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Just a Gigolo
December 31, 2009
For those who are unaware, there is a large story developing in Nevada that has nothing to do with City Center, the housing market, or Indian actresses being flashed on Oakey Boulevard (I kept my pants on last night). Shortly after ringing in the new year, The Shady Lady "Ranch" is expected to hire two men to service clients at their brothel which lies approximately 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The problem with the Shady Lady's plan is that this has been tried before. The Mustang Ranch attempted to add male workers to its staff in the 1960's, and by all accounts, it failed miserably. It was "secretly" tried again last year, but was terminated after three months. In my humble opinion, these rumblings about male prostitution are little more than publicity stunts on the part of the brothel. A market for the services simply does not exist in sufficient numbers to ... Read the full blog post...
The 2000′s: A Retrospective
December 30, 2009
Is there anything more cliche' than end-of-year retrospectives trotted out by self-important blowhards who think they have more insight than the average person? Yes. Even more annoying is end-of-year retrospectives trotted out by blowhards which are immediately preceded by self-deprecating comments intended to win over the audience before said blowhard launches into fifty paragraphs of self-indulgent crap. So, without further ado ... Exactly ten years ago this Thursday, I was in Times Square ushering in the new millennium with hundreds of thousands of my closest friends. We were all waiting for the world to end at the stroke of midnight. We were all relieved when the lights of Manhattan stayed on at 12:01am, but I was somewhat disconcerted when Citibank rejected my ATM card as "expired" an hour later as I tried to get cash in the West Village. Despite this minor setback, it was hard to deny that we were on the precipice of promising ... Read the full blog post...
Ringing It In
As the busiest weekend of the year approaches, Las Vegas will valiantly attempt to end a horrible year on a positive note. Beginning tomorrow, 315,000 people are expected to begin crowding into our fair town, a visitor number which represents a 1% increase over last year. Even though the raw numbers are anticipated to be greater, occupancy is expected to be down due to the 8,000 new rooms which were added to our inventory over the last twelve months. Furthermore, The LVCVA anticipates an 8.1% drop in revenue this year from $199 million to $183 million since fewer people who arrive will actually play games. None of these petty stats will dampen the enthusiasm of those who will come to experience the chaos, however. At 6:30pm on Thursday, hotels and businesses will close their driveways. Shortly thereafter, all walkways, elevators, and escalators on LVB will be shut off. From 8pm -12am, only pedestrians will ... Read the full blog post...
No Good Deed
December 29, 2009
About a year or so ago, I visited a property that shall remain nameless. As I walked through Nameless Hotel and Casino, I passed a security guard who nonchalantly said "Hi, Vegas Rex". I looked up, realized I had never seen the gentleman before, and said "Hi, do I know you?" "You don't know me, but we are notified as soon as you walk in", he said. "That doesn't sound good", I hesitantly responded. The guard went on to explain to me that they were instructed to leave me alone unless I was doing something disruptive. They knew that I was not a terrorist and the casino didn't mind being written about, as long as it wasn't in the context of "... where I was beaten by a security guard". Believe it or not, some places actually want the publicity of my being somewhere. Especially if I write about it. Of course, this was one ... Read the full blog post...
Five Years in Las Vegas
December 27, 2009
I began visiting Las Vegas in the late 90's, and I moved to the city at the end of 2004 -- almost five years ago to the day. When I first moved to Las Vegas, we were still the fastest growing area in the nation. I could almost imagine how the westward expansion settlers felt. There was construction everywhere I looked, and there was a sense of excitement in the air as new families put down roots to start new lives. This was the promised land. The land of milk and honey. The coolest place in the known universe that couldn't lose. The best way to become rich in a casino is to own one, and everyone here had a piece of the house. Back then, the oft-repeated line was that "5,000 people move to Las Vegas every month", and it certainly seemed plausible. What a difference five years makes. Recently released census estimates ... Read the full blog post...
A City Center Christmas
December 26, 2009
Christmas 2009 is in the books and I already have the post-holiday blues. Like many people, Christmas is my favorite time of year, but for slightly different reasons. December 21st-24th contain the shortest amount of daylight of all days of the calendar, and this is also the coldest time in Las Vegas. While some people like the religious aspect, they appear to be oblivious to the fact that Christmas was not chosen because it has anything to do with Jesus, rather, it is purely astronomical. The sun begins rising higher in the sky for the first time since the end of the growing season (summer), and this represents the birth of the "sun" a/k/a "son". Humans began celebrating December 25th long before the supposed existence of the Christian God. The date has just been hi-jacked in modern times for purposes of social manipulation a/k/a "let's put retailers into the black". Fortunately, today ... Read the full blog post...
Season’s Greetings
December 25, 2009
For the very first time, I visited Town Square this year for their Christmas festivities and it was actually quite enjoyable. The "town" was quite crowded, and we even got to enjoy a psuedo-white Christmas. At 7pm (Sun thru Thur) and 8pm (Fri and Sat), Town Square uses snow machines to blanket the central Christmas tree, and for 10 minutes it actually feels like you are somewhere, anywhere, other than Las Vegas. Especially with last night's temperatures in the 30's. Afterward, there was a large amount of Christmas shopping, window shopping, coffee sipping, and the place just felt alive as people from all ages and all walks of life milled about and seemed to be having a good time. I can't help but feel that Town Square is everything City Center promised to be, but isn't. Well except for the casino and hotels. Anyway, after playing in the "snow" and doing some shopping, we ... Read the full blog post...
Stratosfearing
December 24, 2009
For the first time in a long time, I walked into a major casino looking for a game of Blackjack, and had trouble finding one. This assumes that one still considers The Stratosphere "major". Personally, any resort that has 2,500 rooms still qualifies as a big deal in my book, regardless of how tragically unhip said property has become. As I was writing an article about all-day buffets yesterday, I realized that I had absolutely no recent pictures of the Stratosphere's food offering. I've eaten there a couple of times over the last few months, but I never thought to preserve photographic evidence of this fact. Not wanting to engage in the time-honored practice of simply snagging a photo from Google Images and hoping that nobody noticed, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I threw on a jacket, took a 3-ish minute walk to the venerable Stratosphere, and endeavored to ... Read the full blog post...
Too Much of a Good Thing
December 23, 2009
Following the trend of properties such as the Excalibur and Luxor, both the MGM Grand and The Stratosphere have begun offering all day buffet passes. The gist of these particular gimmicks is that, not only will you be able to get unlimited food from the eatery, but you can come and go as many times as you wish. If you want to eat a piece of chicken, go play blackjack, come back and eat a piece of beef, go to a show, come back and eat a taco, etc, etc ... you are free to do so. You may visit the buffet a theoretically unlimited amount of times for one price. This includes various time-of-day offerings such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's a buffet of the buffet for lack of a better analogy. When I first heard of this concept, I was skeptical. To some degree, I still am. Even though the Vegas ... Read the full blog post...
Tons of Silver
December 21, 2009
After two weeks of City Center/Bellagio/City Center/Sahara/City Center/Planet Hollywood/City Center (note the pattern), I decided to get out of town this weekend. Fortunately, when your sphere-of-being is the geographic area between Fremont Street and the Mandalay Bay, "getting out of town" requires little more than crossing the I-15. On Saturday morning, I gave serious consideration as to my casino choice of the day. I didn't just want to go someplace far. Red Rock Station is "far", but I've already been there a hundred times. I wanted to go someplace unfamiliar. A place with a different flavor. A place to lift the burnout of PR speak, over-saturation, and talking points. A place that didn't have a Twitter account. A place void of scenesters, trendsters, and those who are hipper-than-thou. Someplace that was not on the radar of a single talking head within a 100 mile radius. I double clicked the ever-present Las Vegas casino ... Read the full blog post...
