Partying at Hooters, watching Rocket dance and more

                    

	The real Super Bowl action is in Vegas, where athletes and rockers, such as Gene Simmons, were on hand to celebrate the opening of the new Hooters Casino. Steve Spatafore/Sportograhpy
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SI.com's Arash Markazi decided to escape the frigid conditions of Detroit during Super Bowl week, and instead traveled to sunny Las Vegas for the big game. He will be checking in throughout the weekend to give his view on Super Bowl XL from a Sin City perspective.

LAS VEGAS -- I must be in some sort of weird dream world or stuck in the 1980s, but I'm sipping on a gin and tonic, sitting in front of a nickel slot machine while Gene Simmons, Robin Leach and Dennis "Mr. Belding" Haskins talk about their respective "careers" at the grand opening of the Hooters Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

While Leach, holding a beer in a plastic cup, and Haskins, holding a glass of red wine, look as if they swallowed their former selves circa "when they were cool," Simmons, wearing an Indy Racing League shirt, is still in decent shape these days, which seems to increase his already gargantuan ego.

"You have to keep yourself presentable," Simmons said. "All these women with their cleavage hanging out and wearing next to nothing who say they are doing it for themselves, that's bull----. They're doing it for us and for me in particular."

Something tells me that even if Simmons had the gut of Leach and Haskins combined, he still would do well with the ladies.

It's hard for me to knock Simmons. One of my first jobs was working for his short-lived magazine Tongue and I met my girl, Angie, at one of his parties a few years back but he is really a parody of himself. He's an egomaniac who has a camera crew following him around at all times and womanizes simply on principle. But as big as his ego is, he does keep it real when he flies. We were on the same Southwest flight coming into Sin City. Yes, even the "Demon" answers to the call of the "Ding."

After exchanging pleasantries with my former boss and the rest of the crew from I Love The 80s, I made my way around the brand new Hooters Casino Hotel, which was hosting a private grand opening party with "celebrities" who were welcomed with an orange carpet arrival and orange fireworks. Thanks to my friends Terri and Natalie from Hooters, I was able to make it onto the bright carpet, past the paparazzi and citrus colored ropes and into the casino for the festivities.

Upon my arrival, I was greeted by a couple of smiling Hooters Girls who offered me a drink and pointed me toward the open bar, which was near a row of tables occupied by scantily clad Hooters calendar girls. Despite rejecting the calendars they were signing and the equaling tempting Hooters Girls bobbleheads, I did help myself to the free zingers, flingers, wingers and whatever "ingers" the Hooters Girls were passing around. "This is great," said former quarterback Steve DeBerg, who was wearing an old school Tampa Bay Bucs hat, a yellow T-shirt shirt, khaki shorts and brown sandals, which made him stand out more than he already did with his large Falcons NFC Championship ring, which shined every time he tipped a waitress.