BSR

I learned Spanish grammar and literature during three years of high school Spanish and four years of university Spanish. I learned to SPEAK Spanish fluently by living for three years in Mexico and Guatemala. One does not learn to speak a foreign language fluently in a classroom studying for an hour a day. One learns to speak a foreign language fluently by living in a country where the language is spoken – it’s called total immersion. One has an excellent accent or one does not because one has an excellent ear for accents or one does not.

Your Spanish may be fluent, but your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. No, of course you can't learn to speak a foreign language fluently in the classroom. But by hiring native speakers, students will at least learn what the language really sounds like, and thereby gain some degree of oral comprehension.

American schools really need to revisit their approach to teaching foreign languages. Like I stated before, I am constantly shocked & disgusted by American kids' level of Spanish despite all their years of study. The question I love to pose is to ask them to explain the sport of baseball in Spanish. It's pretty simple & easy, one could do it with just a basic level, yet kids always give me a blank stare as if I had asked them to explain nuclear physics in Spanish.

I figured that the ridiculous CA certification standard was some feel-good, diversity-motivated push. Merit? What the hell is that??

I tend to disagree regarding the desirability of having a native Spanish speaker teaching Spanish - especially in California. Here in California a native Spanish speaker can become qualified to teach Spanish, in a public school, if he or she passes a competency exam; many have never taken a class in Spanish grammar or literature. The exam although written is objective – true/false and multiple choice and many who pass it are virtually illiterate. They don’t know Spanish grammar and their vocabulary is a terrible combination of Spanish and English. In other words they don’t speak Spanish they speak Spanglish or Cholo.

 

Examples being:

English Spanish Spanglish/Cholo

To eat lunch Almorzar Lonchear

Shoe Store Zapateria Shoeteria

Brakes Frenos Breques

Truck Camion Troque

Market Mercado Marketa

to park Estacionar Parkear

 

This type of Spanglish/Cholo works just fine along the U.S. Mexican border but is worthless when one tries to speak with someone anywhere else in the Spanish speaking world. As a rule non-native Spanish speaking teachers know the grammar and vocabulary of the language and even if their accent isn't great their students learn correct Spanish.

Having a good accent in any foreign language has more to do with how good an ear a student has. Some students will naturally have an excellent accent and others, no matter how much they try and no matter how good the accent of their teacher is, will never have a good accent. In graduate school I took a class from a professor who was one of the world's leading authorities in twentieth century Mexican literature yet every time he opened his mouth and spoke a word of Spanish I shuttered. It was immediately obvious that he had a tin ear as he spoke Spanish with a heavy god-awful gringo accent.

Well, if a "Spanglish" speaker, with no degree or certification, can get licensed to teach Spanish in California public schools, then that sounds like a case where government royally f*cked up (gee, as if that never happens). I ran into a high school classmate in my mid-20s. We had both been to France recently, and we were both in the same French class senior year of high school. We weren't friends but I remembered her well because we were both "French nerds," that is, two of the few kids who were really into studying French. She was laughing because when she went to France, after 4 years of HS French (but with a teacher who spoke with an American accent), she couldn't understand a single word French people said but could understand every word when Americans spoke French. I don't know if there will ever be an official ranking of World's Most Useless Skills, but if one were ever compiled, "the ability to understand Americans when they speak a foreign language but not a word when natives speak that language" would have to be right near if not at the very top of that list.

This is a case where you can have your cake and eat it too. In Spain, with its sky-high unemployment rate, there are countless unemployed Spanish majors. I'm guessing the same is true in Mexico and other Latin/South American countries. You could recruit Spanish major university graduates from those countries, put them through a crash course on how to teach Spanish as a 2nd language (3 months or so), and hire them to teach Spanish in American schools. Before they arrive, make sure housing and transportation is arranged. Of course, you would need to set up a support system for these new teachers, such as connecting them with the local Mexican (or Colombian, Peruvian, etc.) community and ensuring they have help with issues like visas and taxes. Set them up with a go-to contact, someone to help them maneuver through all the day-to-day issues like getting a cell phone, setting up utilities, getting cable/phone/internet, dealing with a parking ticket (kaben zotz!), etc. After the first year, you can set up the next year's teachers with a big brother/sister to mentor the newbies. I think such a program would be highly feasible for Spanish teachers. For French, German, Italian (does anybody in the U.S. even study Italian in high school?), and Mandarin, the degree of difficulty is higher, but it's still feasible, in my opinion. This could definitely work in big and medium-sized cities, maybe even in small cities. For rural/isolated areas where there is no support community for foreign teachers, I'd favor online courses for the kids over classes with an American speaker of the foreign language.

Yes, of course it's important to be learn proper grammar when learning a foreign language because only with correct grammar can one learn to read & write in that language. But one of the principal goals should also be the ability to communicate orally, to be able to speak and to understand that language. I don't argue for native-speaker teachers so that kids can nail down an authentic, pass-for-a-local accent. A native accent is difficult to pick up after 14 years of age and nigh impossible after 18. I argue for native speakers because you can't possibly know what real Spanish (not Spanglish, mind you) sounds like if you study with an American teacher with an American accent and pronunciation (I have yet to meet an American Spanish teacher who truly mastered the Spanish "R"). Look, I'm not trashing my HS French teacher: she had a degree in French, she spoke with correct grammar and pronunciation (for the most part), and she knew how to teach French as a foreign language (but couldn't pronounce the French "R" to save her life). But four years of serious study yet you don't understand a word when you get to France? My HS classmate could communicate just fine if she begged the French person to slow down (a LOT), but the moment they started "speaking normal," she was lost. Four years of serious study with a native speaker wouldn't guarantee fluency, but at least she would understand a respectable degree of real-world French, not just classroom French.

By the way, when I was in Spain almost 30 years ago, the teachers insisted we say estacionar instead of aparcar because estacionar was the true Spanish word whereas aparcar was an Anglicism. But from the last year and some that I've been watching Spanish TV, it seems nobody says estacionar any more. Spaniards all say aparcar nowadays, like "tengo el coche aparcado en doble fila."

On the subject of mandatory study of a foreign language, I'm all in favor of it for little kids but oppose it for older kids (middle school, high school, college). From 3 to 7, kids pick up languages like a sponge. If you took kids that age and just had them watch an hour of children's programming in another language every day, you'd be amazed how much they learn and retain. But make sure the teachers for the 2nd language are native speakers because I don't think it does kids a bit of good to hear a foreign language spoken with an American accent. Obviously, I would exempt kids from immigrant families who were struggling to learn English. While the native English speakers are in Spanish (or Mandarin, or what have you) class, the immigrant kids get extra instruction in English. Time & energy focused on a 2nd language or intensive English instruction would take time away from, gee, fingerpainting, but that's a tradeoff that I'm willing to make.

But with older kids, foreign language study is such a bleepin' waste of time and energy. First and foremost, the quality of language instruction in the U.S. sucks. I often strike up conversation in Spanish with American kids who have studied Spanish for a number of years in high school and college, and their Spanish almost always sucks royal. Even the occasional Spanish major often doesn't speak great Spanish. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent. So the system is forcing kids to study a language, taught by lousy instructors who far too often don't speak the language all that great themselves, while American students fall further and further behind their peers around the globe in reading, math, and science. Eliminating the foreign language requirement won't solve all the woes of the American educational system, but forcing kids to study a foreign language sure as hell isn't helping them any.

Here's an anecdote about how powerful TV is as a learning tool for foreign language study. I knew a guy back in Boston who admitted to housing three Palestinian friends who were here illegally. They thought they could get student visas but for whatever reason couldn't. They could get them for the fall semester, but they couldn't afford the travel back and forth. So this guy took the three in, and they basically "hid out" from January until the start of the fall semester. With little money and the fear that Immigration was after them, the three just sat and watched TV all day and all night. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or in the bathroom, they were watching TV. This was before the Internet, so they had little to no access to Arabic media. The up side to all this was that by the time they were "legal" in the fall, they could understand every single word of English - slang, colloquialisms, familiar language, idiomatic expressions, street talk, folk wisdom, EVERYTHING! It didn't matter how quickly an American spoke, how badly he mumbled, or how much slang he used, these guys understood every word. Once they started their program in the fall semester, they were the envy of all the other foreign students. Wow, who would have guessed that watching every single episode of "Three's Company" could serve to further a person's education?

Tagalog (Filipino) is technically the first language I spoke, but I learned English very quickly after starting kindergarten. My mother tells me it only took me a month to learn English & speak like a Canadian (K-Grade 2 in Toronto). Of course, I speak with an American accent (very Bostonian, but not the "famous" Boston accent), but my enunciation is very Canadian (Canadians tend to enunciate better; Americans tend to mumble). Every couple of months, someone will ask me if I'm Canadian even though it's been over 40 years since we left Toronto. Unfortunately, I learned English so well that I forgot how to speak Tagalog, but I understand it well because my mother still speaks to me in Tagalog plus I heard it with my aunts, uncles, and parents' friends my whole childhood. I wish I could still speak it because you get treated like royalty in damn near every hotel and hospital you stay in if you speak Tagalog.

I think the Quebec separatist issue was a bit of a delicate situation when we lived in Canada because I remember French class every day for those 3 years of school in Toronto. I studied French in high school & college, but remember little of that. But all those classes at a critical age did stick with me. I'm amazed that sometimes I can understand almost everything some French speakers are saying (but other times almost nothing), whether Gallic or Quebecois French. If I ever won the lottery and had endless free time, I think I'd re-learn French because the writings of Camus were the most beautiful works I've ever read, in any language.

I lived in Spain for a year when I was 22, and my Spanish was excellent at the end of that year. Over 25 years later, I ran into some Spanish tourists here in Las Vegas, and we had to speak English (eek!) even though their English was pretty poor (typical amongst Spaniards) because my Spanish had deteriorated that badly. I was horrified but had no idea what to do about it until I discovered a Spanish TV show on Hulu. I got totally hooked on it but was aghast to discover that only half the show's episodes were on Hulu. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise because in my quest to find a way to watch the rest of the show, I discovered tons and tons of Spanish programming (that is, TV shows/movies from Spain, not Univision, Galavision, Azteca, etc.). Almost every single day for over a year now, I watch one episode of a Spanish TV show per day. This is quite a commitment because episodes in Spain run about 70-80 minutes. My Spanish has rebounded tremendously. I can't write Spanish as easily as I once did, nor can I prattle on endlessly like I used to. But on the rare occasion that I run into a Spanish tourist here in Las Vegas, the moment I hear that Castilian accent, the Spanish comes flying out of me. It's also very easy for me to speak Spanish with a tourist who doesn't speak any English. It's like a switch clicks in my head, and again the Spanish comes flying out of me. But if a tourist is from another Spanish-speaking country and speaks English, even a little, forget it, I have to speak to them in English.

Aside from Castilian Spanish, the easiest Spanish for me to understand is from Argentina because (I'm so ashamed!) I got hooked on the world's WORST telenovela from Argentina when I first got back from Spain, and as awful as it was, I watched it 5 days a week religiously for over 2 years. I love the sound of Argentine Spanish; it's by far the prettiest and most elegant accent, in my opinion. With Mexicans, it's weird. About a third of them, I can understand every words they're saying. Another third, I can understand most of what they're saying, but the occasional word or phrase I don't catch really bugs me. And the last third, OMG, they might as well be speaking Italian, that's how little I understand. I do remember that the reverse is also true. In Spain, the American kids, some of them were even Spanish majors, couldn't understand anything the teachers were saying at first because even if they had studied Spanish for years, it was all Mexican Spanish.

English has really become the international language, mostly thanks to the European Union. Kids in Europe might study French or German or Spanish, it all depends, but almost all study English. And because English is so prevalent in non-English speaking countries, the Chinese are in a fervor to learn English. One of China's recent self-made billionaires made his money by starting the most successful chain of schools for learning English. I spoke with a Brit recently who worked for a German firm with 90% German employees, but because it was an international company (aerotech) with clients all over the globe, only English was spoken in the office and at all work functions. Because English really has become the international language, I don't think American schoolkids should be forced to learn other languages. If they want to, great. But many colleges require foreign language study in their distribution requirements (mine did), done to appease the strident multiculturalists, but a waste of time and energy if the kid's not interested.

I think there's a big difference between renting out a home via AirBnB/VRBO and a condo. A single-family residence has a lot more privacy, and the impact of travelers coming and going should be minimal to anyone but Gladys Kravitz. AirBnB condo renters, on the other hand, are far more intrusive on the other condo residents: the constant in & out traffic, the oftentimes late hours of that traffic, the racket of luggage being wheeled around on hardwood floors, etc. If I lived in an SFR, I wouldn't care much if a neighbor rented their house out via AirBnB, as long as the renters weren't throwing wild parties, cooking meth, or hiding out from law enforcement. The condo complex I live in has a strict NFW clause prohibiting AirBnB/VRBO/etc. rentals. With units above and all around me, I don't think I could stand to live in a condo building that did allow such rentals.

I must have missed the memo appointing you moderator.

Don't sweat it, Marylander1940. Deej's posts are brimming with more unnecessary nastiness than any other participant's posts on Daddy's. The job of moderator is an unpaid position, and I can't imagine people are queueing up around the block to do it. Just be grateful that someone is willing to do it, and try to let the unnecessary nastiness slide like water off a duck's back.

Back on topic, if I recall correctly, Aiden doesn't claim to be straight. He certainly was, or thought he was, when he started at Corbin Fisher. But once he took the plunge, he realized just how much he enjoys riding the baloney pony. There are almost countless videos in which Aiden comes twice, three times, and even four times as the result of getting f*cked. He might be primarily attracted to women, but wowza! the boy sure as hell does love getting plowed!!

So I guess his hair seen in the linked feature is a toupee, which is a bit disappointing. But wow, he's one helluva handsome man at 55. I actually like his look better now than in his pretty boy youth.

First, you have no idea how much I envy your trip to La Habana. It's been 11 years since my trip, and I've been dying to go back ever since. There was so much that I enjoyed, but the one thing that stands out the most after all this time was learning about the day to day lives of Cubans. Life under communism is so different that it's impossible to sum up in a few sentences. My Spanish is fluent, so I was able to talk to Cubans everywhere. The hardship they endure, and their amazing ability to somehow find happiness despite that hardship, still make my eyes pop whenever I think of it. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can find a few Cubans with decent English.

If your suitcases allow, pack bars of soap, powdered laundry detergent, and packages of socks & underwear. You'll find no shortage of people who will be profoundly grateful. Don't give money away, but tip everyone who helps you. A convertible peso or two is a godsend to maids, cab drivers, servers, bartenders, tour guides, etc. The official restaurants are awful (what do you expect? they're run by communists), but the private restaurants (paladares) are amazing. Treat a handsome cubano lad to dinner at a paladar & you'll have a great meal with a very appreciative companion. Just remember that the service fee at paladares is not a tip; it's a fee to pay for the staggering monthly tax on paladares.

A baseball is worth its weight in gold in Cuba, and an authentic MLB ball twice that. They play pickup baseball on every street corner, usually making do with a rock & scrap lumber. And a new pair of American sneakers is the Cuban equivalent of a Louis Vuitton bag, except way better. If you're feeling really generous, buy a standard size of Nikes or New Balance (10D?) and just give them to your handsome cubano after dinner (or whatever other evening activity). He might just break down & cry.

I could only think of two phrases similar to "repeating like a broken record," that is, references to things once commonplace but now antiquated or no longer in existence. One is ending an argument or declaration with the interjection "full stop." People (mostly your grandparents if not great-grandparents) used to tack "full stop" onto an argument whenever they wanted what they just said to be the final word, e.g., a New Yorker telling a Bostonian "the Yankees are the greatest team in the history of baseball - 27 World Series Championships - full stop!" "Full stop" refers back to telegrams, which had no punctuation. Periods were indicated by "stop," and the end of the telegram by "full stop." I imagine few young'uns know the reference because we stopped sending telegrams decades ago. The other, a personal favorite, is "hotter than a two dollar pistol," which used to mean that someone was super-angry, e.g., "after finding out about his wife's affair, he stormed out of the party hotter than a two dollar pistol." The reference is to a cheaply made gun, whose barrel was rough and poorly fitted. Upon firing, the bullet met with a lot of friction resistance, which made the barrel extremely hot. With modern manufacturing, a hot barrel is no longer an issue, hasn't been for maybe a century. I like to use the phrase when referring to a sexy gent, e.g., Ben Kieren is hotter than a two dollar pistol!" :-)

docjim, I hate to disappoint, but there is no longer a male strip club in Las Vegas. Share Nightclub used to have their own strippers, complete with an upstairs area for semiprivate (not completely closed off) dances, but they seem to have abandoned that part of the business. Then for a while they rented out the space to Adonis Las Vegas until the new general manager recently kicked Adonis out. Xavier, head of Adonis LV, has been scrambling to find a new space, both for regular Adonis as well as the famous nude parties, but contrary to all the hype about Las Vegas as Sin City, the city council and local police are remarkably strict about strippers and lap dances, especially when alcohol is involved. Some of the local bars/clubs have occasional nights of go-go boys, but that's probably not what you're looking for. I know, who woulda guessed that Sin City could be so lame??

There are no members of the Cult of Victimhood more ardent than the Gay Left. I don't understand why gay men feel so enormously oppressed. We are the wealthiest demographic group in America. The Legend of St. Matthew, Gay Martyr, is 100% bullshit. I'm not talking about some poor teenager in Alabama whose parents have thrown him out of the house because he's gay. I'm talking about by & large, generally speaking, the most UN-oppressed demographic group in the country with an Orwellian obsession over their alleged oppression. But nobody, but NOBODY, does indulgent self-pity better than the Gay Left.

Before all the professional victims on this board get too hysterical (which, I realize, is like asking the sun to stop rising in the east), let's wait for all the facts to come out. Then again, facts hardly matter to the Cult of Victimhood. The fact that Matthew Shepard was a meth dealer who was murdered because a violent meth addict tried to steal a large supply of meth Shepard had recently scored is not just irrelevant to the professional victims of the gay left (pardon the redundancy), it is a gay-hate lie. Yet gay author Stephen Jiminez painstakingly substantiates his take of Shepard's death whereas the gay-martyr version was all smoke & mirrors. But the gay martyr myth has been so gosh darn useful to the Gay Left. Hate-crime legislation that had been moribund or faltering breezed through passage thanks to the death of meth dealer Matthew. And in the battle over gay marriage, gays screamed "MURDERER!!!" to shut down traditional-marriage supporters.

What I'm arguing is all for naught, however, because for professional victims, their self-pity is the most powerful drug known to man. It makes professional victims feel soooooooo good, soooooooo special. One day, scientists will prove the altered brain chemistry, the rush of endorphins, that professional victims experience when indulging in their delusions of oppression. But what good would that do? Professional victims need facts like a fish needs a bicycle.

Steven, I've seen that proposed configuration elsewhere. While it complies with FAA regulations (believe it or not), it's doubtful that airlines would actually implement it because no passenger wants to fly that way (golly, you don't say). Sheesh, the airlines would have better luck convincing passengers to spoon together to save space.

Thanks for the help, gentlemen. I was going to call B&B to ask about the possibility but was afraid whoever happened to pick up the phone would say "yeah, sure" without really thinking about it. Hate to be cynical, but the staff of any establishment is far more interested in getting you in the door while not terribly worried about how you get back. I'll ask the driver who takes me out there about someone coming back out to "fetch" me." If that doesn't pan out, I'll make sure to have the #s of the four Belleville cab companies programmed into my phone. Thanks again.

pdxleo, thanks for the report. Is it possible to get a cab from B&B back to the Arch area? I'd like to go but would rather drink than drive.

If it was terrorist-related, the hijackers might have taken the plane to be used at a future date in a terrorist act. Imagine the destruction a 777 with full fuel tanks is capable of. The fuel tanks of even the smallest 777 model hold significantly more than the 767s flown into the World Trade Center - 31,000 gallons for a 777-200 vs. 24,000 gallons for a 767-200 according to the Boeing site.

Regarding Air France Flight 447, while true that the black boxes were not recovered from the ocean floor for almost 2 years, major wreckage from plane was found just 5 days after the crash. But, as bvb points out, search teams knew approximately where AF447 went down. In contrast, search teams have no idea where Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went after its communications systems were deliberately disabled. With the fuel remaining, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 might have gone as far as Kazakhstan or ended up in the Indian Ocean. That is a massive amount of territory to cover, even for spare-no-expense search teams from China, Malaysia, and the U.S.

If the plane went down, I doubt there could be many, if any, survivors a week after the crash. But if the plane was hijacked, then I pray for their safety. From the beginning, the disappearance of MH370 didn't sound like an "ordinary" plane crash. This baffling mystery must be torture for the family and loved ones of those on board.

Don't misunderstand: I love Kelly Pickler, really. I admire that she went from a tough childhood (dad in jail, mom abandoned her) and a life as a roller-skating waitress at Sonic to become a fairly successful country star. Good for her!! But oh my gawd, she is blond with a capital B! When she was on American Idol, she had a good number of critics who argued that nobody could possibly be that dim and that the dumb hick act (like not knowing what's calamari or how to pronounce it) was patently phony. All her critics should be forced to watch that clip. But any attempts at apology would be terribly awkward. What do you say? "I'm sorry, you genuinely are dumber than a bag of rocks"??

The absence of rate information on the site is very odd to me. Why waste prospective clients' time and the agency's time constantly exchanging rate information? Maybe it's a case of "if you have to ask ... " Since I do have to ask, no Dawson for me, I guess. Crapster! he's right here in Vegas too!! And did you catch the little detail about a 30% deposit on all dates longer than an hour? Uh oh ...

cany, not sure what you're referring to ... the Wicked Spoon buffet @Cosmopolitan? Haven't been myself, but a foodie friend went once and liked it, for a buffet.

I've heard great things about the Golden Steer, more about the ambience and service than the food. It's very "old Vegas" - i.e., tuxedo-clad waiters, white tablecloths, salads & desserts prepared tableside. I've never been myself. But if you do go, you HAVE TO make sure you get the Robert DeNiro look-alike waiter. A foodie friend showed me a picture they snapped on their phone. Holy bleep! the guy is the spittin' image of DeNiro!! If you call and specify that you want the DeNiro look-alike as your waiter, they'll know what you're talking about. People ask for him all the time. I have to go one of these days just for the experience.

A few off-Strip recommendations:

Gandhi or Origin India. Try Gandhi for traditional Indian cuisine. Good food and great prices! Try Origin India for more innovative fare, kind of like "nouvelle cuisine" Indian. Origin India is a little pricier than Gandhi, but still far less expensive than the Strip.

Lotus of Siam. The best Thai food in Vegas. I'm a huge fan of Thai, been to countless Thai restaurants in Boston & NYC. Gotta say, Lotus beats any Thai restaurant I've been to in those two cities.

Rollin Smoke. The best BBQ in Las Vegas! I grew up in Kansas City, which means I'm a total barbecue snob. Only 3 BBQ joints in Vegas actually wood-smoke their meat. All the others just sprinkle a little Liquid Smoke and throw it in the oven cuz they're bleepin' lazy. Boy, does that chap my ass!! Anyway, the link I posted will get you 10% off their already reasonable prices.

Yonaka. It's not traditional Japanese sushi, more Japanese/PanAsian fusions conjured up by a very talented chef whose staff affectionately calls him "The Mad Scientist." My favorite dish here is Niku Berry - grilled beef tenderloin with strawberries, pistachio butter, enoki mushrooms, and sugar-dried fennel. Sound crazy? Just wait 'til you combine all the ingredients onto a big spoon and put it in your mouth. Check them out on Yelp. Vegas foodies LOVE this place!

Raku and Raku Sweets (no website yet because it's brand new). Raku is a Japanese charcoal grill - fresh, high-quality ingredients mostly cooked over charcoal. They offer many dishes you might not have tried before. I've tried a bunch, have never disliked anything, and loved almost everything. Raku Sweets is the Vegas version of NYC's very successful Chikalicious, that is, a 3-course dessert bar. You get an amuse-bouche (a small pre-dessert), dessert (the "main course"), and a small post-dessert dessert. If you're thinking it's all too much sweetness, Japanese pastry uses far less sugar. You can actually have 3 dessert courses without any cloying sweetness. It's in the same strip mall as Raku. It's so new it doesn't even have a sign yet. Look for the big silver spoon in front or just ask the folks in Raku where it is. If you have a car, try Suzuya, another Japanese pastry shop. I had no idea Japanese did such fine pastry until I discovered this place. All you ever see for dessert in Japanese restaurants is mochi or green tea ice cream. But the crepes and pastries at Suzuya are divine, as good as Raku Sweets, but far less expensive. I loved Raku Sweets, but it's pricey. Their 3-course dessert is $19, or $25 after tax & tip. But it's worth it once for the experience.

As a foodie and a Vegas resident, I disagree, there are far too many places you can go wrong eating in Las Vegas. The Strip is quite expensive. If you compare the menu prices of NYC restaurants w/their Vegas copies (e.g., STK), the prices are actually higher in Vegas than NYC! There's a lot of great dining on the Strip, but it'll cost you, plenty! Worse yet, there are countless morasses of mediocrity that charge eye-poppingly high prices for the sh*tshows they serve up. One tip: avoid any restaurant with an in-house DJ ... the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-coolness-of-it-all pretty much guarantees that you're overpaying for very mediocre food, e.g., Hakkasan @MGM, Andrea's @Wynn. I'd also avoid all the "gastropubs" -- e.g., Pub 1842 @MGM, Public House @Venetian, Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill @Caesars -- unless you simply must pay $19 for a crab cake (yeah, that's singular). Finally, avoid any and all barbecue on the Strip. None of it is real wood-smoked BBQ. In other words, they just bake meat in an oven & pour BBQ sauce all over it. Sometimes the fake & bake stuff isn't that bad, except on the Strip, where anything BBQ'd is absolutely awful.

My opinion: the best moderate-priced (there's no such thing as "cheap" on the Vegas Strip - even a small slice of plain cheese pizza at the Caesars food court costs $6) food on the Strip is at the gourmet burger joints -- e.g., BurGR @Planet Hollywood, Burger Bar @Mandalay Place, BLT @Mirage. It's not all hamburgers at the burger joints. They have "burgers" made of chicken, fried fish, salmon filets, etc. They're surprisingly good while prices, for the Strip, aren't that bad. If you feel like giving your credit card a workout, I'd suggest Jaleo @Cosmopolitan (Spanish tapas) or Sage @Aria. If you want to give your credit card a horse-whipping, go to Atelier de Joel Robuchon @MGM. It's my favorite restaurant in town. Just brace yourself for the shock of your $80 entrée coming out exquisitely presented, and the size of a deck of cards.

PS: the gelato place at the Wynn used to be awesome! But the bean-counters got to it, and now for your six bucks, you'll get two scoops of Dreyers.

Wow, I can't believe no one's mentioned this one yet. Come on! I can't be the only guy here who realized he was gay when all the other boys in school were going gaga over Daisy Duke while I couldn't stop staring at Bo and Luke. In my grade school, anyone who showed up a bit early had to sit in the cafeteria until the bell rang for home room. The mornings after Dukes, I swear all the boys showed up early just to gush about how incredible Daisy looked in the latest episode. Well, except me, of course.