Sunday Media Musings for Tourists

I caught up on some of the media I had missed this week this morning and wanted to point out a few things:

* NFL fans ought to bookmark this Review-Journal link so they know which bars to go to to watch their games with like-minded fans. I've used this in the past on the podcast as a Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week, a very useful guide that more tourists ought to use. Cool interface, too. When I say bookmark it, though, I mean it, because you'll never find it again on that ridiculous website if you don't.

* If you want to hear something truly, positively weird, listen to the first five minutes or so of KNPR host Dave Berns' "State of Nevada" interview on Wednesday morning with comic Bill Cosby. Honest to God, I have no idea what Cosby is saying and Berns' valiant efforts to make sense of it was fruitless, too. But since it's Cosby, there's something fascinating about it anyway. I'm not all the way through this interview yet, but already I know it's going to be a thrilling mess.

* I just noticed that Life Magazine's website now offers a pretty photo album of 26 Cirque du Soleil photos. They call it "Cirque du Soleil's Freakiest Acts" and, really, it's not, but the photography is terrific, colorful and fun. Downside: Only three Vegas images -- I think just one of an actual moment in one of their six-going-on-seven shows -- and none of its best, most eye-popping and "freakiest" show, Ka.

* Two Las Vegas Weekly pieces (other than my own column, natch) are of great tourist interest this week. First, Dr. Dave Schwartz of UNLV and DieisCast.Com stands up for you (and us) against the presumption that people who love Vegas and gambling are stupid. Then Richard Abowitz writes glowingly about RateVegas.Com's Hunter Hillegas' groundbreaking Vegas Mate iPhone app. Buy it at the iTunes store or win a subscription by being right and being picked in my show's biweekly trivia questions, by the way. And unlike that Monte Carlo-Hotel 32 thing we debunked recently, this is a real app.

Convergence is Creepy

I'm in a Starbucks in Manhattan today, so I had to bite the bullet and pay T-Mobile for my Web access. But what really surprised me was that I just went to look at something in iTunes and I see that iTunes and this Starbucks are in some sort of freaky cahoots because the banner across the top indicates the name of the song playing right this second in this cafe. I mean, I can't hear it over the din of chatter, but I'll surely take their word for it. Do you think that all Starbucks are playing the same music everywhere at the same time?

How do they DO that?

OK, OK. I'm sure it's pretty simple. But it's also kind of stunning. I'm sitting in a cafe, I like the song and iTunes wants to sell it to me. Does Starbucks or T-Mobile get a kickback if I buy? And, also, how long have they been doing this?

Also, how come nobody else's iTunes playlists are available for me to browse? There are about 2,500 people here with laptops; surely someone else has iTunes? I always love looking at what other people have. Did they stop letting you do that at some point?