{"id":38077,"date":"2014-01-09T23:16:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T03:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=38077"},"modified":"2020-07-09T23:16:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T03:16:35","slug":"thoughts-about-vegas-and-otakon-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=38077","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts about Vegas and Otakon Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not entirely sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, I caught something and I\u2019ve been home sick for the last two days.\u00a0 I do not get sick very often, so needless to say this doesn\u2019t please me in the least bit, but there\u2019s nothing I can really do about it.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s given me a little bit of extra time to catch up on processing some of the photos I took while out in Vegas, as well as some time to do some writing.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been like two years since I was in Vegas last, and it\u2019s safe to say that there have been quite some numerous changes since then.\u00a0 One of the conversations had during the trip was about how Vegas was obviously one of the larger casualties of the last economic massacre, and it\u2019s in little things that I think I notice that such an assessment is true.\u00a0 A few years ago, casinos were extremely generous with coupon books boasting all sorts of match-play tickets, buy-one-get-one tickets, and other offers to stimulate parting money from your hand to the hands of the casinos.\u00a0 Typically, these were given upon check in to hotels, or upon registering with a different player\u2019s reward program.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two years of inactivity and returning to Vegas used to warrant some sort of offers to help make up for money of mine they haven\u2019t been getting but neither redeeming new cards, or checking into the hotel prompted any sort of offers of sort.\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s not a big deal, since I hardly used anything other than BOGO drinks, but the lack of offers wasn\u2019t lost on me either.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One other thing I noticed was that sitting down at a table, and flashing a player\u2019s club card was accepted at just about every single table, no matter the minimum.\u00a0 There were times in the past where hotels would literally tell me that they wouldn\u2019t bother tracking my spending unless I was making at least a $15 minimum bet per hand of blackjack or spin of roulette.\u00a0 Comp consideration wouldn\u2019t even be fathomable until a player was dropping somewhere along $25 per bet.<\/span><\/p>\n

But during this trip, not only does the minimum warrant proper tracking, it\u2019s encouraged by dealers to submit your player\u2019s card upon buying into any particular game.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine free rooms and massive comps are necessarily given as easily as they once were in the past, but given the amount of gambling I did and as much money as I had risked during my trip, that at least some generous offers would be in the works in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Something I want to bring up after this trip is that the Strip is pretty much kind of insufferable now, in terms of trying to walk from casino to casino.\u00a0 I remember a time when walking from MGM Grand to the Aladdin was literally a straight line on a city sidewalk, or the corresponding route across the street going from the New York-New York to the Bellagio.\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s this congested corridor of going up an escalator, crossing a bridge, cutting through a mall, crossing another bridge, and going down another escalator.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost more difficult to find out how to actually set foot on actual pavement than it is to traverse from point A to point B.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, Las Vegas is somewhat drastically different than what I remember seeing the last time I was there.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t enjoy going there any less, but it\u2019s notable enough for me to want to write about it.\u00a0 When the trip was over, I still accomplished a lot of what I wanted to do while I was out there, which was gamble a good bit, and eat a lot of lavish foods.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this was no ordinary Vegas trip; the impetus for going to Vegas never has to be really that enticing for me to want to go because it is Vegas, but it was mostly in part to support the endeavors of several of my collective friends who started up Otakon Vegas.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest by saying that I didn\u2019t spend a tremendous amount of time indulging in what the convention itself had to offer; frankly, I\u2019m kind of old and out of the scene to be enticed by stuff such as particular guests or world premieres of a particular anime, especially when there are single-deck tables dealt by sexy dealers clad in lingerie just down an escalator from the heart of the convention.\u00a0 But I was present enough to be able to make what I obviously think are some fair critiques of the event as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

From what I saw, the convention ran very smoothly.\u00a0 And that shouldn\u2019t be much of a surprise considering many of my friends are the senior members of the staff, and they bring a lot of experience to the table, and have the leadership abilities to delegate and manage less experienced staffers to their optimal productivity.\u00a0 One rumbling I heard was the slightly understaffed nature of the convention, but everyone seemed to be willing to pick up slack and help one another out, so I can\u2019t imagine it seemed like it was that arduous to the regular convention goer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The average attendance was younger than what I would have expected, considering it was an event inside Las Vegas, where pretty much you have to be 21+ to even be allowed to walk unsupervised on the casino floors, much less gamble.\u00a0 But one moment pretty much defined why such was the case, when I saw a man inquire with one of my staffer friends where registration was, and quickly exclaimed his intention of \u201cleaving his kids here\u201d while he and mom would presumably go drink and gamble their asses off elsewhere.\u00a0 In a way, this isn\u2019t the least bit surprising, but I guess I thought there would be a few more \u201colder\u201d geeks who actually came for the event, as well as some extracurricular Vegas-y activities on the side.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a way, it felt like a separate world inside of another world, because once inside the doors of the conference center, where the meat of convention events were taking place, it felt like pretty much any other small, early-year convention, just trying to get its feet wet and accumulate experience.\u00a0 But once outside of the doors, and down the escalator, it\u2019s pretty much the typical infinite night-life of the Vegas experience, with drunks and smoke and degenerate gamblers whooping and hollering amidst the beeps and bells and whistles of machines all over the place.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019d like to commend, and it\u2019s not just because it was my loser brother who came up with the idea, but I do think that the guys running Otakon and Otakons past have always seemed more willing to think outside the box than other conventions (eg. Simon Yam<\/em>).\u00a0 But personally, my favorite part of Otakon Vegas was the inclusion of the live sumo wrestling exhibition.\u00a0 Having never seen real live sumo wrestling before, it was a treat to see two high-ranking sumo wrestlers go at it, and explain the general nature of their craft afterward.\u00a0 The wrestlers themselves were also both classy gentleman who appear to be fine ambassadors of their sport, and were accessible and easy to chat with when I had the opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a convention itself, I was pleased with Otakon Vegas.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve said, I\u2019m growing old and crusty, so anime conventions themselves are kind of lost on me, but my friends run this convention, and I\u2019m always in support of friends.\u00a0 I\u2019d go again, because it\u2019d be supporting friends, and it\u2019s an excuse to go to Las Vegas.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I sure as shit wouldn\u2019t be staying at the Planet Hollywood hotel again.\u00a0 Yeah, fuck that place.\u00a0 Seriously, out of all the places I\u2019ve ever stayed in at in Las Vegas, the PH might have been the worst.\u00a0 From the parking garage, quality of room, to the room\u2019s servicing, it was pretty much the worst hotel I\u2019ve ever stayed at in Las Vegas; and that\u2019s comparing it to stiffs like Imperial Palace and the Ellis Island Sleazy 8.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not entirely sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, I caught something and I\u2019ve been home sick for the last two days.\u00a0 I do not get sick very often, so needless to say this doesn\u2019t please me in the least bit, but there\u2019s nothing I can really do about it.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s … Continue reading Thoughts about Vegas and Otakon Vegas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,128,56,152,15,133,65],"class_list":["post-38077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-booze","tag-conventions","tag-food","tag-gambling","tag-og","tag-old-man","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38078,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38077\/revisions\/38078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}