There was only one good thing that came out of my last trip to Bellagio: the opportunity to get together with some buddies and get crunked while playing $2/$4 mixed games at Treasure Island.

I don't really like to go to clubs, so this is my equivalent of "getting a table." It's a blast, especially when you're trying to learn the games as you go along at a high level of inebriation.

Amanda "Mandy B" Baker, Paul Wasicka, Jimmy "gobboboy" Fricke, Jason "OUEmoKid/JP OSU" Potter, Mike "SirWatts" Watson, and my friend from AC named Leo "smoothustler" August joined my girlfriend Aimee and me for the game.

Since my girlfriend doesn't read my blog, I can safely say that the highlight of the night was set-over-setting her in pineapple and stacking her. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

After about five hours of some serious drinking and equally serious confusion over how to play Badugi, most of us headed over to Fix at Bellagio for dinner. I was down about eight drinks, but surprisingly up a whopping $283!

It got ... well ... quite interesting from there. First, I get a phone call as I'm arriving from Amanda telling me that I need to hurry over to the restaurant and that it's an emergency.

It seems my friend Leo got a little too *merry* and ended up falling down at the bar and hitting his head pretty hard. He seems very woozy and disoriented for a bit, and I'm worried that he has a concussion. I still can't believe what security will say next while we wait for the paramedics to come ...

How can you eat at a time like this?

"You can go take your seats [for dinner], we'll send someone in to let you know what happens."

Wow! Do they really expect us to casually sit down for dinner while my friend is disoriented and being examined? I'm a little shocked and a bit mad that they even suggest it.

Meanwhile, a friend of a friend who is also there for dinner is apparently a landlord. One of his tenants, a female student at UNLV, has locked herself out for the fourth time this year. To make it worse, it's snowing (yes, it snows in Vegas), and he says that she lives in a rough neighborhood.

He reluctantly decides to go help her out yet again, being the nice guy that he is. So we have one dinner guest headed to the "ghetto," and one with a possible concussion who may be off to the hospital. Not the birthday I was envisioning, but sometimes you just have to roll with the punches ...

So the paramedics say that he seems OK, but that they can't test him for a concussion with the equipment they have with them. We end up having a mutual friend come pick Leo up and take him to the hospital to get examined for a possible concussion.

Everything turned out fine in the end. We made it into the restaurant just before they were ready to stop seating. The landlord made it back in time for dinner, and I got a call that Leo was fine later that night. A good night with just a little excitement ... and I guess all's well that ends well.

-- Matt Stout

--"All In At 420"