A story in the San Mateo County Times notes that Lake Tahoe tourism officials want Las Vegans to visit Northern Nevada. The Tahoe Douglas Visitors Authority's campaign ("Lake Tahoe. So Close. So Cool") uses women in bathing suits, backdropped by snowcapped mountains, to convey a sense of cool that contrasts with Vegas' hell-fire summers.
Caesars Tahoe President Mark Rittorno told the paper: "I lived there (Las Vegas) for 15 years, where when you touched your car door, if it wasn't underground parking, you burned your hand."
September 15: World Music Awards press room, Thomas and Mack. Question to Pamela Anderson: "What do you do in Las Vegas, do you gamble?" Answer: "No. Gambling's bad."
October 5: Global Gaming Expo, Las Vegas Convention Center. The unveiling of the Pamela Anderson slot machine by Bally Gaming, with a Pamela Anderson appearance—hugging the slot machine.
Kudos to Mark Fisher of the News Scotsman for not adopting the New York Times style of un(der)covering Vegas: Create unflattering storyline, then find people to fit it.
"Though you might question the appeal of visiting a town dedicated to cleaning you out," Fisher writes, "you shouldn't write off Las Vegas."
Here, here.
"I'm no gambler, and yet I found the place almost viscerally entertaining. The scale of the dedication to gambling is a sight in itself. Every one of the 30 or so hotels that dominate the centre is the size of a shopping mall, and each one has a vast floor crammed with one-armed bandits, roulette tables, money wheels, bingo games, craps tables and any other device they can use to tempt the money out of your wallet. You will notice that instead of telling you to enjoy your stay, the receptionists wish you good luck."
Only two weeks in and October is proving to be a particularly violent month. A brief recap:
October 10: Three dead after a massive shootout (police recovered nearly 90 shell casings) at a shopping center on Rancho Drive and Washington Avenue.
October 7: Assailants gunned down 49-year-old Prince Albert Tillman in the Boulder Station parking lot; a passenger in Tillman's car was also shot but should survive.
October 2: Albert Cota allegedly ran over his wife with a Toyota 4-Runner at a car wash on Durango; he has been charged with murder.
October 2: Masked men fatally gunned down one man and shot another as the victims sat in an apartment complex on Lamont Street.
October 1: New study says Nevada's murder rate for men killing women is fourth in the nation.
Since the birth of the Mercury, some have wondered whether Las Vegas can support three alternative papers. Now we're joined by a fourth, Stok'd. The biweekly paper's website calls it "alternative voice in Vegas." The cover of the September 17 issue (Vol. 1, No. 2, the most recent we could scrounge up) has a picture of the Palms girls. The inside includes a profile of a street tagger, a restaurant review, plus a crossword, a word find and a question about John Ritter. Regardless of how many publications Vegas can support, we welcome the competition.