Just back from another Vegas trip, mostly for recreation but also to get some work done. In case you haven't been there lately, the new trend in gaming is for "name" slot machines, themed around TV shows. Some are based on game shows, like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, and I lost an entire two bucks playing a Press Your Luck slot. (Press Your Luck was a terrific game show which went off the air in 1986. It was never a huge hit but I guess they figure someone remembers it.) There are also I Dream of Jeannie machines (with great pictures of Barbara Eden all over them), Addams Family machines and Munsters machines, while Beverly Hillbillies and Bewitched are said to be on the way. If you hit big on the Beverly Hillbillies machine, you could win enough to move into the big house next to the Drysdales and have your own cee-ment pond and a whole back yard full of critters. Old TV programs used to just fade quietly into obscurity on Nick at Nite. Now, they move to Las Vegas and get into professional gambling.
Funniest Thing I Encountered in Vegas This Time: No, not a Windows error. Walking the length of the Strip, I wandered past the Westward Ho, which is a dump of a casino next door. I noticed that, while the Stardust — hardly a class act, itself — is featuring Wayne Newton, the 'Ho (as locals call it) is featuring Rusty Davis, a Wayne Newton impersonator. A gent outside was trying to hustle folks to go in, gamble, eat cheap shrimp cocktails and see Rusty. I asked him, "Why would anyone want to see a Wayne Newton impersonator when they can walk right across that parking lot and see the real Wayne Newton?" Without pausing to mull, the man responded: "Our Wayne Newton is $14.95 and comes with a buffet." Hey, works for me.