Our cabbie earnestly warned us off the Bellagio watershow. He said, "Mexican families come here from California and do all the free stuff. They don't gamble. They bring coolers full of baloney, bread and beer and party it up w/ the kids. You won't get near the fountain." We looked at each other like this guy was some sort of white-supremacist crackpot. When we got there that Xmas eve, we found instead only people from Asia and India. Lone crackers, save employees. We actually felt more at ease than when our fellow honkies showed up on the 26th. It was alot of fun and not so crowded. It was the surreal adventure I'd been hoping for. As the cabbie predicted, the hispanic families showed up, but on the 25th. We tried to go to Circus Circus (I wanted to see the bar from "Fear and Loathing"), but it was full of hispanic children. In a town w/ roving billboards for prositiution, this struck me as odd. I am from the Midwest, though. We left in search of a cheap meal, but there was nothing that seemed safe and reasonable. Unlike the past, according to Matt, there was no cheap food and drink. None of it, save granola at breakfast, would I call healthy. Not only is it expensive, but it wrecks slow havoc on your digestive system if you're not in the habit of eating fast food. I think they use cotton seed oil or lard or some such industrial ag byproduct, though I cannot confirm or deny this. This place is run by the Mafia, though, as are the cotton and wool industries, or so I'm told by those who claim to know. There certainly are fun things in Vegas, even if the structured events don't thill you. I'd lifted my personal smoking ban and bought a pack of mentholated cigarettes for the sheer thrill of smoking in public. I smoked in an elevator while holding a drink. Think about it, you never get to do that in the real world. When leaving, we actually did see families arriving w/ coolers, though I cannot attest to their contents. When I pointed the coolers out to Matt, the new cabbie told us he thought the cities efforts to bring families into Vegas was killing the place w/ higher prices, as they weren't spending money on gambling. They professed not to know what sort of effect the concentration of ownership among casinos on The Strip might have on the price of goods. In recent years, the whole darn thing is effectively owned by two companies, w/ a third thrown in for fun, like RC Cola or the Independent Party. As you travelled from one place to another, you noticed some small similarities, though they were designed to look different. There was a surprisingly large number of drinks made w/ an uncommon peach liquor. Bathroom supplies were all the same. This allows them to totally control the prices, taking the "free" out of free-market. Leave it to people to start blaming each other's wacky ways when someone else is pulling all the strings.

Woke up today at around 9am only to notice that it was really cloudy and line of humid and felt it could rain ne moment, was also happy coz it was a sunday and no extra class was there, but by noon i realised something was wrong, there was no supply of water all over Kota, everyone was confused about what to do but we were told that water will come by evening and in evening mess was off so we went to a near by shop and had some baked samosa's and milk. He told us that there wont be ne supply of water till tomorrow. Thinking it to be a rumour we bought Maggie and returned to our hostel only to find that no water was there, we were still waiting for water. But this was not enough and the when it became dark lights went out. The coolers were already not working because of no water. Thank god we were having inverter in our rooms. Having finished all the water we had to drink, some people decide to bring mineral water bottles from shops just then aunty came to our resque with some water bottles with her and told us that water cooler has been filled and a water tanker will come tomorrow just in case water does not come tomorrow also we were kind of happy and straight went to make maggie. After having that delicious maggie and having filled our stomach we drank all the water we had and went to water cooler for some water to our surprise we noticed that the water was not fit for drinking it was looking yellow when collected in bottles and then the inverter also died.was feeling like what the hell? So now we were left in dark decide to go upstairs and get the view of the night sky (have already told you it was cloudy and it remained so for the whole day) its now around 12 and we are standing here talking about things, solving questions (above picture) and waiting for electricity to come (i was getting bored so wrote this and good knows whats wrong with my cell its date changes to 13th now and then) its 12:30 lights came and m going to sleep, with my water bottle 1/3rd filled and one 1/2 litre Mountain Dew bottle half filled (which is safely hidden for every one) i dont think i have to worry much. Lets see what do i do tomorrow morning ne way m off to sleep good night ;-)