Stuff I've Seen Lately in Las Vegas

Over the past few days, I've seen things that were sort of interesting and I thought I'd pass a few on for your consideration.

On Saturday, while playing poker at Ballys, one guy busted out and left the table. His replacement...Santa Claus. Yep, a guy with a bushy white beard, big red coat and red hat bought in for $200 and began to play. Turns out he's a Southern California guy who just did a gig as Santa at a corporate party and now wanted to play poker. Kind of unusual trying to get a tell on the Jolly Old Elf, but I did take a few of his chips in two pots. He was so authentic-looking that 3 players at the table took selfies with him. Dogs playing poker, you see that. Santa playing poker, not so much.

Later Saturday, as I was leaving Ballys and driving home down the Strip, traffic slowed to a crawl. Turns out that there was a fender bender in front of the Mirage where a small car had its left front fender crumpled by one of those huge rolling billboard trucks advertising "Girls Right To Your Room." Not every day you get your car damaged by a rolling hooker sign...only in Vegas!

On Monday I was walking from Bellagio to Ballys across the bridge that connects the two casinos. I took an escalator down toward Ballys and at the bottom was a haggard-looking homeless woman who had staked out a panhandling spot near the bottom of the escalator. She sat cross legged and held a warn hand-scrawled sign that read "Homeless and Hungry. Please, Anything Would Help." She had a small pan with a scattering of loose change in front of her and a full backpack behind her. I was a bit sympathetic, until I noticed something next to her backpack. It was a tall Starbucks iced coffee, which carries a price tag near $5 or so, I think. So this hungry gal could have bought breakfast, but opted for her daily dose of cold caffeine. Where else but Vegas do the panhandlers sip Starbucks?

Yesterday I headed down to the Strip to play poker and I got stopped at a red light behind a huge silver Cadillac Escalade with dark tinted windows. I glanced at the Nevada license plate and it read "Celine 1." Curious, I changed lanes and stayed next to the Caddy and we both got caught at the next red light. Glanced over to see who was in the car and it was an older guy in a white shirt and tie, perhaps a chauffeur? No one else was in the car, so I assume he was running errands for the Canadian Song Bird.

And so our Vegas adventure continues...