More than words – The Voice of There

I decided to give Rick his own column since he does have a unique way of expressing himself. Also it saves me the time of putting disclaimers on each and every article he does. ;) So for some comic relief, we present to you The Blue Nose Files

PAST RAMBLINGS

Interview with God

An Awesome Group
Space Drama
Apology to State of Kansas

Exclusive Report on The State of There Address
Exclusive Second Report on the State of There Address

THE BLUE NOSES GO TO VEGAS

by Rick_Slick

My overwhelming success with my report on the State of There Address caused Geea to receive all sorts of letters of praise from my fans, most of whom happen to be creepy stalkers. Her actual words were something like "angry hatemail, formal letters of complaint, and death threats", but I know she's just teasing. As a result of my incredible awesomeness, she sent me on a special week-long vacation that she called "suspension without pay" -- and apparently I am the first staff member ever to receive such a reward! It sounded pretty cool to be able to get away from There for a few days, so I had RavenTresses start packing right quick. When she finished three days later, we were on our way to sunny Las Vegas, Nevada for a long weekend of drinking, dancing, and losing money!

We chose to fly to Vegas via hoverboat, because driving the bacio would have taken too long. As we floated over the city, we were impressed by all of the huge hotel casinos! We could almost hear the anguished cries of poverty-stricken gamblers from way up there! I decided that we would stay at the Stratosphere after I crash-landed our hoverboat into the top of the tower where the restaurant was located. We probably almost knocked the whole thing over! The Stratosphere is that huge Space Needle-looking thing that you always see in the cut-scenes of Vegas on the TV show "CSI". And if that show was any indication of the typical Vegas night, we were in for some real danger because apparently people get murdered and slaughtered like ALL the time. First on our list of things to do was to gamble... and this is where my disappointment started. Apparently, money I get from the ATM actually comes out of MY bank account!! So it hadn't been free cash all this time after all! Also, among all the tables for playing poker, roulette, and craps, there seemed to be no Skee-Ball games. I was hoping to win a bunch of Skee-Ball tickets so I could redeem them for a cute stuffed animal for RavenTresses, but I guess casinos work a bit differently.

So I went looking for like an "Old Maid" table or a "Go Fish" table, but the best I could do was a game called "3-5-7". The object of this game is the dealer gives you cards, and then you look at your cards, then the dealer turns over some more cards, and then you lose or win some poker chips (which, by the way, taste nothing like potato chips, for those of you who were curious like myself). I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but I ended up with $200 more than I started with so it couldn't have been all that complex. I also played a little roulette, which involved putting some chips (poker, not potato) down onto the table, watching the dealer spin the roulette wheel, waiting for the ball to land on a number, then watching him take all of my chips. Pai Gow Poker is fun, and it sounded like a card game that ninjas played. However, since I am not a ninja, I wasn't very good at it and lost some money there too.

The cool thing is that you get free drinks while you gamble, therefore combining two vices for your convenience. No one is usually impressed with me ordering some Kool-Aid (shaken, not stirred) from the cocktail waitress, so Raven was in charge of drinks and started getting us a bunch of lemon drop shots. I'm not sure what they're made of, but I think they have some sort of lemon in them. She proceeded to get sloppy drunk while I continued to gamble, because every time she finished her lemon drop, I secretly swapped my mostly-full shotglass out with hers. Speaking of sloppy drunk women, another fun thing to do is to play the slot machines. This is where you put your money into the machine, mash down some buttons until the wheels spin around, then you walk away all depressed and broke.

Later on, while I still had some money left, we whipped out the ol' bacio and took a ride down Las Vegas Boulevard to check out the sights. There were a lot of pretty hotels all up and down the main strip with all sorts of crying, broke people lamenting on the sidewalks. We went to the Venetian, which is all decked out like a Venice, Italy copycat imitation, and also Treasure Island. The Venetian looked really fancy-schmancy and high-falutin', and had a bunch of shops inside where Raven was eager to spend my money. We shared a romantic boat ride through the replica of the famous ditch that runs through Venice while some lady sang all opera-like to us. Luckily, the lady wasn't fat, because I didn't want this to be over. Afterwards, we bacio'ed across the street to Treasure Island which wasn't really an island at all, so that was a big false-advertising lawsuit waiting to happen if I ever saw one. Come to think of it, there wasn't any treasure to be found, either. Unless you count the millions of dollars this casino must rake in from all y'all gambling addicts as treasure.

We ate at a cute little tropical restaurant inside where Raven promised me once again that "No, I'll eat everything this time!" but instead ate like three noodles and a giblet of chicken and she said she was full, and then washed it down with about 3-4 margaritas. Now, in her defense, even though she was drunk she was still able to beat me at a two-player car racing video game at a nearby arcade, and we tied at air hockey. And I was pretty sober, so that makes me a fairly pathetic loser. I did, however, beat her at arm wrestling. She almost won when she was using two arms as well as swooping down to bite my hand as a distraction, but I wasn't about to let Raven win something else, so I hooked my pinky finger into her left nostril and took her down that way. As I helped her stumble out the door, we stayed to watch an exciting outdoors show with hot, scantily-clad pirate women and things exploding in huge fireballs, which pretty much fulfills all of a guy's requirements for entertainment.

That night, we went dancing at one of the hippest clubs around! We busted out all of the fancy emotes such as 'heyhey, 'twist, 'nightfever, and 'yessir. People laughed at us in what could only be the laughter of sincere awe and respect of our dance moves. It's too bad I didn't bring along any dance macro programs, or I would have put them all to shame! After the live band stopped playing for the night, it was time to head back to the hotel room and pack up our things. Unfortunately, our weekend getaway had come to an end, and soon it would be time to return to the hustle and bustle of sitting around There watching Raven try on clothes and trying to use big words in my Voice articles for Geea so I seem sophistimicated and whatnot. On about three hours of sleep, we headed out early the next morning because we're told that most people don't sleep until the flight back from Vegas. Unfortunately, I had to fly the hoverboat, so that didn't turn out too well.

Anyway, this is the part of the story where it gets all cute and magical, because while I'm busy using clever references to There to describe a trip to Vegas, the real people behind Rick_Slick and RavenTresses stopped calling each others' bluffs and met up in Vegas last week after seven months of dating in-game. I would just like to proclaim that it was the best first date ever! It was completely uncanny how pretty we both were in real life, just like our avatars are in-game! We both had an awesome time together and now present to you... the Real Life Blue Noses!

http://www.therevoice.com/VivaLasVegas.wma