On return flights into Vegas during the day, I've often heard some first-time visitors peeking out of the airplane window question, "That's it?" -- as if the Eiffel Tower in the desert wasn't a clue. They can't really be blamed. On similar flights at night, the plane is buzzing with excitement and there is no doubt that collection of fantasy buildings neatly along The Strip is Las Vegas.

The difference is neon. Elvis sang it best when he said "Bright light city gonna set my soul on fire." Neon fuels our dreams and adds some sort of visual evidence to our hopes and expectations. Neon hit the desert in the late '20s, but the first major sign wasn't erected until the '50s and since then, neon has been more important to Vegas than oxygen. Well, scientifically it's not, but there is oxygen in New York City and Paris even sparkles their Eiffel Tower, but the excitement of flying into those cities at night pales in comparison.

The dark side (literally) of it all is that neon will be close to extinction in Vegas by 2012. With the new neon-less casinos going up and the old casinos being imploded between now and then, visitors will only be able to find these tubes in places like the Neon Museum, Downtown and other nostalgic venues. That's not to say Vegas will be back in the dark ages. Casinos will still be lighting the night sky, but using smarter big-screen technology instead of glass tubes filled with gas that can show only one image. There's something organically sexy in the sight and sound of flickering, flashing neon -- like an electric campfire. But hey, who are we to stand in the way of progress?

So let's celebrate neon in Vegas with the Top 10 neon experiences. If you want to get weepy and share your love of Vegas neon, you can leave a comment below.

1. The Vegas Sign -- This certainly isn't the most complex of the neon signs but it tops the list because of its iconic status throughout the world. Every year thousands of tourists risk the speeding cars at the southern end of the Strip to reach the median where this Sin City landmark rests.


2. Neon Museum -- The Neon Museum is dedicated to preserving the neon history of Vegas. Many of the signs are supplied by their The Boneyard where old neon signs created by famed Young Electric Sign Company go to retire. You've no doubt seen the Boneyard in movies like 'Vegas Vacation.' The Silver Slipper sign seen here was taken down a the request of Howard Hughes. It was too bright for him when he stayed across the street so he bought the Silver Slipper casino and had the shoe removed.

Be sure and check out the Neon Museum for Boneyard tours.


3. Peppermill -- Some of my best meals in Vegas have been enjoyed at the Peppermill restaurant in the vintage futuristic glow of the pink and red neon snaking throug the interior. The plastic trees and colored sugar crystals at the table add to the festivities. Drunk or sober, the food is good with huge portions.


If you're looking for that "Vegas Baby, Vegas" feel, step into the adjoining Fireside Lounge which combines 20th-century neon technology with old-school fire for a sexy, sophisticated anything-can-happen night.

4. Flamingo -- With the old champagne tower days, the Flamingo has always been a trend-setter in the visual department. I like to stand under this sign and just watch it flicker.


5. Vegas Vic -- Neon cowboy Vegas Vic has been watching over downtown Vegas since 1951. This shot here shows the past and the future of Vegas lighting technology with the massive, neon-free Fremont Street Experience.


6. Circus Circus -- The details of this neon, known as Lucky the Clown, are fairly intricate. Swirling tubes of glass color in the hair, lollipop and costume. In a mix of old Vegas and new Vegas, a giant television-style screen is in his belly that flashes dinner and gaming specials.


7. Binion's Casino -- Even with the Fremont Street Experience and all of the other old-school casinos' neon blazing, I always have to stop for a few seconds and take in the giant aqua wall of neon at Binion's.


8. Stardust (gone but not forgotten) -- So this is one neon experience no longer available, but it's in the list because it represented everything pure and good about casino neon. The garish purple and red neon outlining the floors of the hotel and the classic flashing Stardust sign played a beautiful light symphony.


9. Margaritas By the Yard - Big drinks are famous in Vegas and anyone, in this case the Luxor, that invests in a neon sign to drive the yard-long cocktail business is OK by me. It's not like a chalkboard that lists specials at other places.


10. Riviera Splash - This is Vegas neon at it's craziest and perhaps, most glorious. The neon is essentially a billboard for the long-running Splash at the Riviera. Facing the Strip, it beckons pedestrians with wavy water-like tubes, bright bulbs and starry, starry neons. This sign could easily be one of the 28 modern wonders of the world.

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I don't know about you, but I can't turn on the TV without finding at least one documentary on Las Vegas; most of them being about the security measures casinos have in place to catch criminals.

I guess greedy people do not watch these shows, because if they did, they wouldn't continue to do stupid things like, let's see... use counterfeit money in casinos!

That's exactly what happened at Caesars Palace, where a counterfeit ring targeting the casino was recently busted. The short story is that two people put $60,000 worth of fake money in slot machines at Caesars and every cent of it was traced back to them.

The best part about the story is that, not only did these two idiots use counterfeit money, they signed up for a players card to receive hotel comps! Talk about a new level of greed.

Unless you happened to win the World Series of Poker, chances are you still need to brush up on your poker skills. Now you can do so with the help of the 2006 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, who has signed on with Planet Hollywood as an in-house poker celebrity.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:30PM, "The Grinder" will give 30-minute poker lessons in the Planet Hollywood poker room. Afterwards you can try to apply what you've learned and play against Mizrachi in a 7PM, $480 tournament. You'll even get your money back if you knock him out of the tournament. (Good luck in doing that.)

If Mizrachi does get knocked out early, he'll hang around for more poker lessons.

When anyone asks me where to stay, eat and play while in Vegas, I answer the question with a question: "How much money do you have to spend?" Let's face it, money is the reason Vegas exists. There is something fun for every budget, but before I can dispense recommendations for a French restaurant, I need to know if we're talking Guy Savoy at Caesars or the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich at Arby's.

What if you had $1 million to spend in Vegas and 48 hours to do it? It's easy enough to put that chunk of change on the roulette wheel or play a few hands of high stakes poker, but that's a few minutes of fun and then what?

Here's some of the best ways to blow your noveau fortune:

WHERE TO STAY
First thing you need to do is find a suitable suite to brush your teeth and gussy up before heading back out to the tables or clubs. If you actually find the time or energy to sleep, good luck, but in any case, you have a million dollars, the money isn't going to spend itself and you have appearances to keep.

Vegas' most opulent suites used to be reserved exclusively for invitation-only casino high rollers -- "whales" with multi-million dollar credit lines and minimum bets of $100,000 a hand. Now, a lottery scratch-off winner, reality show winner or anyone with the cash, can reserve one of these neon palaces.

The most expensive suite in Vegas, and perhaps the world, is the $40,000 a night Hugh Hefner Sky Villa on the 34th and 35th floors of the Palms Fantasy Tower. For the $.46 you're spending each second, you may want to invite 20-30 friends to hang out with you in the cantilevered outdoor pool jacuzzi (pictured). The suite is modeled after the Playboy Mansion in California and also features a round, revolving bed with mirrored ceiling and artwork including Hef originals and prints of the Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson Playboy photo shoots.

If $40,000 a night seems too extravagant, try some of the Palms Fantasy Suites. The more modest Hardwood Suite houses a basketball half-court, a bar, a locker room, an oversized bed and great views for only $25,000 a night. For $15,000 each night, you can bowl naked in the Kingpin Suite which features two bowling lanes, a bar and plenty of room to spread out.

If you want to divert even more of your lodging funds to your gambling budget, try the Crib Suite (pictured above) for $4000 a night. You can hire a star DJ for a few thousand dollars and throw a great party. In keeping the hip-hop theme, the hydraulic beds make for a great time, but will ruin you for regular, non-Craftmatic beds. The Crib Suite also has one of the fantasy suite Show Showers which translates "a pole in the shower with windows." You can figure out the uses.

If you're looking for something more classic Vegas, try the Verona Suite at Las Vegas Hilton which has more than 25 televisions, six fireplaces and his and her jacuzzis. The nightly tab is $17,500 which is a little more than $1 a square foot.

TOYS & OTHER VICES

Exotic Cars at Caesars Palace has more than 40 cars priced more than $1 million and it is the only Koenigsegg dealer in the U.S. As such, this hot rod heaven is the only place around here to get the Koenigsegg CCX, the U.S. version of the world's fastest production car. The highly sought super-car will set you back around $700K before options so trick it out a little bit, but keep a little cash so you can afford the continually rising gas prices.

Whether it's suites or cars, Vegas casinos are competing for high rollers from Macau to Dubai and if one of the luxury casinos gets an exotic car dealership, chances are they'll all get them. Wynn Las Vegas has a Penske Ferrari Maserrati dealership and in the last couple of years, a Lamborghini dealership opened nearby and King of Cars has a Rolls Royce Bentley dealership.

Feeling active? Treat a few friends to $500 rounds of golf. If you're staying at Wynn Las Vegas, you can play the only course on the Strip (above) even getting a suite right on the links. If you're pimping it up at Bellagio, the Mansion or the Sky Lofts at MGM Grand, you're eligible to play Shadow Creek and if you're at Caesars or any of its sister properties, go to Cascata.

Before hitting the links, head over to one of the Davidoff shops in Vegas to grab some stogies. Spend 1 percent of your fortune on a $1,000 box of Fuente OpusX cigars and for added effect, you can either light your cigars with $100 bills or splurge on a $40,000 lighter.

If fashion is your passion, you can probably unload one-third of your million dollars on clothes, shoes and accessories, easy. Your first stop should be The Forum Shops at Caesars. There, you can clean out Jimmy Choos with shoes about $500 a pop. You'll probably spend the rest of the day at boutiques like Armani, Versace, Gucci and Robert Cavalli, but if you have the time, stop by Harry Winston's for a $12,000 watch.

If you still have a shopping bug, cross the Strip and swing into the Esplanade at Wynn Las Vegas. Cartier, Manolo, Gaultier, Chanel and Vuitton will help your mission by taking some of that cash off of your hands in exchange for luxury goods. The quintessential mall in Vegas is Fashion Show Mall and while there are some high-end options there, you only have 48 hours so it's better to stick in the boutiques where it's much easier to drop $20,000 for a couple of outfits. If you do make it Fashion Show Mall, focus on the Sharper Image for the $1,000 Connoisseur Collection of Trump Steaks, a $4,500 robot massage chair, a $5,000 Lord of the Rings pinball machine, a $5,000 7-foot Superman statue and a $9,000 Harley-Davidson jukebox. This might put you over your carry on limit for your flight home, so you may need to set some cash aside for shipping.

FINE DINING & THE $6,000 COMBO MEAL
Some of the most expensive meals can be found at the top French restaurants. Both Guy Savoy at Caesars and Joel Robuchon at the Mansion will lighten your wallet by about $300 per person so be a hero and buy dinner for the whole restaurant. You're on a timeframe here and need to rack up the receipts.

You can head back to the Palms and order the $6,000 combo meal (above) from room service. It's actually a juicy $6 Carl's Jr. hamburger with a juicier $5994 bottle of '82 Petrus. Oh, you also get a side of fries.

The desert heat makes it necessary to stay hydrated and what better way to get your water than a $150 bottles of BlingH20. It's bottled water in a Swarovski-studded bottle and has been enjoyed by Jamie Foxx, Bono and Paris Hilton.

If your spending spree could last more than a weekend to drop $1 million you could 104 straight days worth of non-stop dances at Scores Las Vegas or watch Cirque du Soleil's 'O' every day for the next 28 years or enter every event in the World Series of Poker for $194,000, but that's for a different story.

Happy spending.

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Ah, the smell of chlorine, cocoa butter, peroxide and margarita in the air can only mean one thing: It's pool season in Vegas. Now that Rehab (above), one of the biggest pool parties in the country, is open for another season at the Hard Rock , Sin City officially becomes Skin City. It's the time of the year when the days in Vegas start to get as hot (literally and figuratively) as the nights.

This year, the Vegas ''watering hole'' trends pick up where last season ended and it's clear that pools aren't just for swimming anymore. When you're here this summer, keep an eye out as the topless trend goes wild, nightclubs expand their brands and stuff so much entertainment poolside, it's like Ron Jeremy trying to fit into a Speedo.

The news that NBC's 'Las Vegas' will have a life in a post James Caan-Nikki Cox world doesn't surprise me. Other shows would have to jump the shark to keep the audience tuned in, but with 'Las Vegas,' when two of the show's stars cash out their chips, the Montecito, the show's fictional casino, is still accepting guests for at least a fifth season.

Tom Selleck is reported to take over as the fun-loving and charming owner of the Montecito in a typical Selleckian role, but one of the biggest stars in 'Las Vegas' is well, Las Vegas. Vegas is a big sexyland with an energy and aspirational lifestyle, people want to read, watch and live Vegas, if even vicariously through films television and movies. There's so many TV shows and movies made and/or set in Vegas and so many stars crawling the Vegas Strip on any given day, that the argument can be made that Vegas is the new Hollywood.

There's even a lot of stars hanging around the Montecito. For Tom, this will be the actor and his moustache's first regular small-screen gig since his days as Ferrari-driving private investigator Thomas Magnum. Both Magnum and 'Vega$' P.I. Dan Tanna had shiny red cars and were big pimpin' before pimpin' was cool.

Even though the name translates into 'the dream' in English, 'Le Reve' at the Wynn Las Vegas has been anything but a nice dream for Steve Wynn since its inception.

The show has been a few ripples in the water tank and in today's era of short leashes and profit margins in the entertainment world, it's refreshing to see someone willing to invest in an attempt to make the customer experience as good as it can be, rather than closing up shop when issues arise.

Created by ex-Cirque du Soleil-er Franco Dragone, the show was so dark and brooding that it reportedly caused the mogul's wife, Elaine Wynn, to cry when she first saw it and the tears were not of a joyous nature.

Franco would end up leaving over creative differences while Hollywood special effects artists were brought in to make the dream less of a nightmare.

As you probably know, 'Spamalot' star John O'Hurley is doing double duty as a host of 'Family Feud' on the CW. In a recent episode of coincidence, one of the questions asked was "Name a Las Vegas casino past or present."

Guessing along with the contestants has been the watch-at-home appeal ever since the Richard Dawson era and with so many Vegas casinos over the last 50 years, this was going to be tough. At first we thought it would be based on brand awareness which is usually equal to the size of the advertising budget. There's also size and spectacle and luxury and celebrity news and how many television shows are filmed at the casino.

We were somewhat surprised by the answers and snapped a pic of the television when all of the answers were revealed. We thought Palms was a lock to be on the list as well as Caesars Palace and MGM Grand. Palms didn't make the survey, but Caesars and MGM Grand both did.

If old-school Vegas stories weren't so popular here on Vegas Pop, we might be surprised that Flamingo took the top spot. Since the Flamingo is undergoing a brand repositioning, they're not doing as much advertising as some of the other casinos, but due to it's fabled and somewhat dubious history and continued success, it seems to embody the spirit of Las Vegas. Caesars Palace also captures that old-school decadence vibe, but also has a modern feel. The first mega-resort, the first mega-luxury resort, the Rat Pack haunt and the largest hotel in the world (for now) round out the top six spots.

Also, only 70% of the questionees are represented with these answers as the other 30 responders named a different casino with five mentions or less.

Related:
- John O'Hurley for the Dogs
- City's Best Las Vegas Casinos

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This is my 40th year and 5th decade writing about Las Vegas. During the entire span the city has been referred to as "the entertainment capital of the world." Making a rare drive along the famed Strip the other night, I started wondering it the phrase meant the same today as it did when it was first coined.

I don't think so.

The entertainment of the bygone Las Vegas was the entertainers, the names on all the hotel marquees that are virtually gone today. Names such as Frank, Sammy, Dean and Joey, or Anthony Newley, Juliet Prowse, Joel Grey, Shecky Greene or Johnny Carson. The headliners and co-headliners performed two-shows-a-night, seven-nights-a-week for two, three or sometimes four weeks at a time. They started exactly at 8PM and midnight with a dinner and drink show, respectively. There were lines weaving through the casino prior to the performance with your reservation guaranteed, but your seat location depended on the toke you gave the maitre d' or captain seating you. It was part of the Las Vegas excitement that old-timers miss.

Regular readers will remember that LUXE LIFE first reported a Luxor name change in mid-January when executives were mulling over the idea of simply calling the resort, The Pyramid. The Pyramid is a good, architecturally descriptive name and now the name-that-casino buzz is expanding. Rumors are circulating that the same executives are again deciding on a new name for the casino and have added 'Shapes' to the list of new names.

I spent the drive home from watching the Stardust implosion coughing and sticky, covered with a coating of 16-year-old concrete, literally Stardust dust. I met Vegas phenom photographer Scott Doctor on the roof of one of the Circus Circus parking garages for the absolute best views of the implosion.

For the first time in his magic career, 'Mindfreak' star Criss Angel was forced to halt a dangerous Houdini-styled escape. Medical and safety officials stopped him from being lowered, while manacled with handcuffs, metal chains and foot restraints, into the shark and stingray filled seawater aquarium tank at the Silverton late Saturday night.

Just 24 hours earlier, while rehearsing the stunt without being lowered all the way to the bottom, he almost failed to break free. Safety divers rushed to assist and Criss wound up severely cutting his back on the rocks in the tank. It was a rush to the surface for air while simultaneously avoiding the sharks and stingrays!

Palms president George Maloof beats all the competition today by opening his resort hotel's three-acre $30-million pool, officially kicking off an all new season of hot summer days and nights. The sexy adult playground will launch its Friday "take the day off" Ditch party as of May 18. N9NE Steakhouse chef Barry Dakake is promising a new menu for the new season. The Palms is also home to the world's only Playboy Club -- at least until a sister salon opens in Macau -- and 'Heroes' hunk Milo Ventimiglia (seen below) was enjoying himself with the bunnies and at the blackjack tables when he visited!

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- AOL Vegas: The Hoff in Vegas

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It was the premiere, provocative parade of platinum pulchritude. The positive power of the Pussycat Dolls was proven when preening pop princess Christina Aguilera, along with the LA Pussycats, partied, purred and promenaded at PURE in Caesars Palace until dawn this morning. A tempting tease of thigh, a saucy sampling of stockings, a barrage of bras and a glimpse of garters all came together in a festival of flesh for the grand opening of the new Pussycat Dolls Casino outside the jam-packed nightclub.

Comedian Roseanne Barr has made good on her promise to play Vegas and she's landed a six-week run in Rita Rudner's old theater at New York-New York. And Roseanne, who is never known to shy away from controversy, promises it will be "in your face humor" and warns that teens younger than 17 must be accompanied by adults!

Her first extended Vegas run since a series of concerts at the Riviera is titled "All You Can Eat Comedy" and will start March 15 and run through April 30. Tickets went on sale early this evening when her limited engagement was announced.

Roseanne told LUXE LIFE during her most recent visit here for the Comedy Festival that she was determined to find a Vegas nightspot for her comedy. "I want to be in Vegas. I need to be in Vegas," she told me at the time. She said she was in talks with several resort hotels and now the negotiations have paid off with the New York New York run. It's believed she will be welcomed to stay at the theater until it's converted into a planned nightclub. "This is in your face comedy and an all you can stand laugh fest," said Roseanne.

She has just finished hosting Nick at Nite's third season of "Funniest Mom in America." And the six-part reality series, will premiere while she's headlining in Vegas on Tuesday, April 3. The show follows the journey of moms across the country as they compete for the title of "Funniest Mom in America." Several of the semi-finalists will make guest appearances on stage during Roseanne's show at New York-New York. She was recently seen on HBO's top-rated comedy special "Blonde and Bitchin" and her Rockin' with Roseanna Calling All Kids DVD with 12 children's songs went nationwide last year.

"I can't wait to get settled into Vegas," she said. "I love the city."

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