Link roundup

1. "The tall, sleek, curving Vdara Hotel at CityCenter on the Strip is a thing of beauty. But the south-facing tower is also a collector and bouncer of sun rays, which -- if you're at the hotel's swimming pool at the wrong time of day and season -- can singe your hair and melt your plastic drink cups and shopping bags."

2. Octopus with Tron-like lights around the edges of its tentacles.

3. Racial and ethnic clusters mapped out in Los Angeles. Via.

*Buy Tron toys at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. The tiger mask Kesha's wearing looks pretty cool.

2. The new trailer for DC Universe Online features some atrocious player characters.

3. "The Maloof family's Las Vegas casino has struggled to the point that a minority investment partner estimates the property is worthless."

*Buy tiger masks at Amazon.

Sheep Throne (link roundup)

Sheep chair spotted at Reddit, source unknown.

And a few more links:

1. Stripper mobile with plexiglass windows and pole in Las Vegas.

2. Not news to anyone who read Next, but here's a report indicating that the reason why humans speak and chimps don't is dependent on one gene. Via.

3. Chinese government claims credit for snowfall, until the snow falls a little to heavily. Then it's blamed on the weather, and the government denies involvement.

*Previously: Thunder God's Throne.

*Buy Weather Dominators at eBay.

Mad King sculpture (link roundup)

Mad King wooden sculpture by Stefanie Rocknak. Many more impressive sculptures on display at her site, highlights including her first sculpture as a 10-year-old, and work in progress shots. You can buy a book about the King sculpture here. Via.

And a few more links:

1. The Rio hotel in Las Vegas apparently had a topless pool and invited strippers to frequent it. The pool's now being closed since, surprise, it was being used to facilitate prostitution.

2. Lego Sith Venom (spaceship).

3. Some cute manga-style desktop wallpapers at the bottom of this page. Via.

*Previously: Tron-inspired Lego spaceship.

*Buy Lego minifigs at eBay.

BBDO recruiting image (link roundup)

Gang-style hand signs and tattoos star in this BBDO recruiting image of questionable taste. Via these sites.

And a few more links:

1. Apparently Kevin Federline decided not to tip at a recent visit to the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, which retaliated by issuing a press release pointing out his miserliness and weight gain.

2. Kraven’s Last Hunt was originally intended as a Batman story with the Joker. (I was way too young to read that story when it came out, yet I read it anyway.)

3. Samus vs. Mario illustration.

*Previously: There's a new frozen bar in Las Vegas.

*Buy Nintendo toys at eBay.

Article details what life is like for successful club promoters in Las Vegas

Twins Jessie and Cy Waits are enormously successful club promoters in Las Vegas, and are partners at Tryst at the Wynn. Here's what life is like for high- rollers there:

After the Ricky Hatton–Floyd Mayweather fight last December, Tryst instigated a "bottle war" between two high rollers, who were provided with custom-made silk boxing robes and introduced by Michael Buffer (at a cost of $5,000). The winner, a stock trader from London—nicknamed the Fireman for his habit of spritzing Dom Perignon around—ordered $160,000 worth of champagne. The runner-up, a real-estate developer from Memphis, cleared $100,000. Bottles of Dom were being carried out 50 at a time. The club grossed $1 million.

You can read the entire article here, which might as well be a fairy tale considering how different it is from real life. (Photo from the club's official site.)

For the antidote, read this article by Josh Dean for Fast Company about the equally flashy life of Bodog founder Calvin Ayre (and his eventual trouble with the US government).

*Previously: Las Vegas' frozen bar.

*Buy vintage Las Vegas postcards at eBay.

There's a new frozen bar in Las Vegas

I'm a little mystified as to why someone would want to hang out in a bar that was so cold you had to wear a parka, but there's now a minus5 bar at the Mandalay Bay hotel. Here's the official site for minus5, which has a few more international locations. And here's Richard Abowitz describing a visit to the bar. Funniest line "it was not that crowded while I was there, and it was easy to explore without a wait to get inside."

Here's video of some amusing dancing at the minus5 bar in Vegas:



*Previously: 500 pound judge in Las Vegas.

*Buy "Neon Boneyard: Las Vegas A-Z" at Amazon.