The Lucky Donut

The four month slog to become World Series of Poker champion began earlier today.

Which means that about six thousand lucky Poker Stars qualifiers will have taken the special VIP shuttle they've put on to get you from Palms to Rio.

Seriously?  You're about to spend (potentialy) fourteen hours sitting at a poker table and you don't want to walk a couple of hundred yards across the street to get there?

I expect it's a little quicker than walking if the bus takes you directly to the Rio Pavillion entrance so you don't have to walk right through the casino to get there, but there's probably not much in it.

[Rio's hotel towers are the two red and blue buildings. Palms says "Palms" on it like twice]

This is the first time I've played with Google Earth with the 3D buildings turned on.  Give it a go, it's pretty cool when you have this many massive buildings so close together and can zoom and spin around them in great detail.

Zip code 89109 gets you pretty close to the Strip, or fly direct to "36° 6'52.99"N 115°10'49.83"W" to get to the intersection with Flamingo Road.

However it would be even better if all the building models were on the right z-plane.

The view doesn't quite look like this at the start of CSI...