I don't much like Las Vegas.
I'm not at all interested in gambling, don't like "Vegas" performances, and therefore have very little in common with the hordes of people who come here for one or the other.
I'm here for 5 days at IBM's annual conference, to see 7,000 people with whom I do have something in common. But as the nursery rhyme implies, you have to kiss a lot of toads before you meet your prince.
I'm staying at The Mandalay Bay, which while getting a bit long in the tooth, is still one of the better places to stay in town.
However, no matter where you stay, you still have to rub shoulders with a less than cerebral cross-section of American life. No sooner had I checked in and picked up a rotten coffee at Starbucks, than I found myself next to a typical Vegas visitor, an overweight girl in a ridiculous outfit: tee-shirt, stretch pants and cap, all emblazoned with Suicidal Tendencies. "What music are you into?" I asked rhetorically. She either couldn't understand my accent, or didn't understand the concept of irony. Either way I just got a blank stare.
It's going to be a long 5 days.
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