cyclotram

Did I mention something the other day about walking down the street at 3am with a plastic football full of beer? As it turns out, walking down the street with a clear plastic Eiffel Tower full of strawberry daiquiri is even better. But don't tell the OLCC I said so. They routinely waterboard people for much smaller offenses.

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So I've been way too busy to post for a while now. I've even been way too busy for any photo-expeditions. Two more days, though, and it's time for vacation, assuming I make it that long. My waking hours are basically a maze of twisty little Java classes, all with names nearly alike. And then there's some JSP stuff to worry about too. Have I mentioned I'm not the world's biggest UI guru? Well, I'm not. And don't get me started on all the other distractions going on around the office.

So anyway, about that vacation, this time we're headed to Vegas. Seriously, we are. We aren't really into the gambling thing, and we hadn't given the idea much thought until a month or so ago. It was cold and dark and the city was getting us down, and I saw this article in the normally-useless Oregonian travel section about what a deal Las Vegas is right now, with the economy and all that. A light went on. Not so much for the deals (although I'm willing to accept good deals if they're available), but because Las Vegas seems like it might be the anti-Portland. Ok, there probably are several anti-Portlands actually, but Vegas is the only one that sounds like any fun. A Dionysus to our Apollo, basically.

I've been there once before, briefly, back around 1993. I was on a bus trip with mostly European backpacker types doing the youth hostel thing. We stopped briefly on the way to (or maybe from) Red Rocks, with a stop at Hoover Dam in there somewhere too. The Europeans were both fascinated and horrified, and I went to great pains to point out that I wasn't the sort of American who has anything to do with the place. There was much sneering. Although secretly I had a nickel in my pocket and planned to spend it if I found a nickel slot and nobody was looking. The opportunity never presented itself, though, and that was that.

I've since figured out that life is a lot more fun if you don't go around sneering and criticizing everything all the time. and when you do, it helps if you've actually tried it before you start ranting, so you maybe have a clue about what you're talking about.

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Feh. Hit "send" when I meant to hit "save". Damn you, Chernobyl Stout!

Anyway, the plan is to go and give it a chance and see if we like it. And yes, I do intend to feed a one-armed bandit just a little. No sense in going to Vegas, and then coming back all smug about all the stuff you didn't do while you were there. If smugness is what you're after, why bother leaving Portland? We're like the world capital of smug right here. And irony, we've got that too, the sort of irony where you're only allowed to like things in the "so bad it's good" sense. Which is just the hipster cousin of sneering, really, where you take a simple, elemental thing -- say, walking down the street at 3am with a clear plastic football full of cheap beer -- and play like the experience is all complicated and multilayered, which it probably isn't.

Oh, and the plan is also to come back with a lot of photos. I've almost forgotten what it's like to take photos where you don't have to crank up the color saturation to make them interesting.

Until then, though, it's back to the Java mines for yours truly.