Via Robin Leach, a rumor is going around that David Bowie might become a permanent Vegas headliner. Like Richard Abowitz writes, (hey, I love Lodger and Scary Monsters, too!), Bowie staying in Vegas is unlikely because he probably couldn't consistently fill a large venue. Despite the former glam, he's slightly too fringe for a regular Vegas gig. Plus, would he and Iman really want to leave New York City, where Bowie is frequently spotted watching up-and-coming bands at hip clubs?

Still, it'd be rather funny if both David Bowie and Zowie Bowie -- who I recently learned are not David Bowie's son Duncan Jones -- were performing regularly in Vegas. I bet you'd have quite a few confused tourists.

Update: The rumor has already been dispelled.

A couple of weekends ago, I finally made my way to the Pinball Hall of Fame, located not too far from my apartment. I had heard that this pinball museum had opened sometime last year, but for one reason or another, I never made it down. Turns out it's one of the coolest finds in Las Vegas.

As soon as you walk in, it's clear how authentically vintage the Hall of Fame is. The first row contains 12 or so machines, laid side-by-side, many of them clearly hailing from the classic pinball days. As I went further into the room, I was surprised again and again by yet another full row of classic machines. All told, there are probably 60-70 pinball machines in there, ranging from the 1940's to present day. And did I mention that they're all playable?

I played a dinosaur-themed machine from the 70's, a Western-themed one from the late 40's, and an odd magnet-based game called "Orbital" where the ball rotates around bumper "planets" -- and then I played the so-called "Holy Grail of pinball machines" -- "The Pinball Circus."

"The Pinball Circus" is the best pinball machine I have ever played. $1.5 million dollars was spent designing it sometime in the early 90's, but for various reasons, only two were ever made. The Pinball Hall of Fame has one of them. It's built vertically, more like an arcade game than the usual inclined plane structure found in pinball machines, and has four tiers, each of which with its own set of flippers.

So you start at the bottom, go up a ramp to a small area with a single flipper, which can hit it up another ramp onto an animatronic elephant, which lifts up your ball to another level with two flippers, which can hit it into a divot where a giraffe lifts the ball up another foot or so to the top of the machine, where it's deposited into a clown's mouth, also with two flippers. At that point, the ball can be hit down its throat if you can knock down the teeth. Of course, you can fall at every level back down to the first, where you can lose your ball.

Here is a detailed picture of the playfield. It looks a little confusing at that angle, but it isn't while you're playing. It costs $1 to play, but you get at least five balls and the gameplay is fast-paced and scored by entertaining circus music.

Yet another Las Vegas gem tucked away in an unassuming strip mall.

Pictures from GameSetWatch, which has some more details about "The Pinball Circus."

Ever since the Red Rock Casino opened last year, they've been heavily advertising Zowie Bowie's weekly performance there. I had always assumed that this Zowie Bowie was the child of David Bowie, AKA Duncan Jones, but never really looked into it.

After reading this article today, I realized that I was very wrong. The Red Rock Zowie Bowie is not the son of David Bowie. No, the Vegas Zowie Bowie is a flashy man/woman duo.

How odd. I wonder what Duncan Jones thinks of it.

I'd like to write a little more about my experience viewing the Stardust implosion. Before I get to that, check out some videos of the implosion (thx, alina) -- as I mentioned before, my video did not come out because they turned off the lights right before the building went down. Evidently, I'm not the only one annoyed about that.

On Monday night, I had almost forgot about the implosion, but at 8pm or so I got a comment encouraging me to go (thx, slater). I remembered my regret after missing the Boardwalk implosion last year, so I resolved to not miss the Stardust's. But I was concerned about finding a good spot to view the event -- the Stardust is right on the Strip, and I didn't want to deal with parking my car, navigating crowds and construction fences, and potentially not finding a good spot.

My first thought was that I should find a nearby parking garage with an open roof. I looked at a Google map for reference:

The Circus Circus casino would clearly be the best bet, but I was concerned that it was so close that they would shut down the open parking area. (I was wrong -- the photographer in the link above was there.) Still, I thought my best bet was to find a spot behind the casino, off the Strip, where tourists would be less of a problem. Checking out Google, there was an obvious area behind the train tracks running nearly parallel to the Strip. I wasn't sure if I would find a good spot to hang out, but the view would be unblocked.

At 12:30am, we headed up in that direction. After navigating to my chosen street, I saw a car pull into a big parking lot. There was a bar there, but behind that, right next to the tracks, there was a large and empty lot. As soon as we pulled in, it was obvious that this was the perfect place. Not only did we have a clear view of the Stardust, but we could just sit in our parked car and wait for the moment. The picture below shows where we were, indicated by the red rectangle:

This is what we saw:

We waited there for about 90 minutes. During that time, a total of around 30 vehicles, mostly Nevada plates and including some off-duty cab drivers, showed up for the implosion. All we could see were some lights swirling around the building creating some odd psychedelic impressions, unaware of the party taking place on the other side.

At about 2:15am, two large fireworks were set off near the building. They seemed official, and our guess was that it was a 10 minute warning, which would correspond to the 2:30am time I had been hearing through the rumor mill. About ten minutes later, I saw large streams of water shooting into the air towards the Stardust. Flea told me that it was some sort of dust containment system.

A few minutes later, they began the fireworks show. I wasn't expecting such a flashy show, but it was actually an entertaining set of fireworks that lasted several minutes. At the time, I was unaware of the small private party taking place on the other side of the building. After the last firework was set off, the various floors of the building started flashing. I thought this was a visual effect of the explosives, but I later learned we were merely seeing the rear lighting of the numeral countdown that was being displayed on the building's front end. (See the videos I linked to above.) It just served to confuse us.

Then the building went entirely dark. A few short seconds, and then an extremely loud boom overtook us. The 32-story Stardust imploded, all of it collapsing straight down, except for one edge, which tipped over on top of the rest of the building. A huge cloud of dust spread to the north, missing us entirely. The whole time my jaw was agape -- it was an awesome sight: a historical landmark obliterated in one fell swoop. (Not including the months of preparation time that preceded the implosion, and the weeks of cleanup to follow.)

Yesterday was a groggy day, but I can now say that my time in Las Vegas included an implosion. And it was worth it: