Las Vegas Travel Deal

Something strange happened this week in Amazon.com's apparel section.

For a day or two, a black T-shirt featuring an image of three wolves baying at a full moon claimed the top slot at the online store's clothing bestseller list,, beating out the usual, unremarkable mix of Levi's 505 regular-fit jeans, Crocs clogs and Adidas running shoes.

Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, Available in Various Sizes

And really, why wouldn't you buy the shirt, which is priced from $7.65 to $17.93, depending on your size? Just read the long and growing list of customer testimonials promising earth-shattering experiences or psychedelic vision quests upon purchase.

"I bought this shirt and instantly old girlfriends started calling me again," wrote one reviewer."My doctor says the cancer has gone into remission," wrote another. "

Thanks for changing my life!"The shirt's page at Amazon.com had quietly existed for years without much comment, but after a snarky link from CollegeHumor.com, the "Three Wolf Moon" shirt suddenly sprouted hundreds of five-star ratings.

Reviewers have dreamed up epics about its powers, weaving fantasies involving everything from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to the pop group Duran Duran.

As the joke caught on and got passed around the Web, Photoshopped spoofs of the shirt started appearing online -- featuring corgi puppies, spiders or haddock instead of the now-famous wolves.

CollegeHumor.com, a comedy site started in 1999 by a couple of high school friends who grew up together in Timonium, Md., also claimed victory this week for rigging an online poll run by the state of Nebraska to select a new license-plate design.

The site urged its readers to vote for what it deemed the most boring design available to Nebraska drivers. That gray-and-white plate won.Officials in Nebraska said they monitored Web traffic to screen out visitors coming directly from the humor site, but CollegeHumor.com was still, credibly, claiming the joke a success this week.

"Together we pranked the entire automobile-owning population of Nebraska," wrote a CollegeHumor.com editor, in a Wednesday posting. "Congratulations."

This type of online rabble-rousing appears to be catching on more than ever over the past year, said Tim Hwang, the organizer of ROFLCon, a convention dedicated to celebrating Internet memes.

After all, another Web-based prank crossed over into the real world just last month when a 21-year-old college student, known by the online moniker "m00t," sailed to the top of Time's "most influential person" list in an online poll, beating out the likes of President Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

Gathering nearly 17 million votes, the world's "most influential" person is the founder of another jokey Web culture site, 4chan.org, whose proprietor is known offline by the name Christopher Poole. If you don't get why the shirt, and its reviews, are so funny, don't worry.

CollegeHumor.com co-founder Josh Abramson said it's a case where the shirt is so uncool that it's cool."A lot of things that become popular on the Web are based around just being ironic and being an inside joke," Abramson said.

"This resonates with a geeky, hip crowd that is very Web-savvy. When something resonates with that circle, crazy things can happen."Abramson said his team had considered licensing the wolf shirt for sale.

CollegeHumor.com, which had 7 million unique Web visitors last month, also has an online store that sells T-shirts with ironic catchphrases and designs, called BustedTees.com. But it appears that the site may have been a bit slow to catch on to its own meme.

"We're kicking ourselves that we didn't," he said.The New Hampshire company that makes the "Three Wolf Moon" shirt said that it doesn't generally mind being the butt of this joke."You have to be able to laugh at yourself," said Michael McGloin, a partner and art director at the Mountain, who added that he finds some of the reviews to be "freaking hilarious."

The company certainly doesn't mind the shirt's recent uptick in sales: "Three Wolf Moon" is sold out, and the Mountain has started printing up a fresh batch.

It seems that the wolf theme was growing in popularity even before the Internet hipsters descended, McGloin said."Wolf shirts are super hot right now," he said. "It's the year of the wolf, I guess."

Click now to Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, Available in Various Sizes

By Mike Musgrove, Washington Post Staff Writer

Labels: ironic tshirt, the mountain, three wolf moon, tshirt, wolf moon, wolf shirt, wolf t-shirt

It's been a tough season for spring break destinations. With students and parents tightening their belts in the face of a major recession, the annual tradition of letting off steam - ideally on an exotic beach, with access to plenty of cheap beer - is suffering.

This spring break season - typically, March 16 to April 5 - flights from the U.S. to the Caribbean have dropped as much as 20%, according to data compiled for TIME by the online travel agency Expedia.

Meanwhile, safety concerns over Mexico's increasingly violent drug cartels may be helping keep students away from its beaches in droves; travel to the spring-break Mecca of Cancun is down 22% over last year.

But that doesn't mean spring break is canceled. When it comes to scaling back expenses, that's where many college students are drawing a line in the sand. Sun-drenched revelers are spending less, and service-oriented spring breakers are reaching out to communities closer to home.

"For college students, spring break is really a once in a lifetime experience," says Matt Scriven, founder of spring break tour operator ParadiseParties.com. "So they're finding a way to do it."

For many, that means forgoing a far-flung trip - which can cost upwards of $1,000 - and soaking up some less exotic rays. According to Expedia, spring break flights to Orlando, Los Angeles and New York all jumped more than 25% this year.

At ParadiseParties.com, the uptick in sales of cheaper, domestic options - including a $400 party cruise from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and a $300 trip to Panama City, Fla., where MTV films one of its spring break specials - kept the overall number of bookings from dipping substantially, despite a drop in international sales. "We definitely sold a whole lot more of the affordable stuff," says Scriven.

Affordability may also help explain why service-oriented spring break trips, which can cost as little as $300, are more popular than ever this year. At St. Michael's College in Burlington, Vermont, applications doubled for trips to serve in soup kitchens or build homes around the country and abroad. Harvard's alternative spring break program recorded a 90% increase in applications.

And Break Away, an organization that helps coordinate service-oriented break trips for over 150 college campuses nationwide, has tracked a 10-15% increase in participation for the sixth year in a row. "Most alternative break programs are very student-led and small-donor based, very grassroots," says Jill Piacitelli, executive director of Break Away. "Students are still willing and able to raise the $300 to go on the trip."

Some students, however, are less able than they used to be. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for example, sent some spring-break volunteers to Kentucky last year to help rebuild an elderly woman's home after it burned down. This year, they're offering a staycation instead: 30 students are living on campus and working at local nonprofits.

The per-student tab for the week comes to $75, compared to $350 a pop for one of last year's trips. "Students were not as interested in paying that much," says Jordanna Spencer, graduate coordinator for service and volunteerism. (Read more about volunteer vacations.)

Other alternative break trips are being refocused to help people especially affected by the recession. About two dozen schools, for instance, have retooled their Habitat for Humanity-style affordable housing trips to focus on rehabilitating foreclosured homes instead, says Piacitelli.

"The idea with alternative breaks is to address pressing social needs," she says. "When there's a demonstrated, clear one, the students are on to that, and plan trips around it."

There are other students, of course, who are simply staying home. Melissa Bubb, 20, a junior marketing major at Temple University, took a bus home to Brooklyn, New York, where she spent spring break visiting her grandmother and catching up with high school friends.

"Honestly, I couldn't afford to go on vacation," she says. "The way the circumstances are now with the economy, you have to pick and choose."

For her senior year, though, Bubb has already made her decision. "It will be my last year and my last semester," she says. "I'll probably just treat myself to a trip."

By LAURA FITZPATRICK

Labels: 2009, spring break

- Do you have scars, problems with acne, excess fat and skin, or is your face starting to show the early signs of aging?

- Do you feel that your teeth are having a negative impact on your otherwise glowing smile?

Whether you are looking to get a tummy tuck, a facelift, or a breast reduction, you may be curious as to what all of your options are.

Despite the fact that you do have a number of different treatment options, many men and women in your shoes opt for cosmetic surgery.

So, is cosmetic surgery right for you?

It is a big step. Before you move forward, it is important that you examine the pros and cons.

Read more Cosmetic Face Lift Surgery at http://mysearch.ph/cosmetic-face-lift-surgery/signs-need-cosmetic-surgery-face-lift.htm

Are you interested in chartering a private jet? When it comes to air travel, many travelers automatically think of commercial airlines, but did you know that you also have another option? That option is private jet charter services.

You may want to seriously give the chartering of a private jet services some thought. After a close examination, you will likely see that there are a number of benefits to doing so, especially for business, honeymoon, and romance.

If you have engaged a private jet charter services before, have you decided which private jet chartering company you would like to do business with?

There are some instances, where it may be more of a hassle than anything else. While there are still a large number of jets to go around, you will want to make sure that you make your reservations early.

That is why you are urged to examine the advantages and disadvantages of choosing your own private jet to charter.

If you have yet to do so, you will want to do so with caution. In today's society, scams are at an all time high.

Click now to all the tips and guide about private jet charter services at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/private-jet-charters/private-jet-chartering-scams-aware.htm

With so many wonderful selections for family fun, adult oriented, and sometimes just plain grown up fun it's often hard to pick and choose between so many wonderful shows and experiences and settle on one or two that you feel is absolutely the must see show or review that you won't regret not having taken the time to see during your stay in Vegas.

Of course you could always go ahead and make the reservations for your next trip and make plans to see the shows you missed this time.

Read more Side Splitting Vegas Shows at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/side-splitting-vegas-shows.htm

Praise Realty Marketing Corp. and Aredconsult, Inc. have joined forces this February 23-25 by launching The Global Filipino Conference that will unite different Pinoy organizations, local and abroad.

The date cannot be lost to majority of Filipinos because it is the date of the EDSA Revolution.
The PinoyConference.com homepage shall be launched on February 26.

The Global Filipinos Conference initiative shall create a big directory of organizations, associations, and movements that the members can join later.

It will initially offer online learning modules for individual subscribers such as self-improvement, online entrepreneurship, work-at-home, investing, personal finance, blogs, forums, and chats.

In the immediate future, Instructor-Led Training (ILD) will be held.

Praise Realty Marketing Corporation owns PraiseRealty.com.ph, one of the Top Ten real estate marketing websites in the Philippines based on Alexa.com.

Aredconsult.com specializes on business marketing and one of the pioneers of internet marketing in the Philippines since 1999.

We are now accepting free membership at http://mysearch.ph/pinoy-network/

The most important aspect of bachelor or bachelorette parties for most is that one last night of getting together with old friends, making new acquaintances, and cutting ties with the single lives you are preparing to leave behind.

Whether you are just getting together with friends for drinks or heading off to visit all the strip clubs along the strip for one last time it is safe to say that Vegas knows how to throw a bachelor party.

Read more Some Dreams Are Made of Vegas Bachelor Parties at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/some-dreams-are-made-of-vegas-bachelor-parties.htm

These museums represent fun and fabulous ways to spend the day with your family while vacationing in Las Vegas.

The museums are certainly not the only family friendly activities you can enjoy together, they are quite often the most educational ways to spend the day.

You have to admit however, that some of these museums are quite unique to the area and well worth the minimal costs of admission.

Read more The Cultural Side of Vegas at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/the-cultural-side-of-vegas.htm

Increasingly more "social tourists"are saying "no" to cocktails by the pool in the Caribbean, the exclusive cruise ships of the Balearic Islands, or five-star hotels in major U.S. destinations.

And "yes" to learning first-hand about the realities of the developing South or Eastern Europe, and sharing the lifestyles and the problems of local communities.

Read more Unique Experiences on Social Tourism at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/travel-philippine-resorts/2008/01/unique-experiences-on-social-tourism.html

Granted most of these beautiful places to visit are fair distances from Vegas but if you are this close to them it would be a shame to miss out on their beauty for the sake of a car ride.

The first one I'd like to mention is Bryce Canyon National Park. It is actually in Utah and about 270 miles from Vegas. The fee to enter is $20 per vehicle but the scenery is absolutely breathtaking.

The views you will see are worth every mile and every penny. You should also be on the lookout for some of the wildlife particularly the Great Basin Rattlesnake, bald eagles, and golden eagles.

Read more The Natural Beauty Surrounding Vegas at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/the-natural-beauty-surrounding-vegas.htm

Your trip to Las Vegas will be no more or no less than you make it. The problem with gambling destinations such as this is that if you spend your entire allotment of funds in the first few hours you are in for a very long and quite boring and possibly hungry vacation.

Self control is not what this particular city is famous for and yet it requires a great deal of self control in order to really win at the games that are most often played in this city.


Read more The Romance of Vegas at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/aspen-vacation/main.htm

Les Foiles Bergere is one of the best examples of a classic Vegas style show or at least my interpretation of what a Vegas style show should be. This show literally sizzles with its sex appeal and is a great show to kick off your stay in Vegas.

You'll be ready to roll the dice after seeing this show for sure. There are generally two shows offered. The 7:30 show is covered so that all ages can enjoy the show all others feature topless numbers and request that audience members be 16 and over.

Read more The Sexy Side of Vegas Shows at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/the-sexy-side-of-vegas-shows.htm

Here are the problems a foreign tourist usually encounters when traveling to any overseas country:

Nobody meets you at the airport and provides you with the transportation out of that place.

This is just the beginning of your problems until you go back to your own country.

But you're supposed to be on vacation.

When traveling to the Philippines, simply contact your Travel Buddy...

- who can run errands for you and provides you with useful information.

- finds you a place to stay that suits your budget

- accompanies you to your various appointments

- arranges your transportation for you to go around the place

- arranges your travel plans and documents

- guides you around the Philippines

- checks on your safety and security


Contact now Travel Buddy at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/travelbuddy

Wildlife is something that big and little kids from all over the world find fascinating. Whether the wildlife is marine, mamma, reptilian, or bird in nature-even insects, kids find intriguing and love to explore.

In Las Vegas there are many casinos that not only offer shows that center around animals but also offer shows where animals are the stars. This is one of the few cities in the world that will offer quite the variety of fun, adventure, activity, and fantasy to its visitors.

Read more Vegas for Animal Lovers at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/vegas-for-animal-lovers.htm

Club Travellers Mall is an online home shopping mall of travel solutions that includes USA, Canada, and International products and services.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year.

Click now to Club Travellers Mall at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/travel-mall.htm

Founded as a mining camp in the Colorado Silver Boom and named because of the abundance of aspen trees in the area, the city is now a ski resort and cultural center.

Finding things to do in Aspen, Colorado during the day isn't difficult - get out on the slopes and ski or enjoy one of the other winter sports that you love.

At night, however, Aspen really comes to life with Aspen nightlife! No matter how old or young you are, there is something to do in Aspen twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Read more Aspen Nightlife and Vacation at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/aspen-vacation/main.htm

Celine Dion called it a wrap at Caesars Palace, acknowledging in her final show that pregnancy and poor early reviews almost sank her titanic five-year engagement.

As adoring fans cheered, stood and clapped through Saturday night's performance, Dion interspersed her usual numbers with emotion-filled monologues.

"At one point, it was like feeling like the Titanic was about to sink again," she said. "But we believed and we went on with it. Even though the vibe was not that positive for us."

While the show was still in development in 2000, Dion, 39, became pregnant and told husband-manager Rene Angelil she did not want to continue.

"I had a life for the first time," the French-Canadian chanteuse said in a video before her 717th show. "I knew then that I wanted to have more success as a mother than a singer."

But Angelil told her that too much money and too many people were involved. Not only would the Colosseum cost $95 million to build, her initial three-year, $100 million contract broke records for a live entertainer.

So she pushed on, fighting through initial bad reviews to make it five years of filling a 4,100-seat arena.

After her last number, Dion invited husband Angelil and her son, Rene-Charles, now 7, on stage with her. Rene-Charles repeatedly reached down to grab rose petals that rained down on the final bow, giving them to her.

"Most of us have left our families behind to give ourselves every night," she said. "I can assure you it was worth it."

Since opening in March 2003, Dion's show, "A New Day ... " grossed more than $400 million and was seen by nearly 3 million fans. Dion said one fan had seen her Las Vegas show more than 100 times. Tickets for the final show were for sale on EBay for as much as $1,899.

Last month, Dion released "Taking Chances" her first English-language album in four years, and she sang the title song on the album during the extra-long finale. The album was most recently the 12th best-selling in the U.S., according to Billboard magazine.
Dion starts touring with a first concert date set for Valentine's Day in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Taking Dion's place at Caesars Palace will be Bette Midler's "The Showgirl Must Go On," which is set to open Feb. 20.

"Tomorrow morning, it will be back to reality and back to (being) mommy," Dion told reporters after the show.

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Writer

Las Vegas is building a museum about some of its founding fathers and most influential figures — guys with names like Bugsy, Lefty and Lansky.

The mob museum will stand as frank acknowledgment of the major role mobsters played in developing Las Vegas into the gambling capital of America and giving the city its rakish glamour during the 1940s and '50s.

"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former defense attorney whose clients once included mobsters Meyer Lansky and Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro. "This is something that differentiates us from other cities."

The project has gained the support of the FBI and is guided by a retired FBI agent. They say they are involved because you can't tell the stories of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, his banker, Lansky, casino boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and others without telling the story of the lawmen who pursued them.

"This is a way to connect with the public and show the results of our work," said Dan McCarron, a spokesman for the FBI in Washington.

Ellen Knowlton, who retired in 2006 as FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas and now heads the not-for-profit museum organization, said FBI officials have offered to share photographs, transcripts of wiretaps and histories of efforts to kneecap organized crime in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

"Despite the sort of edgy theme, this museum will be historically accurate and it will tell the true story of organized crime," Knowlton said. "The plan is to give people a kind of gritty taste of what it would have been like to be not only a person involved or affiliated with organized crime, but also what it would have been like to be in law enforcement."

Officials expect to open the museum by 2010 in a brick federal building that was the centerpiece of this dusty town of 5,100 residents when it opened in 1933. In 1950, the three-story building hosted a hearing by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver's special investigating committee on the rackets.

Goodman, who showed his own willingness to play up Las Vegas' mob past by making a cameo in the 1995 Robert De Niro-Joe Pesci movie "Casino," has pushed the idea of a mob museum from the time he was elected mayor in 1999.

He brokered a deal for the city to buy the building in 2000 for $1, with the understanding it would be turned into cultural center. Officials expect the final cost, including renovations, to reach almost $50 million.

About $15 million has been raised through grants, city funds, contributions and the sale of commemorative license plates that marked Las Vegas' centennial in 2005.

It was Siegel who pioneered the transformation of this one-time desert stopover into a glittering tourist mecca, opening the $6 million Flamingo hotel on the fledgling Las Vegas Strip in 1946 with financial backing from Lansky.

The movie-star handsome Siegel was rubbed out six months later in Beverly Hills, Calif., perhaps because he angered the mob with cost overruns on the hotel.

Spilotro and Rosenthal were associates in the 1970s, when Rosenthal ran several casinos, including the Stardust. Spilotro was killed in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Organized crime eventually was driven out of Las Vegas in the 1970s and '80s by the FBI, local police and prosecutors, state crackdowns and casino purchases by corporate interests.

Many of these stories have been dramatized by Hollywood in such movies as "Bugsy," "The Godfather" and "Casino." But documenting mob history isn't going to be easy.

"If anybody out there finds a memo saying: 'To the boys, from Meyer. Re: Bugsy. Kill him,' We'd love to have it," said Michael Green, a College of Southern Nevada history professor who is researching exhibits for the museum. "But we doubt it's there."

"Because of that, you have to do a lot of reconstructing, inferring and implying," he said. "There's a lot of winking we're going to have to do."

Green pointed to stories about Moe Dalitz, a Cleveland businessman who rescued the Desert Inn and Stardust casinos in the 1950s and '60s and built a hospital, golf courses and shopping centers.

"Was he tied to the mob or involved with the mob? Yes," Green said. "A mobster? Harder to explain."

Dennis Barrie, who designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the popular International Spy Museum in Washington, said he will design the as-yet-unnamed Las Vegas museum to show how organized crime and the fight against it shaped modern life.

"Whether it's running the casinos in Las Vegas, or controlling cigarette sales or numbers or trash collection in any city, organized crime is part of the American culture," Barrie said. "Everybody has a mob story or a brush with the mob world. Or they at least say they do."

Organizers say paying visitors might be asked to decide as they arrive which side of the law they want to be on, and then be given a story line tracing the life of a famous lawman or mobster or a street cop or numbers runner.

"Were you a hit man? Were you a prosecutor? What choices do you have to make?" Green said. "We're telling a story of things that are multisided."

Organizers also hope to have an oral-history area where visitors "can sit down in front of a camera and say, `I knew Bugsy,' or `I saw Meyer,' or whatever," he said.

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer

Consider your budget and choose your activities according to your spending abilities. There are actually enough free activities in Vegas to keep you busy for at least 3 days if not 4 or more, depending on your interests and how many of the paid adventures you'd like to participate in.

Beyond that, the problem for many lies in deciding how much money to spend where and how much money you are willing to leave up to fate, lady luck, and the mad, mad whims of man.

Read more Vegas For the Eternal Planner at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/vegas-for-the-eternal-planner.htm

Vegas has often become synonymous with sin or at the very least sex.

While that is something that most definitely draws the box office dollars, it is not something that makes watching shows in Vegas easy if you have children.

Magic shows, however are usually a fairly safe bet from great entertainment and less adult oriented content.

Read more Vegas Magic For The Family at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/vegas-magic-for-the-family.htm

Other than gambling, one of the first things that many people think of when they think of Vegas are the many shows that are available to watch. Vegas rakes in a fortune each year off the shows that are offered each and every night.

There are major headliners and limited appearances that make the shows the wonderful draws for tourists and locals alike to spend a night out on the town and the shows, dinner, and ultimately the casinos.

Read more Vegas Shows Are Big Draw for Tourists at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/vegas-shows-are-big-draw-for-tourists.htm

If you're planning a wedding, thinking about a wedding, or simply want to avoid a wedding and would like to run away and get married, might I suggest one of the many wedding chapels in Vegas?

Vegas is probably the only city in the world that has professionals dedicated to throwing bachelor and bachelorette parties for brides and grooms to be.

Read more Vegas Weddings For All Tastes at http://www.philippine-resorts.com/las-vegas-travel-deals/vegas-weddings-for-all-tastes.htm