Viva Las Vegas
This Pie&Ear weekend, my brother and I decided to go to Las Vegas. . .well, I decided to go and I played on my brother's lack of travel experience to convince him to go so it wouldn't cost as much. Anyway, we drove to Santa Jorge and stayed the night there and then continued on the next day. Once there, we immediately partook in all that Vegas had to offer; Casinos, Walking the Strip, Video Games, sights, sounds, and food (especially of the In-and-Out variety). I had a great time with all of it. As most of you know, I love hanging out in Las Vegas. If it weren't too danged hot and so danged expensive I would probably move there, but I like vacationing there.
While hanging out on the Strip was great, I think the best part of the whole trip was saved for the very end. After all the walking, sight-seeing, and relatively small amount of gambling that we did, we went to one of the Outlet malls. Let me just say that I LOVE Outlet Shopping. As a guy, I'm adverse to clothes shopping in general, but when it comes to Outlet shopping, I LOVE it. I don't know what it is but it just seems different and more fun. Maybe because of all the great stuff that you can get for so little. It's great.
But even just being at the Outlet mall wasn't the best part. The best part was taking my brother and actually convincing him that he needed clothes. This is big for several reasons:
1) Since I've known this kid, if ever he's had a few bucks in his hand, his first and only impulse would be to spend this at the comic book store. Comics, role-playing-game cards, dice, whatever, these took priority, above food, definately clothes, and even movies.
2) His self-proclaimed status as a nerd and a geek places him in a category who as a general rule don't have any fashion sense at all except on Betazed or Coruscant. Now I'm not saying that I have any sort of contemporary or trendy fashion sense, but I escaped the game den a long time ago and can at least recognize and appreciate some of the more modern trends, heck, on occasion I've been seen to watch 'What Not to Wear' with some of my female friends, and therefore have more of an idea what is going on. Also, watching VH1 helps.
3) My brother is tight with his cash. Whenever his monthy comic book binge is satisified, he holds to whatever else he has left. If he can find a good deal, or a free deal, he exploits it. Prime example, he's been living with me for the past month rent free. (That's another blog entry)
So, getting my brother to spend money on clothes gave me a satisifaction I never knew. I was all excited and kept wanting him to spend more.
It started with shirts. Reasonably, he needed collared shirts for work. This was the angle that I worked with. We started at the PacSun, continued to Rue21, and so on. Once finding a good deal at Benzene on shirts (he got a bunch), we needed to find shoes. Factory Brand Shoes was our next stop. He went in wanting to buy one pair, this was not enough for me. Two pairs of new shoes were what he purchased. I was satisfied. Well, you can't buy new shirts and new shoes without picking up some new pants to go with them, obviously. This required the services of Eddie Bauer. Two pair later, I was jealous. I couldn't come all this way and make my brother spend so much without picking up something for myself. It was off to the Adidas store. After much searching I found an awesome fleece for the fall/winter and some new basketball shorts. I even picked up something for my little sister so she could enjoy in our loot.
I think it goes without saying that I had the most wonderful time ever: I got some new clothes, I helped my brother spend some of his hard earned money, and I went to Vegas.
It was a great weekend. I don't know how I can top it.
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