Circus Circus is very theme-park and noisy and cute and bright and loud and kid-friendly.

I generally cross the Strip to avoid it.

Must find those suite pictures. Jacuzzi bath, gold fittings, floor to ceiling windows. Nic took a bunch of gazing out across the neon jungle while wrapped in the posh bathrobes you find in every room.

Damn. Now I'm not only missing the Bellagio, I'm missing every great hotel I've ever frickin' stayed in....

Circus Circus is very theme-park and noisy and cute and bright and loud and kid-friendly.

Since everything I know of Vegas, I know from Hunter S Thompson, I always think of it as theme-park and noisy and cute and bright and loud and screaming-nightmare-vision-inducing. So glad to hear it hasn't changed.

So glad to hear it hasn't changed.

It honestly hasn't. The only other ones that creep me to nearly the same degree are the Straosphere (stayed there once, would rather give Karl Rover my social security number than repeat that little nightmare) and the Luxor, because it's so damned Illuminatus.

Bwah! But it has a spa with massages and mud baths and an Olympic swimming pool in the basement, Deb. (Also, I MUST dress up sufficiently to be admitted to Isis next time I'm there.)

Circus Circus wouldn't let me into a room until after 3pm despite my arriving at 3am. And a friend's car was stolen from their garage while I was there. The only mark in the pro column was that it was full of Kristen and other Bronzers during my visit.

the Luxor, because it's so damned Illuminatus.

Heh. I love it because it's so creepy. I love Caesar's Palace for the kitsch factor though, so I'm clearly not to be trusted. I do steer far away from Circus Circus and Excalibur or whatever the knight one is. Too many kidlets.

Actually, thinking about? Quite a few of the hotels creep me. That fake Camelot thing sends me metaphorically screaming into the night in search of a pox-ridden hooker, just to offset the cutesy factor. And Paris - no. First time we went inside as for a friend's wedding, and we'd just got back from the real Paris a week earlier. We walked into the casino, stopped, and found ourselves staring in complete horror at a stunted single fake leg of the Eiffel Tower, stretching toward a blue-painted ceilig - and being snipped off a few feet shy.

Nic looked at me, I looked at him. He said, "Listen. Just back out slowly, and whatever you do, don't make eye contact with anyone."

But the Monte Carlo is neat, and the Venetian, and the lions at the MGM. Kitties!

I stayed at the Rio last time I was there, which is just off the strip and home to Penn & Teller's show. Comfy, nice, lagoon pool and some good restaurants.

Gold plated bathroom fixtures creep me out. So "Cribs" so "I have too much money and need to show it off gratuitously so what can I stick gold on NOW."

Luxury is neat and all and not every penny a person earns needs to save the world. Exquisite craftsmanship is certainly worth doing and enjoying. Billion count sheets feel wonderful. Amazing food, travelling the world...those seem worth their pretty pennies. But once you're randomly finding stuff to gold-plate you've surely got a few starving babies somewhere on your soul.

Google news is reporting West Nile and Elephantisis in Las Vegas. They don't think it will spread to humans, but ...

edited for spelling

But once you're randomly finding stuff to gold-plate you've surely got a few starving babies somewhere on your soul.

How to answer this carefully, and keep it disengaged...

Okay.

Stuff on your soul? Maybe you do. As a member of AI since long before it became fashionable, and as one half of a married couple who've fostered 18 kids around the world since 1981, I don't. I just don't happen to think that sourness over enjoying the occasional luxury negates what I do with the rest of my the disposable income, which, to a large degree, would be traditionally defined as "good works."

But, whatever pegs the meters. Not sure what that particular jeremiad has to do with organising a face to face, either, and really don't much feel the need to know.