The day was spent snoozing, taking advantage of those 1.50
drafts, and mucking around on the Internet (free in the
lobby). Tried to find decent tix to Turkey but failed.
Resisted the call of the slots.

I had the do not disturb sign on for the duration.

Later in the afternoon I went to the Strip and walked around
until, sufficiently baked, it was time to go to Batista's:
I was the first there and discovered that the house wine,
not hideous, was $6 a pop (it is poured freely at dinner).
At the bar, it was served cold, which was fine, as a thermo
somewhere read 44, about a dozen above my comfort zone. But
it's a dry heat, I managed to croak to nobody in particular.

Around 8 people came in, and we ended up with maybe 20,
not quite the number expected.

One needn't go home hungry or sober from this place.

For starters, copious baskets of very garlicky bread come
out, followed by "super salad" and then the main course. I
had the mellifluous minestrone and cannelloni, the former a
nice broth heavily enriched with vegetables and cheese, the
latter substantial pasta packages, not exactly cannelloni,
really, perhaps cannelloni malfatti, with a pleasantly
seasoned meat mixture (seemed beef, pork, a little spinach)
and topped with a nutmegged white sauce. On the side pretty
decent chopped spinach. On the whole people seemed pleased
with the price-performance ratio - the salad, lasagna,
eggplant Parm, and cioppino got good notices, though BAMAT
found her chicken substantially overdone.

For bev you get red wine (almost dry, unidentifiable,
decent) or white wine (quite sweet, tasted like rotten
cantaloupe juice) or Adam's ale.

"Homemade cappuccino" finishes off the meal - a quite sweet
hot chocolate with a little weak coffee substance topped
with reddiwipoid, not unpleasant at all, sort of right for
the setting, but not what you'd hoped for, either.

The Fremont Street Experience topped off our evening, with
the awesome light show (what's the opposite of psychedelic?)
and drinks and gambling at the Golden Nugget, where thanks
to Ripper's pointing out that my beer had been comped
(looking at the bill, I thought, five bucks for a bottle,
what's that all about, but there's some fine print that I
didn't understand, being a total babe in the woods), I
actually cashed out a couple bucks ahead.

I figured it was time to go and reserve tickets for the noon
Tina Martini show, so it was goodbye time, and back to Main
Street and the free wi-fi. It took me several tries to get
Ticketmaster to take the charge, but eventually it did.