Vegas baby, Vegas!

You might know that I am ever-so-slightly facinated with Las Vegas.

However, do you know how this happened? Let me tell you a tale....

Or, rather, I can just say it simply: It was half Bill Simmons' articles like these about Vegas, and half Amr reading them too, and agreeing that Vegas had to be some kind of bad idea-fueled Shangri-La. Oh, and the movie Swingers didn't hurt, either.

I think the gratuitous re-reading of Simmons' articles (before ESPN.com became assholes and made all their archives "Insider" access only) which included a week-long running diary leading up to one of the last Tyson fights, to the regular recounting of his most recent (or just appropriate to the article being written) Vegas stories, and my near pathological watching of Swingers (I've even watched the "Making Of" movie on the DVD and the version where they give Jon Favereau a telestrater to show the weird little things they threw in. That might not seem like much, but seeing as it's the only movie I've ever bothered to do anything other than watch the "normal" movie for, that's saying something) just fed the beast.

And unfortunately (fortunately?), my trip last February just gave me enough of a taste I had to go back. Granted, I've kind of forced my hand with a little drunken impetuousness, but hey... I'm going again either way... I've just made sure I have a deadline for when I go next.

Vegas, baby.

Vegas...