Back from Las Vegas, and now my clothes smell like cigarette smoke

Raymond Chen

I actually came back Thursday night, but I’ve been too lazy to jot down some reactions until now. There are signs on the street directing you to a tram connecting the Monte Carlo hotel with the Bellagio. but once you follow the first sign (that takes you into the casino), there are no more signs telling you how to get to the tram. The tram is a lie. Actually, the tram does exist, but it’s not marked. You have to walk through the entire Monte Carlo casino to the Street of Dreams shops, and then past them and up a flight of stairs to the tram station. When you reach the Bellagio, you then have to do the reverse, walking through the Bellagio to get your way back to the street. I’m not sure if it’s actually faster than just walking the regular way. Note to people who choose swag for conferences: if people are flying into your conference, a toy gun is probably not a good choice for a giveaway. A word of warning to Japanese tourists: The people in costumes standing around enticing you to pose with them for a picture? After you take your picture, they’re going to ask you for money. And apparently, the practice has spread to helpful “volunteer” photographers who will just shrug and walk away if they break your camera. The Marquee bills itself as a “Nightclub and Dayclub.” Doesn’t that just make it a “Club”? I didn’t win a Niney, but I did get to meet Lady Gaga (or a least a Lady Gaga impersonator). As a courtesy, I called her “Your Grace.” I knew it wasn’t the correct honorific, but she seemed okay with it. Man, that Niney award is heavy. And Scott won two of them! If he packs them both in the same suitcase, he’s going to get a hernia. At the urinal is a small shelf, presumably a place to put your drink while you make room for your next drink. Let me get this straight. If you visit the Paris Hotel and take a picture of the fake Eiffel Tower, you’ll also capture in the frame a U.S. flag. I guess that’s sort of like the fake streets mapmakers add so they can detect copyright violations. One of the figures atop the Paris Hotel is a statue with the simple label Suger. Once again proving that if you know Swedish, the world is funnier. In Swedish, suger means sucks. When airline pilots come onto the speaker to tell you the weather at your destination, why do they all assume they’re talking to other pilots? “The winds are out of the south-southwest, and the cloud ceiling is 10,000 feet, with visibility of five miles and air pressure of 30.05 inches.” The only way this could be made more useless would be if a passenger shouted out, “But what’s the dew point?” One of my friends suggested that airline pilots are simply frustrated that they couldn’t make it as a weatherman.

My clothes smell like cigarette smoke, so I guess what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.

Raymond Chen

Follow