I just flew in from Vegas...

...And boy, are my arms tired! //rimshot//

To be truthful, I'm tired all over. Boozing and gambling on very little sleep for 4 days straight tends to do that to a person. Especially when you drank more in 4 days than in the past 4 months combined. Despite my dragging ass today, the trip was totally worth it. I had a great time, and I'm definitely not going to wait another 7 years before I go back.

Things I learned on my Las Vegas pilgrimage:

1. Absolutely no one cares about the Detroit Lions in Las Vegas. The guy behind the counter in the sports book seemed to be honestly surprised to be taking my action on the most meaningless NFL game of the weekend. In the casino we were hanging out in Sunday, I had to search high and low to find a decent spot to watch the Lions game. The sports book had the game on 1 smallish screen that was hard to see, same for the lounge. I finally found a decent spot in the casino showroom on a big flat screen, where I was probably the only person in a 1700 mile radius to watch the Lions win.

2. Jason Hanson hates gamblers, especially this one. The field goal he made with approximately 40 seconds left in the game cost yours truly 40 bucks! I took the Chiefs getting 4.5 points, as there was NO WAY in Hell I was betting on the Lions. Of course, Hanson's meaningless field goal made it a 5 point game, the Lions covered, and I was that much poorer.

Even when the Lions win, they find a way to fuck me over. God damn Lions...

3. The Red Wings are going off at 5-1, and the Pistons at 10-1, to win their respective league championships. Both those odds felt right. As far as I know, the casino sports book I was hanging at didn't have World Series odds posted for the Tigers yet, but I wasn't exactly going put of my way to find out. I had more important things to do, like drink, gamble, drink, lose money, drink, catch a show, drink, hit a buffet, drink and drink. Priorities, man!

4. I came down with a bad cold or some such on Saturday. I had to suck it up, and drink through the pain. Thankfully, Jagermeister shots will soothe a very sore throat.

5. Flying sucks. Air travel, along with everything that goes with it, is a pain in the fucking ass. I flew all the time in the 90's, but haven't needed to to fly in quite a while. Before 9/11, to be honest. God damn, have things gotten worse over the years. I'm not even talking about the lame ass security that looks to be as effective as Mike Martz's offense. The TSA officer was more enthralled by my retro pair of Reebok Pumps that in actually looking for shoe bombs.

I'm a tall guy with long legs, and the coach seats on a Northwest flight would be uncomfortable for thalidomide flipper baby, let alone me. It was 4 hours of fidgety misery being wedged into a flying sardine can. I'm old enough to remember when flying was a fun, glamorous way to travel. Now it's like riding a bus. A smelly, cramped, expensive fucking bus.

Now that I'm home, I see that I need to get back up to speed. There was a fair amount of news coming out of the D while I was drunk gone. I found out about the Dontrelle Willis contract surfing the web on my phone while killing time at the McCrarran airport car rental terminal. I read about Rich Rodriguez giving the entire Wolverines coaching staff the ziggy while traveling between casinos Friday night. My only Lions exposure was from watching some of the game on Sunday morning. (10 am kickoffs are damn cool, by the way)

As you might guess, it was killing me not being able to write about the big local stories. I hope to get my thoughts up on the latest and greatest going on in the D throughout the next 24 hours or so, before I head out to the family Christmas shindig tomorrow afternoon.

So, in other words, I'M BACK!

Consider yourselves warned.