We headed out to Las Vegas for the holiday to visit an old friend. When checking into our room, I noticed a sign that stated, "Because of the energy crises, There will be an additional room charge of $3.00." Energy crises. Our entire hotel is covered in lights. The entire street in downtown is covered in a canopy that lights up. The entire city resembles a gigantic bastardized Christmas tree. Crises could possible be the wrong word. Maybe they should of phrased it differently, "Because of our mass consumption of energy for esthetic and marketing reasons, we will be forced to charge you $3.00 as we are using more energy than can be provided for us." Well, something like that anyway. Vegas is a strange strange place.

On the same note, my friend likes to play nickel video poker and drink free beer to pass the time. This is a pastime I would generally avoid, but it was the holiday season, and we had nothing else to do, so I joined him. oddly enough, I hit the jackpot. In nickel slots this was only a hundred dollars, but a hundred bucks ain't bad. We got the smart idea to take our hundred and go and play a little three card poker over at the tables. We weren't really thinking we would parlay this found hundred into a small fortune. We figure we'd play for a while, grab some free drinks and pass the time. We lost the hundred in about four minutes. Our drinks hadn't even arrived yet, and we spent the next ten minutes sitting at the empty table making small talk with the dealer waiting for our free drinks to arrive. A couple of high rollers. Best Christmas ever...