@GilbertWham and @anon67050589 - The way I was reading the article, I imagined the customers that are on the rise to be like a woman I used to work with. She wore a Pandora bracelet on one arm, had a couple of anniversary bands stacked on top of her giant diamond engagement band (her husband is a doctor, you know?), an eternity circle necklace, diamond stud earrings. Basically, when you looked at her jewelry the cash register in my mind would start whirring and I knew within a few dollars what her husband had spent to make her happy. Sometimes I thought why not just hang thousand dollar bills around your neck instead; it’d be just as lovely. Anyway, she redid her kitchen and for several months that was much of the lunchtime conversation with her. Another co-worker who was good friends described it as a “$50,000 kitchen remodel.” Which is probably exactly what she was going for - that you could calculate how much she spent on the granite counters and such. One feature I distinctly remember is that she had kids still in elementary school and she had a drawer in her island for kids snacks that was accessible to them. Great idea I guess until you kids get tall enough to reach the cabinets? But I guess she will redo the kitchen then. Anyway, I keep waiting for the dual purpose fridge compartment to trickle down to the hoi-poloi because that seems like the greatest feature ever.
@Espresso - my take on Vegas is much like my take on Disney - that you are having as much fun as you are spending money. At both places I thought, “meh, glad I saw it I guess,” but it wasn’t my thing. I did think the Wynn was freaking beautiful though; I’d love to stay there. When I was there it was when my first marriage was on the fritz and I liked going down in the middle of the night and playing penny slots and being around other people because I was miserable and lonely. One night as I was returning to the hotel room, I struck up a conversation with a guy in the elevator. I was up $20. He was down $10k and had had to wire money into his account to cover the debt - poker player. I think you probably can’t tell who is gambling hard and who is there for the naked ladies, but I think there are people who really like gambling in a way that I understand but fortunately don’t get.
