What happens in Vegas… gets posted on Subway Chatter. Well, at least the stuff I can remember does.

I love March Madness. One of my favorite things to do has always been to park myself on the couch and watch the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. Each year I will be watching the tournament, captivated by the dogfights and the upsets, thinking to myself, “it doesn’t get much better than this.” Well I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong (it doesn’t happen often). It DOES get much better. All of those years I could have been watching the game from a pool or a Vegas sports book, surrounded by twelve of my friends, being served free drinks by beautiful women. That’s right, as some of you know, this year I spent the first two rounds in Las Vegas with twelve of my friends. We went out there with one thing in mind— to bet on the NCAA tournament. While we were there, though, we figured we might as well have a ridiculous time. My only regret is that I was unable to stop you idiots from ousting the future MFH, Julianne Hough, in the first round of our Tournament of Hotties. Unlike The Sports Guy, I was too busy having fun to actually take the time to jot down notes on my trip. (And unlike The Sports Guy, I picked Kansas St. to take out USC in the first round while he had the Trojans going to the Final Four.) On the flip side, it’s now practically impossible for me to remember many details from the trip.

One event that does stick out in my mind is the Siena-Vanderbilt game on Friday afternoon. Most of our crew grew up right near Siena and have been rooting for them since we were kids. We all bet them pretty heavy against the spread and on the money line, and then we proceeded to take over a good-sized section of the Palms sports book, many of us donning the Siena Green and Gold. We told everyone who walked near us to bet Siena, “It’s a lock.” We had spent the early part of the day drinking by the pool and at the tables, so we were already a little drunk, but we convinced the cocktail waitress to keep fresh drinks coming our way for the whole game and make the rest of her area an afterthought. We cheered exceptionally loud for every good Saints’ play and shouted down anyone who dared clap for a Vandy bucket. To say we were a little obnoxious is to say Alessandra Ambrosia is mildly attractive. But that is exactly the way we wanted it. By halftime we controlled the entire sports book. We did a couple rounds of shots (that were promised if Siena took a lead into halftime) and mocked Roy, the poor fellow who, despite our warnings, bet Vandy and talked smack to us at the beginning of the game. As the Saints pulled away in the second half behind a phenomenal performance from Kenny Hasbrouck and great shooting by Tay Fisher, my friend Gus and I turned to each other and simultaneously exclaimed, “Oh my god, they’re actually going to do it.” To his credit, Roy hung in there as we danced around him chanting, “The Saints are coming” and other phrases that don’t translate well on paper but drew laughs from the crowd. In the final minutes we received numerous ‘thank you’s’ from the patrons who headed our words and bet Siena, “just because of you guys.” In the end, Siena won by 21, we all scored big on our bets (which we all lost back and then some at the tables), and we had one of the most enjoyable two-hour spans we’ve had in years. (Which was preceded by, and followed by many more of the most enjoyable two-hour spans we’ve had in years. After all, we were in Vegas.)

By the end of the trip, all twelve of us had lost money. One of the crew was detained by the police, one infiltrated a “vagine” that did not cost money, two fell in love with cocktail waitresses who claimed they were married, four had the best dinner ever at N9NE without paying the $450+ bill (thank you, Mr. Underhill), one walked the paparazzi line at Pure during K-Fed’s birthday party, six saw Fuk Yu and Fuk Me, one had the best week of his life twenty minutes into the trip, one went 38 straight hours without so much as a nap, three were turned off from Baccarat forever, four were kicked out of Coyote Ugly three minutes after arriving, one made out with a three hundred pound woman in the taxi line outside of Caesar’s…on purpose, and the following quotes (which could really only be said in Vegas) were either said or heard:

“Next thing I know, she’s makin’ out with my weena!”

And that’s just what I remember. Vegas baby, Vegas.