

I have been there four or five times. We got in before the official check in time for Paris. They wanted $50 for an early check in.

They added ... at least 50 dollars a day for junk fees. But that I can kind of deal with.

At a bar inside Paris itself, I ordered a dirty martini for my wife and a diet coke for myself. This would have been around 10:00AM local time. The bill was 19 dollars. Now, this in and of itself is egregious, but I had a suspicion that the diet coke was part of that expensive equation. I got my wife another drink and just a glass of water for myself, and the bill was like $12. That means they are out there chargin' 7 bucks for diet cokes inside the joint.

(My brother-in-law told me that another casino wanted $13 for a Bud Light in a bottle.)

We went to this bar the next day. They had an area with couches to sit down in. We had brought a coffee from a coffee place that you could literally see from where we were sitting. After 40 minutes or so, some asshole bitch that worked at this place had the audacity to get on us about "outside food and drink" being brought in AND THERE WAS A SIGN! There was a sign that said you couldn't do what we were doing. I don't know how I missed a sign sitting in the middle of a Las Vegas Casino. The bottom half of a replica of the Eiffel Tower was lurking over us, with slot machine games constantly pulsating, but hey, there was a sign. This was just a person being an asshole, I thought, because surely everything we buy in Paris more or less goes to the same vendor. I just checked my credit card statement, and yes, it all goes to the same vendor, the hotel itself.

I think people are generally good-natured and kind in this country, with the exception of Las Vegas. I have more "what a fucking asshole" stories from Last Vegas than any other city except the one I grew up in, and I was there for 24 years and I've only been in Last Vegas for what is probably three weeks or so, all totaled up.

We got to see Penn & Teller. They were amazing. I don't think I'll ever go back to Las Vegas, though.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

(Trying to count the times I have been there. Once was a JC meetup. Once was for the ESPYs. I was there once as a friend of a friend was getting married and I tagged along. My wife and I had a random weekend there once. I was there for one of my wife's friend's weddings. And now this trip. So six times maybe. I think one other time I was there when Flack was there, but what was that for? The Classic Gaming Expo? So seven times?)

[pinback]

How were the bathrooms?

[AArdvark]

Was there for a total of 22 hours

Replayability: zero. Never going back.

Pros: there are roads and airplanes to take you away from there

Cons: just about everything else there is.

Result: sucked

[pinback]

Did ya do any GAMING?

[Flack]

I think one other time I was there when Flack was there, but what was that for? The Classic Gaming Expo? So seven times?)

Yeah. CGE2K7. I stayed the week after that and the following weekend was Defcon.

The last time I was in Vegas I bumped into a struggling musician was selling copies of his CD on the sidewalk. He told me how he had recorded his debut album and how the record company had screwed him out of his royalties. We talked for five minutes. I bought a copy of his CD for $5. When I got home I discovered it was a mix-CD full of songs he had downloaded from Napster and burned onto a CD-R.

Every single person and business in Vegas knows you're not from there and that you'll pay too much for everything and put up with bullshit because you're on vacation.

[pinback]

Twenty years ago when I was living in LA I would drive down there at least once a month. I loved it. Played a lotta cards, drank a lotta free drinks. It was a lot more reasonable then.

Then they blew up my favorite hotels, quadrupled the price and the crowds.

Never again, but it was a lot of fun for a while.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

How were the bathrooms?

Paris had a set of bathrooms on the main level where the locks were removed.

If there is any change to my eating routines, my stomach reacts by ejecting everything.

It felt GRANDIOSE to have to keep a foot up against the door to stop people from trying to open the door. So charming!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Did ya do any GAMING?

I did not. This is not a new thing. I realize I have issues with people stealing my money. Really, the rate of return is too low. I have never, ever won anything substantial at a slot machine. Or blackjack. Or any other game. Or a spots bet (especially those). I get that there are professional gamblers who are going to min/max stuff, but for me, gambling is equivalent to flushing my money down a toilet. So I hate doing it, it seems so incredibly stupid to me.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The last time I was in Vegas I bumped into a struggling musician was selling copies of his CD on the sidewalk. He told me how he had recorded his debut album and how the record company had screwed him out of his royalties. We talked for five minutes. I bought a copy of his CD for $5. When I got home I discovered it was a mix-CD full of songs he had downloaded from Napster and burned onto a CD-R.

I have a beard right now, and it is trending towards gray. I was also with my wife, and I obviously look older than I did as a naive child 20 years ago. I got a lot, lot, lot less street bullshit. Some of this is also due to living downtown in a city for a few years. I haven't seen it all but I have seen enough and I have the normal way of walking around with "shields up" that people get by living in large cities.

So I did have one guy attempt to give me a CD, but that's also a scam, right? Give the CD to someone and then demand payment. AskReddit shines a light on this nonsense for such craven, desperate garbage. I didn't end up carrying any cash with me, which was nice.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Twenty years ago when I was living in LA I would drive down there at least once a month. I loved it. Played a lotta cards, drank a lotta free drinks. It was a lot more reasonable then. Then they blew up my favorite hotels, quadrupled the price and the crowds. Never again, but it was a lot of fun for a while.

Right? I feel like it was a lot of fun. I think they are completely living on the idea that some member of your social circle will forget what a mess they turned the city into and go VEGAS BABY and then drag a bunch of other people around.

[Jizaboz]

I've never been. My grandfather used to go often and my dad had stories of the cheap but good food there and stuff, but it sounds like it's more ruined and expensive than south Myrtle Beach now.

[Tdarcos]

I think I passed through Lost Wages probably a half-dozen times as my family traveled, as the bus - Greyhound or Trailways - between Los Angeles and Denver routes through Las Vegas, or at least it did up through 1976, the last time I ever traveled that route. I was staying over Summer Vacation for two or three months). As it has been noted here, food was very inexpensive (not cheap) and good tasting, good quality (which is why it was inexpensive, not cheap). I think you could get a decent meal of food for $1.75 (equivalent to $9.36 in 2023.) Actually, I think it might have been less than this.

The crooks running the casinos** knew that you wanted customers at the tables and machines gambling; the money made is essentially pure profit, as extra players require no additional cost to sevice. Customers who are eating and paying high prices are spending money that could be gambled. So they made food inexpensive to draw people to the casinos.

I think what we are seeing here is an "all the traffic can bear" mentality. Disney theme parks are doing the same thing. Too many businesses are going this way, and when you encourage no loyalty among customers and employees, it's no wonder employees decided, when employers treated them as disposable, that there is no longer a reason to put extra effort into their jobs, or that it might be a better idea to freelance and potentially make more money.

I have heard too many Reddit stories about employees refusing to accept being treated badly by permanently reducing output to quota minimum. And employers say productivity rateas drop.

One example was a guy who routinely cut carpet rolls fast and efficiently, as such he'd often be doing twice as much as others, and so was sometimes coming in a little late or leaving early. Or something like that. Management discovers this, and he gets called and written up. The reason he was working faster was so that he could take the later train instead of having to get up an hour earlier, and have to wait an extra half hour for the next train home. Okay.

From then on he arrived 1/2 hour early, then went into the break room, to rest for 30 minutes, clocking in exactly on time. He didn't run anymore, if he needed a tool he'd go get it instead of getting it in advance so as not to mess up his completion time even though this took longer. He took a full hour of lunch instead of the half hour he used to take. He cut his work down to the quota minimum. At the end of the week, his boss called him in. His entire section is below quota, because he isn't doing any extra like he used to. He asked if he was not doing the rerquired level of work. He was, but his boss was disappouinted, his worik helped others who didn't make quota. His boss tried to raise the, "we're supposed to be a family," BS, but he shot that down, by pointing out that if they cared, they'd have found out first. Since he's been punished for doing too much, they will get exactly the quota requirement and no more. They brought it on themselves.

And an attitude of "all that the traffic will bear" only works as long as you have no substitute and people really need or want what you have. But once there is an alternative, customers will go elsewhere. Loyalty is a two-way street.


** Back then (up to the 1980s), casinos were all run by either men who had bookmaking or other gambling convictions, got licenses when the rules were lax, then were "grandfathered in," or used clean "front men" fronting for the actual crooks running the places. As one rather pragmatic person put it, "If you didn't have gambling professionals who already knew the trade (by plying it where doing so was illegal), where was anyone supposed to learn how?"