Compared tothe suburbs, cities like Las Vegas are consumption heavens.  Corporate sponsors, conglomerate companionship, and celebrity guest stars/supporters all seem to be key players in this arena.  The slogan never hurts either: "Liz Taylor drinks coke, Michael Jackson drinks coke, don't you want to drink coke too?"  (Actual slogan from the 'international' coca cola store....ugh...)  If you ever see a place that has more useless licensed merchandise, tell me, and I'll put a bullet through my head, becuase I don't want to live in a world where more than this amount of excess and vapid consumerism exists.  It's like walt disney world and a historic landmark rolled into one.  Today, I walked around the casinos during the day, and outside along the "strip" at night. During the day, the average temperature here is 113 degress Farenheit.  THe wind is hot and heavy with the frustrations of millions.  Instead of a breeze, it's more like a wave of someone's hot breath across your entire body.  It is not physicall safe to remain outside while performing any activity for more than half an hour.  The casinos know this, and so they blast their ozone unfriendly air conditioning out the open doors, to tempt you, to draw you into their den.  It works quite effectively, I've experienced it firsthand.  People here are mostly tourists.  I'm a tourist, though not in the Radiohead song sense.  I'm expected to gaze at stupid demonstrations of corporate wealth in their inane buildings of money-making grandeur.  To get to these hotels, we had to drive through the suburbs of Las Vegas.  Not surprisingly, the suburbs here look exactly the same as they do in Illinois.  The only difference is that there is crushed rock instead of grass, but even that is changing thanks to modern innovation. Residents of these hotels such as the one where I'm staying are an interesting crowd.  Half of the population is late middle-aged and morbidly obese.  These people I theorize to  have control issues: they can't stop gambling, eating (in most cases), etc.  The other half of the hotel citizens are generally good looking people of younger ages and children.  Men dres in tight, flashy clothes, hoping to demonstrate the extent of their bank account (with expensive clothing) and possibly show the size of their wallet in their tight back pocket.  This may be to attract women, or it might be some other display of power.  Women and girls my age dress in as little as possible.  This is to escape the heat (obviously) and to show off their...umm...multiple assets.  This may be to attract men, or feel good about themselves, I can't tell.  I seem to get used to seeing very attractive, nearly nude girls relatively quickly, oddly enough.  It's like "oh, there's another one...." and that's it.  I just keep walking around now, my second day here. During the night, the average temperature is 87 degrees Farenheit, still ten degress warmer than Chicago at this moment.  THe air is fetid, and literally smells like excrement.  Odd men try to hand out pamphlets advertisng "men's clubs" during the late hours of the day.  You can walk outside more easily during this time, thought it is still not recommended. Obviously, this place is terrible in my opinion.  No one seems to get how vacuous and sales oriented the people and businessmen are here.  I have not heard anyone say anything like "this is such a trap" or "how obscenely stupid this useless merchandise and games of chance are..."  I hear lots of "this is cute" instead.  I don't understand how people can be satisfied with their ho-hum consumer doldrum lives.  It makes me angry that the world pumps out idiots like this.  Someone needs to drop a meteor on Las Vegas, now.  Any city like this shouldn't exist.  Right now Hoffman Estates looks pretty inviting.. "...it's all just one big festering neon distraction..."