life in vegas

I’ve been out of the office for two days, so of course my inbox is filled with all sorts of campus announcements including, for some reason, a blatant advertising for the DaVinci Code. And then there’s this: Could the next “Apprentice” also be a Rebel? Find out… when NBC brings the search for Donald Trump’s […]

One of the challenges of being an academic who’s asked to comment on history for the media is being able to share my ideas about history in a way that is accessible to all. The articles I write for the Business Press, for example, have a different tone than purely scholarly articles that I write.

Anyone from Atlantic City knows why that’s a funny title–or at least they should. In any event, there will be an epic buffet unfolding at the Las Vegas Hilton in two weeks. From the Hilton Hot Sheet: Alka-Seltzer, in celebration of its 75th anniversary makes an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the

There is an interesting debate in American Interest between Francis Fukayama and Bernard-Henri Levy “over American virtues and vices, neoconservatives, religion, the future of American muscular internationalism, and the role of intellectuals in a free society.” Interesting, it starts in Las Vegas but, as the title suggests, goes pretty far afield. In this first couple

I never watch those red carpet shows where someone critiques what people are wearing at various awards shows, but I’ve gathered that they just make all kinds of catty comments and allow people sitting at home shoveling down Ben and Jerry’s ice cream feel aestetichally superior to professional actressses with teams of designers, hair, and

Auto racing is the big thing in Las Vegas this week, so I thought that people might appreciate this item from Sports Illustrated about the fact and fantasy of betting on NASCAR. For example… Most Nevada gambling establishments will offer a variety of wagers. While this includes action on events such as “most laps led,”

As proof that Las Vegas really has a unique place in the American landscape, the city and a few of its most famous stage legends popped up in a story about artist Thomas Kinkaide, who apparently likes to have a few belts, disparage stage magicians and “mark his territory.” From the LA Times: Dandois, who

If you’re not intimately familiar with the Las Vegas Strip, it can be a confusing place. You might hear somewhere that the Venetian’s got a great buffet and spend your whole time in Vegas looking forward to eating there, only to be disappointed. Luckily for you, Jeff Simpson of the LV Sun has posted a

…to go on the Strip? According to Liz Benston at the Sun, the Riviera might not be such a bad bet: A group of experienced real estate developers has reached an agreement with the chief executive of the company that owns the Riviera to buy out his shares of stock in the casino’s parent company

Post-Katrina Biloxi will look very different from the city before August 29, 2005. There’s a good piece in the Sun-Herald about an amibitious proposal from Harrah’s and some unintended consequences of the burgeoning condo boom: Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest gambling company, will invest more than $1 billion to build two casinos in Biloxi, said

I was down at the Boardwalk closing yesterday–it’s quite a thing to see a casino shut its doors. I’m going to be involved in an oral history program that will collect interviews from former employees, so if you know someone who used to work there, have them get in touch with me. I think there

Men’s Fitness magazine did some kind of poll to determine what the fittest and fattest cities in America are. Because you’ve probably got a pretty much uniform distribution of physically fit and unfit people around the country, this seems like a fool’s errand to me, but it made headlines. From MSNBC, but it’s everywhere: When

That’s probably just the first time I’ll use some permutation of that phrase over the next five years, because Boyd Gaming announced this morning that it is closing the Stardust to make way for Echelon Place. Because I’m such a “gaming industry insider,” I arrived at the office and found a copy of the press

I’m still busy with Roll the Bones, but I’ve got to post what I think is the one-liner of the year…so far. From the AP: Some teenage soccer players and their parents saw more sights than they wanted when they stayed at a hotel where about 200 swingers were having a New Year’s party. Paul

If you’re curious about which Las Vegas casino will be getting the boot next, you can check Las Vegas Casino Deathwatch. Or, you could just throw the name of every structure over 20 years old into a hat and pick one. Or, you could read this aritcle from the LV Business Press: Once Tamares Group

According to Entertainmentwise (not my first choice for breaking casino news, to be sure), George Clooney’s Las Ramblas project has been “scrapped.” What does that mean? You be the judge: George Clooney’s plans to build a casino in Las Vegas have been totally scrapped. The actor had planned on teaming up with Brad Pitt and