Monday Morning's Montage

1. An Honest-To-God iReagan Message. I'm working at the moment on a piece about all the Reaganish things about to occur between the dead president's 99th (2/6/10) and 100th (2/6/11) birthdays. In Nevada, for instance, a group of die-hard Reaganites are trying to find a mountain that they can name for him without offending someone. But, anyhow, in browsing the Reagan Library site, I discovered there's a free Reagan iPhone app called the iReagan. That cracked me up enough, but how ridiculously fitting was it that when you open it for the first time, the message above appears? (If you can't read it, click on the image.)

2. THIS cost $8.5 billion? Wow, huh? I shot that on Friday night. Not to mention, Norm Clarke says Aria's lobby leaks when it rains. In both cases, though, the CityCenter peeps are lucky because (a) it doesn't rain that often and (b) No locals will ever catch the correct turnoff to self-park at the place that Jim Murren said it's easy to self-park at.

3. Who IS This? Do you know? The image was in my room at the new HRH Tower at the Hard Rock along with portraits of Tina Turner and Blondie. I tweeted this, but nobody knew. Do you? No, really. I want to know.

4. Truly, Truly, Truly Only In Vegas: For the benefit of those of you who don't follow my Twitter stream, I thought I'd post this savory little image. On Jan. 4, when a lunatic shot two people at the federal courthouse in Vegas, the media was collected outside a downtown porn shop. My laptop battery was dying, so look how I got a, uh, charge?


5. Only In Montreal? This struck me as a really bad name for a restaurant. Can you imagine anyone ever opening a Cafe Hindenberg? Or the 9/11 Brasserie? Or the Fontainebleau Hotel-Casino?


6. Guess Who's NOT Hosting At LAX...Ever? That's a harsh bit of dialogue, huh? Ryan, in this case, is the character played by George Clooney in the Oscar-bait flick "Up In The Air" directed and written by Jason Reitman. And I'm betting Reitman's never even seen Criss Angel BeLIEve.

7. CityCenter Employees Drink Cheap! I just wonder (a) how expensive the Wild Wild West drinks were in the first place and (b) would even this persuade them to set foot in the place Trippies voters picked as the worst off-Strip joint in town? Also, I wonder if they'd count Jim Murren as an "employee"?

8. Speaking of them Trippies: There once was a podcaster who loudly renounced Twitter as a fad. It's over, he said repeatedly on his little show from late 2008 well into early 2009. Then he got an iPhone. And then he was voted the 2009 Best Tweeter. Pretty effed up, huh? But thanks so much! And thanks to the Trippies editors, too, for picking us best podcast! Also, congrats to Five Hundy By Midnight for being voted best podcast, to VegasRex.Com for nailing the vote for best blog and to Brandie at Planet Ho for being editors' choice for best Tweeter at @phVegas. But a POX on all you voters who slammed the Plaza as the worst downtown joint. There are places just as gross -- Binion's, anyone? -- that don't have Firefly. That alone deserves more respect.