Your Sunday Reading Assignments

I've finally caught up on weeks of reading and found some stuff of Vegas relevance to recommend. Most is from today's paper, actually, but some is kind of old, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you:

* Margo Bartlett Pesek's Trip of the Week column. In an otherwise worthless R-J travel section, Margo does a really nice job of offering some intriguing day-trip suggestions. This week's piece on wineries -- yes, wineries -- near Vegas was clip-and-save caliber.

* Henry Brean's really well-written piece today on the new critters they're finding in Snake Valley and how it intersects with Las Vegas' plan to suck water from northeastern Nevada via a really, really long pipe. Really cool, beautiful video, too, by John Locher.


Too bad the R-J's crack Web staff still hasn't figured out how to let people embed it.

* This piece by Adrienne Packer of the R-J about Clark County goons who busted and left carless a desolate 51-year-old woman for trying to make ends by picking people up at the airport. She had an ad on Craigslist offering to do all manner of chores and errands, including providing rides, and the Transportation Authority actually executed a sting. It's understandable that they need to make sure drivers picking up people at McCarran are licensed and not evil-doers, but when they realized this wasn't some big fake-cabbie ring but a nice, desperate lady, maybe they could've applied some common sense?

* Brendan Buhler, whose work I always have enjoyed but who handled the desperate publicity circus surrounding the Pink's Hot Dogs hilariously and then turned around and wrote sensitively and tastefully about how the new domestic partnership law would benefit a lesbian couple and their family.

* My Las Vegas Weekly colleague Rick Lax's really funny cover piece recently about trying to "live" at Town Center. Also, Dave McKee's profile of the classic French restaurant Le Pamplemousse for CityLife. Rick's was an idea I wish I'd thought of, McKee's was one I'd considered many times and never gotten around to doing.


* LVW food critic Max Jacobson has a piece in Gourmet this month listing seven places in Vegas worth their prices. I agree with many of his choices -- Raku, Simon and Lotus -- but am baffled by his praise of Beijing Noodle No. 9 at Caesars Palace. Having lived in China for two years, I'm here to tell you that food was bland. Also, the dining room is a little too kaladascopic for me.


Makes ya dizzy, no? Food's not that great, either.