I packed a bag full of Fat Dick Simon promotional cards and hopped on a flight to the Mid-West last week for a family Thanksgiving get-together. Surprisingly, it wasn’t snowing, and I ended up having a lot of fun. It was tough to leave the laptop at home, but I’ve been working pretty hard on some new sites to be launched in the next few weeks, and I figured that some rest and relaxation would be helpful.

LAX on the day before Thanksgiving is way overrated. Everytime I have to travel the day before Thanksgiving, I get warnings from people about how the airport is going to be a mess. Accordingly, I always arrive at the airport about an hour before my flight, which I absoutely hate doing. This year, I was through security with my boarding pass in about ten minutes, which left me with about fifty minutes to get hammered before my flight. I ended up with a hundred dollar bar tab after many strong margaritas, and a new friend from El Paso named Rob. What’s up, Rob. If you were a hot chick with a nice ass I would definitely be using your business card to follow up with you right about now.

I passed out on the flight after a Heineken, which was much better than puking in the airplane bathroom as I did on the way to Vegas last week.

The next day, I started drinking at my family get-together around 11am, which was actually 9am Pacific time. I typically use the fact that everyone in my family is technically inept to my advantage by simply mentioning that I work with computers when I get questions about what I do, which causes everyone to tune out and allows me to skate around my involvement in the adult industry pretty easily. Unfortunately, after about eight Coronas on an empty stomach, I found myself in a pretty detailed conversation with a cousin about emerging trends in the pay-per-view porn industry. Once I realized that I had accidently given away my big secret, I also realized that my cousin was surprisingly knowledgeable about porn, and also drunk. I promised to provide him with a steady flow of pornsite passwords in exchange for keeping his lips closed, so I think I’ll be cool.

On Friday afternoon, I randomly ran one of my old friends, Erika, in downtown Chicago. Erika and I spent a lot of time together back in the day, and we ended up going out on Friday night for dinner and drinks. I hadn’t talked to her in years, and it was great to catch up. We went out to one of Chicago’s best clubs later, and I ended up in the VIP area getting bottle service. I only get bottle service on special occasions, but everytime I do, I love watching people approach me for free booze. I heard one of the best lines ever on Friday when a middle-aged woman approached me and said ‘I just found out my husband is cheating on me. Can I have a drink?’ Needless to say, she was on my tab from that point on.

Speaking of my tab, something amazing happened towards the end of the night. The club owner stopped by my table to chat for a few minutes and ended up being pretty cool. I’m not sure if it was my good looks, my wit, or my dancing, but something persuaded him to comp my entire tab, which was most likely around $2k. Fucking amazing.

Some crazyness happened at the club, and I brought a small group back to my hotel for some afterhours action which was even crazier. I finally got to sleep around 9am on Saturday morning.

Getting back to LAX on Sunday night was a complete mess. I had to wait about half an hour for a cab, and I was tired as hell, but seeing family and friends over Thanksgiving was well worth it. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday because its bullshit level is pretty low. Most other holidays are surrounded by a huge commercial bullshit lead-up. The lead up for Christmas is about six weeks, during which I have to hear a bunch of shitty songs and buy a lot of gifts. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m all about capitalism and making money, and I understand that Christmas is a necessary evil. The lead-ups for Easter and Halloween get longer every year. Also, Easter is Christian and Halloween is Pagan, so you really can’t win if you celebrate both. Thanksgiving isn’t associated with any religion, and really the only people who stand to profit are Turkey farmers, which I’m not really mad about because they tend not to advertise.

Thanksgiving is simply about having a big meal with people you like, which makes it a pretty sweet holiday. Also, Thanksgiving dinner typically leads to some excellent blow-ups and disclosures such as ‘Dad, I’m gay’ and ‘Dad I’m getting married to Tyrone next month whether you like it or not,’ which makes it extra fun.

So, valued Fat Dick Simon reader, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving as I did. Also, now that I have taken a little break from work, I am ready to hit the ground running, and I’ll have some exciting new stuff to show you over the next couple weeks. Holler.

I’m still recovering from my weekend trip to Las Vegas. Why the long recovery time? That’s a good question. I am more than capable of handling copious amounts of alcohol and drugs for multiple nights in a row, so I thought that I was ready for whatever Vegas could throw at me. Unfortunately, I was not ready for O’Shea’s Casino, or as I like to call it, Las Vegas’ best-kept secret.

I won’t bore you with the details of my Vegas trip from start to finish because, when it really comes down to it, everything I encountered was par for the course in Vegas, and you have probably heard someone else tell a Vegas story with the exact same elements. Yes, I got hammered at LAX for an hour during my flight delay. Yes, I puked on the plane on the way to Vegas after drinking a full glass of vodka that the flight attendant would not allow me to pay for. Yes, I got wasted at Jet and then Pure on Friday night. Yes, I wet myself after passing out on the floor of my hotel room after getting in. Yes, I did copious amounts of blow in the VIP section of Body English on Saturday night. Yes, someone threatened to call the cops on me after I staggered out of a club bathroom with a powered nose until I attempted to pay them off with a dollar. Yes, I tag teamed a Guatemalan hooker on Sunday morning with three of my friends. This is all par for the course. What I really want to talk about is the hidden gem of the Las Vegas Strip: O’Shea’s Casino.

I had been paying around $16 for cocktails all night on Friday, so naturally staggering into O’Shea’s Casino, which offers a happy hour featuring $1 draft domestic beer from 2AM to 8PM seven days each week, was refreshing for me. I had paid seven bucks for a Coors Light earlier in the night at Jet, so a dollar Budweiser sounded like a pretty fucking good idea to me at around four in the morning. 12oz plastic cups, too.

I ended up pounding domestic draft beers until about six in the morning and then returned to O’Shea’s at around five the next day to pre-party. Obviously, after Body English I went straight back to O’Shea’s to do some more nose candy in their spacious handicap bathroom and pound even more domestic drafts.

Some reasons why O’Shea’s Casino is officially my favorite spot on the strip:

1. O’Shea’s offers the world’s longest happy hour. I challenge anyone to find me another establishment offering a happy hour that actually runs for sixteen hours. 2AM until 8PM? Fuggedaboudit!
2. While O’Shea’s claims to offer three types of domestic beer at one dollar (Budweiser, Bud Light, and Michelob Light), after ordering all three at one time and giving each glass a taste / smell / consistency test, I am convinced that all three taps run to the exact same keg. In this keg, I am relatively convinced, exists none of the afore-mentioned beers. Instead, I am pretty sure that O’Shea’s only offers Natural Light. At a dollar, I still don’t give a fuck.
3. One dollar domestic draft beer is so cheap that you can actually order one for the specific purpose of throwing it at the guy across the bar with the bad shirt on.
4. O’Shea’s hires little people to walk around dressed as Leprechauns. They don’t give a fuck and since all little people are alcoholics, it’s a win-win situation.
5. O’Shea’s offers the best game in Las Vegas: The Pissing Contest. Yes, that’s right. O’Shea’s actually rewards you for pissing out all of their delicious draft beer. Check out a picture of this fucker:
   
   

   I’m still a little unclear about what you actually win if you piss a lot because unfortunately this amazing invention was not working, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t care. This machine actually measures how much you pee, and I don’t know about you, but after about fifteen domestic draft beers, I have to pee pretty badly, and I usually pee longer than the guy next to me at the other urinal, and I usually wonder exactly how much I have peed because I am always sure I have set some kind of new record. It’s about time that a fine establishment like O’Shea’s has developed a way to award me for my amazing piss.

So the bottom line here is that O’Shea’s is fucking awesome. It’s officially my favorite place in the world. I’m not exactly sure where it is because I was wasted for pretty much the entire weekend, but I’m pretty sure that it is across the street from the Mirage or something like that.

I’m going back to Vegas soon, and I hope they have their Pissing Contest machine fixed because I am saving up.

This week I attended my first ever tradeshow, Webmaster Access West, and had an absotely amazing time. Start to finish, this show was productive, informative, and enjoyable.

Shows have never turned me on much as my impression was always that I can fuel all of my projects with purchased traffic if I understand how to effectively use it. Unfortunately, this resulted me in not actively pursuing contacts in the industry. Recently, I have been trying to really take my business to the next level, and I thought that attending a show would be a good idea. My only regret is that I did not attend a show earlier.

I made massive amounts of contacts at the show and everyone I encountered was extremely helpful. Attending was the best investment of time and money that I have made recently, and I have already seen a big return on my investment.

The show started on Wednesday night with the Porn Poker Tour. I’m not much of a poker player, but the tournament served as an excellent networking opportunity. Oh yeah, and there was an open bar. Obviously, I lost all of my chips after about an hour.

On Thursday, Epoch was hosting its tenth anniversary party, which was one of the best and most productive parties I have been to in quite a while. The party was on the Universal Studios lot, and many big players in the industry were there. Wolfgang Puck’s restauraunt catered the event, so the food was great. There is nothing quite like being able to munch on Lobster quesadillas when you get the drunken munchies after having too many martinis.

I ran into XXX Jay, whom I frequently blogstalk, at the party, as well as a bunch of program owners who were helpful and supportive. I also met Ramone from Monsters of Cock, who appeared to really enjoy having a twenty minute conversation with me about how the fuck he has such a massive cock. Ramone was super nice and great to hang out with for a while. He has a new site he is launching soon, and I am going to be sure to plug the hell out of it.

I staggered out of the Epoch party around midnight and made my way back to the hotel to catch a cab with a friend to Lucky Strike in Hollywood for another party. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of the people behind some big companies like Sextoy Dave, another person I frequently blogstalk. Dave was rolling deep with about ten super hot ladies (as is his style always). I also ran into Poppy from Jupiter Hosting who is super cool as well.

Late at night, I ran into Casey Parker, a Shane’s World contract star. It was a pretty funny encounter because I actually met her at a bar in Hollywood a couple months ago. At the time, her body language suggested that she definitely did not believe that I was in the adult industry, regardless of the fact that I gave her a card, and things ended up being a little awkward. When I said hi at the Lucky Strike party I was sure to give her a hard time about not believing me. Apparently, attending an industry event was enough evidence to prove my involvement in the industry, and she was much nicer than she was when I met her previously. Casey’s site is going to be launching soon, and it’s going to be huge. She is super hot and very sweet at the same time.

Friday was the show finale with an absoutely amazing party at the Playboy Mansion followed by an afterparty at Falcon in Hollywood. The Playboy Mansion party was quite possibly the best party I have ever been to. Too Short performed, but it was hard to pay attention because I was pretty distracted by all of the hot Playboy models walking around wearing nothing but some body paint. The afterparty was much more productive and business-oriented, which made it a great way to end the night. It was great to be at the Playboy Mansion and I am definitely excited about going again next year!

By the time 2am came, I was pretty drunk, but I got my friends together for a last round of Jager shots, which put me over the edge. Staggering out of the club, I managed to remember that there was already a party going on at my place, and extended a couple invites to my good friends. We ended up getting back to my place around 3am, and I ended up staying up until just before 6am.

The seminars at the show were somewhat helpful, but I got the most out of simply introducing myself to everyone that I encountered. When you push traffic around, it is easy to avoid face-to-face contact with program owners as I have done, but it is extremely helpful being able to put a face on all of the emails and ICQ conversations that I have with program owners, and also establish good relationships with them.

Webmaster Access was a great experience for me, and I am looking forward to attending more shows in the coming months.