Now that Clark County has finally finished the stretch of 215 from Jones through Buffalo, it now takes us longer to get home. We had greeted the highway project with some enthusiasm when it opened December 23—figured it would eliminate the slow crawl of rush-hour cars heading home on the highway west of Decatur. It has. Er, it did. For, like, a minute. But the westbound Rainbow Boulevard offramp has yet to open. Now, the westbound Jones Boulevard offramp has been closed, too. And so cars back up on Decatur to take the feeder road over to Jones. This is already the side of town that shuts down when it rains. It's enough to make us miss the reliably stop-and-go traffic on the old 215. Maybe we can just call it a day and go back to what we had.
There's a convenience store off of U.S. 95 in Henderson where the turnover seems particularly high and the employees are doing their best to work the job into their lives. During a transaction last week, a clerk was engaged in an intense cell-phone discussion as a man waited for his change. The clerk turned his back on the register to focus more on the conversation. "Excuse me," the man began. But the clerk, sticking his hand almost into the guy's face, interrupted. "Customer," he said, "I don't need to be talking to you right now."
Josh Bell on unpredictable fake weather: Visiting the Desert Passage (empty as always) with out of town guests on a recent weekend, we attempted to observe the artificial rain shower that plays every half hour. Imagine our disappointment when this simple display (it's water, falling from the ceiling!) was executed with gross incompetence.
It started 10 minutes late (something that, thanks to the grousing kiosk attendant who answered our question about punctuality, we know happens often these days). The water fell in an uneven gush, when in the past it has been a uniform torrent. The fake sky painted onto the ceiling was cracked. The ambient sounds of birds and merchants, which used to lead to a subtle and gradual beginning of the storm, were gone, only beginning abruptly when the rain started falling. We realize that it's not exactly a million-dollar production, but it's not a good sign for your mall when you can't get fake rain right.
The Test Market theater troupe at Downtown's SEAT venue at the Arts Factory is beginning to try the patience of even we profanity-loving editors—or at least, profanity-tolerating editors—here at the Weekly. Just concluded: British playwright Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and F--king (the dashes are ours; the title is unrestrained by such modesty). This Friday: the sketch comedy show Crackwhore: The Musical. And February 10-25: TM director Ernest Hemmings' self-proclaimed "blaxploitation" epic in three episodes, Die, Motherf**ker Die! (the asterisks are his). Not to proclaim our prudishness, but we're beginning to wonder: Whatever happened to Oklahoma? "Oh, what a beautiful f--king morning ..."
The Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot reports that Sheldon Adelson, "the world's richest Jew," says "Israel must build casinos ... it will be good for ... tourism and the economy." Adelson also said he would be happy to finance them, and preached to the Israeli ambassador, "Don't be afraid of this." Afraid of this? Bus bombs, suicidal terrorists, violent political strife, and keno. Which one of these things does not belong on a list of fears?
Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, on the potential emergence of a desert tortoise from its winter burrow: "Mojave Max traditionally emerges in Mid-March. A January emergence would be unprecedented."
Tuesday's Washington Post offers perhaps the best evidence that our staid Sen. Harry Reid is really an unflappably astute politician dressed in Ward Cleaver's clothing. The lengthy article recalls, in particular, Reid's work in convincing Sen. John Kerry to reverse a pledge to hike mining fees when he became president. Industry officials said the move would cost Nevada 44,000 jobs. By the time Reid got through with him, Kerry was singing another tune: "Let me just say clearly to Nevada while I'm here: ... As president, I'm going to work with Harry Reid and with your miners to keep mining jobs, to keep people working."