From Vegas ...

So much of Las Vegas is intensely designed: from the patterns on the casino chips, to the panelling in the elevators, to the soaps in the bathroom, to the scents that are piped in to the stores. Everything in Vegas oozes something over the top for at least one of the senses. Take your pick and enjoy.

Colors inside the newly renovated Planet Hollywood casino. Beautiful. Wonderfully rich lj colors: red, taupes, browns, blacks. Sound familiar? :-)

Dinner at the Bobby Flay restaurant, Mesa Grill, great decor and dinner. Question: why are the tops of the letters cut off in the logo? Easy enough to figure out, but still struck the group as a smidge odd. Oh, and I ate dinner with a giant ad for Lindsay Lohan's 21st birthday hanging in eyesight. Isn't she in rehab. Anywho... Not exactly the best view from within this house.

The Bellagio fountains. Caught an early show, to Faith Hill's "This Kiss." Then, while walking back down the strip towards the Planet Hollywood, decided we might as well watch another show since we had front row center availability. Fantastic decision. Copeland's Hoe Down (aka "the Beef" song) was the music this time. The fountain show didn't disappoint. Excellent view. Excellent show. Excellent images on the cell phone camera. (Keeping my diet coke references going: the diet coke and mentos guys modeled one of their shows after Bellagio's).

The Neon Sign Museum's Boneyard: further up the strip and beyond the Fremont Street casinos. I'm prohibited from posting pictures of the signs, but very cool place to see a little bit of Vegas history. They're working on funding for a museum and are hoping to get pieces of the Frontier signs when that casino comes down this summer.

Love Cirque. Alas, didn't score tickets to Love, the uber-popular Beatles-based show. Instead, we headed down to Treasure Island for dinner and the Mystere (the big snail one if you're at all familiar with the troupe.) Ate dinner from an amazing perch above the TI lagoon at the Social House, a sleek, zenlike Asian fusion place. We had perfect seats for the Siren show, but the night we were there, the show was cancelled due to high winds. Then headed down to the theater for amazing acrobatics and music. I can watch Cirque shows for hours. The amazing blend of emotion, music, theatrics and athletic ability never cease to amaze me. There's just something about the theater that's the ultimate blend of so many of the senses all at once.

photos from the camera phone. not too shabby for a camera phone. no, not the sleek iphone. maybe someday.