Casinos are an experience. There will come a time when you'll need to go to a convention and it will be in Vegas. Either that or Orlando, in which case my condolences. Vegas is bad enough, but -

Anyway. When this happens, I want you to walk through the door, luggage in hand, and I want you to close your eyes.

I want you to listen.

I want you to breathe in.

I doubt you have ever experienced such pure, raw, animal want from your environment before. The A/C is designed to bring you in, a low sussuruss pulling you away from the bleached moonscape outdoors. Everywhere around you are the gentle burbles of a million slot machines, joyfully sucking away money one button-press at a time. (ding ding ding ding ding!) You can feel the movement of purposeful addicts all around you on the hairs on your arms - microcurrents from the purposeful wandering of adults playing hooky.

I've walked through casinos with binaural mics on just to record the amazing, calibrated cacophony. They're truly something. The only time I've ever bet was for a friend, who gave me $5 to "put on green" on roulette. We had a kind croupier so we won $140. She asked if we wanted to "let it ride" and we said "hell no" took our $140 and went back up to the room to watch the fishtank channel.

Vegas is something else.