Monday, June 15, 2009

More Vegas shenanigans...


While I missed on graduation weekend for more colleges and universities back at home (Congrats to those who graduated - u know who u are...), I was at Las Vegas last weekend for the first time since that crazy trip back in late December. Friday night was just shenanigans as I was randomly walking around The Mirage and checked out who would be at the Jet nightclub. Turns out that the Beat Freaks from America's Best Dance Crew season 3 are there performing, and I was like I'm going in as an one man army. So, I jet-setted back to my room in the Palazzo to quickly change to "nightlife attire" in which I brought along just in case something like this would happen. I did see the crew walking along entering the club for a quick second or two while I was in line for about an hour alone, and then I got in around 12:30 am. I didn't think rolling into Jet alone would happen, but I got in no problem so that was cool. Now, I know if you're in a place like Jet, you're supposed to go crazy dancing like a freak and drinking till you can drink no longer. For me, however, I was just there to enjoy the music, the atmosphere, and the performance as I rolled in solo and I didn't want to do anything stupid, but considering the shy person that I am especially at a place like that, maybe that is a good thing even though it is Vegas. Then again, "Sandstorm" with the timed lights is pretty nuts. Just being in Jet for the second time made me realize how I missed the friends back at home and especially my original Jet partners in crime back in December (I wished they were there too for more good times).


Around 1:30 am, The Beat Freaks finally came out to perform a 10-15 minute dance medley. At first, I thought I missed the performance while I was in line and I was about to leave too, but good thing I waited around just in case. The major songs they danced to were "Universal Mind Control" by Common, "Boom Boom Pow" by Black Eyed Peas, and "Beggin" by Madcon. My view watching them was from the middle of the dance floor, which wasn't really the greatest view especially watching a dance group, but it was good enough for me even though I couldn't see the footwork (oh well). After they finished performing, I decided to leave as well and that was a fun time actually seeing them perform in person (Also they look cooler in person too).

The rest of the Vegas trip was pretty much chill as I went to as many hotels/casinos as I can to check out what's new and who's performing in the coming month. Some upcoming acts made me wish I would come back to Vegas like The Dream & Keri Hilson at the House of Blues on the 20th, Pitbull at LAX on the 26th, and Lil' Jon at Prive on the 27th. Last Saturday night, I didn't feel like going to the nightclubs as I wasn't really feeling the performances there such as Fat Joe at LAX, Eve at Pure, and the Ronnie G Audio & Visual Show at Jet. Plus, it was a Saturday night when there's more people in long lines ready to party and so on. I decided to go on my usual Vegas marathon walk going to the MGM Grand from the Palazzo to shop around looking at stuff if they're worth purchasing and stare at whatever is left of the Vegas casino arcade scene, which is indeed slowly dying as I mentioned before. Pretty much the new hot game at hotel/casino arcades is Guitar Hero Arcade, which is basically Guitar Hero III for the arcade, meaning it is a year or two late compared to console versions. The guitar has no whammy bar, but generates star power generously when playing those long notes and the fret buttons/strum bar felt fine as well as I didn't really have any problems. Then I was staring at Blazing Storm in GameWorks, a light gun shooter by Namco that is a combination of Time Crisis and Criterion's FPS Black with a huge emphasis on destruction. Plus, that game has Shadow of the Colossus-sized bosses to defeat as well, but my issue with the game as a whole is the choppy framerate, which is 30 frames per second. If it was at 60 frames, it would have been way better.

Okay, that's enough of my Vegas shenanigans. Other than making 8 bucks to 40 bucks at the slots yesterday, it was just another Vegas trip for me besides rolling into Jet solo. Other fails consisted of me not buying anything at all shopping-wise and staying alcohol free the whole trip (I thought about getting a Fat Tuesday to remind myself of the last time I had one when I completely lost it), but I made it up by drinking at Ra last night with the friends to celebrate the Lakers' title win. Hopefully, I will go back to a regular schedule and try to catch up on reviews like the Uncharted 2 MP Beta and inFAMOUS (I still wanna talk about it even though it has been 2 weeks since beating the good run and I want to start an evil run maybe today). Perhaps, Fat Princess, the highly anticipated PSN game of awesomeness will come out this week too and my mind will be blown. We'll see on that (Update - Just bought Let's Tap for the Wii.. This should be interesting).

(Pics courtesy of Beat Freaks' TwitPic)