There isn’t one on my end of town, but I definitely do enjoy going to Omelet House, here in Las Vegas, for a nice breakfast (if you go, go to the one on West Charleston - the quality is better, in my experience, even though the strip center it is in looks pretty old and rundown.) I usually get the Bugsy Siegel, which is as beefy and kickass as you’d expect from an omelet with this name, but lately I’ve been getting a Country Club, add avocado, please.

So after driving up the 15 and exiting west on Charleston, my cohorts and myself pulled up to the stop light in front of Frankie’s, right near UMC Hospital. Across the intersection and in the middle of the street I saw a guy being chased by two other men. It was initially a little alarming until I got a second to pay attention to exactly what I was looking at. The men doing the chasing were in solid blue and solid green. The man running away from them - in a rather scattered, clumsy way - was in all white. You guessed it! A hospital patient escaped from treatment and two orderlies were chasing after him trying to get him to return to the hospital! This poor guy had on nothing but a hospital gown! The reason he was running so clumsily was because the blacktop road was probably stinging the hell out of his bare feet, slowing his jailbreak. What a sight! I wonder if I will ever need to make a sudden, daring escape from University Medical Center? I can promise you that if I do I will definitely have sneakers right under my bed. This poor guy was completely unprepared for this kind of adventure. Fortune favors the prepared.

After our morning’s entertainment we had a great little breakfast. I was up so early I had all sorts of things accomplished before lunch. We had so much time, in fact, that I should have taken Nick for a haircut.

I’m barely five minutes into the journey when Mama Fratelli starts bad mouthing Kyle and telling him to stop what he’s doing. This is where things get strange because as far as I can tell Kyle is not doing anything. I can see him in my peripheral vision and he’s holding a beer in one hand and has the other one resting on the edge of the window. Mama Fratelli barks “Stop it!” in his direction one more time and he makes some comment along the lines of “maybe you’d like it better if I shoved my tongue down your throat?” - something that seems unrelated to anything that has come before. They are all so drunk that I rule out psychedelics even though things between them seem to be taking place on a level of reality that I have no way to access.

A couple more completely mysterious and confusing comments bounce back and forth between them, and a few more things float up from the back seat, and then, all of a sudden, I’m being directed to pull over at the next bar to let these people out. The vibe has completely changed during the drive and I’m more than happy to comply. It turns out that the cute girl and Kyle will be continuing the cab ride and all of the others will remain at the random location to fend for themselves.

As Mama Fratelli is sliding out of the seat she says something rude to Kyle who then wastes no time calling her a cunt. In the two seconds that follow this declaration the son somehow exits the taxi on my side and travels completely around the cab to sucker-punch Kyle in the side of the face. Then, reacting on what seems like instinct, Kyle lashes out with the beer bottle that he is still holding. The bottle breaks on the son’s head and I watch the beer pour out. The whole incident seems way more surreal than any comparable scene from a movie… I mean, he wasn’t even holding the bottle backwards like you’re supposed to when you get into a street fight.

The biker guys manages to break things up and then Kyle is back in the front seat and the doors have been locked. “Just get out of here” seems to be the unanimous verdict and I am once again on my way with a few less passengers than when I started. The entire bar detour lasted probably three minutes and we all seemed unable to process things at first, but after a block or two Kyle starts thinking that he should contact the police. The cute girl says “Forget about it… It’s over. Let’s just go home,” but Kyle can’t let it go. He decides to gather a posse of friends in order to extract some street justice because the call to the police doesn’t go exactly how he planned. The destination changes for what seems like the fifth or sixth time and it turns out that I’m taking them back within a block of where I originally picked them up. Unfortunately for Kyle, he can’t seem to handle the stress of the last stop light and he exits the cab without warning and wanders across the street leaving the cute broken-leg girl with the fare.

Unfortunately for her, she has no cash and has to get her friends to pay when I drop her off. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere in this tale, but the only thing that stands out to me is “Try not to look like characters from movies.”

1) The Cool Guy – This is the guy who thinks his ducks are all in a row by organizing the girls to come over (usually the best man, but surprisingly a lot of best men completely drop the ball) and has explained to his fellow friends that he knows how the whole thing is going down. Unfortunately he usually gives the wrong impression to the guys about what the girl on the phone said to him about how things really go for parties (like he thinks that we work for one-dollar bills and that this must be a cheaper route than the club when, in fact, it’s like an ultimate VIP room party, but on location to their hotel!)

2) The Guy Who Is Never Happy – This guy usually happens to double as being the most broke guy in the room. as well. He had 40 bucks to spend and wanted to make sure it spent like it was $1000. He also doesn’t care about the bachelor (the person who the party is actually for,) but more concerned about what he is getting for the money spent. His attitude a lot of times kills the party’s mood and brings the other guys down before they can ever get down!

3) The Crazy Guy – This is the carefree spirit of the party who doesn’t care what it takes to have fun and will do whatever he can to entertain his buddies. When asked for tips to play stripper games of stuffing the bachelor’s boxers with dollars he actually will shove the dollar bills in himself. He sometimes will feel the need to show off his dancing skills to the ladies and never forgets to ask if we need a drink… twenty times. Also, he is usually the most generous tipper of the bunch and realizes his other friends are pretty lame when it comes to having a good time.

Unfortunately the three main characters at typical bachelor parties sometimes combine themselves into the same person! Just yesterday The Cool Guy turned into the Never Happy Guy within ten minutes… That’s just never a pretty sight for a girl standing there in a g-string!

It wasn’t just the idea of police jurisdictions being separated. Taxes were recognized as being separated by interstate commerce laws - federal laws. Unless you lived in an metropolitan transit authority region, you paid sales tax for things in your county based on the local tax rate plus the state tax. If it was income taxes you paid federal and state (if there are state income taxes where you live) and if you lived in California it was California’s business to collect California’s state income taxes.. LA County was responsible for collecting it’s sales taxes, not Orange County’s, et cetera. Texas doesn’t threaten to revoke some sort of privilege for a citizen having not paid California’s income tax. There might be repercussions but it would be with that jurisdiction involved in the specific situation. Regions and jurisdictions exist for a reason. Lots of them, really. The advent of the Internet and online databases and interconnectivity, though, has made some police organizations get some bright ideas on how to collect their regressive taxes on silly traffic or paperwork sorts of fines. Nevada and Utah, and probably some other states nearby, are now sharing traffic ticket data, and your home state - in their technological gestapo pact - is agreeing to look into other states’ business (unpaid tickets) and arbitrarily penalizing you in a completely different governmental jurisdiction by suspending your driver’s license! (and quickly, too.)

I went on a ski trip to Colorado a little earlier in the Winter this year. Naturally, the most direct route to Colorado from Las Vegas is to drive through Utah. I made it eighty percent of the way through Mormon Country and was moving along pretty fast because the weather was great, it was daytime, and there was no one on the interstate with me. You know the rest of the story right off - a Utah state police cop was hiding in the bushes in Bumblefuck, Utah, waiting to catch a little discretionary tax revenue for his town, courtesy of my check book. He wrote me two tickets, including one for not having the current liability insurance card in my car (the old one had just been mailed out and I thought I’d already put it in the glove box before the trip - people make mistakes.) Long story short, I missed the court date trying to get the paperwork together, as I actually misplaced the insurance card altogether and I’ve been busy - I know, poor excuse, but I mean, I was getting around to it, and I did have insurance.

So I just got this thing in the mail. It actually arrived a couple of weeks ago at my post office box but I’ve been out of pocket and haven’t had a chance to check the mail. It’s a notice from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles informing me that I did not appear in a court in another state on the date specified and my license is going to be suspended on April 6th if I don’t contact that state, pay the ticket, and then get proof of payment and send it to the Nevada DMV. That’s just bullshit on so many different levels I don’t know where to begin. I am going to get this all squared away in the next couple of days, no problem, but that isn’t the fucking point. This isn’t Nevada’s business. It’s with Utah. Where I grew up, which I think represents the U.S. in general pretty well, if you get a suspended license, you really had to have screwed up. Big time. Like at least a DUI or something like that which I’ve never had. Suspended licenses have always and should always continue to be a big deal. They have gotten to where they are passing them out like candy lately, out here. It’s ridiculous. And now a suspension of a Nevada license based on something that allegedly happened in an entirely different legal and political jurisdiction??

Police are not meant to be given the authority to enact these sorts of new “programs” on their own. It’s just outrageous to me that people don’t get more indignant about the way things are going. If anything, Nevada should be acting first and foremost to protect the interests of its citizens, not helping another state line its coffers with some extra cash. Nevada taxpayers are paying for this service. The labor costs, the materials, the extra infrastructure… All to assist Utah in what amounts to bill collection.

I always thought I was in the loop on new drugs used recreationally for mind-altering purposes, but I have to say, if it makes you look like this, I don’t ever want one! Their color choices make the artist in me want to spray paint graffiti on a Van Gogh while chopping both ears off. The horror! “Ugly color” makes baby Jesus cry and makes me feel unhinged. Keep the Doodlebops far, far away from me! For the love of god!!

Apparently they are going to be creating public nausea at The Orleans Arena tomorrow. Here’s an article on the Las Vegas Sun, if you dare read more…

Early tonight I got a text message from Nick the Las Vegas Cabbie. He was freaked out saying, “Starbucks is closed! I’m going to die!” I knew right away it was at the Paradise Road Starbucks. It had to be…

I had just finished up my dinner and was on the way to get a coffee, myself, on the South Strip - being savvy enough to have planned an alternate, post-dinner caffeine hook-up. Wrong. They had the same damned sign on their window! It’s not just the Bucks on Paradise - it’s all Starbucks in the Las Vegas Valley! How could they so coldly single us out like that?? Don’t they know we have things to do all night??? That’s just mean!

Liz was incensed. She insisted we dial the number on the back her Starbucks card to complain about the hateful treatment Las Vegas caffeine junkies were getting. I called the number for her but it was after business hours, alas.

Only moments later, while suffering from acute caffeine withdrawal, I navigated my web browser to msnbc.com where I ran across this link. Dear god what have they done????

I need to see about doing some after hours stock short-selling. I bet you can chart a national dip in productivity levels amongst those working a swing shift on February 26th, 2008, across the entire nation due to Starbucks evil, tyrannical, bad bad bad cutting off of the coffee tit. I’m so sad. And twitchy.

I got pulled over - Liz did, actually, I was in the passenger seat - and this cop that was probably eight or ten years younger than I am asked every invasive, rude question he could think of that was irrelevant to why he claimed he pulled us over - a broken light on her license plate. He asked if either of us had ever been “in trouble,” where we were going, where we were coming from, how we know each other, why our driver’s license numbers are so similar, why our address is 7777 something - sounds fishy - what Liz’s vanity license plate meant??!

We were two free American citizens minding our own business, driving a legal car, and doing nothing wrong. It was ridiculous. When I answered him regarding having been “in trouble” a long, long time ago and that the charges were dropped he asked “how long ago?” I replied “1994.” “Yeah, that is quite awhile ago.” Yeah, pig, when you were in about 6th grade.

So after all this unnecessary, useless, intimidating harassment, he “let’s us go.” So at our next stop we got out to check out the license plate light he pulled us over for. It was working like the day she got it - not a single legitimate reason to pull us over - other than the fact that he wanted to and probably needed “practice” being a pig.

Since that night two weeks or so ago, I have seen an unbelievable rash of what seem like unnecessary stops by Las Vegas Metro - literally pulling people over and then letting them go without a ticket, in a lot of cases. They seem to be picking on smaller subcompact cars, oftentimes Hondas or Toyotas. If you’ve got the least little legal issue in your past I can imagine they’d give you unmitigated hell. This is Las Vegas, baby.. Most people have something in their past. Metro used to be the most laid-back police force in America, really not sweating the small stuff because they see some much crazy crap out here, but as far as I am concerned they are really ruining that reputation.

Things seem to be more or less back on track, and in some ways, this will be good for the property. Where they’ve begun the repainting process, you can really tell how dingy the hotel was already looking. It needed some sprucing up, but, of course, they hadn’t planned on sprucing it up to the tune of $100 million dollars. That’s the cost of the repairs and gaming losses during the time it was shut down. Yipe!

When I first moved to Las Vegas a number of years ago we were already at like year three or four of what is now like an eight or nine year-long “drought.” I remember thinking, “wow - drought in a desert? It’s supposed to be normally dry. It must be like crazy dry.”

Then some other interesting, counterintuitive things happened. Aside from hearing mention a few times of the local area being ahead on average rainful, a huge amount of snow fell up on Mount Charleston. So much so that at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard resort there was an avalanche that killed a boy named Allen Brett Hutchison. Avalanches kill people in the United States but not at ski resorts. They are invariably backcountry skiers, snowboarders, or snowmobilers, that are hurt or killed in avalanches. So it was that much more shocking that an avalanche killed a boy in Las Vegas - during a “drought,” no less. (He was on a chairlift when the avalanche occurred - it took out the ski lift and him with it. Very sad.) Later in the spring, the snow melt from that year’s record-setting snowfall washed out roads and caused some flooding in a school forcing it to be closed for a time.

So what does it mean to be experiencing a “drought” in the desert Southwest when locally there are places with record snowfalls, ahead-of-average rainfalls, et cetera? “Why live in the desert - it’s environmentally irresponsible,” you say? Well the truth is, Las Vegas uses a relatively very small percentage of the drought-ridden water supply. A couple of hours to our southwest there are a few towns you might have heard of that are interspersed with other towns connecting them, in what seems like a sea of never-ending sprawl… Los Angeles, San Diego.. those ringing a bell? Well Southern California uses an unbelievably disproportionate amount of water from the Colorado River on which Lake Mead sits behind Hoover Dam. Drought in the Southwest, Las Vegas, specifically, is all about the Rocky Mountains. The headwaters of the Colorado River start in - you guessed it - Colorado, where they’ve been experiencing lower average snow packs for the basically the last decade. Lake Mead isn’t the only lake dammed up on the Colorado River, any more. The water has to make its way through Lake Powell in frickin’ Utah before it can get down here into Lake Mead, which then, by treaty with several states and Mexico, passes the lion’s share of it on to Southern California. It’s true that the lake is Las Vegas’ primary water source. There are things they call “straws” that pump out our water from Lake Mead. It’s equally true that we’re not not the cause of the drought and sucking the lifeblood out of the river water conservation system’s coffers. That would be California.

So how bad is it? Well that is the reason I wrote this article. According to a new study as reported by MSNBC.com, it’s worse than they’d originally thought. It’s so bad, in fact, that there is a 10% chance that Lake Mead will be dry by 2014. That’s six years from now! By 2017 there is a 50% chance that water levels in Lake Mead will be so low that hydroelectric power generation will have to be halted. The scariest statistic of all? By 2021 - thirteen years from today - there is a 50-50 chance that Lake Mead will be dry.

I know this is Las Vegas and if you’re a regular reader you know I got a little gamble in me… But I ain’t lovin’ these odds - not even a little bit.

Lake Mead is currently hovering about a nut hair above 50% capacity. It is the policy of the Powers That Be to not let a large amount of water out of Lake Powell to drastically increase Lake Mead’s levels until Lake Powell returns to a certain level that satisfies their requirements. Sounds like someone needs to start taking all the rumors of massive, multi-billion dollar desalination projects seriously. All that water and ya can’t drink a drop..

We don’t discriminate in our fair city. We embrace! You see a hooker - we see an upwardly-mobile young professional making over $1000 per day and in need of some serious tax and financial advice!

Take the photo here, for example, which was taken off of Industrial Road near the Can Can Room, an old school strip club:

The age old axiom of “death and taxes” applies to everyone, including Las Vegas’ working girls.

A few weeks ago I was driving down Tropicana from the office of a service that offers “strippers to your room,” when on the opposite side of the road, I saw a man in his fifties with only sweatpants on and his shirt laying on the ground. Reluctantly standing next to this guy was a man who picks up the trash for the Wild Wild West Casino and Truck Stop who was trying to do his job of emptying out the trash barrels along the road and parking lot of the property. He couldn’t do his job very well, though, since the half naked man was yelling at him, pushing him, and then suddenly trying to hug him, as if to say, “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me.” He’d go through this process, over and over – yelling, pushing, then apologizing.

The craziness with the casino janitor was interrupted, though, when the half-naked man suddenly decided to walk away from the worker, stop traffic on Tropicana, and yell at a car before returning to the sidewalk. After getting out of the road, he proceeded to pull down his sweatpants and reveal his shriveled privates to all who were watching.

The best timing by a cop I have ever witnessed was when a Metro officer pulled up on the curb just as this nut pulled his pants down. The now naked man had the most shocked look on his face when he realized he was caught red handed with his pants down. Literally. Mind you… This was all before 2:30pm on a chilly day. I would have kept my pants on even if I were inside… I’ll reserve my stripping for warm hotel rooms!

The last couple of nights we’ve been experiencing one of two parts of what I think tend to generally constitute our “rainy seasons” here in Las Vegas. The Winter portion of that takes place at any time between December and February and usually happens when conditions in the Pacific Ocean cause a low pressure area to set up off the California coast and allow for sweeping bands of moisture to move in, resulting in the closest thing Las Vegas has to an actual “season” of rain. This is because it’s one system that’s affecting our weather for several days, as opposed to just several hours. This may or may not happen more than once or twice during the winter. Slow, steady rain is great for us around here just like it is anywhere. The difference for guys like me is that whenever it rains for a night or two here in Las Vegas, forty minutes away up on Mount Charleston, they’ve probably gotten a half a foot or more of fresh powder. That means it’s skiing/snowboarding time, baby!! Tomorrow I’m heading up to Mount Charleston on what will probably be the best conditions day up there in a couple of years. *crosses fingers*

[The other "rainy season" is when we get a monsoonal flow of moisture in late July and August that causes brief thunderstorms to zoom across the valley floor, often times causing flash flooding in some places while other parts of the valley remain bone dry. This slow, steady sprinkling rain is where it's at, for sure.]

Last Friday my friend Dorothy, upon my suggesting that we drink fine wine until standing becomes challenging, said she has just the place. I thought I had just the place because I was in the mood for my favorite zin, and that can only be obtained at one of Emeril’s restaurants due to a contract with the winemaker, but she insisted. She had to make me feel a little guilty for always suggesting the place and not listening to others’ suggestions, which I don’t think is the case at all, but whatever her angle was, it worked. I’m glad it did!

I love wine. No, I mean I seriously love good wine. I like smelling it, I like tasting it, I just really love the whole wine experience. You might say I’m something of a wine snob in training… I know just enough to be dangerous, but it’s fun. Like some people say about sex, even when it’s bad it’s still good: wine always leaves you with a smile within a few minutes of it going down the proverbial hatch.

The problem with the process of trying new wines - figuring out what you like and don’t like about them, et cetera - is that you go to a wine shop, make a selection, take it home, maybe cook a meal, then you enjoy your bottle. By that point you might not feel like going back to the store to get another bottle or two. In a nutshell, the process takes time. In a restaurant the selection is, of course, bigger, but they also charge a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 markup (or more) on what the bottle would actually cost either them or you in a retail shop. That comes with the territory, naturally, but sometimes you just want to have a decent meal and really try a number of wines without all the overhead.

For people who love wine and a good meal, thanks to Dorothy, I have found a place that might represent the perfect model for wine and food lovers: Marche’ Bacchus. As I understand it, Marche’ Bacchus started as a wine shop. There are rows of bins and racks on the walls with a a great selection of wines. They have a little bar where you can take your wine selection and for a $10 corkage fee they’ll open your bottle, decant it if necessary, and serve you at their bar inside the wine shop. They added a small cafe to their wine market a couple of years ago and it appears they have expanded it to its current size and menu, with outdoor dining on one of the three fingers lakes in Summerlin (it’s temporarily enclosed and heated during Winter.) The whole place still has the market in front and is still small and quaint. The great thing is, you don’t get the multiple price that is charged in a restaurant for your wine, and yet, from the smell of it, you can enjoy your wine over a tasty meal, all in a great environment outside, if you like. When that bottle runs out, you have an entire market to choose something different in the adjacent room. It’s sort of an interactive take on wine and dinner. I love it!

Thanks Dorothy!

I’ll be visiting Marche’ Bacchus again soon for more wine and will actually eat a meal, at which time I’ll be writing a review over at the new site we’re working on, Las Vegas Critics.

Since different states have different primary election or caucus rules, it turns out that the Republican Party does not allow you to vote in their caucus in Nevada unless you are a registered Republican, unlike the Democratic Party, who allows you to register as a Democrat at the time of the caucus. This is unfortunate, because unlike some states, such as Texas where I grew up, you can fully intend to vote Libertarian, Green Party, Dem, Republican, or whatever in the general election, but weigh in with your vote in the primary election for another party. The way it works in the Nevada Caucus, the Democratic Party in effect allows that by letting you register as a Democrat at the time of the caucus to select the party’s candidates before the general election, and that’s what I intend to do. If the Republican Party weren’t a bunch of conservative elitists they would allow you to do the same thing and I would be showing up at that caucus to cast a vote for Ron Paul, even though I know he has almost no chance of winning the general election. I’ve been a Libertarian Party member since 1994 and I would definitely want to give him every chance of making it as far as possible and hopefully share some Libertarian ideals with some people along the way.

As it stands, Hillary Clinton is expected to carry Nevada, but a judge has ruled today to allow “at large caucuses” on the Strip in casinos. The reason why something so arcane actually matters is that a large number of minority voters work in Strip casinos and are members of the Culinary Union. That union has pledged its support to Barack Obama. That support is not worth nearly so much if all the voting members are at work in kitchens on the Strip, so they have gotten a judge to rule in favor of allowing these workers to hold caucuses at their workplaces so that they can vote. It’s possible that that might make it hard for Hillary Clinton to win Nevada, which is now considered a key early primary/caucus state. It’s nice being important! I’m fairly certain having such growth in recent years and more importantly having the Senate majority leader being from your state were huge factors, but I’m glad that they moved our caucus to this timeframe. Nevada is an important state and needs more politically and socially aware, positive attention pointed its direction.

What is a caucus, you ask? Well, in the context discussed here, it’s a form of primary election that causes the participants to take - literally - a more active role in the process. You have to show up to your precinct at a specified time and register, et cetera. Then, instead of casting a secret ballot, at the time of the vote in your precinct, you walk over to a prearranged part of the room to stand next to your choice of candidate. If there is not a clear winner, it becomes time to actually discuss politics! You can choose to be silent if you want, but it’s actually encouraged that you speak your mind as to why you feel your candidate is best and try to sway the other voters to cast their vote for your candidate. It’s a more active approach to being involved politically, at least in the primary elections. I’ve never participated in a caucus before, so I am really kind of excited about it.

I love caucus (and I can not lie!)

Wordpress, the underlying software that the site runs on, has undergone some fundamental changes in the way it handles site architecture, categories, tags, and that sort of thing. They’ve renamed and reorganized the way the software works, so I’ve had to back-peddle a bit and get our categories and tags sorted out. Now that that is done we’re going to begin wrapping up the graphics design work that my friend in Austin has been patiently working on since like October. Soon, very soon! I promise!

Once the new look is finished we can finally begin to start creating a lot of great new content, including our video podcast segment, which we’ve really excited about.

Anyhow, we’re still alive, back in action, and are really stoked for what’s coming in the near future. For now - Happy New Year!