JonahWeiland.com

Saturday when I was in Las Vegas this last weekend I went for a drive south on the 15 towards the border. On the eastern side of the freeway, about 20 minutes south of Vegas, can be found a collection of run down old buildings with some real character. I stopped and took some pictures of these buildings. Steven Grant told me that these have ended up in a number of movies over the years. Clicky the images for the biggie. I had to crop the thumbnails to get them to fit properly on here, so there’s lots more detail in the enlargements.

A friend called me up today to have me look up traffic conditions for her on the Internet. She offered up one Web site and I told her that one was no good, there’s a much better one. For those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, the absolute BEST site for traffic information in all of California is SigAlert.com. No one else touches it for sheer information. It gives you precise speeds on the freeways you’ll be taking. My sister and I have actually tried it out. She’s driven home and as she hit each offramp I’ve checked the speed and the posted speeds are always accurate. If you’ve been using any other site, kick ‘em to the curb.

Now I’m off to go get my free ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Sure, I make enough money to afford my own ice cream, but it’s free. Of course, when I worked at Baskin Robbins when I was a 15 year old fuck every day was free ice cream day.

Thanks to Mark Evanier for pointing out this article regarding the digital video recorder market and how competition is creeping up on TiVo. Many cable companies now offer their own brand of digital video recorders and for many it’s easier to simply shell out the extra $5 bucks than go out and pick up a TiVo. My parents have a Time Warner DVR and I can tell you from years of experience it’s no where near as good as TiVo. It’s slower, the menuing is awful and the options just aren’t there. The only non-TiVo DVR I’ve seen that I like is the home-grown SageTV. With the recent release of their latest version with all new menuing, it’s leagues better than it was.

We all know Monday’s are difficult. You come off your weekend with little enthusiasm to work. It’s never easy. This was one of the hardest Mondays in ages. First off, coming home from a great weekend in Vegas is never easy. Never. Little sleep, plus a long drive, and lots of the drinking conspire to destroy any semblance of a good Monday. No hang overs, nothing like that, but just mentally tough to get back to where you need.

But that was just one factor. At 2:30 in the morning my sister called me, which is very unusual. She woke up 15 minutes earlier and her left arm was completely asleep. She got concerned when 15 minutes later her arm was still seriously numb. We talked for a bit and a little while later her left foot started to get numb and the arm wasn’t getting that much better. At that point she called 911 who thought it was best to pick her up and take her to the hospital. I drove like a mad fiend out to the hospital to meet with her. They ran an EKG and did a Cat Scan and found nothing. No evidence of a stroke or heart attack. All blood tests came back clear. They did find a mild sinus infection, but it was unrelated to the numbness. They sent her home and said to see her primary care doctor as soon as she could to run an MRI and any other tests. As of tonight there’s still a little numbness in her toes, but she’s doing okay.

That meant I didn’t get home until about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. I didn’t get to sleep until at least 6:30.

I woke up around noonish, which is late for me these days, and I think I’m getting a cold. Was it the weekend in Vegas? Was it the admittedly sick nurse that was walking around the hospital? Who knows, but I’ve been sucking on chewable vitamin C all day in the hopes of killing this off. I can tell you that five hours sleep after a weekend with little rest is not a good combo.

Monday I didn’t feel all that week. So I’m boning out early tonight and plan to get a minimum of eight hours sleep and waking up early on Tuesday to get cracking on this week’s work.

Ahh, good times. Vegas brings good times.

Sharon had an absolute blast all weekend. She’s got some incredible friends. Her girlfriends are all great. One guy that came along, Will, works with a vendor her company works with in England and he lives in London. I talked his ear off all weekend about British television. I think he rather enjoyed that an American was familiar with British media.

Saturday day I woke up late and spent some time working. Around 1:00 I went downstairs to get lunch and do some gambling. By 2:30 I was up $700 at Blackjack and pushed myself away from the table. My bet had finally got up to $150 and I just didn’t have the stomach for it. I had a great run and was done.

What was I to do with the rest of the afternoon now if the gambling was off limits? Spend money, naturally.

See, in Vegas it’s all about how they can take your money. In the casino. At the restaurant. The bell man. The cabbie. Everyone has his or her hand out. That’s how that city works. You really don’t have to try hard to give your money away. Everything I wanted to do with my money, though, I just couldn’t.

First thing I checked on was a helicopter tour of the city. I’ve never been in a helicopter and I figured, what the fuck, I got free money, let’s go have that experience. Problem being that the city tours only take place at night, when I was supposed to be at dinner. The other option was a 3 hour trip to the Grand Canyon, which I would have done, but nope, all booked up. Mother Fuckers. Next time.

So I got in my car and decided to go shopping. I drove down to the outlet stores at Primm, Nevada, on the border with California (later I found out that they have new outlet stores in North Las Vegas, much closer. Dammit!). Lemme tell you, the outlet stores on the border are useless. Don’t go there. Avoid it. Flip it off when you drive by it next. I WANTED to spend my hard earned winnings and found only a $30 pair of sandals to buy. Lame.

On the way back I drove around a bit, took some pictures of some weird ass buildings that I’ll post later. It was back to the hotel for dinner over at the Border Grill at Mandalay Bay at 8:00. I’ve never been to the Mandalay Bay, so it was nice to check that place out. It’s fucking HUGE and a really nice hotel. I was expecting shlock and didn’t get that.

Dinner at the Border Grill was good. The best had to be when the latin trio came over to sing “Guntanamera.” Apparently it’s one of Sharon’s favorite songs. I wasn’t aware of that, but they had the entire table, about 20 people, singing along and gave five of us instruments to play along with. Good stuff. Then they asked if anyone had any requests. Carrie reminded me earlier in the evening of a tradition Sharon and I have.

So, for about the past 20 years now every Christmas season my sister and I have this little thing we do. While listening to the radio if either one of us should hear “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano, we are to immediately call the other and sing it to them. Rather, yell “I wanna wish you a Merrrry Christmas …” Christmas Day we ALWAYS play that song and scream along during “I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.” Trust me, it’s awesome. Next Christmas when you hear that song, scream along with Jose. It’ll make you feel good.

So, back to Saturday night. Our Latin trio was looking for requests and I mentioned “Feliz Navidad” to my sister and they IMMEDIATELY, without missing a beat, launched into the song. The entire table was cracking up. Most of them had no idea about the joke, about four or five did, but everyone was having a blast. We were singing a freaking Christmas song at a restaurant in Las Vegas on April 24th! What the hell? Great moment.

After dinner I decided, well, I’ve got some winnings, so let’s spend them. I hired a limo to transport us over to the Venus Bar at the Venetian. I figured it would be a lot nicer to cram everyone inside of a limo together than to take multiple taxis. Was loads of fun and we made three peoples night who had never been in a limo before. Good times.

Venus Bar was interesting. It’s a hip-hop club, so not exactly my “scene,” but it had a nice set-up and there were actually two bars in one – the club and associated bar and then a lil’ tiki type bar on the other side. It’s one of those bars where the bar tenders do tricks and breathe fire. Dude, just make me my fucking drink already. Was slightly amusing. I got my drunk on, mellowed out, and left around 1:30 or so. I decided I’d allow myself $100 to gamble with. I played until 3:30 and left up $50. Not too shabby!

Sunday was pretty mellow. I met with Steven Grant (he’s a veteran comics creator who writes a column at CBR) for lunch at 11:30. He recommended the buffet at the Green Valley Resort, about 15 minutes east of Vegas. I was skeptical as I was always told that off strip hotels and buffets are not so much in the good arena. I was proven wrong. Apparently the Green Valley Resort is a pretty popular off-strip, outside Vegas casino with travelers and locals alike. Oh, and movie stars. Keanu Reeves was spotted there this week. George Clooney has been seen there. Oh, remember when Michael Jackson was fleeing the police in a slow speed white lear jet chase? When he arrived in Vegas they took him to the Green Valley Resort. Lunch was great. Steven and I chatted till almost 1:30. It would have gone longer, but I REALLY needed to hit the road. The 15 freeway back to LA can get shit fucked easily.

The drive home was pretty decent. Took exactly as much time to get home as it took to get to Vegas, 4 hours and 40 minutes. That’s about 40 minutes longer than the average trip, but I’ll take that. Apparently about an hour after I got off the 15 there was an accident that required them to shut down the freeway for 20 minutes or so. SO fucking glad I didn’t get caught in that crap storm.

So, I’m home. My sister’s flight was delay over an hour and a half, which sucked for her. It actually took me less time to get home driving than it took her.

For the weekend I paid for all my expenses with the winnings and even brought home about $50 plus the $200 Southwest voucher. Not only was it a profitable weekend, but extremely enjoyable

Happy Birthday my sistah! I loves ya!

Last night was fun. Sharon got together with all her friends and we went to the Show Bar at the MGM Grand which has two really cheesey cover bands playing the whole time. After that it was across the street to an Irish pub at New York, New York where everyone danced a jig. Booze was flowing. Good times.

I left around one to do some of the gambling. By three in the morning I had enough and was up a bit, so I retired to my room happy.

Oh, the room. Standard hotel room, but I’m up on the 28th floor and my view is once again of the back side of the strip. But this time I’ve got an incredible view of McCarren airport and get to watch the plans land and take off as I write this. Pretty damn cool. This is one very busy airport. As I write this a Southwest flight is taking off on the left runway as an America West flight lands on the right run way.

Well, the drive wasn’t completely awful. I left Los Angeles at 1:25 and arrive at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at 6:15, so almost five hours. I took a five minute stop where the 15 and 215 freeways hit. Traffic was on and off the whole way. There were moments where you’d be zipping along over 90 and getting passwed, and other time syou came to a full and dead stop. And only one minor accident. Thank He Who Is The One What Made All The Things Maybe for that fabulous invention, the iPod. I went through 404 of the 792 songs on my iPod during the drive. CLEARLY I didn’t listen to every song. That thing is a freaking life saver.

So now I’m waiting for Southwest to deliver my luggage. The Bell Desk said that it usually takes anywhere from one to three hours from the time they told you it would ship it. They said it would go out on the 6:00 bus. One hour’s gone by and no luggage. I’ll start to freak out an hour from now.