What? Hooters is failing in the city of hooters? It seemed impossible last January, when old San Remo was still going through his makeover. Women turned out in American Idol numbers to see if their racks were awesome enough to land them the right to wear tight T-shirts and orange hot pants while they shuttled beer... Continue reading »

It still amazes me that people who don't live in Las Vegas think that there is nothing here except smoky casinos, feather-twitching showgirls, and the people who inhabit and ogle them. They seem to be perfectly aware that the valley is home to nearly two million people these days, but, like Pittsburgh's long-outdated reputation as a sooty steel town, the enduring Las Vegas image is a relic from Rat Pack days... Continue reading »

Las Vegas: The Last Bastion of Smokers' Rights. That's how I thought of it when I came here in 1997 when I was doing publicity for a smoking cessation campaign sponsored by Nicorette Gum and the American Cancer Society. While I didn't feel as though I had to wear Kevlar as I handed out literature and spoke to reporters in front of city hall, I did have the distinct feeling that I wasn't particularly welcome. If you can't smoke in Las Vegas, the message was, there's something wrong with the world... Continue reading »

Easily the number one question I get asked by people who don't live here is, "How do you stand the heat?" It's a good question, but there's another one on my mind right now. It goes something like this: "What the !#%@!! is all that water gushing down my driveway?" Somehow, I never dreamed I'd be dealing with a pipe leak caused by a hard freeze in the land of endless summer... Continue reading »

Las Vegas has risen meteorically in the restaurant world over the last decade, so it didn't come as a complete surprise to read in today's Review-Journal (click here for the story) that it's now second only to New York when it comes to restaurants awarded four diamonds by the AAA... Continue reading »

I just read (in this article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal) that "Las Vegas" was second only to "Google" as a top brand name last year. Las Vegas is the only city among the top ten. But of course it's not three-dimensional reality that landed Sin City its spot between Google and the NFL. It's image -- the same phenomenon that brings panic-stricken email to my inbox every so often... Continue reading »