Poor Heather is feeling the heat!

Quoted from Geoff

Las Vegas is the Rush Limbaugh of cities:

I'm dying! What a quote.

Quoted from Geoff

I say quarantine the whole city, seal it up in some sort of giant impregnable bubble, and launch it into the sun.  

I think sealing it in an impregnable bubble will suffice. We did this at college to a small loaf of bread. We hadn't intended to. The loaf got pushed to the back of the closet and when we discovered it again, it was this green, liquidy thing, still with slice marks, but a true slime mold hybrid that had started to melt through the wooden pantry shelf. So naturally we saved it in a beaker for further study.

Over the course of years, "the bread" (as it come to be known) went through a series of toxic changes, turning all shades of orange, brown, grey, etc. Every few years (yes, this was a long experiment; "the bread" followed us from college) we'd open it-- outside, prepared to run. The stench was unbelievable. It was an amazing potential weapon.

Then, finally, after being lost in the basement for some time, we found it again. The liquid in the vial was absolutely clear. When we opened it, it was the scent of fresh oranges.

Las Vegas, this is your future!!!!

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Man, I'm not supposed to do this. I'm not supposed to get off-topic.

Wow, I really look forward to that "Love" Cirque du Soleil DVD.  

Quoted from harihead

The loaf got pushed to the back of the closet and when we discovered it again, it was this green, liquidy thing, still with slice marks, but a true slime mold hybrid that had started to melt through the wooden pantry shelf.

Oh God, so that's what that stuff in the back of my fridge is. I thought it had something to do with the condenser.

But obviously I'm only kidding about Las Vegas. I'd be fine with the place if they'd just get rid of the Drive Thru Church Of Elvis / Celine Dion type of thing.

We're referring to the Strip of course as most of Las Vegas is quite normal. Suburbs with hard working families just like anyplace else. I know people who live there and they're actually very nice. I think it's too bad people won't go see LOVE because it's in Vegas. It's an AMAZING experience. I don't have a problem visiting. It's become more like Disney than anything else. A lot of shopping and rides. As for the other attractions, anything consenting adults want to do with their free time is their own business. Who am I to judge.

I'm not faulting anything about Las Vegas, its attractions, or its people. Just its location. It sucks up huge amounts of water and energy that could be far more wisely used than creating a playground in the middle of the desert. We out west live and die by our water. Such extravagant waste seems criminal to me.

I am loving the bread experiment!  I can only imagine how extremely disgusting that "bread" had gotten!

Las Vegas is the Rush Limbaugh of cities  

You guys are too funny!

Hey, to save water they can go ahead and relocate Vegas if they want, no problem!  Funny thing is Harihead, I should be more concerned with California's water myself.  My mother works for Ca Dept of Water Resources!  

And I love that Vegas has a drive-thru wedding chapel, if i ever get married while in vegas, I want it to be in a drive thru wedding chapel   

Oh, yea and the Love rocks!

Quoted from HeatherBoo

And I love that Vegas has a drive-thru wedding chapel, if i ever get married while in vegas, I want it to be in a drive thru wedding chapel

Cheers, Heather: I hope it was obvious from the git-go that I was just doing shtick. The Vegas strip isn't my kind of place, but of course there was no thought given to pleasing me when it was built and that's exactly the way it should be.  

Actually, I made that bit about drive-thru weddings up mostly because I was hungry at the time and drive thrus are the first (and usually only) thing I think of. But it turns out drive thru wedding chapels really do exist:

http://www.chapelsoflasvegas.com/drivethruweddings.htm

Don't know about the Elvis angle, though.

Yup they do exist!  I think they even have one in Reno too  

And, everyone is entitled to their opinions.  I don't dislike someone who doesn't share mine.  In fact, I think it's great that people care enough to have their own  

So the release date in June 24th????  Why is everything music/movies/dvd released on a Tuesday here in the USA???

I know what an odd day to release stuff.  Should be like Friday or something.

I agree.............or on Sunday when all the week's adds break in the papers.........

Quoted from harihead

I'm not faulting anything about Las Vegas, its attractions, or its people. Just its location. It sucks up huge amounts of water and energy that could be far more wisely used than creating a playground in the middle of the desert. We out west live and die by our water. Such extravagant waste seems criminal to me.

Never been to Vegas, afraid of what will happen to me if I go there. I'm strong, and I can resist anything, except temptation usually does me in (apologies to Groucho).

But back to torching Vegas ... it's a tough issue in my mind. It grew up around a spring or creek or something, and was a thriving town/city long before it became a playground. When I think hard about whether the playsters have the right to use those resources, it turns into one of those thin-edge-of-the-wedge kind of things that seem to be one of my failings. OK, let's say it's wrong for the hotels to be there. How about the hotels in Florida, messing up the Everglades and all? Or pretty much all of Manhattan, built on a small island with a fragile ecosystem? Who gets to decide whether the stimulus for development (and its inevitable resource destruction) is bad (gambling, organized crime, Celine Dion, etc.), or OK? The answer to me is obvious (I should be the one!), but I suppose others may disagree for one reason or another.

It's kind of like my mom's condo area in Rockland Co., NY, about 20 miles north of NYC. When she bought it 20 years ago, there were about 50 units stuck in the middle of what seemed like the primeval forest that went on forever. Now, you can't see a single tree for all the newer condo units that have been built around hers. She has complained about how wrong it was to build up the new units, nature is being destroyed and all. But implicit in all that of course is that it was OK to build her unit ...

I don't know, it's hard for me to figure these things out. Maybe the best thing is to just be smart about the choices we have yet to make. That's hard enough for me!!

Does anyone out there have a good way to figure these sort of things out? Maybe we need a resident board ethicist  

In all honesty, I could care less about going to Vegas.  I don't gamble, the shows are expensive, the "good" lodging is expensive...........and they charge you 8 bucks for a cup of coffee room service!!!!  I'm not kidding.  The little widow woman who lives across the street from me went to Vegas earlier this year on a "free comp" with her sister and husband and she said she'll NEVER go back again.  She said Tunica, Mississippi.......here in the states, about 3 hours from me......has better gaming tables and hotels.  
So...........I'd much rather see "Love" on dvd than a live show..........

I don't even want to go into how much money I spent in Vegas... Not including what I gambled away...  
But I would do it again in a second  

Quoted Text

How about the hotels in Florida, messing up the Everglades and all?

Good questions, Alexis, and ought to be asked by every sensible person. It all comes down to responsible use of the Commons-- those resources we share on Mother Earth. If we do it wrong, we die-- just like the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi, the Maya of Central America and the Greenland Norse. If we're smart, like the Tikopians, New Guineans, and Japanese, we live. (Although Japan cheats in its abuse of fishing commons, it does a great job of managing its island resources.)

People all over America are smart and stupid in how they manage their resources. Out West, I have to say we are largely stupid. Florida has pools of intelligence mixed with sweeping blights of stupidity. Look at where people choose to build their homes. You can't even get insurance in most places because these trophy homes on the beach cost so much to rebuild when the hurricanes come most people can't afford to insure their sensible homes, not being the millionaires who are once again making life miserable for the "have nots". On the other hand, when Florida realized the Everglades were vital to the entire operation of the state's ecosystem, they took steps to protect it.

Everything is a balance. People use resources and will keep on doing so. Rather than kill all humans, or use up all resources, I would like to strike a happy balance. We have historical examples in front of us. We have to have the will to follow them.