Wait... we have to go back to work tomorrow?

Back from Vegas this afternoon where we set a Las Vegas to San Diego door to door record of 4hrs. and 40 minutes.

We'll do some laundry, get settled in and be ready to get after it again starting early tomorrow.



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It's been rough and rocky travelin',
But I'm finally standing upright on the ground.
And after takin' several readings,
I'm surprised to find my minds still fairly sound

Programming Alert

We're back from Vegas and posting real-time for the first time since we left Friday morning. The alert isn't to announce our arrival but rather to get the word out on something we totally dropped the ball on before we left. Coinciding with our departure on Friday was the kick-off for San Diego Beer Week. And because the concept of a San Diego Beer Week is so excellent, it cannot be merely confined to one calendar week (call it spillage) as it will be going on until next Sunday.

Check out the event calendar at the WestCoaster, here for a listing of events this week.


And speaking of both beer and Las Vegas... this entire country is blowing up microbrew-wise and Las Vegas has only now discovered... Fat Tire Ale..

We put on our sleuthing shoes to come up with some places there in Vegas that served a generous line-up of microbrews. Because we had stumbled upon it by accident a few years ago, we headed straight for Pour 24 in New York, New York. "Paul", one of the bartenders told us that both The Pub in Monte Carlo and Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay would fit the bill of what we desired.

We can personally vouch for all 3 locations, so if you are in town and are jonesing for something other than a Corona or Bud Lite, those 3 aforementioned places will do you right.

OK. After weekend light on blog posts, we hope to get it cranked back up starting today, though we'd be absolutely lying if we told you it was "great" to be back.

Programming Alert

Folks, we're off for the weekend to take in the Breeder's Cup along with, of course, some college and pro football in the city that Harry Reid destroyed.

As you know us as the patriotic souls we are, we will be doing our darndest to implement a stimulus plan of our own to resuscitate this beleaguered city. With respect to our gaming prowess, we're all too often givers, unfortunately, but that's just the type of people we are.

Please tune in over the weekend as we will hopefully have some completely relevant heat'n'serve scheduled posts as well as some outside help.




Go Zenyatta, Go!!!

Smack of the day

“Sometimes when he’s not using his monitors and reading what he says, he doesn’t think. And this is one of those times he didn’t think, and he should straighten out the record because he’s been here, he knows Las Vegas is a great place.”

That from Oscar Goodman, the Mayor of Las Vegas who did not take kindly to the President’s words regarding Las Vegas that he made at a town hall event in New Hampshire.

Well, at least we share one thing in common with the President and that’s a healthy obsession with Vegas as this is not the first time he has scolded America on visiting Sin City.

Up for some more smack from Oscar? We thought so.



Epic.

This reminds us of interviews with an agitated Tommy Lasorda when he was skipper of the L.A. Dodgers where the reporters would simply turn on their tape recorders and let Tommy rip for 5-10 minutes straight while turning the air blue and shaming sailors the world over.

"And I guaran-(bleeping)-tee you this. If I was pitching and I knew I was facing a (bleep)-sucker like Bevaqua in the lineup, I'd send a (bleeping) limo to his place to make sure that (bleep)-sucker made it to the game on time."

Programming Alert

We'll be in Vegas for the weekend enjoying our annual mid-fall Breeder's Cup/Football weekend. And since we won't be back until Monday (staying over Sunday night while everyone and their bloodshot eyes are leaving Sunday morning/afternoon like rats leaving a sinking ship is kind of money), we have no earthly clue what is going to be thrown up on this site in the meantime.

At any rate, wish us luck with the ponies and the pigskinners.

Because in Drudge-world there are no such things as accidents.

Seen today, one above the other in a totally coincidental occurrence at the subject website, the headlines:



Bill Clinton celebrates his 63rd in Vegas

‘Progress’ in herpes treatment

(and apparently, a lot more going down at LSU than football, tailgating and Cajun food)

"We've got to stop where?"

Fund raising can be kind of a drag, especially when you are more or less forced to go to Nevada... and you don't even make it to Vegas.

But sandwiched between political appearances, Obama squeezed in some quick public remarks on energy, ironically before burning fuel to Los Angeles, at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base. It was a key stop, because it gives the entire trip an air of official legitimacy and allows the White House to write off part of the trip under rules governing travel, said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.

We're wondering though, if the case above is kinda like those loopholes the Prez wants to close on all those rich people so they can better, you know, pay their fair share? Just askin'...

Time for some hard ball?

We got back from Vegas a few hours ago and have been in de-compress mode ever since. Between a bowl of soup, the Monday Night game and Game 5 of the World Series, we’ll share some random thoughts on our weekend in Sin City, baseball, football and the elections that were, unfortunately, encroaching into our Vegas bubble more than we desired, in a series of updated posts.

And speaking of Game 5… the Phillies have themselves set up perfectly to wrap things up at home this evening as their ace Cole Hamels (4-0 in the playoffs this year) takes the hill against the Tampa Rays, Scott Kazmir. This should give Philly’s finest a riot-control live scrimmage opportunity against Philly's passionate and championship-starved fans in preparation for 8 days from now when this historic election will take place and win or lose, hordes of Sarah Palin supporters will take to the streets in America’s larger cities in either a really good mood or a very nasty mood.

The Giants-Steelers game yesterday was a highly entertaining affair featuring two of the more high profile teams in the league and would’ve been a perfect fit for NBC’s Sunday night prime-time slot except for the fact there was no Sunday night game last night. Why? Fox was broadcasting Game 4 of the World Series and the NFL was protecting one of its broadcast partners (Fox carries the NFC games) by not airing a game opposite that most surely would bury any World Series match up short of Red Sox-Yankees (uhhh, Beers? The Sox cannot play the Yankees in the World Series. Well, there you have it.) in what is already a historically low-rated Series.

We understand why the NFL does want to protect Fox but next time the T.V. contract is up and we’re Roger Goddell, we make it very clear to Ed Goren and the gang at Fox that the free pass on that first Sunday of the Series is over and that the NFL intends on running the Sunday night game as scheduled. Hey, we’re not totally heartless towards the national pastime… if the NFL has decreed Sunday night as “Football Night in America” with the prime match-ups then they need to start acting like it. As such, we could be talked into possibly giving up the now second-tier Monday night game (which, on the whole, has provided better games than the Sunday night affairs) for this late-October baseball sacrifice.

Picture is from I-15 North and the first pulse-quickening look at the California-Nevada border and its casinos.

(UPDATE #1): Suit was everywhere in Vegas and boy, was that ever a bummer. Well, to be precise, he was on T.V. an awful lot which we still resented. Imagine chilling at the the sportsbook, keeping an eye on the games while handicapping the ponies, when the benevolent patriarchal visage of America’s favorite infanticidal socialist pops-up on the big screen. Buzz. Kill. At least Kerry had the common decency (if not the funds) to not interrupt our blissfully ignorant-to-the-rest-of-the-world Breeder’s Cup weekend back in ’04.

Bumper stickers: We have absolutely no data to back this up – it is merely an anecdotal observation but for all the passion that Suit has supposedly generated among the Democratic faithful, we recall actually seeing more Kerry-Edwards stickers out and about in '04 than Suit-Gas Bag bumper stickers.

… and is anyone really surprised by this:

"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

The speed by which the dirt on Joe the Plumber was unearthed certainly suggested something was amiss.

Or this: Barbara West, a news anchor in south Florida was interviewing Gasbagus Maximus and had the unwitting bad luck to use the word “Marx” as in, “Karl Marx” with regard to a question she asked concerning Obama’s economic policies. Gas-Max didn’t appreciate it and, again, faster than one can say, "G. Gordon Liddy" we find out that Barbara West's husband is a scofflaw of very minor proportions. Again, do not answer that door!

Programming Alert

We’re off to Vegas this coming weekend for our annual late October Breeder’s Cup/college football/pro football challenge weekend. We’ll be staying at the Excalibur but depending on the Excal’s sports book, we may be commuting down to the South Point which, in our humble opinion, remains the best sports book in Vegas.

And we want to use this opportunity to announce the unveiling of the first ever BwD general election guide which will be rolled out later this week. Primary focus will be lent to the local and state propositions that are on the ballot. Stay tuned.

Finally, B-Daddy has some words of wisdom regarding the mortgage meltdown and you know who that will never see broad circulation before Nov. 4.

Not the Vegas we're entirely familiar with...

KT is in Vegas at something called Blogworld Expo 2008 and from the looks of it he is absorbing and processing quite a bit.

Here are some pearls from Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV:

- You need to spend 2-3 hours a day of communicating on blogs and in the comments. Find the blog leaders in your field and participate in their comments. Answer every email and every comment on your blog forever. This community work is huge – build up name recognition by leaving comments everywhere. If you know what you’re talking about, you’ll win. (OK. We’ll add the “contact us” feature)

- Content is king, but marketing is queen and the queen runs the household.

- He spends a lot of time searching for people who say bad things about him and he engages them and converses with them. Don’t waste your time on hating people. Spending any energy at all being angry at other people is a waste of time. Don’t spend your time finding people to be angry with, instead find places to leave comments on your expertise. (Who’d say anything bad about someone who sells wine?)

- Comment on all of the big blogs in your area.

We’re not selling wine…. Were not selling anything (wait, Gary did say we are selling our "brand" so what is our brand? hmmmm....) but there were several great “take-aways” from what Gary was saying. Read KT’s entire post here.

And Richard Jalichandra of Technorati (yeah, he might know something about this blogging business), with some intresting blog stats and trends here.

Programming Alert

Here’s the deal: From here until perhaps next week, posting will be a combination of hastily conceived and ill-executed and/or recycled posts, scheduled posts and outside-help posts.

Proving that even when management is promoted out of the way, it can still wreak havoc with your professional life, so we will definitely be out of pocket for at least 2-3 days this week.

This is followed-up immediately by a potential trip to Vegas where the room rates, even for a long holiday weekend are too low to not be taken advantage.

Yes, one cannot afford not to go, given the circumstances.

Besides, the first full weekend of college football has traditionally been our best, wagering-wise, as the lines that are set do not have much upon which to gage the performances of teams and thusly are quite often out-of-whack.

P.S. As we will be out, any comments may be unresponded to.

Programming Alert

We’re off to Vegas tomorrow afternoon/evening and while our last weekend out-of-town was to a more primitive corner of the planet we’ll be in the middle of what is one of the great technological wonders of the planet so we should be capable of blogging from there.

… and speaking of technological wonders here’s the Senator from the great state of Nevada opining on the deleterious effects of the very substance that empowers people from all over the world to travel to the greatest money-making and revenue-generating entity this planet may ever see and one which sits right smack dab in the middle of nowhere…. right in the middle of Harry’s home state.

Perhaps you’ve seen this before but we like to call it “See Harry whine, see Harry whimper, See Harry punt on 3rd down”. Poor ol’ Harry Reid: co-presiding over a legislative body with a 18.5% approval rating and now a YouTube sensation for conceding neither he nor anyone else in that same legislative body has a plan or a clue as to how to lift us out of this latest energy crisis.

Elvis: Branching out in directions you may not have been aware

We’re all biased by our own personal experiences so you can understand that while we might consider the 70s the Golden Age of Game Shows, it was only because that was the only time we ever watched them while staying home sick from school.

The Price is Right, Hollywood Squares, Match Game, Family Feud… great shows all but also some great theme music.

We were having this conversation with our little bro and we opined that the Family Feud theme was written for Elvis….. Vegas Elvis. Seriously. Listen to the banjo in the opening and then the horn section belting out that full sonic broadside and tell us you can’t picture the Rotund One in the white jumpsuit, knees bent in a half-crouch, microphone extended straight-out in one arm while the other is making a slow windmill motion….? Tell us!

Enjoy!

What happens in Vegas.... is open to interpretation.

…. And speaking of family values, Mongo passed along this piece hoping we’d see the delicious irony of Clark County, NV Republicans wearing credential lanyards at their convention that had printed on them the web address for a porn site.

What we noted, though, was a statement by the author that wanted to make double-extra sure we all knew Republicans were the party of moral turpitude, probity and straightness… as if her readers weren’t aware of this popular image of Republicans.

“Who knew that this, the so-called party of family values, the party whose platform keeps veering to the right to appease the Bible thumpers, would be strutting out the porn?”

We can only assume that in Ms. Neff’s world, “veering to the right” means uncontrollable spending, creepy sex scandals and nominating John McCain as its presidential candidate and de facto party standard-bearer.

Of course, she knows that this is not the case so she is more likely guilty of establishing a misleading narrative to better make the point of her story… a point upon which we are not exactly clear. Las Vegas does reside in Clark County, afterall.

Since it was just one sentence, we’re not going to Duranty the poor woman but we do wonder just what it is about these journalists in Vegas.

Back from Vegas....... (earlier than hoped)

Nothing sexy like losing our shirt at the craps table or even losing our shirt to a long cool woman in a black dress, rather our early departure was the result of a logistical conflict back here in San Diego. It was a shame because after just 2 days there, we felt we were just getting comfortable... as if the initial scald of the hot tub had subsided and we were now fully immersed into the soothing rhythm of casino life.

Well, since Vegas is still on the mind, what better time to post appropriate than on the day after the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.

The man still dominates this nation's cultural conscience and sub-conscience more than any figure outside the political realm. We tread lightly here not wanting to trivialize the planet-altering, life-as-we-know-it-in-America-providing contributions of giants like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. However, the man whom Camile Paglia dubbed "America's first Protestant Saint", has left a legacy that continues to be interpreted and built upon, much as the 3 aforementioned Presidents, to this day.

(The picture posted above is of one of the finest books we have ever read and the image of Presley is evocative of Ms. Paglia's assessment. In fact, because the book was so unlike anything we had read and because it so effectively captured that "something" about the American experience and about American exceptionalism, we wanted to work the title into the blog name somehow. Alas, we failed to come up with anything remotely elegant that would not, in our eyes and minds, have been somewhat over-the-top and/or pretentious. So we settled for the image of corporate elites boozing it up with the True Believers in an effort to garner ratings points. Charmed, we're sure).

Anyway... Elvis as our best weapon against totalitarian oppression? Click on link below for full story.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082102B

P.S. Many thanks to The Substitute (aka Brother Mike) for his fine work in holding down the fort. The kid ought to get his own blog, dontcha think?

P.P.S. You heard it here first... Late, great NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt: "America's second Protestant Saint."

Vegas Dispatch I

An exacta on the last race at Del Mar kept us at about the break even point here at the South Point.

A couple of years back, we spent one of the evenings at the HofBrau House where they had an oompah band and which was filled with German tourists. The Germans would, of course, be singing along with the tunes being belted out by the hit machine that was performing on stage but there were one or two that got our ancestral homies out of their seats and singing in full throat. This got a parlor discussion going in our group on what songs would get a bunch of American tourists, expats, etc. off their rear-ends were the same in some bar or restaurant overseas and being serenaded by a Gallic Rick Springfield look-a-like fronting the great American 70s and 80s Rock'nRoll cover band, "Sweet Emotion".

We settled on a consensus that was confirmed, in part, last night at the bar adjacent to the Sports Book that had a dueling, sing-a-long piano routine, two sets of newlyweds, their respective entourages and parties from Florida and Ohio, who together were taking great pride in the fact that between their rabid football following and the two states being the source of no small degree of controversy and interest the past two Presidential elections, had elevated themselves to the pinnacle of dysfunctionality in the eyes of their fellow citizens in the other 48 states. They were truly quite proud of this apparent distinction.

Give it some thought and chime in with any suggestions. We may reveal what song we had in mind later. Hint: Think Stars'n'Bars.

Many thanks to the Substitute for filling in.

Programming Reminder

Tomorrow morning 4:30ish, Lord willing and the river don't rise, we will be on the road to Vegas. Checked out the weather forecast: 109 deg. and the rain icon... Our pea-brains are attempting to wrap around that concept. We are fascinated to see how these two physical weather phenomenas will play out together, real time. Will the rain explode on impact with the superheated asphalt and cement? Or will it simply flash to vapor in mid-air so that we are walking around in a steam bath for the next couple of days. Or.... will this meteorological oxymoron go completely unnoticed as we are held soothingly in the loving air-conditioned arms of the South Point Sports Book?

Brother Mike has primary responsibility for captaining the Beers with Demo ship the next few days but we may pop in if only to stem the tide of a bad losing streak. Or like the next post, just to get a few things off our chest that have been nagging for a while.

Professional Sports and the Myth of Vegas

A couple weeks back Jim Rome had Michael Franceze on his radio show to talk about the NBA/Tim Donaghy betting scandal. Franceze, a frequent guest on Rome's show, is a reformed gambler and a former mob associate who has done time in Federal prison. I was only able to listen to the first two segments of Rome's interview but I had a couple of issues with some of the things Franceze was saying.

Franceze started in by talking about Vegas being a bad idea as a potential home for a pro sports franchise because of the easy access to gambling and a criminal element being there. With all due respect to Franceze who has probably seen more than I ever would in a 100 life-times: what a crock. Vegas, New York, Chicago, Atlanta.... it doesn't matter... whereever there are pro athletes with money, bad people peddling bad ideas will be there. Trouble will always follow young men with lots of money and it doesn't matter where. Oh yeah - they all gamble. NBAers especially. Flush with cash and days-off between games with nothing better to do, they become absolute degenerates. Thousands of dollars on H-O-R-S-E games before practice, running poker games, that game where you toss pennies against the wall.... anything to kill time and create the high that gambling and winning at gambling accomplishes. The NBA is rife with a culture of gambling as it is and it has nothing to do with Vegas.

Like its going to be any worse in Vegas? I'll make the argument that the situation actually will improve for a team home-based in Vegas. How many people that live and work in Vegas actually go near the Strip? Not many. Why? Because they are.... living and... working... in Vegas. Vegas isn't any different than any other place on the planet when it comes to the daily grind of working, raising a family and trying to keep your head above water. For teams and the players who would hypothetically be home-based in Vegas, the city would not be the destination where you go nuts for a few days... it would be home. Home to your family, home to your friends and home to your community. The allure and excitement would be dulled somewhat because you are making a home there and not treating it as a wild vacation destination.

Lastly, ballers would be watched like hawks in the casinos and strip clubs in Vegas. Vegas has a vested interest that everything is on the up-and-up and that there are no shenanigans. You think Baller 'X' is going to be able to go to a strip club and have some mob lackey approach him about fixing a game and this not be out on the "street" of the gambling establishment the next morning? If I'm baller "X", Vegas is the absolute LAST place I want to talk to anyone about gambling or fixing games in my own sport. Since Vegas is the gambling capitol of the world, they are best qualified to monitor and police the activity that is there very livliehood.

One more "lastly"... he talked about legalizing gambling and it being a bad idea. I agree but for different reasons. Like drugs, the only reason I don't want to see gambling legalized is that with legalization will come regulation and with that taxation. Gambling will become yet another revenue stream for the Monster (see: the Lottery) that will not coincidentally be regressive in nature, taking advantage of the very people that can ill afford it. The very people, culture and bureaucracy that will soon be providing your health care are the same practicing a soft-genocide of sorts in adminstering the gambling opiate to our country's lower economic classes.