Vegas....Tired....Very...Very...Tired....

Since there's been so much said written about Vegas, a lot by people way more talented than I could ever be, I won't get into a long discussion of what it's like or my impressions of it. I will say this, though: I often wonder what would happen years and years into the future after our civilization has long been gone (which, according to my notes should be happening any time now), some archelogists are going to dig up Vegas and uncover a pyramid, a castle, an eiffel tower, another statue of liberty, and a whole bunch of tall buildings. What would they say? Would they look upon this and wonder what sort of amazing culture could produce all the wonders of the world in one spot? Or maybe they'll think just like the British and the Romans carted off all the great treasures of antiquity to show how cultured they were, will they say that we Americans were so cultured because we carted off all the great things in the world?

Anyways, here's the things I love about Vegas:

-that 10 o'clock at night feels like 7 and that midnight feels like 10 o'clock and three in the morning feels like midnight. And so does 4 o'clock in the morning. As well as five o'clock in the morning.

-that when you walk around the casino in ten in the morning and see bunch of people out and about in their formal wear, you're never sure whether they're just getting an early start in the days activities or haven't finished last nights.

-frail old ladies in wheelchairs and all sorts of medical devices attached sitting at slot machines and pressing button after button after button

-that the MGM grand designated one corner of the casino as a lion's cage and shipped in four female lions in a glass encosure with glass walkways people can walk through for no particular reason other than just because

-that the Belagio is a crazy mix of Italian villa and Chinese empirial palace and yet it makes kind of sense.

-And that the Belagio has this huge lagoon of water that they also use to throw hugewater fountain shows every fifteen minutes because what's the point of just having a huge body of water in the middle of the desert when you can also have it spout off in crazy designs and patters

-That Vegas somehow makes rednecks want to walk around in cowboy boots, gangsta wannabe's sport all their bling, every woman under 35 get in touch with their inner Paris Hilton, and teenagers to think nothing of walking around a casino at 11 in the morning wearing ski caps and police shades.

-That Vegas might just have the most spectacular display of racks (both real and not real) per square capita than any other place in the world. And I didn't even go to a strip joint.

-That going to the Paris Casino made me want to go to both Paris and Disneyland

-And finally, that after just being there for two days, I feel like I haven't slept in a month and have been away for a long, long time. Like it's one of those things you always see in sci-fi or fantasy books about going to some other dimension in which you live for a long, long time only to go back to your real dimension and you've only been gone for a couple of hours.