April 8, 2008
News of the death of James “Buffalo Jim” Barrier first came to me by email. I’ve long been a subscriber to former Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Miller’s e-zine, a rambling missive he sends out to what I imagine is an enormous mailing list whenever he has news or opinions about one of his pet topics...
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The Las Vegas Review-Journal has been part of my morning ritual since I moved here. Early on, I noticed that the music reviews by Doug Elfman were always excellent. Not only did the guy write with a fluid pen, he said stuff that was worth paying attention to. And in addition to posting brilliantly creative negative opinions, his accolades were marvelous, too. It’s rare that a reviewer is equally gifted at panning and raving, but Elfman had the knack...
For the third time in four years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a robot race and invited the public to come and watch the spectacle. This time, the event was billed as the “Urban Challenge,” because, unlike the first two events, which were held in the howling desert, this contest required the ‘bots to navigate city streets and interact with traffic. They even had to share the road with each other, something the organizers claimed had never happened on earth before...
An article about Las Vegas appeared in today’s New York Times. Online, the story is available only to those who subscribe to “Times Select,” but that didn’t prevent its immediate appearance in toto on a numbers of blogs (
Las Vegas is in love with its mobsters. Even though anyone who has ever read the slightest tidbit of Las Vegas history knows that Bugsy Siegel didn’t found the place, he gets the credit. And not only that, he gets the glory and romance. The most commonly repeated cliché in Vegasland is, “Things were so much better when the mob ran this place.” ...
As President's Day weekend draws to a close here in Sin City, I feel like heaving a big, "Whew!" And I didn't even go to the All-Star Game, celebrate Chinese New Year's, get married on Valentine's Day, attend the MAGIC show, spend a three-day weekend on the Strip, or go hear Barack Obama give a speech. I didn't even take today off, but I still feel as though I've run some sort of gauntlet. If the last three days didn't bring a record number of visitors to my fair city, it sure felt that way. I've even heard it described as a "perfect storm" of a weekend.
Super Bowl has come and gone once again, leaving millions and millions of dollars behind in the city that will never be its host. It's amazing to me that Las Vegas reaps all the benefits of the most popular football game of the year without contributing a cent to its production. And not only is Sin City exempt from underwriting any Super Bowl costs, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (of "What Happens in Vegas" fame) isn't allowed to buy even one minute's worth of advertising during the television broadcast...
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