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 Rex's Las Vegas Blog
Selling Your Soul
There is one aspect of Rexville that people have been asking me to cover for roughly the past six months, but I have so far resisted doing so. At least in-depth.
In addition to weekly motels, wedding chapels, drug sales, streetwalkers-r-us, tattoo parlors, strip clubs, and bail bonds places ... the next most prominent business type in the neighborhood would probably be pawn shops. I don't think I've ever seen a two-square-mile area in the world with more pawn shops than Rexville. Unfortunately, these are probably the businesses in which I am the least interested.
Something about pawn shops have always depressed me. They represent the aspect of capitalism that I am the least fond of. Basically, one man's misfortune is another's gain. I generally don't think well of payday loan places, or realtors who take customers on tours of houses where the occupants have just been thrown on the street. I could never go to a foreclosure sale or an auction where people's lives are sold off piece-by-piece. I would feel like a parasite.
The USA has gone from a nation of innovators to a nation of professional middle-men. We don't really produce anything anymore. Instead, we just stick our finger in as many jars as we can find. We re-sell the same product or service as many times as possible so that multiple people can skim value off of something they had no hand in creating.
Why create something of value when you can buy, sell, or broker it?
Word To Your Mother Earth
Now, I've taken a lot of criticism for my "climate change" stance, but of all of the things I get criticized for, I consider these attacks to be the most unwarranted and unjustified.
In my mind, when people criticize me for making fun of global warming, it is akin to meth addicts with DARE bumper-stickers chastising me for my caffeine intake. It's irrational.
If one were to do a comprehensive audit of fully-functional 41 year old males in the USA (paraplegics probably use little gasoline), I would estimate that my personal lifetime carbon footprint would place me in the bottom ten percentile ... if not the bottom five.
I've always made it priority #1 to live where things were actually located. I've never "driven to work" on a daily basis. I've walked, biked, roller bladed, and taken the bus/subway ... but hour-long daily automobile commutes are a completely foreign concept to me. Driving in traffic feels like torture and I go to great lengths to avoid it.
Sure, I own a car now, but I've earned it. I paid my "carbon" dues in spades for damn near 35 years. I'm too banged up to self-propel myself quite as far as I used to. Especially in 110 degree temperatures. Still, personal drives of over 5 miles are uncommon, and I still overwhelmingly prefer the bus or the monorail. On a day-to-day basis, my "carbon footprint" is still probably 80% less than the average suburbanite's.
How Long Is Your Yardstick?
The LVCVA reported average daily rates as $99.75 while a major hotel-booking site reported them to be $79.
For those of you keeping score at home, the LVCVA is being 26% more optimistic than the private company. The private company also says that rates dropped 18% in 6 months, and the LVCVA says they only fell 4% in an entire year.
Who's right? Who's wrong?
Who knows?
The thing about stats is ... they usually lie.
Numbers are easy to throw out, and since few people have the resources or initiative to double-check them, you can more or less make numbers up and still sound plausible. Even if you do know absolutes, there are a myriad of ways to manipulate them to show what you want to prove. For example, the Visitor's Authority may have used a smaller starting number (104 vs. 109) to make the decrease look less dramatic.
The Resurrexion
I just got out of the hospital, and first let me say that I very much appreciate all of the well-wishes. I even appreciate some of the questionable-wishes, such as those opining that I had some venereal disease, and even the one person who took the time out of his day to email me a simple "I hope you die".
I'm sure the latter was not a unique sentiment, so kudos for having the courage to say what many others were surely thinking. And by courage, I mean "sending an unsigned email from an anonymous email account". It must have taken hours to work up the strength to do that.
Can you imagine Rosa Parks in 2010?
From: sweet_mama_chocolate87156@yahoo.com
To: The Montgomery Transit Authority
I'm sick and tired of your discriminatory policies, and I'm not going to take it anymore. If you don't let black folks sit at the front of the bus, I'm gonna post all of your email addresses on alt.sex.bestiality and post pictures of your racist drivers on 4chan!"
The Black Panthers would probably coordinate wholly via Twitter, where uprisings would be routinely thwarted by "service unavailable" and "check out our latest deals!" messages. The 140 character limit would probably also lead to some confusion.
"We are sick and tired of the white devil keeping us down. If you are with us, fight the power and rally at the intersection of 181st Street and M..."
"Sorry, that last message was too long. We will be rallying at 181st Street and Market Avenue. We are mad as hell and will not take it anymore. Make sure you are there promptly at N..."
It's a good thing the civil rights movement happened 50 years ago.
The Blind Leading the Blind
This is exactly why I don't read fiction.
The truth is so much more bizarre.
On Thursday, President O'Drama signed the "Travel Promotion Act" into law.
This particular act is designed to convince people from other countries to vacation in the Unites Sates. The act will be funded by a $10 fee on all tourists to the U.S.
That's right, we will begin luring people to our great nation by charging them more money before they even set foot on our soil.
So far, so bad.
That's nowhere near the worst part, however.
Life in the Slow Lane
Earlier tonight, I engaged in a bit of ghetto gambling. This was not the "play at the Western" version of ghetto gambling, instead, it was the cheap person version. Ghetto gambling is gaming that has all the fun of gambling, without any of the risk or reward. My own personal rendition of ghetto gambling involves taking only $20 to a local casino (usually the Sahara or Stratosphere) without an ATM card or even a wallet. Then, I play along these lines: I start out with $20, and I begin playing at a $3 or $5 table. I play a few hands until I double up or lose 50%. Unfortunately, I do not tip during these minor sessions unless I go on a big streak, and even then it's no more than a couple of bucks. If I double up, I pocket $20, and then proceed to play with "free" money at whatever low-limit game I feel like playing. The worst I can do is break-even on the session. If I get dinged for 50% early, I go to the $1 BJ tables or nickel Video Poker machines. If I manage to double up at these tables or machines, I go back to a "higher" limit ($3-$5) BJ table and repeat the process. If I lose it all ... I stop playing. At times, I have been able to make a single $20 bill last two hours while ghetto gambling, while getting the occasional free drink in the process. Read more ...  Rex's Las Vegas Lists
How To Spend Your Bachelor Weekend in Las Vegas (25 Do's and Don'ts)
30 Must Follow Rules For Any Las Vegas Casino Gambler - Part 2
30 Must Follow Rules For Any Las Vegas Casino Gambler - Part 1
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15 Ways To Get Kicked Out of a Las Vegas Casino
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December 21st, 2009 Aria Pool From Sky SuiteComments are closed. |
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