This will be the last S&G posting before we relaunch our new format. In the immortal words of Lt. Col. Jack O'Neill, "Well, I suppose now is the time for me to say something profound. [pause] Nothing comes to mind."

See you over at WordPress.

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"If C.C. Sabathia starts game one of the World Series, the Yankees will know they have won tonight." -- Fox Sports baseball analyst Tim McCarver, sinking to bathyspheric depths of belaboring the obvious, early in Sunday's game six of the ALCS. (The Yankees won and it probably won't take until Wednesday night for them to realize it.)

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Look what just fell into the S&G mailbag:

Beginning January 1, 2010 Penn National Gaming will partner with RPM Advertising to develop and execute a brand identity for Hollywood Casinos.  The full service assignment will incorporate research, brand development, media planning/buying, creative execution, production services and direct marketing.  Penn National, one of the top five gaming companies in the world, owns and operates seven Hollywood Casinos across the country including facilities in Aurora, IL; Bangor, ME; Baton Rouge, LA;  Grantville, PA; Lawrenceburg, IN; Bay St. Louis MS; and Tunica, MS.

Forgive me if I have a coughing spasm after reading Penn National describe itself as "one of the top five gaming companies in the world." I suppose it would depend on your definition of "top" (number of facilities and/or employees, market cap, etc.) but in an industry that contains MGM Mirage, Harrah's Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, Boyd Gaming, Station Casinos and even woebegone Trump Entertainment Resorts, the best Penn could hope for in terms of name recognition would be eighth place. (Enter RPM, stage right.)

As for the marketing alliance, given the timing of the belated decision to try and unify the brand, it looks like Penn is going to attempt a Harrah's in reverse: acquire a Strip property (Fontainebleau) and then create a company-wide brand-loyalty program to incentivize customers to visit its shiny new megaresort.

Sounds a bit cart-before-horse to me but, after today's bulletin, it's no stretch of the imagination to suggest that F-bleau could soon become Hollywood Las Vegas or some close variant thereof. At least in terms of brand equity, it would represent a step or two up from F'bleau, whose name recognition factor is now entirely negative.

Green shoot? Weekday room rates for early December at Vdara have nudged upward to $145/night (from $129) according to J.P. Morgan analysts.

What's wrong with this picture? The media night for Wayne Newton's new Tropicana show, Once Before I Go (could we have that in writing?) looks more like a Dancing with the Stars tour stop. In addition to former contestants Sabrina Bryan and Jennie Garth, four DWTS regulars -- including Cheryl Burke and Kym "Tina Sparkle" Johnson -- will be on hand.

Except for Ms. Johnson, who's presumably in town to rehearse current partner Donny Osmond, the quartet is available because they've all been eliminated. (For instance, Alec Mazo helped Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin dance her way to a premature exit.)

Trouble is, they'll be in the audience and the Wayner will be onstage. Wouldn't you prefer the reverse proposition? And since Newton is strictly a short-term proposition for the Trop (six months and out), would it be too much to hope for a Vegas offshoot of DWTS as his successor?

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One reader asks, regarding senatorial aspirant Sue Lowden's esteemed Pioneer Hotel & Gambling Hall:

I'm confused (as usual, but...) - Isn't the Pioneer NOT a gambling hall now, its shell hosting an ABC convenience store & various other small shops?
I don't remember if I ever patronized the place when it was a casino, but its stores are in a good location for the Downtown tourist crowd; the ABC Store is especially popular with our Hawaiian friends. That's good for sales taxes, right?

As for the Vegas Club, please don't vaporize it yet: We're going to stay there at the end of the month, mainly because it's free for me - and a separate free room for a friend of mine - allowing him to attend the Speedway races for that much less money.

You're thinking of the Pioneer on Fremont Street, while Ms. Lowden's establishment is down in Laughlin. And it very much has gambling. As for dematerialization, S&G did not nominate the Vegas Club for that dubious honor but suggested that, as long as Sen. Harry Reid's people are threatening to "vaporize" Ms. Lowden that they make themselves useful and turn their phasers on her grind joint, which is regarded as a bottom-feeder even by Laughlin standards.

The Vegas Club is very much on people's minds, as another reader asks:

How is it possible that TV series VEGA$ starring Robert Urich came out on DVD on October 20 and I saw nothing in the Las Vegas media celebrating the occasion. I saw an ad in Newsweek. They couldn't get something with Wayne F. Newton at the Tropicana or Phyllis Davis and Judy Landers in front of the Plaza or the Las Vegas Club? Sad, sad, sad.

Ah, a Phyllis Davis shout-out. You're speaking our language. And, yes, that VEGA$ release really snuck by, didn't it? In a classic case of the blind following the blind, local TV stations take their cues from the newspapers. The various Greenspun-owned organs have been slashing staff at a fearsome rate, so it's understandable that they'd miss it.

As for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, suffice it to say that staffers there, up to and including head cheese Thomas Mitchell, had to be told that the Moulin Rouge was burning down because -- even though it was happening across the street -- they work in a penetentiary-like building with no windows to the outside world (architecture as institutional metaphor).

So it's not the least bit surprising that our insular and rapidly declining local media would totally blow this one. As for Mayor Oscar Goodman, he had a previous commitment in London, but still ... no proclamation? No declaration that Oct. 2009 was hereby "VEGA$ Day"? Another missed opportunity for some free ink.

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"For some people, just being a woman is a pre-existing condition." -- Dr. Nancy Snyderman on the subject of HMOs and their propensity to cover Viagra ... but not in-vitro fertilization or birth control pills.

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Or maybe the question should be, What was Steve Wynn smoking before he told CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo that Wynn Macau was making more than all other 30 Macao casinos combined? Perhaps he meant his joint is the single-highest-grossing casino in the Chinese protectorate, but his phraseology is misleading:

Wynn's remarks on the importance of staffing and customer service are, as usual, on point. However, he starts sounding like a puppet of Peking ("One thing about the Chinese government, I think they get it right."), praising the steadiness and thoughtfulness of its policies. Here's an example of Peking's steady, thoughtful policymaking in action:

Wynn's comments that infrastructural improvements don't help at tourism-dependent (casino) industry make him sound naive -- doubly so if aforesaid projects put disposable income into consumers' pockets. Still and all, Wynn is far more reasonable on CNBC -- and immeasurably less obnoxious -- than during his obstreperous Fox News Sunday rants.

Although Wynn clearly fancies himself the new political pundit on the block, he's got but one string to his bow: bellowing "Tax policy" over and over. Which translates as "Tax cuts (for me)!" Yup, if Big Guvmint would just stop collecting taxes from Big Bidness, everything would be hunky-dory, economically speaking. We'd have new jobs coming out the ass.

Here's the problem with that line of argument: We're fresh off eight straight years of tax cuts, tax holidays and corporate loopholes big enough to encompass every square foot of CityCenter. How did that work out for us?

More to the point, given a tax-averse administration and Congress, how did Wynn's casino colleagues handle their newfound largesse? Did they invest it responsibly? Hell to the no! That "bundling of the Strip" which Wynn has decried is the poisoned fruit of companies that were awash in capital and easy credit, who then used it to try and eradicate the competition. (Similar phenomena occurred in the regional casino markets and in the slot industry.)

Having cannibalized their main rivals, casino companies then began to devour themselves, in the form of insupportable debt levels and insane LBOs. And if Wynn really believes that government spending has never improved anyone's lot in life (he must have forgotten the New Deal, for starters), then how many standards of living are raised by merger-and-acquisition orgies? For the average worker, it means jobs are "consolidated" out of existence. Heck, not even executives are immune. Just ask some of the Mandalay Resort Group or Park Place Entertainment higher-ups who are now enjoying involuntary retirement.

Should the current administration hand out the kind of tax vacation Wynn is demanding, would the casino industry A) buy new and shiny objects, B) retire debt or C) create jobs? B & C would probably finish a distant second and third to A.

Just look at Harrah's Entertainment: It can't repay its creditors dollar for dollar but thinks nothing of snapping up 16% of Planet Hollywood. If there's degenerate gambling going on in the casinos, the worst of it can be found in the executive suites. If these guys ever took to playing Russian roulette, they'd probably leave at least five bullets in the revolver.

Wynn is probably feeling his oats, given the bullish, odds-defying early performance of his Hong Kong IPO. The real story may be that gains realized in the Hang Seng will be used to prop up Wynn's Las Vegas operations rather than to expand in Macao.

This just in: The two-week run of A Bronx Tale at the Venetian has been extended to a third weekend. A spoken-word play in a Strip theater seemed like a dicey prospect so this is very good news indeed.

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As they say on Dancing with the Stars, in no particular order ...

Eight against Harry: For a speedy primer on the myriad challengers to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), you can't go wrong with Jon Ralston's droll and speedy primer. It even gets props from John Chachas (R-Central Park West), who recently tossed his homburg into the ring. At least one among the posse Ralston calls "Snow White [Archon Corp. Treasurer Sue Lowden] and the Seven Dwarfs" has a sense of humor.

Reason vs. rage: While Steve Wynn was ranting on the boob tube this weekend, Thomas Krugman's column offers an indirect rebuttal to Wynn's Johnny One-Note ("Tax policy!") table-pounding.

Run, Oscar, run! If these poll numbers don't nudge the World's Happiest Mayor into the 2010 gubernatorial race, perhaps nothing will. Oscar Goodman not only has the highest favorables among Nevada politicians included in the survey, he wins one theoretical electoral matchup and ties for first in the other.

Gov. Jim Gibbons' political future looks bleak (read: borderline nonexistent) and there's not much comfort for Hapless Harry, either. Just think how much worse it would be if Reid had an opponent possessing genuine gravitas. Besides, given the rising tide of discontent among Nevada's progressives, there's a good chance that much of Hapless Harry's old base will just stay home on Election Day.

In Oscar's domain, an architect suggests ways to revitalize Downtown by decreasing energy use, increasing sustainability and generally targeting long-term cost savings. The proposal makes a lot of sense -- a virtual guarantee it will be ignored.

Holly Madison tapped an Oktoberfest keg at Siegfried & Roy hangout Hofbrauhaus last Friday. [Your punchline here.]

"Serpent Head" Jr.: If CNN ever has to let James Carville go on vacation, don't worry ...

... SNL's Bill Hader can fill in and nobody will notice a difference.

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"[Steve] Wynn, however, has a slowly worded belief that it's time for people to stop listening to economists and start listening to throaty casino owners, and their astounding oversimplifications. Create jobs and we'll give your business $40,000! Please? Maybe? Please?"  -- Huffington Post's Jason Linkins, panning the casino mogul's bombastic and condescending performance on Fox News Sunday. Wynn did, however, succeed in coining a catchy new word: "obstacables."

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Pardon a smallish digression from the world of games to something truly important ... baseball. With painful memories of the '04 and '05 postseason meltdowns acid-etched into my mind, I've not been able to summon the intestinal fortitude to watch either of the first two Red Sox/Angels games. (And postseason Angels games really take a toll on one's stomach.)

Now, with the Halos up 2-0, I'm wondering if it's safe to peek between my fingers as the series repairs to Fenway Park. My gut-twisting gut-level feeling is that this series goes the full five games, which is my recipe for pure torture. But ... Angels pitchers seemed to have conquered their fear of BoSox hitters and shut them down.

Besides, I've been wrong before about this team -- 1,000% wrong about Bobby Abreu, who's been a tremendous influence for the better. His superb plate discipline has been worlds away from the bizarre flailing of Vladimir Guerrero (which you can only get away with if you're Vlad and can lift a far-outside pitch over the fence in straightaway center). Patient at-bats were the key to the Angels' '02 World Series run, which made up for less-than-dominant starting pitching. If there's an Angels/Yankees ALCS, it'll be a contest to see who can take more pitches: a real tortoise-and-hare match.

At least the Angels and BoSox share a common adversary: the umpires. "Country" Joe West and C.B. Bucknor are showing yet again why they are two of the worst in MLB ... although seemingly every American League playoff game this year (including the Metrodome miniseries that finished the Detroit Tigers) has been plagued by truly craptacular umpiring and amazingly poor calls. If this were the NFL, these clowns would be relegated to working late-season Rams/Raiders games or some purgatorial equivalent.

Speaking of the Yanks, I can't hold out much hope for my old home team, the Minnesota Twins. All the Homer Hankies in the world aren't going to do it for a pitching staff that can't hold a lead against the Bronx Bombers, and it pains me to type that.

Thanks for your indulgence. We now return to our irregularly scheduled blogging. As soon as I find my Rally Monkeys, that is.

P.S.: It's a damnable shame that our server won't load previously unused images into the blogs. 'Cuz I've got a great Philly Phanatic photo that would be perfect should they make it to the Fall Classic.

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Ist California kaput? That's the question posed by the The Observer and it makes for troubling reading. If Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) is right that tourism from California is the carotid artery of Nevada's economy, then the Silver State is -- to put it politely -- screwed. A good thing the Lege didn't follow Midnight Jim's advice and shut down Nevada's outreach efforts in China.

Speaking of which ... Amidst a flurry of economic developments and positive indicators in Macao, the casinos of Stanley Ho are backing off the expensive VIP trade and going mass-market. (Translation: "We're coming after you, Sheldon Adelson.") Thanks to reader mike_ch for the link.

Colossal buMMer. Breakfast has just been eliminated from the offerings at the M Resort buffet. Unless one lives nearby (a relatively small clientele), M is a heckuva long detour to make for breakfast, so this economy move is understandable ... but depressing all the same. No casino buffet gets higher marks from LVA readers.

That's a bit weird. Stay with me here, folks. CBS cancels Guiding Light, replacing it with Let's Make a Deal, which is shot at the Tropicana Las Vegas. So what should be coming to Vegas in December (at The Rio) but a Guiding Light farewell tour -- yes, Reva, Josh and the whole kit 'n kaboodle. How much you wanna bet they won't be taking in a LMaD taping at the Trop? The only way to make this scenario more Banquo's Ghost-ly would be for the soap convention to be held at the Trop, too.

P.S.: Better get your tickets now before the 'Otalia' fans scarf them all up.

Company. Performances resume at UNLV tonight and it's a must-see. Mind you, the Review-Journal praises the Stephen Sondheim revival with faint damns, while the Sun's review reverses that formula. But I'd pay to see it again, which I don't say about many shows in this town.

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