Well, I was happily off to Vegas on the 23rd, and, wow, what a ride I got myself into.
It all started early morning on the 23rd, when I took the Jag out to the dealership to get its 20k mile service done, and the normal oil change, so that we'd feel safer on the road. Well, the dealership recommended changing our front tires, which according to them were wearing unevenly, with the inside edges wearing faster, and were deemed unsafe by the service department. New tires and realignment were to cost $1000 (they were Z-rated Pirellis), and my parents didn't want to pay that, so we got them to leave the tired alone, and took the car home.
We decided that it just might be unsafe, and that the tires incident might not be a scam of some sorts, so then we switched to taking the van instead of the saloon car, to the cheers of the people sitting in the back seat. So, about half way between Victorville and Barstow (15 miles from each, we had a GPS system in the Odyssey) my dad noticed that we had a trail of white smoke behind our car, and pulled over. Turns out it was from the engine compartment, and we proceeded to make phone calls to both a tow service in Barstow and our relatives in Vegas, who immediately left Vegas to pick us up (we had tickets to the Il Divo show in 4 hours at 8pm).
After waiting for our tow truck, which took about an hour, we found a shop that looked decent, and dropped off the van. The shop told us it was transmission fluid, and they need more time to check it out (it was closing hours for them). Our relative arrived after, and eventually got us into Vegas at 8:30. Then we dropped off our stuff in the room, and rushed to the event center at 9pm. It turns out the show hasn't started yet! It started a little bit after we got there, and that was that. (yeah, wasn't too enthused about the show. It was a group of 4 guys that do voice, and well, first of all, I'm not into guys, and second of all, they just really can't sing well enough for me to be interested, IMO)
Next, up in the hotel room, I brought the Xbox my friend let me borrow, and began my quest for a TV to use. In the room we had at THEhotel, there were 3 TVs, one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom. After surveying all of them, the one in the bedroom is hopeless. It was locked down, and could not be pulled out, and it was one of the more traditional TVs, ones that are fat and thick. Next, the living room was was the biggest one, and had no easy way of plugging in the A/V input. The bathroom one had plugs openly under the screen, as it was just mounted on the wall. The first one I went to was the biggest one, naturlich. Well, it was the one in the living room, and immediately, I noticed that there was a lock blocking my way to endless fun and games. See, it was I believe an LCD TV, embedded into a cabinet looking thing, and the plugs are all behind the screen, and about maybe just a bit longer than a hands length from the bottom of the TV. There was a board that could be flipped down right under the bottom of the TV, and that was locked, so access to the plugs (input) was restricted. Well, first thing to come to mind is to pick the lock, of course! I've only learned how to do so in theory, and never tried it before. Heh, note to self, get some locks, and start practicing! First of all, I didn't have any appropriate materials, since I didn't carry lockpicks with me, and looking around in the room, there was absolutely nothing that could work. So I, erm, brute forced a piece of metal out of a booklet, and it turns out it was a bit too thick. Naturally, it didn't work. So, after fiddling with it for half an hour or so (a long time when things aren't working), I gave up. So, my only hope was the bathroom. Well, I plugged in the input, and turned on the TV, looking at the obvious channels that could be used for input. 01, 99, and the missing channels on the channel list all didn't work. After unplugging the input from the hotel, still nothing. So I thought maybe I need to reset the thing, so it'll discover the new input. When I began pressing different combinations of buttons on the TV, a menu popped up. I found out that many channels were disabled, including AV1, AV2, and AV3. So, I enabled all of them, and viola, I've got a screen! So, I spent much time sitting on the edge of the tub, staring at the itty bitty screen in the bathroom. Oh, and if anyone goes to stay at THEhotel, and gets the room 19904, check if it still is enabled and tell me :P
Second day, we needed a way to get back to home, as my mom has a flight to Asia on the 25th. It turns out our van won't be ready, which means we'll have to find a day to go back to Barstow to pick up the van. So, our relatives let us borrow one of their cars, and we came merrily our way back home. When we arrived, we noticed we had no way of getting into our house! We had the garage opener programmed into our van, and I also made sure that the window I would normally use for such situations was locked (I still have no idea why I did that, and kind of regret it). Well, this is the only part I'll be hiding from you, as I need to keep my home secure :P
I need to go rest now!