my friend/business partner/former minecraft archnemesis invited me to go to some kind of quasi-family reunion in vegas, he never fails to deliver with these sorts of travel ideas. i've never been to vegas despite multiple attempts, it is obviously an essential destination for an anthropologist of hyperreality, but going there may also be a mistake for me, possibly some divine force has been trying to keep me away from there, last year i planned to crash in a friend's room while he was at evo but then the global crowdstrike computer outage happened and my flight got cancelled at the last minute. luckily i wasn't out any money because i'd booked nothing and they refunded my flight, then i got an additional $200 reimbursement direct deposited to my bank using the sketchiest service ever, so i pretty much got paid not to go to vegas. unfortunately, the feeling that it may be forbidden to me makes it all the more alluring...

12:40

made it to the airport, absolute disaster area, the longest security line i've ever seen. what is going on? it is a random wednesday afternoon.

1:15

slightly stressed about making the flight even though it got delayed a bit. excited to go through TSA for the first time without taking off shoes, but then of course the damn scanner goes off on my crotch so the tsa guy gropes me and has me take off my shoes to put them through the scanner as usual.

1:20

stroll confidently through the crowded terminal right up to the gate where there is no line at all, they are calling "Group F - for Final Call", show them my ticket marked "GRP - PRIORITY", then walk onto the plane and sit down in seat 4C. that's right, i'm in first class, i got upgraded even though i'm lowest elite tier because nobody bothers to pay for first class on such a short flight.

1:50

i try to read a book but im too caffeinated to focus and get through 1 page before giving up

2:10

the flight is so short that they do not do a full drink service unless you're in first class, i try the new canned espresso martini cocktail they have (20% abv) since it is still early in the day. a bit peeved they did not bring the snack basket around though, i was counting on that for food.

2:15

i pull out my laptop and begin harnessing the caffeine+alcohol buzz to do some peak writing. i get through 2 sentences before the captain comes on "we have now reached our cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, in 1 minute we will begin our descent into seattle, we should be landing in 25 minutes". shortly after, the flight attendant tells me to stow my laptop. why is everyone always trying to prevent me from writing my magnum opus?! i have to chug the remainder of my drink before they confiscate it for landing

2:35

bored while we descend, i decide to start writing this liveblog in the notes app on my phone, and write all of the above while we descend and land

2:55

in front of the garbage cans at seatac they have an ai camera thing you show your trash to and it tells you what bin to put it in. i've genuinely needed this all my life because i always get anxious over the decision and toss a lot of stuff in "landfill" just to be safe

3:10

found an ancient chick fil a sauce in the tiny pocket on my backpack strap while standing in the jetway. this could have exploded at any time in the past year and made a mess. i left it in there

3:50

rebooked my return flight on the tarmac, things have changed and now i'm staying in las vegas an extra 2 days and technically it's not a return flight anymore. i've never changed flights before as much as i have this month but people keep changing plans on me and im booking reward flights which are flexible with changes and cancellations

4:00

boomer on the row ahead of me is unironically watching a movie on a tablet while playing subway surfers on his phone, his broccoli-haired zoomer son sitting next to him stares at the display transfixed, "it's just like my tiktoks!". on god the broccoli zoomer perm stereotype is accurate fr, there was another one sitting in my row.

4:45

jealous of the Alaska Gold 100k sitting across the aisle who's getting a bunch of free shit for his status, like a chocolate and a snack box. i snuck a peak at the flight attendant's phone as they passed by the aisle doing the drink service, in their app they have a seatmap that indicates where high-status elite members are sitting, and it even tells you if people are travelling together

5:00

wine & writing

6:00

wow, terminal 3 at LAS is nice and spacious

6:15

it is hotter than the surface of the sun outside

6:35

pass by the sphere in the uber, they put it in an area with no other tall buildings so you can really appreciate its majestic sphericality

7:00

our hotel is a bit shabby, looks like it's straight from fallout

7:25

upgraded to a corner room on the 23rd floor, great view of caesar's palace and the bellagio. the problem with staying in a hotel with a stylish building is that you can't actually see the building staying in the hotel. somehow we're also at the perfect angle to see my f/bp/fma's mom waving from her hotel room balcony like half a mile away

8:00

we meet up with the rest of my f/bp/fma's family and i learn that the real reason they're here is because it's his sister's birthday. in their room i make a tito's vodka and pineapple juice drink which big wayne then comes up behind me and tops up with vodka to overflowing, he is already wasted. he's glad to see me again

8:15

wayne is very concerned about the structural stability of a tilted skyscraper in the distance

8:30

walked a mile in 106 heat to eat dinner at the damn bfp restaurant

8:45

as soon as we sit down wayne pulls out his phone and says "ok let me show you guys some conspiracy videos". everybody grimaced (it's his favorite topic) but then he laughed and said "just kidding". at least he's self-aware

9:00

i remind everyone i've only eat 4 eggs and 1 bag of pretzels today, but also clarify that i'm not even that hungry and don't care the food is taking forever

9:30

they're serving naan with a spicy marinara dipping sauce wtf

10:00

shots for the table of something called screamin demon wayne swears is the gnarliest shit. it is supposed to be made with bacardi 151 (75.5% abv) which has been discontinued (perhaps for safety reasons) so they made it with some lame normal bacardi and it goes down easy

10:15

leaving big wayne with the 500 dollar bill and dipping. for the record he did say earlier he was paying and also he's my f/bp/fma's dad so he can afford it

10:30

WOW they have ABC stores here just like they have all over waikiki in hawaii, extremely reasonable prices too, two canned cocktails for $6

10:45

good view of the fountain show at the bellagio from hotel room window. when i went to see the old faithful geyser at yellowstone several years ago, a boomer lady behind me commented "not as good as the one at the bellagio"

10:50

wow we're also right across from gordon ramsey hell's kitchen restaurant. every restaurant in vegas seems attached to some celebrity chef, gordon ramsey alone has:

• gordon ramsey's hell's kitchen
• gordon ramsey's kitchen
• gordon ramsey burger (advertised on my hotel keycard)
• gordon ramsey steak
• gordon ramsey fish and chips
• gordon ramsey pub and grill

10:53

11:30

as usual my f/bp/fma wants to go to some fucking club. for some reason entry is ticketed even though it's a wednesday night. no one was in line to enter and they made us go through a gauntlet receiving three successive wrist stamps to get in.

11:35

within five minutes we've already managed to chat with three people, all dudes of course

11:50

they got a whole ass bathroom attendant here. i think he even sells zyns

12:10

tearing it up on the dance floor, multiple dudes fist bumping me and saying sick energy, but girls dgaf

12:30

aura farming with the gater shirt. telling people i'm a gater wrangler from key west

1:00

wait i actually talked to the cute girl i've been scoping out for the past 30 min, she has two circular hair things like akari. the dance moves sort of worked?

1:05

over the club noise she tells me she's from alaska. to show her i'm a fellow traveller i pull out my alaska airlines visa card

1:08

bum 1/10 of a cigarette off her outside where we can actually talk

1:15

NVM SHE'S CRAZY, refused to talk about anything except for flying saucers (example: -"how's alaska? i've always wanted to go" -"well, the UFO activity is crazy..."), but when i try to talk to her about flying saucers, she says she can't talk about them because it's too secret or too terrifying

1:17

EJECT

1:25

gloating to my f/bp/fma about how i talked to more girls in the club than him (1)

1:40

everybody on the street at this time is a strip club promoter

1:50

at cvs. everything locked up and expensive. makeup and alcohol each have separate sections of the store with their own registers. a coke is $3.50, abc stores would NEVER

2:00

elevator dinging for all 22 floors

2:40

posting unedited version of this to my site straight from notes app

6:00

dreamed about a girl from my friend group back home that i develop a crush on, ask out, and have a great date with. when i wake up i think, "damn, wouldn't it be nice if that happened in real life, maybe i should ask her out". i struggle remembering her name and realize that there is actually no such girl in our friend group, she only existed in the dream. feeling a profound sense of loss about my dream girl

6:30

fairly sober now, regret posting the garbled unedited version of this earlier, delete it, go back to sleep

10:30

dream that i accidentally accept a bracelet from one of those weird religious robes guys on the street, which gives them permission to beat the shit out of me. guess it's part of their religion, must be careful in the future

11:00

friend is on the toilet but has a tiktok he needs to show me so desperately he hands me his phone out the bathroom door. it's a tiktok of "aura farming indonesian boat race kid", it's probably real but the weird filters and editing make it look like AI. "this is the biggest thing on the internet right now" he says

to be continued...