STBE '11!!!

Hey everyone!

Planning has begin for the 10th Anniversary of STBE! I know what you're thinking: "Wasn't last year the 10th Anniversary?" No! It was the 10th Annual. 10 years ago, we went to Vegas and started a tradition that has grown every year.

I've been a little slow to update the website because my work schedule is pretty hectic, but I did manage to get the front page updated. I plan on working on it some more this weekend, and I'll be sure to keep you all updated. So mark your calendars; the dates have been set!

WARNING: my birthday is on Monday this year, so be prepared to stay through Tuesday.

Greetings, STBE X fans!!!

I refuse to pay for internet access, so I finally got myself over to the Krispy Kreme. Here's a wrapup of what happened yesterday (note: I wrote this and saved it to Word):

Vegas Day One:

I had to work today and booked my flight assuming my schedule would be the same as last session, but they gave me an extra class. As a result, I would not have as much time as I initially thought, so I had to make a super-secret deal with someone we’ll call K-Dawg to drop me off at the airport right after class got out.
I made it to the airport with just enough time to grab food and coffee before boarding the plane. When I landed, I lucked out and got a shuttle right away and it took less than an hour for me to get in, which is good for a shuttle. Upon arrival at the Nug’, I checked in and requested a room near Mario and Ryan, who had checked in a few hours before.
Mike, Stephen, Ryan and I gathered in our room to show off our fabulous theme night outfits before the boys took off to the pool. I stayed behind to wait for Mario and Otto to return from a booze run and am currently waiting for Kim to show up.
This is the most boring Vegas update ever for sure, but trust me, it’s about to get awesome! Now if only I had wifi…

Oh man. Snowbirds night was a HIT! We posed for pictures with so many people it was ridiculous! Toward the end of the night, some girl spotted us from the balcony of some club and sent her friend down to invite us up. Needless to say, once we determined it wouldn’t cost us any money, we went up and immediately became the main attraction. People were freak-dancing with us and everything. It was totally bizarre. All these people were hella dressed up trying to look all cool and we were dressed up like old people. I really don’t know what to say. It was hysterical. The exact words of the friends Susie (the girl who spotted us) were, “my friend likes the looks of you…and wants to know if you'll come and join her!” Man, we are so awesome!

I’ve had a long day, so I’m off to bed. More adventures await us tomorrow! If people thought Snowbird night was out of control, look out for Red Hat Lady night!!!

Kim here. I can't believe Ginger didn't mention Escape: The Journey Tribute Band, which was the start of our Fremont Street Experience, before our indecent proposal to join Susie. Fake Journey were committed to playing the entire Journey catalog, which meant that they were playing deep album cuts, and the "Grammy nominated in 1996, but I think it should have won" power ballad "When You Love a Woman." (Google it.) Also, Fake Steve Perry had a penchant for wearing shirts that were just not quite long enough for his torso. He needs to take care of that.

Thanks, Kim! Expect more awesome updates as the weekend progresses! We were pretty subtle last night compared to our red hat lady outfits, so tonight is going to be out of control (tm Regis Philbin).

The Golden Nugget is the home of STBE X

Mike and I spent a lot of time jumping through hoops with Priceline trying to book a room at the Nug' on the cheap. We were able to book for $50 a night using a $10 per night credit (so our bid was technically $60). The Nug' must really be classy, because we were only able to get a 25% discount off the advertised rate, as our attempts to get 50%, 40%, and 35% discounts were turned down. Anyhoo, our persistence paid off and we secured a rate that we felt was pretty good for a classy (with a c!) hotel.

Since we are not rich and can't afford to book enough rooms for 13 people, we booked one room. The info is now here for you! Whatever the going rate is for a 4 star Vegas hotel in the Fremont Street area, bid 25-30% under that and you'll have yourself a room at the Nug'.

And now, for the reviews!!!

It looks like I'm gonna have to do some digging for some comically bad reviews since we're actually staying at a nice hotel. Let's see what I can find...

I have never written a review before. I am not that fussy and most places for me are acceptable. The Golden Nugget was simply terrible. We arrived at 2 a.m. and had to wait in line for 30 minutes. No non smoking rooms were available so we had to wait another half hour. We were than sent to a smoking room that had a very offensive odor . The whole floor and room were stained and VERY tired. We went back to the front desk and were sent to another room that was NOT a 4 star. the front dsek [sic] clerk said this is a real problem, too many smoking rooms and can't accommadate [sic] non smokers. Do not stay here.

This one isn't a bad review, but I do enjoy their random use of quotation marks:

My wife and I were in Las Vegas to see Garth Brooks and it happened to be Sprint Cup NASCAR weekend also. The best rates we could find online were at a "lower end" yet very famous strip hotel. From the time we arrived we were NOT happy with our accomidations. We did NOT get all we were promised on the phone, from 1600 miles away. They were unfriendly, dirty and not at all helpful with problems. We had called the Golden Nugget, but due to the NASCAR weekend, they were all booked up. On Monday after the race was over, we called The NUGGET, and they "bent over backwards" for us, and gave us a beautiful room, starting that morning, let us check in immediately, knowing we had to be out of our hotel, and the whole time we were there the staff, from check-in to housekeeping, treated us like "hi roller royalty" which we are a long way from.
The entire hotel complex is glamourous, friendly, and the pool is awesome, the casino is clean and modern and our whole trip (starting that Monday) was a very pleasant experience. We get several emails a week from Hotel/Casino complexes, with very reasonable rates, but I erase them as sonn [sic] as I get them as, when we go back to Las Vegas, and we do, at least two times a year, we will not stay ANYWHERE else but THE GOLDEN NUGGET, ever again.

Hard to believe these people are far from "hi roller royalty," isn't it?

The Horrible Grammar Award goes to...

This was my first trip to Vegas and I can't wait till next year to go again and we will stay at the Golden Nugget then also. Then hotel was beautiful and we were in the Rush Tower so there was no street noise whatsoever. The staff was wonderful and usually I have so much trouble sleeping when we travel because of the hard beds but this one was great. I wanted to go for the pool but coming from Texas the weather was a little on the first day and the rest of the week other issues had it closed but we did use the one in the Hideaway so that worked out ok. I would surely recommend this hotel to any one going out to Las Vegas. It was defintly worth the money and I would reccomend it to anyone the only thing is the bathrooms are to small.

Someone needs to tell that person about commas and spellcheck.

OK, I'm already tired of looking for comically bad reviews of this place. I think you all get the picture. The Sugar Twins have grown up, at least for this year's trip. The Nug' better live up to the hype!

theme night change

Sorry Gabe!

Jose pointed out some obvious flaws with our Old Timey Gangster theme a while ago. He doubts hotel security want a bunch of people walking around dressed like gangsters, especially since we'd want to carry fake Tommy Guns with us. Mike and I thought we could find a way around it, but his friend suggested we dress up as Snowbirds, and we liked the idea enough to switcheroo.

Snowbirds, in case you're wondering (I know I was), are old people who live in cold climates during the winter and warm climates during the summer. Or reverse. Something like that. Here, just read the wikipedia entry. As I described on the theme night page, you can find these people in RVs, winning shuffleboard tournaments, or shopping in the Chaps section at Kohl's.

Anyhoo, don't be too mad at us. I just told you where to shop. Alternately, I'm sure anything you ladies find at Chico's would be acceptable.

theme night thrift shopping

Mike came over today and we did some shopping for STBE.

Our first stop was Thrift Town. We initially thought that giant pants would be hard to come by, but we found some suitably large pants right away. We then tried to find "patriotic"-wear, but weren't having a whole lot of luck, so we decided to look for some magic stuff. I found a velvet rose, and Mike found a rabbit beanie baby. After that, we headed over to the children's costume section where we hit the jackpot!


Here, Mike is modeling a child's tuxedo jacket with blue sequin lapels. Very fetching. But it didn't end there!


We also found a vest that has a faux-tuxedo front, complete with red bowtie and matching cummerbund. My mom's going to make some alterations to the clips at the back of the neck so Mike will be able to breathe. Mike found a twofer! A "patriotic" magician outfit! All for only $4.99!

We continued to wander the store and found an interesting homemade costume. I thought it was a clock, but Mike didn't believe me. I showed my mom the picture, and she agreed, it's Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast.


Clock twins!


After we left Thrift Town, we decided to hit up Toys R Us in search of some magician stuff, but left empty-handed. We asked some dude where the magic stuff was, and he pointed us to the "imagination section," which prompted us to start singing the Imagination Song from South Park. He also directed us to about 5 different stores where we could also find magic stuff and then offered to do magic tricks for us. Mike got us out of that situation by saying, "Thanks!" and turning around. It reminded me of that scene from Wayne's World where the security guard (played by Chris Farley if I'm remembering correctly) "had an awful lot of information for a security guard."

Anyhoo, needing more "patriotic" gear, we headed to ground zero, aka, Walmart. We were pretty disappointed in the "patriotic" gear they had in stock. Though, they did have a particularly xenophobic shirt that said, "America: This is our land." Mike and I thought the only way it could be worse was if it said, "now get the fuck out!" I thought that could be easily remedied with some puff paint. I ended up deciding on a less offensive shirt, but do plan to add, "now get the fuck out!" to it, anyway. Because nothing's more patriotic than telling people from strange lands to get the fuck out.

We also saw this lovely number:



And this 49ers hat that made me look like I had a mullet:



Also, Bubba Paris was there, signing books or something. Hardly anyone was going up and getting anything signed. I yelled, "Bubba!" when we walked in and he pointed and waved. Woo. Thrilling.

Mike didn't end up getting anything there, and I left with a patriotic (soon to be "get the fuck out of here") shirt and some Dale, Jr. Budweiser boxer shorts that I got for a buck fifty. Some lazy employee marked them as a clearance item even though they weren't. Stickin' it to the man!

I'll try to take pictures of the rest of the stuff I got later on. Until then, enjoy Mike's fabulous outfit!

Saturday in Vegas....

OK, so Binh and I are on AIM trying to remember what we did. God, grad school really makes it hard to be able to blog long stories about what we did almost a month ago.

I think we started off the day fairly late by going to the McDonald's downstairs at the Plaza. We all ordered off the dollar menu because we aren't suckers. We then made our way down to the Deuce stop where we all purchased OFFICIAL Deuce passes for the day. That was where we saw the dude with the bad combover.



When we finally boarded the Deuce (if I recall correctly, people were having problems figuring out how to buy Deuce passes? I don't know. We finally told them to use cash since it was taking forever with credit cards.) it took us forever to make it to our destination. The Deuce used to be a relatively quick way to get up and down the strip, but now that they've branded it "the Deuce" more people know about it, therefore, it's more crowded. Then people insist on requesting every available stop. Anyhoo, it was taking forever, I remember Jose being really annoyed.

I think we got off at Excalibur and took the moving sidewalk to Mandalay Bay where we all made a beeline to Rumjungle where we each ordered Volcanoes.


Here are some random dipshits drinking Volcanoes. Because it's apparently not obvious, we don't know these people. I googled "rumjungle volcano" and did an image search. These are the dipshits I chose.

After the Volcanoes (I'm not sure what's in them, I know it involves several kinds of rum, a few of them being 151 proof and some sort of juice and grenadine) we went into the casino for a bit. It was there that I became a multi-hundredaire by winning $200 on the penny slots. I know, I know, I could have won 25x that had I played max bets. I was already playing max lines, isn't that high roller-y enough?



After that...hmmm....what did we do? Oh, we went to the Trop to get our free pull and coupon books...which included a free $5 bet on roulette. We all promptly lost. But it was free, so it's not like we could complain. We also got two-for-one drinks. I think Gabe didn't want his coupon, so I used it to get more beers.



We continued to work our way up the strip, stopping to see the lions at MGM (they were sleeping, yet there was still a huge crowd) and then ate at the food court next to the Coke museum. After that, we hopped on the Deuce and went to O'Shea's to see if there were any midgets running around (there weren't) and to see what the beer pong thing was. It was pretty lame, I thought people would be playing beer pong for money, but they weren't. They were just playing beer pong in the middle of a casino.

I tried my luck at that wheel of fortune game, you know, the one with the different dollar bills on it? Anyhoo, I turned my back and the lady spun it and it went like a quarter of a turn and she was all, "oh, you lose." WTD??? Jose is my witness, I was ripped off! Shortly after that, we caught the Deuce and headed back to Fremont Street so we could get in our Butt Rock clothes.

to be continued...I swear!

Here's something to tide you over.