Living Las Vegas

At Home in the City of Lights

sponsored resources

Top Vegas Hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Rio

Roads from the Ashes: An Odyssey in Real Life on the Virtual Frontier, by Megan Edwards

Standing on the Corner, Watching All the ‘Bots Go By

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…

Continue reading...

Ten Years Behind L.A.

Ten years behind L.A. I’ve heard it said about Las Vegas, but I’ve never been quite sure what it meant beyond the usual putdowns: “unsophisticated,” “uncultured,” and “well, you know, retarded.” It’s difficult to be magnanimous in the shadow of such descriptions, but it’s possible that those suave Angelenos have a point dangling below their up-tilted nostrils. California passed a “no smoking in bars” law over a decade ago. At the time, such a restrictive rule seemed unimaginable in Las Vegas, but now, Nevada voters have passed their own anti-smoking law by a surprisingly large margin…

Continue reading...

City As Predator

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 (like this one). I received the story by email last night. My first thought after reading “City as Predator” was that it was another annoying rant against Las Vegas by a parachute journalist on an expense account…

Continue reading...

Hail, Elvis and Joe!

You might think that everyone in Vegas is out doing something Elvis-related today, the 30th anniversary of the King’s death. Around 75 Vegans, however, were out celebrating something much more mundane. I was one of the small throng present at the 9:00 a.m. opening of a new Trader Joe’s supermarket on the south side of town…

Continue reading...

Something Old… Who Knew?

“There’s nothing old in Vegas.” How many times have you heard it?” “Everything gets blown down.” Well, it’s true when it comes to the Stardust, the Dunes, the Landmark, the Desert Inn… Yeah, a lot of stuff in Vegas really does bite the dust rather explosively. But not everything. Some of it gets moved to the Clark County Museum…

Continue reading...

Planning | Advice | Tips | Routes | Books | Fun!