I just heard from Boyd Gaming and they say that the corned beef/chicken choice at the Gold Coast buffet's carving station was the luck of the draw and not indicative of a cutback. Roast beef, turkey and brisket are still in the rotation, I'm told -- just not on the night we were there. It's not the greatest buffet in Vegas but it's skies above the comparably priced one at the Tropicana, where they actually had the gall to jack up the tab recently, even though the food choices are few and service borders on nonexistent.

Win-win situation? A spy in the ladies' room after a Saturday-night showing of the Mamma Mia! film says that the buzz was very positive, with several ladyfolk saying it made them want to see its Mandalay Bay incarnation* (or see it again). So the notion that the movie might actually put new legs under the stage version, instead of kneecapping it, maybe isn't such a pie-in-the-sky idea, after all.

For those of you who are interested in such things, the movie pulled in $27.6 million its opening weekend, putting it in line with The Devil Wears Prada's opening and $2.5 million-$4.5 million ahead of projected grosses.**

*--Warning!: The video clip also features the horrific noise that is Jerry Lewis.

**--Anyone care to theorize why IMAX showings of a little number called The Dark Knight ($158.3 million in three days) are selling out at Red Rock Resort but not at The Palms? Have customers been burnt once too often by Johnny Brenden's habit of charging $14 for IMAX prints that look like 90 miles of bad road but which his cinemas are evidently too damn chintzy to replace?

Columbia Sussex follies. Even though Tropicana Entertainment is going to be shooed out of the Horizon, in Lake Tahoe, in 2012, owner Columbia Sussex is parting with a few pennies to try and make the place viable in the meantime. Well, at least to the extent of rolling out an Elvis Presley Suite.

That, and there are myriad deferred-maintenance issues to be addressed now that ColSux/Trop has capitulated to landlord Park Cattle Co. This might include the plumbling that got blogger Chuck Monster drenched one memorable night when "a water pipe burst in the ceiling of the casino... raining buckets of water on slot plunkers in the middle of the casino floor and a torrential river of water out the side door of the casino."

Ah yes, the Bill Yung philosophy of "Excellence in Hospitality" in action.