still working thru my notes from Vegas

A couple of atmosphere of ambience notes: the casino at Venetian is rather aggressively scenting the air. Jasmine, I think, but so strong that the first time I was there, I thought we were walking around behind stinky perfume lady. Only to realize, no, the whole place smells like that. Quite a pong, indeed. I found it actively unpleasant and fled quickly both times. Fortunately, the noisome odors didn't extend into the Canal Shops so we were able to check out the gondoliers singing "Volare" in Italian without being overcome by the fumes. So that's two strikes on Venetian (they also closed Venus, the supercool tiki bar, and replaced it w/ some lame ultra-hyper-mega-lounge). OTOH, Venetian is home to Bouchon, so that balances a lot of sins. Moving from the olfactory to auditory, I must say I was somewhat disappointed in the background music in most places this trip. On previous trips, the Bellagio has usually been playing Sinatra, Ella or similar standards. This time they'd joined in with the consensus for VH1-Classic from wall to wall. My most common reaction was "damn, I'd forgotten how much I hate this song." Every once in a while something good would break thru -- early Madonna, the Cure once, and the top moment in musical weirdness, walking thru some casino shopping mall while "Change" by Tears for Fears was playing over the sound system. The only place I heard Sinatra, other than my iPod, was at Bally's. Which isn't that surprising - the mid-market casinos (Bally's, Trop, Flamingo, Harrah's) seem to trying, at least in part, to play up their oldschool Vegas cred. Witness the travels of Wayne Newton since leaving the Stardust.