William Saletan lays out the case that Donald Trump has known all along that he lost the election. Maybe so. But I never got the sense that there was a strong link between what Donald Trump believed and what Donald Trump said. And not all that much between what Donald Trump says today and what he'll say tomorrow.
It's been ten days since a nice lady shot me full of Moderna vaccine. That was Dose #1 which brought on zero side effects. As many of you have informed me, if one is going to have side effects from this vaccine, they're more likely with Dose #2. So be it. None of the descriptions I've heard of such side effects sound even a hundredth as bad as actually getting the disease.
I have not changed my isolation lifestyle. Everything I've now done for 331 days to try and avoid COVID-19, I'm still doing. I just feel a little safer. And please stop trying to make me feel less safe by telling me about strange new mutations of the virus that will turn your brain into orange marmalade and give your knees the consistency of Silly Putty.™ We all have quite enough to worry about already, thank you.
Among the many things I used to do and am not doing now is going to Las Vegas. Actually, I'm not going anywhere but especially not to Las Vegas. Everything I read about what it's like there now makes me want to not be there for a long time. They've cut way back on everything but the gambling…which means everything I go there for since I gave up gambling late in the previous century.
Some restaurants are still open…though most, including some fast food places, require reservations. They're trying to manage how many people are there at any given time.
Only one hotel-casino offers a buffet at the moment. It's South Point, which is way out in the midst of nowhere else you'd want to go. It's operating "cafeteria-style," which means no self-service. You tell an employee, assuming one's on duty, which food you want and how much to put on our plate. Many hotels have, in fact, not only closed their buffets but remodeled those spaces into something else, indicating they do not expect buffets to make a comeback in the next few years.
There are only a few shows running, mostly comedy clubs, small magic shows or shows where a half-dozen people — male or female — dance with almost no clothes on. Wonder if any of them wear masks. The closest thing to a headliner performing now is Rich Little, who used to be an impressionist and now does a so-so impression of one.
Most discouraging is that the Vegas chat boards are full of tales of poor or non-existent service. A couple of folks are telling stories of arriving at a casino-hotel with a confirmed, paid-in-advance room reservation only to find that the casino-hotel is only operating as a casino. They abruptly closed down the hotel part without notifying reservation holders. What a nice thing to do to someone you refer to as a "guest."
One reason it's been easy to stay at home almost 24/7 for 331 days now is that I can't think of anyplace else I want to be.