Chris Albrecht: Do You Know Who I Am?

It's not every day an act of violence in Vegas ruins someone's career. OK, it does happen aplenty -- Adam "Pacman" Jones can attest to that, too.

But here to your right is a copy -- click it to make it readable -- of the narrative of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police report from the domestic battery charge against HBO CEO Christopher Albrecht a few hours after the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight at MGM Grand. Took me all day at police records to get this thing on behalf of Newsweek (see our story here) but they didn't post the actual report so I figured I would.

Albrecht's girlfriend's name was redacted as was the officers involved. But according to this, not only did he grab her with BOTH hands around the neck and try to drag her toward the door from the valet area. The guy had to be very drunk but also full of hubris having just produced the most profitable fight in history to do something like this in plain view of probably hundreds of people.

What's even better is the quiet line in here that he told the officer he was the CEO of HBO. Does it EVER work to tell the cops you're someone important? Didn't he ever hear about Mel Gibson?

In the past week, the national press has tried to tar the local police as protectionist of Vegas' rich and powerful, inexplicably suggesting the Luxor bombing incident was being swept under the rug. (They have a person of interest as of last night.)

This seems to prove to me that these are just typical Vegas stereotypes. The guy was the top dog at the network that just staged one of the biggest events of the year. The girlfriend was busy insisting nothing had happened and that she wouldn't cooperate with an investigation. And STILL they arrest the guy.

Still think the cops are in bed with the casinos?

Spamalittle?

There's some strong evidence that despite boffo reviews for "Spamalot" at Wynn Las Vegas, audience demand is tepid. To wit:

Exhibit 1: Wynn set up a booth last Friday at First Friday in the downtown Arts District to give away vouchers for 500 seats to first comers. Giving them away! Yikes.

Exhibit 2: I stopped by the half-price ticket counter in the Coke bottle across from the Monte Carlo on Saturday afternoon after trying (and failing due to the MGM Mirage systemwide sportsbook glitch that the mainstream media entirely ignored) to place my losing De La Hoya-Mayweather wager. Spamalot tickets were available at half price, for $66. This was a big, big weekend in Vegas and this was a Saturday night and the show can't sell out?

I still predict Wynn will keep it open at least a year regardless of the cost so as to not declare it a total failure.

While I was at the Coke bottle, by the by, I took note of who else was offering half-price seats on a very busy Vegas night. Mamma Mia had $50 seats, the self-proclaimed "New Mr. Las Vegas" George Wallace was up there for $40, Le Reve was available for $80 (not quite half-price, actually) and poor old Carrot Top was on sale for $20 a stick.

Is it time to start wondering if the Vegas show industry is in trouble?

She wants her placenta - and to eat it, too!

This morning I woke up disappointed that I lost my $40 bet that Mayweather would KO De La Hoya and depressed to read in the morning paper that our entire food supply is in danger because honeybees are dropping like, uh, flies, and the Dead Sea is evaporating before I ever get to try to float in it.

But what really freaked Miles and me out this morning was this Review-Journal piece by Annette Wells about a Las Vegas woman who is very, very upset because Sunrise Hospital refused to allow her to keep her placenta following the birth of her daughter last month.

And what, pray tell, does she wish to do with the thing?

EAT IT!

No, really. The woman knows someone who turns the temporary organ into pills that supposedly allay the impact of afterbirth hormonal changes that are believed to cause postpartum depression. To wit, here's what they do:

"Selander washes the placenta, steams it, slices it and places it into a professional grade dehydrator. It is then ground up into a powder and put into nongelatin capsules."

Yum. Or something.

BREAKING: MGM Mirage Sportsbook Outage

On what is undoubtedly one of the biggest betting days of 2007 for Las Vegas with the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight and the Kentucky Derby going on, the sports book at every MGM Mirage property is currently NOT able to take any bets.

The outage seems to have started around 3 pm PT, just before the Kentucky Derby began. I was at the Monte Carlo attempting to place a bet and the huge line wasn't moving. I asked; system is down across the company. I returned about 45 minutes later to place a bet on the big fight and the system remained offline.

This is a major, major problem for MGM Mirage, which is hosting the fight of the decade at the MGM Grand Garden tonight.

I have calls out, will update. Developing...

**UPDATE: MGM Mirage spokesman tells me system returned online at about 3:55 pm, down for about one very precious hour that included the top of the Derby. They're too busy today to say what happened, but that's got to be a multimillion-dollar system failure.**