Coming at you from Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas. We've been here just about 24 hours and there's already too much to write about.

I love it here. The combination of the desert setting and the intense belief in a higher power (luck), makes it a curiously spiritual place. And of course completely profane at the same time.

This morning I did my usual travel ritual: Gideon Bible Oracle, opening to a random page in the bible for commentary. I opened on a blustery passage about being punished for wickedness and for the desire to have a king. "Woops, wrong testament!" So I aimed for the new testament which is generally kinder, and got a passage about the desert holy land, with very specific details, in cubits and spans, of its circumference. Wasn't sure what to make of it, but decided it was about Geo. Bush.

We saw the Cirque du Soleil show O last night. It was...spectacular. Pure entertainment. That's the funny thing about Vegas: it's so over the top that you appproach every icon and attraction with a smirk, but then you get completely caught up in its tawdry grandeur.

The entrance to the Luxor resort, for instance, is a big Sphinx. Corny, but also...a big Sphinx! Dude. You can get a tiny glimpse of what it must have been like to set eyes on a real Egyptian Sphinx, the awe it inspires. The innate human need for big structures and icons and alpha-people...

Haven't gambled much, not really into it, but I have had some luck and fun at the slot machines, particularly the wonderfully-named "Triple Cherry".

Must go...we're seeing Celine Dion in a half hour.