We owe, we owe, so it's off to work we go... Las Vegas leads the nation is all sorts of dubious categories--home foreclosures for one--so it makes sense we would lead the nation in being broke.

Web site MensHealth.com has named Las Vegas America's top city for the amount of personal debt -- credit card balances, auto loans, home loans and other consumer financing -- its residents carry. And those considerable obligations could worsen an already stagnant local economy, experts say.
The entire gloomy article

The Top 10 Indebted Cities
1. Las Vegas
2. Aurora, Colo.
3. Atlanta
4. Sacramento, Calif.
5. Detroit
6. Jacksonville, Fla.
7. Riverside, Calif.
8. Denver
9. Modesto, Calif.
10. Phoenix
(Based on foreclosure rates, housing costs, bankruptcy filings, credit scores, levels of credit debt and credit usage)

Cities With the Lowest Personal Debt (more)

TI dumped their Tangerine ultralounge to make way for "Christian Audigier The Nightclub" and it finally opens tonight with all sorts of stars, including--supposedly--Michael Jackson. Audigier made his name as a fashion designer, primarily for jeans, for such brands as American Eagle Outfitters, Diesel, Lee, Levi's and Von Dutch. We owe him a lot as he is the one who pushed those big ol' Elmer Fudd trucker hats. Where would we be without him?

Anyway, Tangerine has been completely redone in blacks and reds and jewel-encrusted skulls. The patio has been enlarged so it's a good place to view the Sirens of TI show.

Here's the inside scoop on the new Christian Audigier nightclub, a partnership with Pure Management Group.

It's official: Star Trek: The Experience will end its impressive run at the Las Vegas Hilton this September.

From the R-J:
"It's as official as an entry in the Captain's Log. Star Trek: The Experience will end its 11-year run at the Las Vegas Hilton on Sept. 1. The demise of the attraction had been rumored for months, but it wasn't until this week that managers told about 160 workers the lease at the Hilton won't be renewed.

The announcement likely means one final surge of Star Trek fans on Las Vegas and after that an outer-spacelike void when it comes to finding a complete science-fiction theme experience in Sin City. The Official Star Trek Convention is Aug. 6-10 at the Hilton, just three weeks before the attraction closes. Enthusiasts already expect an attendance boost from fans making one last pilgrimage."

Frankly, we're surprised it lasted 11 years. Nothing against the attraction--we've seen it, we enjoyed it--but this is Las Vegas and the "Experience" was showing its age. Ya just expect that something newer and better would come along, even if it was a newer and better Star Trek experience. Doesn't look like it, though. Complete Review Journal article.

Now, what will happen to Quark's Bar and Grill? Probably time for Quark to get beamed up, too...

We know the cost of gasoline is at a record high but who knew that the same holds true for firewoks. While the threat of wildfires are cutting back some of the celebrations, budget cuts at cities and counties--large sponsors of such fireworks displays--are causing the shows to be shortened and done with less spectacular (i.e. costly) effects if not cancelled altogether.

The average aerial display lasts about 15 minutes and costs $10,000. Larger cities spend about $100,000 for bigger shows. In the Las Vegas Valley, a popular fireworks show, the "Red, White and Boom" fireworks and music festival at Desert Breeze Park on Spring Mountain Road, has been canceled for the second consecutive year by Clark County officials because of budget woes. The show attracted as many as 25,000 people in the past. The event cost the county about $250,000.

A Chinese Fireworks Shortage + Las Vegas Display Listing (more)

Steve Wynn is getting into the yacht game. The Wynn Casino boss was recently spotted in the port of Nice, France with his new aquisition: the 183 foot Allegro.

If you want to buy your own mega-yacht--ones that are two to three times the size of most houses--they start out at around $30 million.

While the U.S. economy slows — if not enters a recession — the demand for these toys for the ultrarich has never been stronger. Several luxury shipyards have seen sales double in the last five years. The rich are not just buying more yachts, but larger and larger ones.

While an impressive size, Wynn's Allegro isn't even in the top 100 for mega-yachts. The largest yacht in the world is the 524' Dubai owned by the Crown Prince of Dubai. The largest non-head of state-owned yacht is 456' and is rumored to have 13 foot ceilings, 82 rooms and a hospital onboard. Larry Ellison, the big guy at Oracle software, owns the #2-ranked 452' Rising Sun and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen owns #3, the 414' Octopus (which carries a submarine for undersea fun). The listing of the World's 100 Largest Yachts and the Top 5 State-owned yachts.

A slide show of mega-yachts and their luxuries.

American LowLife Buys a Yacht! (more)

If you are a connoisseur of the "filet mignon of round meat" and are actually aware that July is National Hot Dog Month (and what's 4th of July without a hot dog?), well then maybe you get an urge now and then to gobble down a delicious tube steak (minds out of the gutter, please) that tastes like it came from your home town.

So, just where in Las Vegas do you find the perfect New York hot dog or the most authentic Chicago dog, among others? This article on the top dogs in Vegas should help with your hot dog cravings.

We get so darn many people asking us where they can find a good luau in Las Vegas that we'd thought we let them in on our personal favorite: the Imperial Luau at the Imperial Palace.

If you are carried to the heights of ectasy by hulas and get a buzz in your loins every time you watch a fire knife dance then you really need to stop by and watch the Drums of the Islands dance company do what they have been doing poolside on the roof of the IP for 17 years.

The luaus are held twice a week during the warmer months — at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays from May 3 to Sept. 30 and you get to wear a lei, sip mai tais and pina coladas and dine on roast pork and other South Seas delicacies as you watch the troupe of entertainers re-create a Polynesian feast on a tropical island (surrounded by the IP hotel rooms).

What more could you want besides beautiful female hula girls, tattooed fire knife dancers and a mai tai? That's enough for us...

Sin City Ink Fest, the tattoo festival at the Riviera this past weekend, had a collection of "interesting" characters to begin with but the sideshow called Electric Acid Theatre was the topper. E.A.T. was a collection of three performance groups--one a Las Vegas sideshow called Swing Shift SideShow--where performers drilled nails into their heads, ate glass, twisted skewers through their arms, shot darts out of nonmouth orifices (Kelvikta plays a mean game of "vagina darts") and swallowed swords.

One guy had a concrete block placed against his scrotum while other performers smashed the concrete with a hammer. Two performers bit down on apples, blindfolded themselves and used a chain saw to cut the apples out of their mouths.

A look at the Electric Acid Theatre where the blue-tinted M.C. "Enigma" with horns inplanted under his scalp exclaims: "Finally, a show worthy of Vegas!"

Las Vegas' own Swing Shift Side Show
More fun at the Electric Acid Theatre's website