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My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor and proofreader, and occasional indexer. This blog is my website.

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Friday, March 30, 2012

Land on Demand Hits Las Vegas: I Get the "Loathing" Part


Not impressed.

I think what I needed was Raoul Duke and his attorney, the Brown Buffalo, at my side — to keep my mind off everything else.

What is it? Ninety-five percent of Nevada is missile testing range? Couldn’t the government get something entirely right for once? Is it too late?


Sorry, Moi, to diss part of your region of the country, but I just don’t get Las Vegas at all. It’s like the worst of the worst of some things that I think are pretty bad already. And the state has a Mormon U.S. senator? Can someone please explain what the hell is going on here?



13 comments:

moi said...

There is something quite awesome about the missile testing range-ness of the dessert surrounding Las Vegas. Something so spare and hopeless that it's almost beautiful. That being said, it looks nothing like New Mexico. Get further north, into Utah, and you'll grok the full meaning of my love for the spaces of the Desert Southwest. Vegas is not it. Remember, the mob situated the place there for a reason.

So, did you at least EAT something good?

czar said...

Moi, don't get me wrong. I love wide-open spaces. And Vegas should have been left as one.

We went on the recommendation of another friend (no offense intended) to Bartolotta Ristorante del Mar in the Wynn Las Vegas. All the fish is flown in daily from one port in Italy. I am composing a manifesto to the corporate honchos around the world about how their little 5-star, 5-diamond, Top Chef restaurant has a hell of a lot to learn from a place like Cracker Barrel.

I've had better meals in restaurants at a third of the price (and that third still coming in two figures for a couple), and service far more attentive to the customer's experience at a Waffle House counter. And they will hear about it. In certified letters. And I am not a griper.

Casino hotels, people hugging onto the slots with their dying gasps (with the inevitable dangling cigarette), the simultaneous encouragement of awful addictions, the facades, the stretched-thin performers (men and women), the glitz mentality, the lure of the dollar, the poor city infrastructure, the lines on the freeway that will lead you directly into the retaining wall . . .

Rental car experience: bad. You don't give a customer a vehicle with an entirely different kind of transmission and not tell them how to drive it. And, of course, all rental cars have the owner's manual removed from the glove box.

Trip to Grand Canyon West was very cool, although we passed by a bad fatal wreck involving two vehicles and some free-range cattle. Then about 10 minutes later I had to drive slalom through some cattle that came up very quickly. Tere is making it out like I saved our lives with my driving acumen. Maybe so. I don't know.

I think both Tere and I were a bit disappointed in Cirque du Soleil's Love. Without the music itself, I wouldn't rank it anywhere near as intriguing as the first two shows of theirs we saw a coupla decades ago. A wonderful experience, though.

That, and we thought my stepmom was going to die while we were there. She was on so many different meds, couldn't keep anything down, and would refuse hospitalization if offered. We got in there, and I remembered the BRAT diet from our kids' childhood: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast (dry). Two days later, she's keeping food down and looking and sounding much better. Then Dad Czar gets the gout.

Am I painting a picture for you here of how these four days were?

moi said...

Slalom cows? Last gasps? Bad wait service and over priced food? Ill parents? Oh, my. I'm sorry. Definitely gripe to the management of el restaurante. That just ain't right.

czar said...

Oh, we had a great burger on US 93, just over the Nevada-Arizona line. There's a place run by the Hualapai (sp?) called the Last Stop, and they make excellent burgers and very good fries. Highly recommended. Very friendly place.

czar said...

Correction to my original comment: Should be "still coming in at three figures for a couple."

Our meal with tip was about $340. That included 1 drink before dinner for each of us, and only Tere had a split of wine with dinner. As I see it, the waiter saw Tere order a rather lower-priced entree and decided to deliver me a $90 piece of fish. Ninety. Dollar. Entree. And because of the way the menu is written, you don't know until the bill is delivered.

Whaddya think?

moi said...

I think you need to letter bomb the restaurant for that neat little trick. Something similar happened to S.B. and I once. Neither of us knows all that much about wine, but when we go out for a nice dinner, we like to drink a bottle (or half-bottle, if they offer it) with the meal. Usually, one of us asks the waiter to recommend something based on what we're eating, and we give him a price range. Once we forgot to stipulate the range. And when we got the bill, we noticed the waiter had chosen the most expensive bottle on the menu--$80. And had split before I could crack his head open with it.

Rafael said...

Czar:

What's wrong with Mirmons? Is magic unders any stranger than pregnant virgins?

Hope to see you Monday...just wouldn't be the same without you.

Rafa

czar said...

Thanks, Rafa, for the invite.

I have no greater and no less problem with magic undies than preggy virgins. But how a Mormon could have such political blueballs as to be senator of a state whose main income comes from gambling, drinking, and whoring is another aspect of modern life not likely to be understood.

Rafael said...

Czar:
So Christian's can be hypocrites but Mormon's can't...

Sometimes you gotta join'em to change 'em. PLUS...if there wasn't any sin'n goin' on, priests couldn't live vicariously anymore and they'd have to resort to acting on their...oh, never mind!!!

Rafa

czar said...

Rafa: Don't know where you got anything from what I've said about Christians vs. Mormons. I'm just talking about one particular politician. That doesn't give the rest of them a pass. I'd say the same thing if he was a tongues-talking fundie and represented Nevada.

Too, I consider Mormons Christians. You don't?

Rafael said...

czar:
Sorry, I mainly commented because I find the idea of magic unders hilarious.

I don't know much about Mormonism, but between the undewear stuff and Jesus being an alien that spoke to the native americans IS a bit different...to me anyway

Really all meant in jest and that hypocrscacy surrounds us at every turn.

Rafa

czar said...

Rafa: No problem, and certainly no offense taken.

I'm working on a book that criticizes the supernaturalism of belief in ghosts and astrology, but questions not at all such concepts as the virgin birth or the resurrection (or walking on water, or bushes that burn but which are not consumed). It's interesting how people pick and choose.

Fundies would likely diss the concept that Jesus came to North America and spoke to the Native Americans (it's adding to the Word, donch'a know?). But would they question that Jesus is speaking to them directly in their own lives? Heaven forfend.

moi said...

@Rafe. Do not speakest thou lightly of the magic underwear. Spanx works WONDERS.

@Czar: I know people who won't make a major decision without consulting their astrologists, but who regularly skewer Christians. As Forest Gump says . . .