Assholes of the Highest Order

What every fish at the aquarium sees a million times a day. The poor bastards.

Dear Assholes-

When you venture out into the world, you have to understand that you may occasionally encounter other people. I know you'd prefer the very Earth to step aside and make room for you and your legions of progeny, but that's not how society functions.

Love,
The Beefy Muchacho

Yesterday, the Tofu Muchacha and I embarked on a trip to the local Newport Aquarium. Now... I thought going in that it would be a mad house, and I was totally correct. The number of children in that confined, underground space was the stuff of horror movies and Barney telethons. An obsessive compulsive would have shit his pants over the sheer volume of fingerprints on the glass. Obviously this is to be expected. It's an aquarium. Kids love fish. It was Martin Luther King Day. It was cold. The crowds go with the territory.

Still... (and this goes back to my issues during the last Disney trip)... the biggest issue wasn't the kids, it was the parents who all behave as though their little fuck trophy is the best damned fuck trophy in the history of allllll the world. These parents who provide their kids with flash cameras in the fucking Aquarium make me insane. It's as bad as the dark ride idiots at Disney who don't seem to understand that when a ride is lit with black lights, the flash ruins the picture. Same idea here... When you're taking pictures of something through glass (a reflective surface), the flash will REFLECT. So... take the stupid camera away from your even more stupid kid or... novel idea.... turn off the effing flash.

Also how 'bout moving the little rats along? Maybe the adult wants to pet a fucking shark too. Last I checked it wasn't the Newport "Children's" Aquarium. I payed my ridiculously exorbitant entry fee just like everyone else. It's not my fault that you brought every child you've literally EVER seen or met in your life. Instead of just ranting and raving, allow me to provide you an actual example... There's a portion of the aquarium that goes through an Aligator enclosure. There's a glass floor where you can look at the gators under this bridge. It's pretty cool, actually. Well, let me tell you... it's an excellent thing you're looking down, because that was the only thing preventing me from literally stepping on these children who took the opportunity to lay down IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY and stare through the glass. Maybe I should cut them some slack. I'm sure all of the inbreeding that led to their existence has produced some pretty sketchy eyesight. Maybe they need to get that close to the glass in order to see through it. Of course... it didn't matter, as there was no possible way to see through it, because of the camera flashes. I mean... they were laying on their bellies in the walkway. That is totally insane. To the credit of their parents, they seemed to at least recognize this was ridiculous. They sort of nudged their kids with their foot... kinda.

Of course... we all know that some people with children behave as though they are the only people in the world doing anything of value. That's not a new phenomenon. None of this is new, but it never fails to baffle me whenever I witness it again.

My favorite instance of people being complete assholes came at the very start of the day. The aquarium is part of a larger "entertainment" complex on the river that houses a large movie theater, a Barnes and Noble, a bunch of eateries and some shitty shops and whatnot. The parking garage is big, but has tight corners and not a ton of great spaces. It seems to fill quickly, and the traffic pattern is confusing at best. I knew that MLK Day would be madness. We got there a little after noon, and already the lot was almost completely full. For the most part, the crowd was fairly organized... there weren't a lot of honking horns, and there seemed to be a tacit agreement amongst all of the drivers to get in, park, and get out of the way... We ended up on the 3rd parking level, filling in the last remaining open bank of spaces in a sort of filed order. Basically, the whole area was open and filled as we got to it. I parked in the center spot of a 3 spot bank (I hate parking against the pillar things) and get out of the car with the Tofu Muchacha. We see across the way a giant-ass Chevy Suburban that swung around into the first spot in the 3 spot bank across from us, but seemed to swing wide and was about 2 feet into the middle spot as well. This happens. I understand that. The lot is narrow. I then watched as the Suburban turned into a veritable effing clown car and a dozen or so people piled out. I assumed that once they were out, the driver would adjust their parking job to provide room in that bank for the other 2 necessary cars. We walked on. I wasn't going to stare.

2 hours later we come back to the car and I glance over, and lo and behold... what do I see?

There it was. Unmoved. You bet your ass a picture was taken. I hope someone less charitable than me slashed their tires. I only left a note. It read "Wow. What a rude asshole you are. I hope you enjoy your Suburban." I realize that this will certainly not hit home the way I'd like it to. Anyone who is so inconsiderate and self involved to park this way in a public place is certainly too oblivious to the world around them to understand that they did anything wrong. I came soooooo close to adding "Guess what I did to your car." I felt that threatening them would only bring me down to their level. Well... no... NOTHING would bring me down THAT far, but closer at least.

In closing. I hate these people more than I can even describe. And that's a lot.

Slot Machines and Hookers: The New Au Pairs

Your friendly, Vegas-Approved Childcare Providers

As some of you know, I returned recently from a long trip to Las Vegas.

Much fun was had, and little money was lost, which are the two absolute best things that can happen to a person in Las Vegas. They'll tell you other good things can happen there, but that's not true. Trust me. Fun and NOT getting wiped out are the best you can hope for.

I've spent a good amount of time on this blog talking about the things I love about Vegas. The shows, the food, the people watching... and this trip was full of all of those things.

I saw "Ka". The Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM Grand Hotel, and let me tell you... that shit will blow your fucking mind. Now... I have a fairly broad sense of theater and showmanship and production...or so I thought, but here comes this show with it's 100 flawless performances of extremely demanding physicality, and it's 100,000 pound stage that moves on an arm as though it weighed about 40 pounds and then rotates and then changes axis altogether to literally make you gasp in your chair (if you can even sit at all with the sheer magnitude of what you're seeing), and then they take it all down to a tiny, simplistic spot light and shadow puppets and you're suddenly a 4 year old child, completely amazed at the beauty of it all.

Seriously. Go see "Ka" and tell me it's not the most incredible thing you've ever seen.

The food? Well... the food is difficult for me, generally, but I still managed to eat pretty well. The highlight would be The Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant.) I had the Blue Corn Pancake with Barbeque Duck, and the Spicy Chicken and Sweet Potato Hash (with poached egg). Pretty amazing stuff. I see why the guy is where he is. We also went to The Bellagio buffet, which is great, but totally wasted on me, and The Carnegie Deli, which is something to behold. (Incidentally, while there, I saw 2 girls with the collectively most inappropriate outfits of the entire trip, which says something. Also, there's absolutely no way they'd touch any single thing on that menu, so I don't know what they were playing at. I'm almost certain this was a mail order bride situation.)

And Ooohhhh the people watching... It was glorious. As always, people watching is not meant to be discussed later, because one can never do it justice, truly, but I will say that the amount of ludicrously short skirts was at an all time high on this trip. The amount of class at an all time low.
Some highlights include:

- The completely drunken guy with nothing but a backpack and a literal fist of cash searching for the bus stop. He passed us again 5 minutes later. This time with no cash.

-The Jamaican guy who sat down next to me at the Pai Gow table, smoked an entire cigarette in 3 drags, lost 75 dollars in one hand, and got up and left. I don't remember how I know he was Jamaican, but he was. He ended up coming back about an hour later, losing another large chunk of cash, and leaving again.

- The strange conflence of old douchebags and young who met up in the sort of courtyard area in front of Ceasars. It was odd, because they all sort of matched up, and they all had slutty women with them of appropriate age. It was like some sort of time warp where they were running into themselves as the time-space continuum overlapped.

- The completely friendly and insanely unsettling people at Mermaids Casino. They were nice. They were also likely high on LSD.

But anyway... That's not why I'm blogging about Vegas. Really, it's all about a single question that I have:

Why, for the love of all that is holy, would you bring a child to Las Vegas?

I honestly don't understand it.

Is it the wholesome surroundings like GAMBLING? and PROSTITUTION? and FREE ALCOHOL EVERYWHERE?

Is it all of the wallet friendly food options? I believe that the cheapest meal I had (and trust me, since I can barely eat anything, I can generally eat pretty cheap) was the bowl of soup and coke I had at the Ceasars Palace Food Court that came in at around 12.00.

Let me get this straight... You bring your whole effing family to a place where minors are not even allowed to ENTER most areas of almost every place you can go. The kid-related things are so awful and overpriced, (because I guess they're prisoners already, may as well squeeze every sucker cent out of them), that the most interesting kid-friendly attraction I saw was a roller coaster at the Sahara that was ten dollars PER RIDE . There's actual pornography being passed out on the sidewalk of every street where you're not likely to get mugged. At least half of the shows have nudity. The other half are at least 100 dollars a ticket, if you even planned far enough in advance to get 4 seats together. There are literal prositutes hanging around common areas, which are some of the only areas kids are allowed. You're basically encouraged to start getting drunk by ten in the morning. Smoking is also not only allowed, but promoted by the oh-so-classily dressed strolling vendors in every Casino (if the little tykes happen through from the elevator to the pool. )

As far as I can see, the only thing a kid can do in Las Vegas inexpensively is roast like a fucking tomato drenched in olive oil at the giant, over-crowded casino pools. A priviledge that probably costs the same for your 4 day trip as a lifetime pass to the neighborhood pool. Oh... and the odds of swimsuit tops coming off at some point in the constant drunken debauchery surrounding them are so high that the wager has been taken off the board.

So you get what I'm saying right? If you have the means to pay for these boat anchors to wander around with you during your trip to Vegas, you certainly have the means to send the poor kids to fucking camp where they can learn useful skills such as macrame and having dirty dreams about the girls from the camp across the lake. You know... as opposed to happening across that same scenario re-enacted at 1 AM on Cinemax on your complimentary premium hotel cable, though not with quite the same childlike innocence, if you know what I mean.

Does that stop the hoards and hoards of people from bringing every one of their offspring to middle of the god forsaken desert to torment every adult who wants to have a fun, child-free time? No. In fact, I'm almost entirely certain that The Excalibur Hotel AND CASINO is likely the real mouth of hell. There were points when I saw toddlers walking, unsupervised, across a casino floor at one in the morning. I'm sure there was some guardian or parental figure nearby... or am I?

It all comes down to this my friends:

If you want to have a fun, adult oriented vacation where you may drink a little. You may gamble a little. You may take in a gawdy show with boobies... Go to Vegas.

BUT, if you have kids, and you have this strong need to take your kids with you on your vaction, perhaps take a gander at my blog. There's this other place that I mention occasionally where you're certain to spend a lot of money (just like Vegas) only your kid may have an actual good time... it's called Walt Disney World. (I've provided a link.)

Good day.