March 07, 2009
A Charmed Run
In June 1950 a young man walked into the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and won 28 straight passes at craps, beating odds of more than 10 million to 1.
Because he picked up his winnings after each throw, he walked away with only $750; if he'd left them on the table he would have made $289,406,976.
He never gave his identity
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A blog dedicated to Las Vegas buses
A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
March 7, 2009 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 13, 2008
June 1960
Vegas promo campaign connects with non-douchebags, borderline douchebags, deluded douchebags, and out-and-out douchebags equally
Vegas Nitelife June 1960 on flicker. (From Planet Fabulon)
State of Fear, provocative political statements on money sculptures by Dan Tague
A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
April 13, 2008 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 26, 2008
Death in Paris
Wynn Las Vegas installs motion detectors in the minibars, and now also weight-sensitive tray of goodies on top of the minibar that knows when you've lifted anything off it. (From Intelligent travel)
A giant 'Blue Screen of Death' Hits Las Vegas
A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
February 26, 2008 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 11, 2008
Lake Mead Elevation
Lake Mead Elevation at Hoover Dam Continues to Fall
Bleached-blond ex-strippers for Christ
Stardust Casino reconstructed. These are a few shots of the remains of the Stardust casino resort taken about two weeks before its towers were imploded. They are taken from the Frontier parking lot, the Stardust entrance, and the top of Circus Circus's self-park garage
More about Demolishing the Stardust. (From Vegas-fan Cynical-C blog)
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" (Dr. Johnson)
Cardstacker Bryan Berg builds the Vegas sign out of 26,000 playing cards, 1,200 bottles of Super Glue, 1,800 poker chips and 800 dice. (YT)
A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
January 11, 2008 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 17, 2007
Viva Macau
The Xanadu Hotel Casino was planned in 1975 in Las Vegas, but never built. (From Plep)
Vegas, baby (Indexed)
Night Panorama of the Las Vegas Strip, featuring Project City Center construction to the right. (Click to biggify)
Richard Branson descending 407ft from the top of the Palms Casino Hotel
Sexxpresso, the hottest coffee in Vegas
A negative review of The Tropicana Hotel
Bigger Than Las Vegas? That’s Macao’s Bet. However, it seems that the initial projections were slighly overblown…
A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
November 17, 2007 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 22, 2007
Solar One
The History of Kirk Kerkorian's MGM Grand
Why is the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign so famous? Because it was never copyrighted: everyone's free to reproduce its likeness
Nevada Solar One, the largest solar thermal power plant built in 16 years, is now providing power to Nevada's electrical grid
Analysis of Casino Design. (From a class with Michael Shanks about design)
Images of Las Vegas. (From Plep)
June 23 update: Bizarro about the Fabulous sign
/// A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
June 22, 2007 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 14, 2007
Stardust Memories
Coke VS Pepsi on the Strip
Leaving Las Vegas, paying tribute to demolished landmarks. (From Cynical C)
Largest Casinos in the United States as measured by square footage. (From Nick Christenson’s Las Vegas Casino Death Watch)
Panoramas from black rock station (Start with February 27, 2007. From The Boings)
Breaking news: Software error - Casino refuses to pay for jackpot
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March 14, 2007 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 10, 2006
Help Rebuild The Krzystons
A desperate family begs for help after their moving truck containing all their worldly possessions and car were stolen from The Venetian parking lot in Las Vegas. As a result, they are now homeless and jobless. (From Unknown highway)
Photo Compositions by Marika Barnett
"The house always wins, and it's now winning more", and 9 Other Things Your Casino Won't Tell You
/// Add it to your del.icio.us /// A Huge Depository of Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
December 10, 2006 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2006
Zappa, Ringo & Theodore Bikel together again
200 Motels - The Las Vegas version
Major hotels on the Las Vegas Strip (also known as The Strip). The strip is 4 miles of Las Vegas Boulevard South, that has been designated an All-American Road. Many of the largest hotel, casino and resort properties in the world are located on The Strip. Over the years, Las Vegas Boulevard South has been called Arrowhead Highway, Salt Lake Highway, U.S. Highway 91, and Los Angeles Highway. The Strip was reportedly named by police officer Guy McAfee, after his hometown's Sunset Strip, in Los Angeles
The Pinball Hall of Fame is an attempt by the members of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club to house and display the world's largest pinball collection, open to the public
How the Wynn hotel was branded. (From an interesting thread about The Igor Naming Agency)
10 coolest jobs in Las Vegas: Brewmaster, Pirate, stripper
(Pix taken by BL)
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September 14, 2006 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 30, 2006
Las Vegas Dispatch
“In case you've never heard of Danny Gans, he's HUGE in Vegas. He's the best! Danny Gans! Danny Gans!” Report from Brian Sack’s Bantarist: “Las Vegas is filled with morbidly obese people milling about extravagant billion-dollar casinos, in complete denial of the fact that the extravagant billion-dollar casinos they're milling about were built with money from morbidly obese people…”
A very clear Satelite map of the strip in Las Vegas from Windows Live
A very positive review of Love at The Mirage, the $130M million Cirque du Soleil/Beatles mash-up. (I have to see it when I’m next in Vegas). Watch a tiny preview to wet your appetite
From The Sierra Club: Las Vegas as The House of Cards - Too many people in the wrong place, celebrating waste as a way of life
Repost of the Bellagio Fountains dancing to “Luck Be a Lady”
Unrelated, I leave you with “For PumpGas News, I’m Jack Raff..”
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June 30, 2006 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 08, 2006
Meet me in Vegas
After about a week of playing host, I’ve sent my sisters on a Mexican cruise, so I have this weekend to rewind. On Tuesday we will travel to Las Vegas. If any local Grow-a-brain reader would like to meet with us for lunch or dinner, or maybe even accompany us for a different-type tour of the town, please email me at realhanan (at) yahoo (dot) com, and we may hook up. Or you can leave a message at the Excalibur Hotel, where we’ll stay from Tuesday to Friday. (Please remember that they have a 3 & a 5 year old with them.) I plan of doing the Grand Canyon helicopter thingy with them, and take them to a show, amusements, foods, etc. (Too touristy? Oh well... It must be really nice to see it for the first time.)
Some local links:
The culture of dissatisfaction. “Because there's always (somebody) offering a better or cheaper or faster product, or a person who's more clever than Oprah or cuter than Tyra, it's easy to shop around, to demand more, to be constantly dissatisfied”
Photos from when the Mob ran Vegas
How the Vegas slots and electronic voting machines compare
Vegas Cinema: Freemont Street Experience and party scenes by G D Chandler
Old Motel signs and “historic”, or old fashioned restaurants in Las Vegas, found on the “Los Angeles Time Machines” site
A nice collection of Vegas links from Bibi’s Box
Many More Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
April 8, 2006 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 24, 2006
Stays in Vegas
For 15 years now, my jobs involved making people feel comfortable when they hand me their money. Las Vegas makes people LOVE to hand over their money. This weekend trip just convinced me once again that Las Vegas is the most American of all cities, and reminded me all the reasons I love it so much. The oft repeated slogan “What happens in Vegas” plays all over again & again there. A truer one didn’t test well: "We 100% guarantee that you will lose it all, and that you will still love it". No matter how noisy and crowded, over-the-top, artificial, garishly decadent and popular Las Vegas is, it’s always evolving, energetic, re-inventing itself, over-indulgent, larger than life fun. Too bad I don't like to gamble...
The gorgeous water show at the Bellagio's
Recommended: Abandoning their innocence, contortionists Gyula and Bolormaa wash away their inhibitions and taste love for the first time. Fluidly they glide through the water, striking an amazing array of sensual poses, in the tantric waterbowl of Zumanity
Worth 1000’s Las Vegas Hacked
Virtual Tour of The Venetian Hotel
Aerial photographs using a tilt-shift lens by Olivo Barbieri’s - Las Vegas 05. (From Metafilter)
A strange store sign at Caesar's Forum (Right next to the 'Fountain of the Gods'): I wish I had a cocktail. If some local reader can get me a better picture, I would really appreciate it
Welcoming 2006 With The World's Largest Toast
Sheldon Adelson built a billion-dollar fortune in Las Vegas. His next act: building Macau, China into something even bigger than Vegas
Learn all about the symbol WINN: Wynn Resorts - Investor Relations. Don’t forget Wynn Macau
This post is a link gift for Chris at Cynical-C Blog. Many More Unusual Stories From Las Vegas Here
January 24, 2006 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 17, 2005
May 15, 1905
The notorious Casino Carpet Gallery. six pages of casino carpeting and nothing but
Casino Floor Plans. (From The Near Future of Las Vegas)
“Dead showgirl in trunk”, one of Things That Did Not Stay in Vegas
The Vegas Boom. Long seen as only a tourist destination, Las Vegas is currently America's fastest-growing city. Why are so many people moving there? Other Onion News
Kevin Knapp’s trip of The Stratosphere Tower
Follow the Money - The city's economy
Is Sathorn One design in Bangkok based on The Venetian Casino?
Welcome to the most detailed history of the Las Vegas Strip on the internet today, considered by many to be possibly the worst website ever
Many More Unusual Stories From Las Vegas Here
(By the way, Pod, please stop…)
September 17, 2005 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 05, 2005
Getting married in Vegas
Current Progressive Jackpot Totals In Nevada. “Megabucks” is tops with $ 10,780,776.00. (From ”Brimborion Brew”)
Las Vegas poker is currently undergoing a major renaissance. In the past year a plethora of new poker rooms have opened, and many cardrooms have expanded their poker capacity. As far as I know there are currently 14 poker rooms on the Strip and 21 downtown/off-Strip
You Know You're From Las Vegas When… You know which one is Siegfried and which one is Roy
In the summer of 2002, the Neon Museum commissioned a survey of the neon signs of the Las Vegas Strip corridor from Sunset to Sahara. This survey was designed to capture the artistic and historical significance of one of Las Vegas's most well-known art forms, neon
Punk Rock bowling at Sam’s Town Casino
A series of photos documenting neon motel signs from Las Vegas's seedier side, by Joey Harrison
The Nevada shoe tree. (Previously blogged, other shoe trees at the bottom)
At The Mustang Ranch we specialize on the care and feeding of 1964 1/2 - 1972 Mustangs, the 1965 - 1970 Shelby Mustang and the 1967-1973 Mercury Cougar. The chronology of The Mustang Ranch, the other one
A travelog on the city Las Vegas. (20+ pages, 220+ photos.)
A virtual tour at the Atomic Testing Museum
bright lights, sin city: What it’s like to live here
You can now complete your marriage license application online
The new Wynn Resort opens April 28
Many More Unusual Stories From Las Vegas Here
Today’s “Blog Of The Day” is “GlassDog”, from Lance Arthur, Dick Septic and a few others in San Francisco (and this is what they had to say about the mayor of Las Vegas). I finally made a little Linking Icon the “winner” can stick on their site, if they wish.
March 5, 2005 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2004
Liberace’s Hands
Vintage Vegas Postcard Museum and Vintage Vegas Matchbooks Lounge. (From ”Life in the Present”)
The Liberace "Play-A-Like" contest - Yummy. The Liberace Extreme Cheese. Shag’s Liberace's Hand
Latest news from “Vegas Tripping”: Oldest Vegas Showgirl Calls It Quits at 51
Drew’s guide to poker chips. (From ”J-Walk”)
Some Vegas architecture photos from this weekend
Hooters hotel coming to Las Vegas. (Also, ”Hooters” goes to China)
Corporate Hotel Groups - Who Owns What In Las Vegas
More from Megan Edwards: A Short Timeline of Las Vegas History
Many More Unusual Las Vegas Stories Here
October 23, 2004 in Traveling Places - Las Vegas | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
