I had my Girls' Night Out talk show last night, and you know, it's just that magical time of year, right? Time for stockings and kittens in red plaid ribbons and the laughter of sugarplum-high children. Time for talking snowmen and the heart-swelling of Grinches and Rudolph to screech out, "I'm cuuuute!" until you feel like poking his little plastic eyes out with a wire ornament hook.
So what was Co-Host Kim's and my theme for the show last night? Present-Wrapping Tips? How To Bake Yummy Cookies? Tidying Up For Holiday Company?
You guessed it. The finals of the 16th Annual Mr. Legs Contest.
What a riot. There were 22 contestents, about a dozen of them at the show to make a final push for votes. The votes cost 50 cents each, and Kim and I spent the show discussing hairy vs. non-hairy, asking the contestants what lotion they use to keep their skin SO supple, and throwing quarters at men strutting their stuff. We had a great time.
Ghost of Jamie Past - Las Vegas Recap, Part II (Part I here):
Although the entire plane was looking at me like I was about to start ticking and blow up any second, I arrived in Vegas relatively unscathed. Forum regulars and best buddies Shannon, Gretchen, and Maggie picked me up at the airport, and we headed back to the hotel. We exchanged gifts, and then I showered off the multiple layers of sweat and airplane grime. We got dressed and headed to Ra, an Egyptian-themed club.
'Cause everything in Vegas MUST have a theme, or else it will implode and thus fail to exist. The slot machines are all the same, the games are the same, the rooms are the same, and hell, the little old ladies clutching cups of quarters to their little old bosoms are the same, but damn it, the architecture MUST have a slant, be it Italian, French, or, uh... Aladdin.
So we went to Ra. And it was dead, but we managed to dance a little and have a pretty damn good time.
Vegas Fun Fact: The men must be totally accustomed to losing, because it's really easy to ditch guys there. When we were at Ra, some dude danced his way over to me. I let him hover for a minute or two, and when I got sick of him, I turned around, tapped his chest, and said, "OK, thanks. That's enough."
And he just left! It was great.
The next day, we woke up and went to the $20 buffet.
People. We ate breakfast, gabbed, had some seafood, giggled, had some salad, cracked up, then got ready to have lunch. We had something like 4 different meals in 3 hours, and then sat around in a buffet-induced coma before we regained our abilities to move.
Toward the end of our marathon meal, I passed around a notebook on which we all wrote commentary. Here's the transcript:
J: Mandalay Bay Bayside Buffet, 12-9-01, "Food Coma."
M: "The party is in Gretchen's panties!!!"
J: "The crab legs are in Maggie's stomach!"
M: "The salad doesn't taste as good as it looks. Time for dessert... in the desert."
G: "Champagne increases sleepiness."
J: "I'm gonna punch Gretchen in the head for putting my notebook in a mimosa puddle. Shannon says this is "heaven."
M: Heaven has a lot of dirty dishes.
S: "Shannon's desserts - chocolate moose [sic] cake, eclaire, carrot cake, tiramasu."
G: "I'm so tired I think I'm going to die."
Man. We kinda sounded like a cross between Yoda and Clueless. Must have been the mimosas.
After some lying around, Maggie, Shannon and I went down and worked off some of that in the exercise room. Well, Shannon just jumped on the elliptical machine for five minutes before we all jumped into the jacuzzi, and the girl worked out wearing a string bikini and bare feet. I told her she looked like porn.
We soaked. We steamed. We showered. It took most of the day.
That night, we went met up with my dad in Paris for dinner. Maggie and I split a nice, rare steak. Then we said goodnight to my pops and headed over to the House of Blues. The music was great. The drinks were weak.
We boogied for a while, until some dude came up and asked Maggie and me if we'd like to dance on the stage.
"Sure!"
('Cause we're big old hos like that.)
Very, very, very long night short, we ended up hanging out with the stage people in the Mandalay casino lobby bar. The main guys were rappers - white dude named Ghost, black dude named Tenacious ("My mom really named me that." "Suuure she did.")
We stayed out until 6 a.m., and it was the weirdest night... my buddies and I spent the whole night waiting for something to happen.
Nothing really ever did, except I spent more money that night than I did the rest of my time in Vegas.
The next day (Monday), Maggie and I said goodbye to Gretchen and Shannon, who had to drive back to LA. We then illegally hung around the Four Seasons spa forever again - working out, soaking, steaming, showering. It's an unbeatable forumula.
We met my dad over at Bally's, then took a cab to Sephora. I couldn't resist all the obnoxiously colored lipsticks, and my whole face was stained with hot pink and glitter by the time we left. Then, Dad took us to a fabulous seafood restaurant for dinner.
When we were trying to decide where to go, dad turns to me and said, "I hear this seafood place is good. It's called McCormick and Schmuck's."
I got all excited, "DO THEY MAKE TSHIRTS?!"
Dad replied, "I hope so!"
We were so disappointed to find out it was actually Mcormick and Schmick's, but the food made up for it.
After dinner, Maggie and I were whipped. We walked around with dad for a bit - We wanted to check out the Venetian, which has gondola rides through a canal... on the second floor.
Mags had to pick up someting with Sigfried and Roy on it, so we went to the Mirage. By then, our feet were aching and we could barely keep our eyes open, so we went back to Bally's and crashed.
The next morning, I remember hugging Maggie, and thanking her for closing the drapes. I slept in past noon, and then got up and went to my dad's convention.
More tomorrow.
