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I’m thinking quite seriously of spending about 3 months in Las Vegas. I love my Canadian home very much, but let’s face it: it’s cold and wet. I need to dry out. (Some might suggest that LV is the last place anyone should go to “dry out”, but I’m not rich enough to drink my way through that town.)

Does anyone take a sabbatical in America? Mexico seems to be the destination of choice for writers and musicians looking for objectivity. But I’ll still need to run my business from wherever I am, which means reasonable access to technology, international flights, and decent Chinese takeout. Vegas sounds like the perfect solution.

Nothing is real in Vegas anyway. Even the air in the casinos is so pumped up with extra oxygen that it’s no longer really air – it’s a feel-good mixture that enhances your dice-tossing skills. Where else can you eat pie for breakfast, ride a roller coaster before lunch (not after it), and wear an evening gown to business meetings? I’ll tell you – nowhere but Sin City, baby.

Besides, to a Canadian, everything in America is super-sized and attractively unnatural. Preachers dress like movie stars, and movie stars dress like prostitutes. The President thinks he’s a cowboy. Citizens buy carbon credits to make up for all the disposable items they use. I mean, you’ve got to love a country that puts glitter in deodorant.

I don’t even have to make it all the way to Vegas – I hear there’s a little place just over the Nevada border where you can buy a steak dinner for just $1.49. Now, doesn’t that sound like an unreal deal to you?