FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Comdex in Vegas, but we just stopped by Phoenix to see Arnie
Old Nov 14, 2000, 7:19 am
  #8  
QuietLion
Original Member
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Kirkland, WA
Posts: 6,932
All hands on Comdex

The wakeup call came on schedule and room service brought us a couple orders of that great MGM lox and two bagels which we enjoyed while we dressed for the day’s activities. We had arranged to have the gold MGM limo meet us at 7:50 a.m. to take us to the convention center for Comdex. We stopped at Paris to pick up Tony and Tim and brought along the remainder of the truffles for breakfast for them. We had the limo drop us at the Las Vegas Hilton so we could see the morning keynote by Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. She opened the speech by acknowledging HP’s poor earnings results for the quarter that had sent the market into a tailspin this morning and then proceeded to outline her vision for the future of technology in vague generalities worthy of an address to the Democratic National Convention.

After she was done we called our brokers to short HP stock then mounted an assault on the exhibit floor. Microsoft had the most enormous booth I had ever seen surrounded by seemingly endless partner exhibits. We wandered around looking for freebies and hit paydirt at the giant booth of a Japanese manufacturing company that had a video slot machine you could play to win prizes. Hunnybear won a twin-dial watch and I won a toy electronic violin. We wandered around some more, taking in only a fraction of the exhibits, then called the limo to return us to MGM Grand.

I played some video poker while Hunnybear rested. She came down to watch me a bit later and no sooner had she stepped away from the machine to get herself a cup of tea than I held the Jack and King of Clubs and drew the rest of the Royal family! Not expecting a hit on a three-card draw, I let out a whoop. Two Royals in two days! That gave me a nice cushion for the rest of the trip for sure. Historically I had been hitting the Royal early and then losing back more than it was worth but it would be tough to lose back this much in a couple days. Knock wood. I tried to call Arnie, who requires me to inform him when I hit a Royal, but his cell phone was in the penalty box every time I tried so he’d have to read about it here.

Tony, Tim, and his Christine (not to be confused with Shaun’s Christine) met us shortly thereafter and we went to Emeril’s for a lobster lunch. My slot host, who had been reading Lion Tales and therefore knew every problem I had been having even without my complaining to him, double- and triple-checked all our restaurant reservations so everything was in order. He asked if we had made the reservations through the con-see-AIR and I smiled and said yes. We sat in the café, which I actually like better than the restaurant for atmosphere, and had several yummy chilled lobsters that were just as good as last time. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but I had just a couple bites of Tony’s banana cream pie before signing the check.

After lunch we played a bit of Pai Gow Poker and I got hoovered but not enough to make a dent in my Royals. Tony went back to the hotel to change so I went back to the machine in search of Royal #3 but instead lost a bunch. The gang met us for drinks up in the penthouse and the con-see-AIR dug up some maraschino cherries for Manhattans. The butler even found a bottle of Angostura bitters for us. We showed Tony, Tim, and Christine the suite and then headed down for dinner at Brown Derby.

For starters we all had Cobb Salad, sharing three among the six of us. I tried the osso buco at our waiter’s recommendation. Served with morel sauce, it was the best I’d ever had and a huge portion. Hunnybear’s rack of lamb was inordinately fatty but she worked around it and the waiter took it off the bill as if that mattered. Tim and Christine shared the chateaubriand while Tony had filet mignon and coworker Damien, joining us, had the huge porterhouse. We had a few bottles of a nice Chianti to accompany and it all went down well.

Hunnybear went up to bed but Tony, Tim and I returned to the Pai Gow Poker tables after dinner and I recovered most of my losses. Uncharacteristically, I outlasted Tony, who retired early for a morning flight. I finally left Tim to fight the good fight alone and headed up to the penthouse and got a few hours’ sleep.


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