Phil Laak, 336 Hours Later

I received a real nice complimentary email from poker star Phil Laak last week about my coverage of his 115-hour stint at a Bellagio poker table in pursuit of a Guinness record. So I wrote back to ask how his recovery was going and, uh, here's some of his staccato response, showing he's not just an amusing rambler when he's overtired. To summarize the scattered musings below, the stunt has improved his racquetball and poker games, given him the ability to see the future and helped him weep more and easier at bad movies.

Here's an edited (for comprehensibility) version:

i should be tested. i am very sure that i have improved in many ways as a human:

confidence - mega high
love for all of mankind - mega high
poker game - improved greatly
empathy levels - higher than ever
patience - off the charts
ability to hold many floating thoughts together in suspension - higher
ability to play backgammon has improved

it is truly amazing. i have been DESTROYING them in cards since the enduro challenge. here's my racquetball scores against a guy i never got more than 7 or 8 points:

15 - 11 him
15 - 13 him
15 - 12 me!!!

i beat him, and before i beat him, i told him that this was the game where it would all change.

i now officially have DTP -- defocused temporal perception. i can see 2 to 4 seconds into the future. Half-kidding here, but it seems true to me. i feel like kung fu. i walk with excellent posture effortlessly.

i am hungry for everything now. At the gym, i don't want to stop. i schedule for 24 mins on Stairmaster, i go 40. i am a cyborg of unlimited potential and more human than ever before. it is great.

This week i saw the new karate kid. had i seen this movie a month ago, i might have slightly teared up at the appropriate moment. now, the newly improved, sensitive-yet-strong phil teared up and cried over 4 times!!!

if i were a shrink and had a depressed patient, i would heavily encourage him to stay awake for 5 days. nothing else i have ever done in my life comes close to what i have been living and feeling over the past two weeks. i submit to the universe.

i will the effects from this enduro experience to stay with me till i die. it would be the greatest gift the universe could hand me next to immortality, but i have more or less given up on that which is a shame as i think i would get great value out of it.

anyway buddy, stay well, cheers and do yourself a favor. Stay awake somehow for 5 days. it is magic. truly magic!

Cuckoo! But funny cuckoo, no?

The Show is UP: Donny Osmond

Amy and Miles held down the fort quite well in my absence, so here goes. Subscribe (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune. Click on the date below to make it play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. Enjoy!

June 21: Donny Osmond's Return

It’s been three long, productive years for Donny Osmond since last he joined us on this program. His first public hint that a Vegas deal was brewing was on that 2007 episode, and now he and sister Marie are major Strip headliners who have both also appeared on Dancing With The Stars. Donny, of course, won the ABC reality show last year, and he talks this hour about that triumph. He also talks about how he knew to buy the domain name donny.com way back in the 1980s and he and Steve touch on some current news of the day including the deaths of Marie’s son and Gary Coleman as well as his concern over Justin Bieber’s Donny Osmond-like popularity. Plus, someone famous once told him in the 1980s to change his name if he wanted to resume a show biz career. Find out who.

In Banter: MGM Mirage is now MGM Whatchamacallit, Louie Anderson traded the Excalibur for Palace Station, Rick Moonen got robbed, Vegas The Mall opens and Resort Fee Cancer spreads to Wynn and the Trop.

Links to stuff discussed:

Donny Osmond’s website, Donny.Com
Tickets for the Donny & Marie show at the Flamingo
Louie Anderson goes to Palace Station
Moonen and Samuelson doing charity dinner
EatingLV.Com on Fleur de Lys becoming a tapas bar
Fox 5 on ESPN Zone closing in Vegas
Las Vegas Sun on the Walgreens coming across the street from CityCenter
The R-J on Wynn laying off 261 people and giving 4,000 others a 40-hr work week
VegasTripping.Com on the resort fees now at Wynn
The AP on MGM Mirage becoming MGM Whatchamacallit
VegasHappensHere.Com on Vegas! The Mall opens on Moscow
Our 2007 episode with Donny Osmond
The KNPR Paul Rodriguez interview criticized for failing to follow up on his anti-Trop remarks

Vegas Sunday Sillies

My screen-shot and photo folder runneth over, so time to share the smiles.

Miles' sister sent this card, which gave me a chuckle...


...as did this Bizarro cartoon from a few weeks ago.


See, the balloon dog pooped balloon turds and that's funny, get it?

Those wacky folks at The View section of the R-J are back with more weird, dissonant art to go with their articles. See, it's a piece on how real bones are dangerous for dogs and the suggestion is do give them smaller treats so, naturally...


...the photo they select shows a dog chewing a plastic bone. Nowhere in the piece is that alternative suggested -- perhaps because chewing a plastic bone really doesn't do anything to improve dental health -- and the caption under the photo is irrelevant to the photo shown. Click on the image above to see it better.

Meanwhile, over in the sports pages, imagine my thrilling surprise when I saw that the New York Mets are on a 524-game winning streak!


OK, OK. I get that it's a five-game winning streak, but someone over there in the Review-Journal sports section needs to realign this grid. Pittsburgh Pirates fans are suffering enough without momentarily thinking their team has lost 914 games in a row, y'know?

I was in Boise last week, as I Tweeted, getting my state capital fix. The Idaho Capitol was closed for construction and renovation last time I was there, so I got a new money shot of me with the building since this was a more proper visit:


Oh, wait. That's the most obscure, weird artifact I've seen in a state exhibit anywhere. Look! It's the ex-first lady's fake diamond belt! Woo hoo!

Here's the real shot:


Meanwhile, even in Boise I couldn't quite shake the Vegas media. I mean, Jane Ann Morrison even has a road named for her!


I needed to book a room in Boise for my first night, and this one hotel site wanted me to "sumbit." Dunno what that means, but it sounds slightly naughty or crude.


As for the next image, I've asked this before, but it's worth repeating: WHY in this day and age do we have to wade through these state-name menus AND the ZIP code?


Why is the ZIP code good enough for Google but not for these archaic web forms?

And finally, Strip guest host Amy Turner wanted to know if...


...Wayne Brady's fly is open in this Leila Navidi photo from a June 14 report by John Katsilometes in the Las Vegas Sun. Click on it to enlarge and take a good look. It sure is dicey.

Donny Osmond on The Strip TODAY

Yep, we're live today from 5-6 p.m. at LVRocks.Com as Donny Osmond returns to the show where in 2007 he first publicly announced his negotiations for a Vegas headliner gig. This time around, the topics include Gary Coleman, Justin Bieber, the Gores, Dancing With The Stars, depression and wearing a diaper -- err, a loincloth, on stage. And more.

Join Miles and guest-host Amy, who promises to wear shoes, as I'll be traveling back from California at showtime. They go on from 5-6 p.m. PT and you can hear them, see them (maybe) and chat with them at LVRocks.Com.

The Petcast will precede them from 4-5 p.m. PT with Emily and guest host John Katsilometes. I feel so replaceable!

This week's LVW Col: Vegas & Idaho

Major, major props to the LVW peeps for the headline on this week's column. Dunno how I didn't think of that one. Enjoy! -sf

Vegas’ own private Idaho
Sun Valley is the retreat of choice for
Sin City’s captains of industry

By STEVE FRIESS

The World Cup match between England and the USA has just ended in a tie Saturday at a packed watering hole called Whiskey Jacques and between the boisterous crowd and the din of the many TVs, I can hardly hear myself think.

I had just met up with Kevin Stuessi, the former vice president for food and beverage at Wynn Resorts, who a few years ago abandoned Las Vegas to live here in Sun Valley, Idaho, the rustic retreat of choice for so many of Sin City’s movers and shakers.

As I mentioned, it is quite noisy, so I do that nod-and-smile thing that people with hearing disabilities do when we can’t hear in social situations and don’t want to admit it. Stuessi introduces me to the woman he is with but I don’t catch it, of course, so I assume this is his wife.

Kevin tells his companion that I’m visiting from Vegas, and I explain that I am in Sun Valley to write a magazine profile on Parry Thomas, the legendary Nevada banker whose willingness to loan money to casino projects in the 1960s weaned the city off the mob and provided the capital for growth. Thomas, now 88, summers on his horse ranch here with his wife, Peggy; their only daughter, Jane, is a full-timer in Sun Valley who occupies a home of her own on their farm.

When I mention the Thomases, the woman lights up.

“We’ve been family friends my whole life,” she tells me. “Jane used to babysit for me and my sister.”

“Really?” I say to her. “Do you know them from Las Vegas?”

The woman nods.

“Oh, cool,” I say. “What do your parents do?”

Stuessi and his friend, Kevyn Wynn, exchange a priceless look and bust out giggling.

“They’re Steve and Elaine Wynn,” she replies.

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com

Vegas! The Mall

Reader/listener Stuart Poyner of Russia spotted this one, and it's a doozy: In Moscow on June 1, the Crocus Group opened Vegas, a $535 million shopping mall that is, according to a breathless report by The Moscow News, "is slated to become a success story in Moscow’s commercial property market." It's 4.3 million square feet, of which 1.4 million are already leased. The Crystals, owned by MGM Whatchamacallit, was immediately jealous.

Our city's name isn't the only thing they ripped off here. The Luxor Entertainment has 9 movie screens adding up to 1,318 seats. The headline the piece, predictably, is "What happens in Vegas." And there's an M electronics store, but I suspect that predates and is unrelated to our internationally unknown M Resort.

There's also a 53,000-square-foot amusement park with a 5D movie theater (aside: what the hell is 5D?), an indoor pond, an indoor ice rink and -- a country after Gary Loveman's own heart! -- a Ferris wheel. Check out some interiors, courtesy of photos posted on both Flickr and a Flickr-like site where they're public domain:


Vegas! The Mall has an Oriental Bazaar, Fashion Avenue and Jewelers’ Street, which "is something that hasn’t been done in Russia before," the press release, err, the news report said. That explains the extreme variance on decor and architecture. But there's some America in there, too -- that's a Subway's in the food court, right?

Loads more pix are found on this site, along with some snark from Russians that included:

If Russia wants inspiration for mall design, they need look no further than Poland. Some of their new malls are great. I guess they going for the gaudy circus look? They even called it 'Vegas'. Couldn't a big country with a long rich history like Russia come up with something Russian

aaaaaaai! it's disgusting! really... taking abit of Las Vegas to russia? all of the kitch elements added together... Indeed a great example of non-architecture... People may like this and talk about it :P but not in the Architecture sub-forum :P

Poland is the new world king of mall architecture! Who knew?

Here's the best part of the Moscow News piece:

Meanwhile, Crocus Group also said that it is going to develop the brand Vegas, and the developer plans to open similar shopping and entertainment centers in Kuntsevo and in Crocus City.

I did a similar story in China way back when because a housing developer named their subdivision in Beijing the Orange County Homes. But this is goes a lot further. I thought Vegas equaled gambling, but here the developers are banking on it to equal excess, materialism and fun of other sorts.

No word on whether casinos or legalized prostitution is in the offing, but with a name like Kuntsevo, it would seem likely, no?

Going Off The Grid For Real

On Monday, freelance photog Isaac Brekken and I are driving to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for a piece on an archeology dig up there. There is no cell or Web service up there, just a sat phone in case of emergencies. We should be out of range for 24 hours, camping out up there and everything. I'm already having withdrawal shakes. But that's why there will be no Tweets and Facebook updates and if you comment on this blog, I won't be able to approve it until I'm back in civilization.

Going back in time, indeed. Eeek.