1.
Las Vegas
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The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment and it is the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World and it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the worlds most visited tourist destinations. The citys tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, and has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, films, television programs, Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and officially incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century, population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, and between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85. 2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, and according to a 2013 estimate, perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago, a young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829. Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, the area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for the meadows, as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. The year 1844 marked the arrival of John C, frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas Fremont Street is named after him, eleven years later members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward, the remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city,1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas. At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks and this year also witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam. The influx of workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935, in 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Currently known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the team called the Thunderbirds
2.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
3.
Fremont Street
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Fremont Street is a street in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is the second most famous street in the Las Vegas Valley after the Las Vegas Strip. The abundance of signs, like cowboy Vegas Vic, earned the street the nickname of Glitter Gulch. Fremont Street formerly carried several national highways, including U. S. Route 93, US95, US93 and US95 have been rerouted along Interstate 515, while US466 has been decommissioned. The section of Fremont Street east of the Fremont East District is currently designated Nevada State Route 582, Fremont Street dates back to 1905, when Las Vegas itself was founded. Fremont Street was the first paved street in Las Vegas in 1925, Fremont Street also carried the shields of U. S. Route 93, US95, and US466 before the construction of the interstates. While gambling was well established prior to being legalized, the Northern Club in 1931 received one of the first 6 gambling licenses issued in Nevada, Glitter Gulch was closed to vehicle traffic in September,1994 to begin construction on the Fremont Street Experience. The 1964 Elvis Presley film Viva Las Vegas featured nighttime footage of Fremont Street during the opening credits. The 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever featured a scene in which James Bond, running from Las Vegas police. The 1987 music video for the song I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For by U2 was filmed on Fremont Street and featured the members wandering around. In the 1987 anthology film, Aria, one of the segments involves two young lovers driving down Fremont Street before attempting suicide. The second season of the NBC show Crime Story featured Fremont Street in its opening credits, 1998s Very Bad Things featured Fremont Street in the movie. 1990s Honey, I Blew Up the Kid prominently featured Fremont Street in the movie, 1991s Cool World showed all the animation coming out of the Union Plaza Hotel and going down Fremont Street. In 1994, Glitter Gulch was featured prominently in the TV Miniseries The Stand, the 1997 comedy Vegas Vacation includes a few scenes on Fremont Street. In a 2005 release, Panic. at the Disco released a song about Fremont Street called Build God, Fremont Street appears in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas as The Old Las Venturas Strip. The 2007 film Next, has Nicolas Cages character entering the Golden Nugget from the Fremont Street Experience, Ice Cubes music video for Chrome and Paint took place on Fremont Street, with Ice Cube in a lowrider. Heavily referenced in the Tom Waits song Mr. Siegal, featured at the beginning of the TV series - CSI season 7 finale episode 24. Featured in the credits of the TV series Vega$. Magician & illusionist, Criss Angel, has done many demonstrations there, featured in The Real World, Las Vegas
4.
Gold rush
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A gold rush is a new discovery of gold that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, the wealth that resulted was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself was unprofitable for most diggers and mine owners, some people made fortunes. The resulting increase in the gold supply stimulated global trade. Historians have written extensively about the migration, trade, colonization, Gold rushes helped spur a huge immigration that often led to permanent settlement of new regions. Activities propelled by gold rushes define significant aspects of the culture of the Australian, at a time when the worlds money supply was based on gold, the newly mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the gold fields. Gold rushes extend back as far as gold mining, to the Roman Empire, whose gold mining was described by Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder, within each mining rush there is typically a transition through progressively higher capital expenditures, larger organizations, and more specialized knowledge. They may also progress from high-unit value to lower unit value minerals, a rush typically begins with the discovery of placer gold made by an individual. At first the gold may be washed from the sand and gravel by individual miners with little training, using a pan or similar simple instrument. Winning the gold in this manner requires almost no capital investment, only a pan or equipment that may be built on the spot. The low investment, the value per unit weight of gold. After the sluice-box stage, placer mining may become increasingly large scale, requiring larger organisations, small claims owned and mined by individuals may need to be merged into larger tracts. Difficult-to-reach placer deposits may be mined by tunnels, water may be diverted by dams and canals to placer mine active river beds or to deliver water needed to wash dry placers. The more advanced techniques of ground sluicing, hydraulic mining and dredging may be used, typically the heyday of a placer gold rush would last only a few years. Hard rock mining, like mining, may evolve from low capital investment and simple technology to progressively higher capital. The surface outcrop of a gold-bearing vein may be oxidized, so that the gold occurs as native gold, the first miners may at first build a simple arrastra to crush their ore, later, they may build stamp mills to crush ore more quickly. As the miners dig down, they may find that the part of vein contains gold locked in sulfide or telluride minerals. If the ore is still rich, it may be worth shipping to a distant smelter
5.
Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse
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Vic & Anthony’s is an American steakhouse restaurant chain with locations in Downtown Houston, ]and inside the Golden Nugget Casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. A fourth location is scheduled to open inside the new Golden Nugget Lake Charles in late 2014, Vic & Anthony’s is owned and operated by Landry’s, Inc. In 2002, Fertitta opened Vic & Anthony’s in Downtown Houston, across the street from Minute Maid Park, the AAA listing for the restaurant describes its atmosphere as upscale. Dress code is business or dressy casual, all four locations are open for dinner, and the New York location is open for lunch Monday through Friday. The Houston location is open for lunch on Fridays, when Executive Concept Chef Carlos Rodriguez features a range of burgers. The Houston Rockets’ guard James Harden frequents the restaurants after home games
6.
Landry's, Inc.
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Landrys, Inc. is an American, privately owned, multi-brand dining/hospitality/entertainment/gaming corporation. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Landrys, Inc. owns and operates more than 500 restaurant/hotel/casino/entertainment destinations in 35 states, the company also owns and operates numerous international locations. Landrys, Inc. is owned entirely by President & CEO Tilman J. Fertitta, a partner in the companys first Landrys Seafood. A year later, Fertitta helped open Willie Gs, a restaurant in Houston. In 1986, Fertitta gained controlling interests in both restaurants and he became CEO and took the company public in 1993, with a valuation of $30 million. Under the leadership of Fertitta, the company expanded, in 2010, already being the majority shareholder, Fertitta acquired all outstanding shares of company stock, gaining sole control and ownership. By 2011, the value had risen to more than $1.7 billion. Throughout the 1990s, Landrys, Inc. expanded, developing and acquiring restaurant, entertainment, hospitality, in 1994, Landrys, Inc. acquired Joes Crab Shack. In 2006, Landrys, Inc. sold Joes Crab Shack, during the decade, the company acquired a number of other restaurants, including The Crab House and Cadillac Bar. In 2004, Landrys, Inc. partnered with the City of Galveston to open a 140,000 square foot convention center, in 2003, the company acquired the adjacent Holiday Inn Resort Galveston – On the Beach. In 2004, the adjacent Hilton Galveston Island Resort was acquired, in total, the San Luis Resort includes 700 guest rooms,10 restaurants, and 200,000 square feet of event space. The companys hospitality division also includes The Westin Houston Downtown in Downtown Houston, in 1998, the company developed the 35-acre Kemah Boardwalk, with a hotel, a marina, more than 10 restaurants, and dozens of midway games, amusement rides, and attractions. After 2000, Landrys, Inc. continued to grow, in 2000, the company acquired Rainforest Cafe, a collection of jungle-inspired restaurants and retail villages. In 2002, the company acquired three national restaurants, including Saltgrass Steak House, Chart House, and Muer Restaurants, a series of seafood restaurants, a train carries guests into a tunnel running through a 250, 000-gallon shark tank. Other Aquarium restaurants have opened in Denver, Nashville. In 2005, the company acquired Golden Nugget Hotel & Casinos, with locations in Las Vegas and Laughlin, Landrys, Inc. has since opened two additional locations in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Biloxi, Mississippi. A fifth location opened in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 2014, in 2010, Landrys, Inc. acquired three new restaurants. Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a collection of restaurants, is themed on the hit movie Forrest Gump
7.
Casino
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A casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. The industry that deals in casinos is called the gaming industry, casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions. There is much debate whether or not the social and economic consequences of casino gambling outweigh the initial revenue that may be generated. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertainment events, such as comedy, concerts. The term casino is a confusing linguistic false friend for translators, Casino is of Italian origin, the root casa originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club. In modern-day Italian, the term designates a bordello, while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent. Not all casinos were used for gaming, the Copenhagen Casino was a theatre, known for the mass public meetings often held in its hall during the 1848 Revolution, which made Denmark a constitutional monarchy. Until 1937, it was a well-known Danish theatre, the Hanko Casino in Hanko, Finland—one of that towns most conspicuous landmarks—was never used for gambling. Rather, it was a hall for the Russian nobility which frequented this spa resort in the late 19th century and is now used as a restaurant. In military and non-military usage in German and Spanish, a casino or kasino is an officers mess, in Italian—the source-language of the word—a casino is either a brothel, a mess, or a noisy environment, while a gaming house is called a casinò. The precise origin of gambling is unknown and it is generally believed that gambling in some form or another has been seen in almost every society in history. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleons France and Elizabethan England and it was closed in 1774 as the city government felt it was impoverishing the local gentry. In American history, early gambling establishments were known as saloons, the creation and importance of saloons was greatly influenced by four major cities, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. It was in the saloons that travelers could find people to talk to, drink with, during the early 20th century in America, gambling became outlawed and banned by state legislation and social reformers of the time. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized throughout the state of Nevada, Americas first legalized casinos were set up in those places. In 1976 New Jersey allowed gambling in Atlantic City, now Americas second largest gambling city, most jurisdictions worldwide have a minimum gambling age. Customers gamble by playing games of chance, in cases with an element of skill, such as craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack. Most games played have mathematically determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an overall advantage over the players and this can be expressed more precisely by the notion of expected value, which is uniformly negative
8.
Downtown Las Vegas
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Downtown Las Vegas is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the townsite and was the gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the Strip. Downtown is located in the center of the Las Vegas Valley and just north of the Las Vegas Strip, centered on Fremont Street, the Fremont Street Experience and Fremont East. The city defines the area as bounded by I-15 on the west, Washington Avenue on the north, Maryland Parkway on the east, perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled here 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes came here at least 2,000 years ago, the area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for the meadows, in the 1800s because it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. The year 1844 marked the arrival of John C, frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas’ Fremont Street is named after him, eleven years later, members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward, the remainder of this fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city, the year 1931 was a pivotal one for Las Vegas. At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks and this year also witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam. The influx of workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. Following World War II, lavishly decorated hotels, gambling casinos, the 1950s saw the opening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel, the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas. In 1951, the first atomic bomb detonation at the Nevada Test Site,65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, City residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground. During the 1960s, corporations and business such as Howard Hughes were building and buying hotel-casino properties. Gambling was referred to as gaming, which transitioned into legitimate business, in 1989, entrepreneur Steve Wynn changed the face of the Las Vegas gaming industry by opening up The Mirage, the Las Vegas Strip’s first mega-casino resort. This strengthened the pull of visitors away from the downtown area, in 1995, the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas’ downtown area was opened. This canopied, five-block area features 12.5 million LED lights and 550,000 watts of sound from dusk until midnight during shows held on the top of each hour
9.
Fremont Street Experience
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The Fremont Street Experience is a pedestrian mall and attraction in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The FSE occupies the westernmost five blocks of Fremont Street, including the known for years as Glitter Gulch. The central attraction is a barrel vault canopy,90 ft high at the peak and four blocks, or approximately 1,500 ft, in length. While Las Vegas is known for never turning the outside casino lights off, each show begins by turning off the lights on all of the buildings, including the casinos, before each show, one bidirectional street that crosses the Experience is blocked off for safety reasons. Concerts, usually free, are held on three stages. The Horseshoe was the first casino to install carpeting, while the Golden Nugget was the first structure designed from the ground up to be a casino. For many years, the end of Fremont Street was the area most commonly portrayed whenever producers wanted to display the lights of Las Vegas. The large number of neon signs earned the area the nickname Glitter Gulch, by 1992 80% of the Las Vegas casino market, however, was on the Strip. Downtown Las Vegas hotels and casinos sought to build an attraction that would lure more visitors to their businesses, after Paramount Pictures head Stanley Jaffe refused to approve a proposal to build a life-sized Starship Enterprise, the Fremont Street Experience was chosen as the project. It was the second Las Vegas project of architect Jon Jerde, Jerdes design included a floating sky parade which was to be suspended from the canopy. The concept was accepted by the Fremont Street Experience as well as the City of Las Vegas, ultimately Jon Jerdes sky parade concept was scrapped, but the architectural design for the canopy was carried through. The local Architect of Record, the firm of Mary Kozlowski Architect, wind, The addition of the canopy over Fremont Street would create a wind tunnel causing a dangerous condition for people on the floats who would be trapped. Also the potential for motion as the floats swung back and forth in the wind potentially resulting in massive structural failure of the canopy. Sand, The combination of sand and the mechanical systems of the sky parade would make the attraction difficult to maintain. A new concept for the show was necessary quickly as funds were already available, the concept for the show as it now exists was conceived by architect Mary Kozlowski who had grown up in Las Vegas and knew and loved Fremont Street. It was a show on the underside of the canopy — the worlds largest and most spectacular. Peter Smith, vice-president of Atlandia Design, recognized the beauty and practicality of the concept, Jon Jerde, FSE and the City of Las Vegas embraced the show concept. Kozlowskis concept was to use a combination of four colored light bulbs per light which allowed a full spectrum of colors, the Young Electric Sign Company assisted in creating the test panels and in the final installation
10.
Steve Wynn
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Stephen Alan Steve Wynn is an American real estate businessman and art collector. He is known for his involvement in the American luxury casino, in 2000, Wynn sold his company Mirage Resorts to MGM Grand Inc. resulting in the formation of MGM Mirage. Wynn afterwards took his company Wynn Resorts public in a public offering. Current projects include Wynn Palace in Macau and Wynn Everett near Boston, in 2006 Wynn was inducted into the American Gaming Association Hall of Fame. As of September 2015, Wynns net worth was estimated by Forbes at $2.4 billion, Steve Wynn is an avid collector of fine art, often exhibiting pieces by artists such as Picasso and Claude Monet in Wynn Resorts hotels. Steve Wynn was born Stephen Alan Weinberg in New Haven, Connecticut on January 27,1942, Wynn was raised in Utica, New York, and graduated from The Manlius School, a private boys school east of Syracuse, New York, in 1959. Steve Wynn received his Bachelor of Arts in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, shortly before graduating his father died of heart problems, leaving $350,000 in gambling debts. Wynn relinquished a position at Yale Law School to take charge of his familys business in Waysons Corner, Maryland, within a year he had expanded the company. Wynn and his family moved in 1967 to Las Vegas where his success with his familys business allowed him to purchase a small stake in the Frontier Hotel. That year he met E. Parry Thomas, dubbed by Vanity Fair as the most influential banker in Las Vegas. Thomas was the president of the Bank of Las Vegas, which was the bank at the time that would extend loans to Las Vegas casinos. Starting in 1968 Wynn also spent four years operating a wine and his company stake increased so that, in 1973, he became the majority shareholder, and the youngest casino owner in Las Vegas. In 1977 he opened the Golden Nuggets first hotel tower, followed by several others, frank Sinatra was a periodic headliner at the Golden Nugget, and Wynn has since maintained a relationship with the Sinatra family, even naming a restaurant at Encore “Sinatra”. In 1980, Wynn began construction on the Golden Nugget Atlantic City in Atlantic City and it was Atlantic Citys first casino built from scratch, first and only locals casino, and the citys sixth casino after the city legalized gambling in 1976. Joel Bergman, who designed Wynns other resorts, designed the Golden Nugget, though at its opening it was the second smallest casino in the city, by 1983 it was the citys top earning casino. The Atlantic City Golden Nugget was sold by Wynn in 1987 for $440 million, in 1989, the company acquired the Nevada Club casino in Laughlin, Nevada, and re-branded it as the Golden Nugget Laughlin. Wynns first major casino on the Las Vegas Strip was The Mirage and it was the first time Wynn was involved with the design and construction of a casino, and he financed the $630 million project largely with high-yield bonds issued by Michael Milken. The resorts high cost and emphasis on luxury meant that it was considered high risk at the time, the hotel, with its erupting volcano and South Seas theme, ignited a $12 billion building boom on the Strip
11.
Mobil Guide
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Forbes Travel Guide is a star rating service and series of travel guides for hotels, restaurants and spas. ForbesTravelGuide. com combines Forbes Travel Guide’s Five-Star travel ratings system with insights, founded by Mobil in 1958, Forbes Travel Guide is the oldest travel guide in the United States. Ratings are given by anonymous, paid members in stars. A Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating is an honor, with only 115 hotels and 55 restaurants receiving the top honor. Initially guides were regional and limited to the United States and Canada, the first, issued in 1958, covered five states in the Southwest and South Central United States. In 1960, this guide was revised and volumes covering the Northeastern States, the Great Lakes, and California, Guides covering the Middle Atlantic States and the Northwestern states were introduced in 1962. In 1965, a guide for the Southeastern States was introduced, although only one state covered by this volume, later, the number of volumes was expanded, as regions covered by the guide shrank. For instance, California was covered by two volumes, one for the north and one for the south, published in print by ExxonMobil Travel Publications, until 2011, the guide was published online by HowStuffWorks. com. In October 2009, ExxonMobil licensed the brand to the Five Star Ratings Corporation, Five Star Travel Corporation entered into a licensing agreement with Forbes Media, and renamed the Star Awards and guidebook series, Forbes Travel Guide. Forbes Travel Guides new online home, ForbesTravelGuide. com, was launched in 2011, the Mobil Travel Guide Star Ratings provided ratings and reviews of hotels, restaurants and spas on a scale of one star to five stars starting in 1958
12.
Kirk Kerkorian
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Kerkor Kirk Kerkorian was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his holding company based in Beverly Hills. Kerkorian is known for having one of the important figures in the shaping of Las Vegas and, with architect Martin Stern. He built the worlds largest hotel in Las Vegas three times, the International Hotel, the MGM Grand Hotel and the MGM Grand and he purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio in 1969. Of Armenian American origin, Kerkorian provided over $1 billion for charity in Armenia through his Lincy Foundation and it was established in 1989 and was particularly focused on helping to rebuild northern Armenia after the 1988 earthquake. In 2000 Time magazine named him the 10th largest donor in the US. Kerkorian was declared an honorary citizen of Armenia by President Robert Kocharyan in September 1998 and he was bestowed the title of National Hero of Armenia, the highest state award, by Kocharyan in May 2004. Kerkor Kerkorian was born on June 6,1917 in Fresno, California, Armenian was his first language and he didnt learn the English language until we hit the streets. His family moved to Los Angeles following the depression of 1920–21, Kirk Kerkorian also had a younger sister, Rose Kerkorian. In exchange for flying lessons from pioneer aviator Pancho Barnes, he agreed to milk, on gaining his commercial pilots certificate in six months, Kerkorian learned that the British Royal Air Force was ferrying Canadian-built de Havilland Mosquitos over the North Atlantic to Scotland. The Mosquitos fuel tank carried enough fuel for 1,400 miles, the fee was $1,000 per flight. While accounts claim the risk was that one in four failed to make it. In May 1944, Kerkorian and his Wing Commander John de Lacy Wooldridge rode the wave, Wooldridge got to Scotland in six hours,46 minutes, Kerkorian, in seven hours, nine minutes. In two and a half years with RAF Ferry Command, Kerkorian delivered 33 planes, logged thousands of hours, traveled to four continents, after the war, having saved most of his wages, Kerkorian spent $5,000 on a Cessna. He worked as an aviation pilot, and made his first visit to Las Vegas in 1944. He then bid on some war surplus bombers, using money on loan from the Seagram family. Gasoline, and especially airplane fuel, was in short supply at the time, so he sold the fuel from the tanks, paid off his loan. He operated the airline until 1968 when he sold it for $104 million to the Transamerica Corporation, in 1962, Kerkorian bought 80 acres in Las Vegas, across the Las Vegas Strip from the Flamingo, for $960,000. This purchase led to the building of Caesars Palace, which rented the land from Kerkorian, on November 21,1980, the original MGM Grand burned in a fire that was one of the worst disasters in Las Vegas history
13.
MGM Resorts International
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The company recently opened MGM National Harbor in Maryland and is developing MGM Springfield in Massachusetts. It has a majority interest in MGM China Holdings Limited, which owns the MGM Macau resort, MGM Resorts owns 50 percent of CityCenter in Las Vegas, which features ARIA Resort & Casino. It has a majority controlling interest in MGM Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust, the company began operations in 1987 as MGM Grand, Inc. and became MGM Mirage in 2000, after acquiring Mirage Resorts. City Centers development coincided with financial crisis, causing writedowns in its valuation. In June 2010, the changed to its present name, to reflect its latest strategy of expanding worldwide, including licensing its brand and expertise to develop non-gaming hotels. Following a one-billion-dollar stock offering by MGM Mirage amidst the global credit crunch, on June 15,2010, shareholders voted for MGM Mirage to change its name to MGM Resorts International, which emphasizes the brands global scope and increased non-gaming strategy. In 2013, MGM won state licenses to build a resort in National Harbor, Maryland. In May 2014, MGM broke ground on an arena on the Las Vegas Strip with sports. MGM Resorts is the majority owner of MGM Growth Properties LLC and it became a separate, publicly traded company in April 2016. Among the companys management ranks, more than 38 percent are minorities, FORTUNE magazine has named MGM Resorts one of the World’s Most Admired Companies. The companys background can be traced to 1969, when airline, when the Las Vegas Hilton, the casino he had built, subsequently became the most successful hotel in Las Vegas, Kerkorian was inspired to lead the studio into the gambling industry. It opened the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in 1973, the MGM Grand Reno followed in 1978. By 1979, the two hotel-casinos accounted for most of MGMs income, and the company announced a plan to split itself in two. The next year, the studio was spun off as a new company, while the original company. Kerkorian held a 47 percent stake in both companies, in 1985, Kerkorian began seeking a buyer for MGM Grand Hotels, to allow him to concentrate on running United Artists and on developing new properties under the MGM Grand name. A deal was reached for Bally Manufacturing to buy the company, the closed in April 1986. The company now known as MGM Resorts International was formed in 1986 as Grand Name Co. as a subsidiary of Kerkorians Tracinda Corporation and it was renamed the following year as MGM Grand, Inc. The companys first venture was MGM Grand Air, a luxury airline offering service between New York and Los Angeles, which launched in September 1987
14.
Slot machine
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A slot machine, informally fruit machine, puggy, the slots, poker machine or simply slot, is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed. Many modern machines are equipped with a legacy lever in addition to the button. Slot machines include a currency detector that validates the money inserted to play, the machine pays off according to patterns of symbols visible on the front of the machine when it stops. Modern computer technology has resulted in variations on the slot machine concept, Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and constitute about 70 percent of the average US casinos income. The slot machine term derives from the slots on the machine for inserting and retrieving coins, fruit machine comes from the traditional fruit images on the spinning reels, such as lemons and cherries. Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York, U. S. developed a machine in 1891 which was a precursor to the modern slot machine. It contained five drums holding a total of 50 card faces and was based on poker and this machine proved extremely popular and soon many bars in the city had one or more of the machines. Players would insert a nickel and pull a lever, which would spin the drums and the cards they held, the player hoping for a good poker hand. To make the better for the house, two cards were typically removed from the deck, the ten of spades and the jack of hearts. The drums could also be rearranged to further reduce a players chance of winning, the bell gave the machine its name. Three bells in a row produced the biggest payoff, ten nickels, Liberty Bell was a huge success and spawned a thriving mechanical gaming device industry. Even when the use of these devices was banned in his home state after a few years. The Liberty Bell machine was so popular that it was copied by many slot machine manufacturers, thus in 1907, manufacturer Herbert Mills from Chicago produced a slot machine called the Operator Bell. By 1908 lots of bell machines were installed in most cigar stores, saloons, bowling alleys, brothels, early machines, including an 1899 Liberty Bell, are now part of the Nevada State Museums Fey Collection. Other early machines, such as the trade stimulator, gave out winnings in the form of fruit-flavoured chewing gums with pictures of the flavours as symbols on the reels, the popular cherry and melon symbols derive from this machine. The BAR symbol now common in slot machines was derived from a logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company. In these cases, a mint vending machine was declared to be a device because by chance the machine would occasionally give the next user a number of tokens exchangeable for more candy. Despite the fact that the result of the next use would be displayed on the machine, the courts ruled that he appealed to the players propensity to gamble
15.
Fox Broadcasting Company
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The Fox Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. It is the third largest major network in the world based on total revenues, assets. Launched on October 9,1986 as a competitor to the Big Three television networks, Fox and its affiliated companies operate many entertainment channels in international markets, although these do not necessarily air the same programming as the U. S. network. Most viewers in Canada have access to at least one U. S, the network is named after sister company 20th Century Fox, and indirectly for producer William Fox, who founded one of the movie studios predecessors, Fox Film. Fox is a member of the North American Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Broadcasters, 20th Century Fox had been involved in television production as early as the 1950s, producing several syndicated programs. Following the demise of the DuMont Television Network in August of that year after it became mired in financial problems. 20th Century Fox would also produce original content for the NTA network, KTTV in Los Angeles, KRIV in Houston, WFLD-TV in Chicago, and KRLD-TV in Dallas. In October 1985, 20th Century Fox announced its intentions to form a television network that would compete with ABC, CBS. The plans were to use the combination of the Fox studios, organizational plans for the network were held off until the Metromedia acquisitions cleared regulatory hurdles. Then, in December 1985, Rupert Murdoch agreed to pay $325 million to acquire the remaining equity in TCF Holdings from his original partner, Marvin Davis. These first six stations, then broadcasting to a reach of 22% of the nations households. Except for KDAF, all of the original owned-and-operated stations are part of the Fox network today. Like the core O&O group, Foxs affiliate body consisted of independent stations. The Fox Broadcasting Company launched at 11,00 p. m. Eastern and its inaugural program was a late-night talk show, The Late Show, which was hosted by comedian Joan Rivers. By early 1987, Rivers quit The Late Show after disagreements with the network over the creative direction. The network expanded its programming into prime time on April 5,1987, with Children and the sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show. Fox added one new show per week over the several weeks, with the drama 21 Jump Street. On July 11, the network rolled out its Saturday night schedule with the premiere of the drama series Werewolf
16.
Hand of Faith
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The Hand of Faith is a nugget of fine-quality gold that was found by Kevin Hillier using a metal detector near Kingower, Victoria, Australia on 26 September 1980. Weighing 875 troy ounces, the gold nugget was only 12 inches below the surface, the announcement of the discovery occurred at a press conference, attended by the Premier of Victoria Dick Hamer, in Melbourne on 8 October 1980. Kovacs Gems & Minerals were appointed agents for the sale of the nugget, by the gold nugget finder. It was sold to the Golden Nugget Las Vegas, a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and it was initially incorrectly stated as weighing only 720 ozt, but after correction, the new calculation was 874.82 ozt. This explains why some publications continue to give an incorrect weight and it is still regarded as the largest modern nugget found by a metal detector, anywhere in the world. Dimensions are 47 cm ×20 cm ×9 cm, the sale price was supposedly around $US1m. The nugget was the second largest nugget found in Australia during the 20th century, there were numerous nuggets found during the Victorian gold rush era, commencing in the 1850s, that were far larger. Hand of Faith Website Hand of Faith on Facebook Hand of Faith at the Golden Nugget Casino See Real Gold at Golden Nugget in Atlantic City
17.
Houston
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Houston is the most populous city in the state of Texas and the fourth-most populous city in the United States. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 2.239 million within an area of 667 square miles, it also is the largest city in the southern United States and the seat of Harris County. Located in Southeast Texas near the Gulf of Mexico, it is the city of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land. Houston was founded on August 28,1836, near the banks of Buffalo Bayou and incorporated as a city on June 5,1837. The city was named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had commanded, the burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the citys population. Houstons economy has an industrial base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics. Leading in health care sectors and building equipment, Houston has more Fortune 500 headquarters within its city limits than any city except for New York City. The Port of Houston ranks first in the United States in international waterborne tonnage handled, the city has a population from various ethnic and religious backgrounds and a large and growing international community. Houston is the most diverse city in Texas and has described as the most diverse in the United States. It is home to cultural institutions and exhibits, which attract more than 7 million visitors a year to the Museum District. Houston has a visual and performing arts scene in the Theater District. In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneurs from New York, Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the general at the Battle of San Jacinto. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the slave trade. New Orleans was the center of trade in the Deep South. Thousands of enslaved African Americans lived near the city before the Civil War, many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. Houston was granted incorporation on June 5,1837, with James S. Holman becoming its first mayor, in the same year, Houston became the county seat of Harrisburg County and the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas
18.
Golden Nugget Laughlin
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Golden Nugget Laughlin is an American casino-resort located on the banks of the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada, owned and operated by Landrys, Inc. The tropical-themed resort offers a number of restaurants,300 guest rooms and suites, Golden Nugget offers water taxi service from Bullhead City, Arizona, on the opposite side of the river. There are several Landry’s, Inc. restaurants at Golden Nugget, including Claim Jumper, Saltgrass Steak House, the Golden Nugget Laughlin was previously known as the Nevada Club. In 1986 the resort underwent a major renovation and it was acquired by Mirage Resorts in 1989. In 2004, it was acquired by Poster Financial Group, Inc and it was acquired by Landry’s, Inc. on May 31,2005, which was purchasing Golden Nugget Las Vegas at the same time
19.
James Bond
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The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015, additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The character has also adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games. As of 2017, there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series, the most recent Bond film, Spectre, stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond, he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also two independent productions of Bond films, Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. In 2015, the franchise was estimated to be worth $19.9 billion, the Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bonds cars, his guns, the films are also noted for Bonds relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as Bond girls. Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond as the central figure for his works. Bond is an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is known by his number,007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway. Aside from Flemings brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bonds make up, including Conrad OBrien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill Biffy Dunderdale. The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. He further explained that, When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be a dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, is the dullest name I ever heard. On another occasion, Fleming said, I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, James Bond was much better than something more interesting, like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is certainly good-looking. Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way and that black hair falling down over the right eyebrow
20.
Diamonds Are Forever (film)
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Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh spy film in the James Bond series by Eon Productions, and the sixth and final Eon film to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film is based on Ian Flemings 1956 novel of the same name, Bond has to battle his nemesis for one last time, to stop the smuggling and stall Blofelds plan of destroying Washington, D. C. and extorting the world with nuclear supremacy. The producers were inspired by Goldfinger, eventually hiring that films director, Guy Hamilton, locations included Las Vegas, California, Amsterdam and Lufthansas hangar in Germany. Diamonds Are Forever was a success, but received criticism for its humorous camp tone. The film marked the appearance of the SPECTRE organization in Eons Bond films until the 2015 film of the same name. James Bond—Agent 007—pursues Ernst Stavro Blofeld out of revenge, hunting down SPECTRE operatives across the world and he eventually finds him at a facility where Blofeld look-alikes are being created through plastic surgery. Bond kills a test subject, and later the real Blofeld, disguised as professional smuggler and assassin Peter Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet contact Tiffany Case. The real Franks shows up on the way, but Bond intercepts and kills him, Case and Bond then go to Los Angeles, smuggling the diamonds inside Franks corpse. At the airport Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter, then travels to Las Vegas, at a funeral home, Franks body is cremated and the diamonds are passed on to another smuggler, Shady Tree. Bond tells Leiter to ship him the real diamonds, Bond then goes to the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. Bond watches Trees act and afterwards goes to his room, where he discovers there that Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd. At the craps table Bond meets the opportunistic Plenty OToole, and after gambling, gang members ambush them, throwing OToole out the window and into a pool. Bond spends the rest of the night with Tiffany Case, instructing her to retrieve the diamonds at the Circus Circus casino. Tiffany reneges on her deal to back with Bond and instead flees. However, seeing that OToole was killed after being mistaken for her and she drives Bond to the airport, where the diamonds are given to Whytes casino manager, Bert Saxby, who is followed to a remote facility. Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds, a laboratory owned by Whyte, where a satellite is being built by Professor Metz. Bond fakes Metz by telling him he is Klaus Hergersheimer, a technician he met in the facility and his cover is blown when he is seen by a technician, but evades the security guards by stealing a moon buggy and reunites with Tiffany. They are seen by the Las Vegas police, and assuming Bond is a saboteur and they soon engage in a car chase, but Bond manages to evade all the cars
21.
Smokin' Aces
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Smokin Aces is a 2007 American crime film, written and directed by Joe Carnahan. It stars Jeremy Piven as a Las Vegas magician turned mafia informant, the film is set in Lake Tahoe and was mainly filmed at MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, called the Nomad Casino. Las Vegas magician and wannabe gangster, Buddy Aces Israel is hiding out in a Lake Tahoe hotel penthouse with his entourage and his agent, Morris Mecklen, discusses a potential immunity deal with FBI Deputy Director Stanley Locke. Locke dispatches Messner and Carruthers to take Israel into custody when the deal is struck, meanwhile, a team of bail bondsmen, Jack Dupree and his partners, Pistol Pete Deeks and Hollis Elmore have been hired by the firm that posted Israels bail to bring him into custody. The bondsmen are attacked by the Tremors, and only Elmore escapes alive, Messner is dispatched to the murder scene while Carruthers proceeds to Israel. At the same time, each of the assassins gain access to the hotel in their own various ways, Carruthers encounters Acosta, disguised as a security officer, in an elevator at the hotel. Carruthers senses something is wrong and both are wounded in a gunfight. Meanwhile, Soot gains access to the penthouse by posing as one of Israels henchmen, Georgia finds Carruthers and Acosta in the elevator, but assumes Acosta is Soot. In Los Angeles, Locke abruptly withdraws from the deal with Israel and orders that Messner, the Tremor brothers reach the penthouse floor, where they engage in a shootout with the security team and Ivy, who manages to kill Jeeves and Lester. Israel, learning of the FBIs new position, attempts suicide, Messner arrives at the hotel and sets up a position around Georgias elevator. Sharice provides cover from another hotel with a. 50-caliber, M82 sniper rifle, Acosta, still alive, shoots Georgia, but is shot by Carruthers. Sharice, thinking Georgia is dead, refuses to escape and keeps shooting at the FBI team, Georgia escapes to the penthouse, where she stops Darwin Tremor before he can kill Ivy. Tremor escapes, and Messner, distraught over the death of Carruthers, stops Ivy and Georgia on the stairwell, Sharice, after seeing the pair alive and free through her rifle scope, is gunned down by the FBI. Locke and a team of FBI agents descend on the penthouse and take Israel to the hospital, Acosta, carted away on a gurney, is also shown to be alive. Darwin Tremor tries to escape, but is gunned down by Hollis Elmore, Messner arrives at the hospital and learns the truth about the days events from Locke. It transpires that the mysterious Swede is a prominent heart surgeon, Sparazza is further revealed to be Freeman Heller, an FBI agent who went undercover and was thought to have been killed by the mob. The FBI had attempted to kill Heller, after they thought his assignment had blurred the lines between being a mobster or an FBI agent, but Heller survived and ended up taking on the role as Sparazza full time. The mobster has agreed to expose the mobs operations in exchange for Israels heart as he is Sparazzas love child and, thus, the most compatible donor
22.
Next (2007 film)
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The films original script was loosely based on the science fiction short story The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of Cris Johnson, a small time magician based in Las Vegas and his gift makes him a target not only of a highly motivated and heavily armed group of terrorists but hes also wanted by the FBI. The film was released on April 25,2007, in Belgium and France and April 27,2007, Cris Johnson can see into his future. He can only see two minutes ahead, with the exception of a vision he once had of a woman walking into a diner, knowing no details other than the time, he goes to the diner twice each day at 8,09 to await her arrival. He works as a magician in Las Vegas, where he supplements his income with gambling, using his powers to win against the house. Cris draws the attention of FBI agent Callie Ferris, who has figured out his ability, before she can approach Cris, his gambling draws the attention of casino security. He stops an imminent robbery, yet is chased by security agents, using his ability to forecast the actions of his pursuers, he eludes them and the Las Vegas police. Ferris tracks Cris to his home, but he escapes after foreseeing her arrival, later that night, the casinos security chief is approached by two of the terrorists, is interrogated about Johnson and is then killed. The following morning, Cris is at the diner again when he sees Liz Cooper and it turns out that not only can Cris see the future, but he can also see how his actions can affect that future. After envisioning different approaches—all of which fall flat—he intervenes when Lizs ex-boyfriend arrives, knowing that she is heading for Flagstaff, Arizona, Cris charms her into giving him a ride. Ferris follows, while the terrorists decide to kill him, a washed-out road forces Cris and Liz to spend the night in a motel. With the weapon tracked to Los Angeles, Ferris convinces her superiors to let her bring Cris in, the terrorists follow in the hope that the agents will lead them to Cris. Ferris confronts Liz near the hotel, claiming Cris is a dangerous sociopath, Ferris asks Liz to drug Cris so that they can bring him in peacefully. Instead, Liz warns Cris, who tells her his secret, when she asks why he will not help the FBI stop the terrorists, he explains his limitations, noting the exception for events involving her. Asking for Liz to wait for him, he tries to escape from the FBI agents but is captured after saving Ferris from logs tumbling down the side of a mountain, unable to kill Cris, the terrorists kidnap Liz instead. In custody, Cris is strapped to a chair with his eyes held open, Cris escapes from captivity and races to the parking garage where she will be killed. Pursuing him to the garage, Ferris promises to save her as long as Cris will help stop the bomb. Using his ability, Cris helps the FBI track the terrorists to the port where they are based, when they arrive, Cris is able to walk right up to the terrorist leader and avoid being hit, by seeing where the bullets will go and dodging them
23.
The Grand (film)
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The Grand is an improv comedy film directed by Zak Penn. According to Penn, the film is styled after those of Christopher Guest, where each actor is given direction concerning their character, the plot of The Grand was somewhat more open-ended than Guests work, however. The focus of the film is a tournament played at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas between the characters in which real poker matches were played by the actors as the scenes were filmed. The films script did not specify the winner of the tournament, the film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment. The film opened in limited release in the United States on March 21,2008, opened in wider release on April 4,2008, jack Faro is a recovering drug addict who had so many relapses, he decided to move into rehab and just live there. Having been married 75 times, he is a husband and is always on the lookout for number 76. He enters The Grand, a huge Texas Hold Em poker tournament in Las Vegas created by his grandfather Lucky Faro, the rest of the players won their seats in an online poker tournament. They include the Schwartzman twins, Larry and Lainie, who have forced into a sibling rivalry throughout their lives by their father. There is also Harold Melvin, a genius who lives with his mother. Other contestants are Andy Andrews, a teacher, Deuce Fairbanks, a wily old veteran of Vegas, and The German. Antonio Esfandiari The film received mixed reviews from critics, as of March 21,2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 42% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 36 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had a score of 61 out of 100. The Grand at the Internet Movie Database The Grand at Rotten Tomatoes The Grand at Metacritic The Grand at AllMovie
24.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted and executive produced by Alfred Hitchcock, which aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries, by the time it premiered on October 2,1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades. Time magazine named it one of The 100 Best TV Shows of all time, the Writers Guild of America ranked it #79 on their list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series tying it with Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Star Trek, The Next Generation and Upstairs, Downstairs. A series of anthologies with the running title Alfred Hitchcock Presents were issued to capitalize on the success of the television series. Alfred Hitchcock Presents is well known for its title sequence, the camera fades in on a simple line-drawing caricature of Hitchcocks rotund profile. He then almost always says Good evening, the caricature drawing, which Hitchcock created, and the use of Gounods Funeral March of a Marionette as theme music have become indelibly associated with Hitchcock in popular culture. At least two versions of the opening were shot for every episode, a version intended for the American audience would often spoof a recent popular commercial or poke fun at the sponsor, leading into the commercial. An alternative version for European audiences would instead include jokes at the expense of Americans in general, for later seasons, opening remarks were also filmed with Hitchcock speaking in French and German for the shows international presentations. Hitchcock closed the show in much the way as it opened. He told TV Guide that his reassurances that the criminal had been apprehended were a necessary gesture to morality, Alfred Hitchcock Presents finished at #6 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1956–57 season, and at #12 in 1957–58, #24 in 1958–59 and #25 in 1959–60. Originally 25 minutes per episode, the series was expanded to 50 minutes in 1962, Hitchcock directed 17 of the 267 filmed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and one of the 50-minute episodes, I Saw the Whole Thing with John Forsythe. The last new episode aired on June 26,1965, in 1985, NBC aired a new TV movie pilot based upon the series, combining four newly filmed stories with colorized footage of Hitchcock from the original series to introduce each segment. The movie was a ratings success. Alfred Hitchcock Presents revival series debuted in the fall of 1985 and retained the format as the pilot. The new series lasted one season before NBC cancelled it. Other notable directors included Robert Altman, Ida Lupino, Stuart Rosenberg, Robert Stevenson, David Swift and William Friedkin, who ended up directing what would be the last episode. Alfred Hitchcock Presents,25 minutes long, aired weekly at 9,30 on CBS on Sunday nights from 1955 to 1960, and then at 8,30 on NBC on Tuesday nights from 1960 to 1962. It was followed by The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which lasted for three seasons, September 1962 to June 1965, adding another 93 episodes to the 268 already produced for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
25.
Vegas (1978 TV series)
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Vega$ is an American detective television drama series that aired on ABC from 1978 until 1981. It was produced by Aaron Spelling, the series was filmed in its entirety in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is believed to be the first television series produced entirely in Las Vegas, Dan Tanna is a private detective whose clients include Phillip Roth, aka Slick, the owner of multiple hotel casinos including the Maxim Hotel and Desert Inn Hotel & Country Club, in Las Vegas. Tanna is always called to investigate criminal cases or more absurd situations, Tanna lives on the Las Vegas Strip next to Circus Circus Hotel/Casino, in the theatrical props warehouse owned by the Desert Inn Hotel and Country Club, which he converted into his living place. The design of Tannas pad allows him to park his T-bird in his living room. Tanna also uses gadgets that were very high-tech for the time such as a car-phone, Tanna often does battle with many of the various criminal element that would threaten the desert oasis. Tanna is a veteran of the Vietnam War and this is illustrated through flashbacks in various episodes. Phyllis Davis played Beatrice Travis, Tannas assistant, who is a single mom, there is evidence that she was married before, but her husband had died. Although she and Tanna made a couple, their relationship seemed to be purely platonic. Greg Morris played Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Lt. David Nelson, Nelson was a no-nonsense cop who often had Tannas back and vice versa. While Nelson was never one to breach protocol, he often secretly assisted Tanna in cases Metro Police couldnt officially touch, naomi Stevens played police sergeant Bella Archer, who also assisted Tanna and Nelson. Bart Braverman played Binzer, a student who did Dan Tannas leg work. Tanna seemed to have him under his wing and used his knowledge. Judy Landers played Dan Tannas other assistant, Angie, who was also a showgirl and she appeared only during the first season. Despite being initially billed as a co-star, actor Tony Curtis appeared infrequently during the first season, in the Season 3 premiere of Charlies Angels titled Angels in Vegas, Robert Urich does a cameo as his Vega$ character Dan Tanna at the end of the episode. This episode aired the week before the Vega$ series premiere, Vega$ was one of the first shows to air in off-network syndication on FX when it began in 1994, FX ceased airing episodes around 2000. Vega$ is now airing on the Decades network as of July 2015, CBS DVD has released all 3 seasons of Vega$ on DVD in Region 1. In Region 4, Madman Entertainment has released the first season on DVD in Australia
26.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (season 11)
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The eleventh season of CSI, Crime Scene Investigation premiered on CBS on September 23,2010 and ended May 12,2011. The season stars Marg Helgenberger and Laurence Fishburne, langston fights for his life as Catherine meets a man from her past, in the eleventh season of CSI. Laurence Fishburne departs at the seasons end, former cast members William Petersen and Louise Lombard guest star. Elisabeth Harnois makes her series debut
27.
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
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Street Fighter II, The World Warrior is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in 1991. It is the entry in the Street Fighter series and the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in 1987. It is Capcoms fourteenth title that runs on the CP System arcade hardware and it was then ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System platform, for which it became a long-lasting system-seller. Its success led to a sub-series of updated versions, each offering additional features and characters over previous versions, by 1994, the game had been played by at least 25 million people in North America, at home and in arcades. By 1995, gross revenues of Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II′, Street Fighter II follows several of the conventions and rules already established by its original 1987 predecessor. The player engages opponents in close quarter combat in a series of best-two-out-of-three matches. The objective of each round is to deplete the opponents vitality before the timer runs out, in the first Street Fighter II, a match could last up to ten rounds if there was no clear winner, this was reduced to four rounds in Champion Edition and onward. If there is no clear winner by the end of the final round, after every third match in the single player mode, the player will participate in a bonus stage for additional points. Between the matches, a Pacific-centered world map is seen, showing the participants home stages, when the upcoming match and its location have been chosen, an aeroplane moves across the map. Like in the original, the games uses a configuration of an eight-directional joystick. The player uses the joystick to jump, crouch and move the character towards or away from the opponent, there are three punch buttons and three kick buttons of differing strength and speed. The player can perform a variety of moves in any position, including grabbing/throwing attacks. Like in the original, the player can perform special moves by inputting a combination of directional, Street Fighter II differs from its predecessor due to the selection of multiple playable characters, each with distinct fighting styles and special moves. According to IGN, the concept of combinations, linked attacks that cant be blocked when theyre timed correctly, Street Fighter IIs designers didnt quite mean for it to happen, but players of the original game eventually found out that certain moves naturally flowed into other ones. This combo system was adopted as a standard feature of fighting games. The original Street Fighter II features a roster of eight characters that could be selected by the player. The roster initially included Ryu and Ken—the main characters from the original Street Fighter game—plus six new characters of different nationalities, playable characters, Ryu, a Japanese karateka seeking to hone his skills. E. Honda, a wrestler from Japan
28.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
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Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is a two dimensional fighting game released using the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Arcade download services. A physical copy of the game was released as part of Capcom Digital Collection. It is a remake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo featuring the game and a high definition version using graphics drawn by UDON Entertainment. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix features the same roster of characters as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Multiplayer gameplay modes include Local Multiplayer, Player Match and Ranked Match, along with online tournaments. Other notable features included in the include a hit box display in training mode. Another is the inclusion of Quarter Match mode, allowing players to spectate and instantly join online match lobbies, simulating an arcade environment. Also included are online match rankings and leaderboards arranged by game modes, and each sub-arranged by overall rankings, the players own score, the game also includes an optional 16,9 video mode. Remixed music was also in development, later revealed to be handled by video game music website OverClocked ReMix, while it is unknown whether these suggestions influenced Capcom to develop both games, Sirlin took the helm of development when both were approved. HD Remix is a modified port of Super Street Fighter II X for Matching Service. Acting as design director, Sirlins role included balance changes to gameplay, other tasks included monitoring speed differences between versions and the addition of new features. However, an HD version of the arcade intro sequence had to be cut from the final game to keep its online release small. An open beta version of the game, with Ken and Ryu as playable characters, after finding and fixing issues in the beta, a patch was released and the beta was extended to September 5,2008. Players wishing to participate had to purchase the Xbox Live Arcade version of Wolf of the Battlefield, the purpose of the beta was to test the network code behind online play. It was no longer available for download after November 25,2008, several of the backgrounds had details of their setting changed, such as mopeds being used in China instead of pushbikes, and the Taj Mahal being visible in India. Entitled OC ReMix, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Official Soundtrack, along with several new arrangements, edited versions of Blood on the Asphalt tracks and OC ReMixes comprise the soundtrack. OC ReMixs musicians arranged the music based on knowledge of the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo, jimenez praised HD Remixs music as above and beyond our expectations and OC ReMixs efforts as one of the most rewarding aspects of working on SF HD Remix. In its review of HD Remix, gaming & entertainment website IGN commended OC ReMixs work as a tribute to the original soundtrack. Each track samples from various Street Fighter franchise media, including HD Remix, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was released for PlayStation 3 in North America on November 25,2008
29.
Balrog (Street Fighter)
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Balrog, also known as Boxer, is a fictional character in Capcoms Street Fighter series. He made his first appearance in Street Fighter II, The World Warrior in 1991, in the series, he is disgraced boxer that works for M. Bisons Shadaloo organization. Balrog is depicted as an African American boxer wearing blue trunks with white trim, in Japan, the character of Balrog is named M. Bison after real-life boxer Mike Tyson. Bison might be a legal liability, as they felt the name Vega was better suited to the Spanish bullfighter, they gave him the characters previous name, Balrog, and changed the name of the games final boss to M. Bison. In Street Fighter Alpha 3, Balrog tells some of his opponents that hes going to bite ear off. Some promotional illustrations of the character depict him wearing trunks with the name Bison written on the waistband of his trunks, in Street Fighter IV, the waistband now reads Champion. At 1.93 m, Balrog was one of the tallest fighters in Street Fighter beside Zangief, Sagat, Hugo, F. A. N. G, a character named Mike, who was also an African-American boxer, appears in the original Street Fighter. Although recognized as a character, Mike is considered to be a prototype of Balrog due to their similar names. Balrog appears in Street Fighter II as the first of four CPU-controlled opponents at the end of the single-player tournament, Balrog would become a playable character in subsequent revisions of the game, beginning with Street Fighter II, Champion Edition. Balrog is characterized as a belligerent ghetto-raised boxer seeking the American Dream and his next major appearance was in Street Fighter Alpha 3. He was made into a playable character in the arcade update and subsequent home versions and given his own in-game plot, home stage. This incarnation of Balrog also appears in Capcom vs. SNK, Balrog also appears in SNK vs. Capcom, SVC Chaos. Balrog appears in Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV and he appears in the crossover fighting game, Street Fighter X Tekken, with his official tag partner, Vega. Balrog reappears in Street Fighter V as one of the games six DLC characters, as a boxer, Balrog generally does not fight with his feet. This makes him unique among the games characters and he also has no projectile attacks, unlike many Street Fighter characters. Many of his attacks, super combos and ultra combos consist of dash punches. He wears dark green cargo pants instead of his boxing trunks, Balrog was voiced by Jouji Nakata in the Japanese original and Joe Romersa in the English dub. In the 1994 live-action film version of Street Fighter, Balrog is portrayed by veteran actor Grand L. Bush and is a supporting protagonist, more specifically the videographer in Chun-Lis news crew
30.
Game Boy Advance
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The Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21,2001, in North America on June 11,2001, in Australia and Europe on June 22,2001, and in the Peoples Republic of China on June 8,2004. Nintendos competitors in the market at the time were the Neo Geo Pocket Color, WonderSwan, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac. Despite the competitors best efforts, Nintendo maintained a majority market share with the Game Boy Advance, as of June 30,2010, the Game Boy Advance series has sold 81.51 million units worldwide. Its successor, the Nintendo DS, was released in November 2004 and is compatible with Game Boy Advance software. The Game Boy Advance was designed by the French designer Gwénaël Nicolas, in 1996, magazines including Electronic Gaming Monthly, issues 53 and 54 of Total. and the July 1996 issue of Game Informer featured reports of a new Game Boy, codenamed Project Atlantis. It also may have referred to the unnamed, unreleased Game Boy Color successor prototype that was revealed at 2009s Game Developers Conference and it was announced that Nintendo Co. Ltd. was working on a game for the system called Marios Castle. When playing Game Boy or Game Boy Color games on the Game Boy Advance, Game Boy games can be played using the same selectable color palettes as on the Game Boy Color. Every Nintendo handheld system following the release of the Game Boy Advance SP has included a built-in light and rechargeable battery. The Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS 2D graphics hardware have scaling and rotation for traditional tiled backgrounds in its modes 1 and 2 and scaling, more complex effects such as fuzz are possible by using other equations for the position, scaling, and rotation of each line. The character mode supports up to 4 tile map background layers per frame, with each tile being 8x8 pixels in size and having 16 or 256 colors. The character mode supports up to 128 hardware sprites per frame, with any sprite size from 8x8 to 64x64 pixels. With hardware comparable to the Super NES, the Game Boy Advance represents progress for sprite-based technology, the Game Boy Advance has platformers, SNES-style role-playing video games, and classic games ported from various 8-bit and 16-bit systems of the previous generations. This includes the Super Mario Advance series, as well as the backward compatibility with all earlier Game Boy titles. Final Fantasy VI Advance was the final licensed Japanese GBA game release, Released November 2006, it was the final Nintendo-published game for the system. The Legend of Spyro, The Eternal Night was the final European GBA game, samurai Deeper Kyo was the final North American GBA game, released in February 2008. The last Nintendo-developed game released for the system was the Japan-only rhythm game Rhythm Tengoku, an accessory for the GameCube, known as the Game Boy Player, was released in 2003 as the successor to the Super Game Boy peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The accessory allows Game Boy Advance games, as well as Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, however, some games may have compatibility issues due to certain features
31.
Nintendo 64
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The Nintendo 64, stylized as the NINTENDO64 and often referred to as the N64, is Nintendos third home video game console for the international market. It was the last major home console to use the cartridge as its primary storage format until Nintendos seventh console, while the Nintendo 64 was succeeded by Nintendos MiniDVD-based GameCube in September 2001, the consoles remained available until the system was retired in late 2003. Codenamed Project Reality, the the N64 design was complete by mid-1995, but its launch was delayed until 1996. It launched with three games, Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, released worldwide, and Saikyō Habu Shōgi, as part of the fifth generation of gaming, the system competed primarily with the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. The suggested retail price at its United States launch was US$199.99, the console was released in a range of colors and designs over its lifetime. In 2015, IGN named it the 9th greatest video game console of all time, as of 2016, the system remains a popular retro console in North America. At the beginning of the 1990s, Nintendo led the game industry with its Nintendo Entertainment System. Although the NES follow-up console, the Super NES, was successful, competition from long-time rival Sega, and relative newcomer Sony, emphasized Nintendos need to develop a successor for the SNES, or risk losing market dominance to its competitors. Further complicating matters, Nintendo also faced a backlash from third-party developers unhappy with Nintendos strict licensing policies, the company created a design proposal for a video game system, seeking an already well established partner in that market. James H. Clark, founder of SGI, initially offered the proposal to Tom Kalinske, the historical details of these preliminary negotiations were controversial between the two competing suitors. Tom Kalinske said that he and Joe Miller of Sega of America were quite impressed with SGIs prototype, the engineers from Sega Enterprises claimed that their evaluation of the early prototype had uncovered several unresolved hardware issues and deficiencies. Those were subsequently resolved, but Sega had already decided against SGIs design, Nintendo resisted that summary conclusion, arguing that the reason for SGIs ultimate choice of partner is due to Nintendo having been a more appealing business partner than Sega. While Sega demanded exclusive rights to the chip, Nintendo was willing to license the technology on a non-exclusive basis, michael Slater, publisher of Microprocessor Report said, The mere fact of a business relationship there is significant because of Nintendos phenomenal ability to drive volume. If it works at all, it could bring MIPS to levels of volume never dreamed of, james Clark met with Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi in early 1993, thus initiating Project Reality. This announcement coincided with Nintendos August 1993 Shoshinkai trade show, as with most of the computing industry, Nintendo had limited experience with 3D graphics, and worked with several outside companies to develop the technology comprising the console. Some chip technology was provided by NEC, Toshiba, and Sharp, SGI had recently acquired MIPS Computer Systems, and the two worked together toward a low-cost realtime 3D graphics hardware system. SGI and its subsidiary MIPS Technologies were responsible for the R4300i microprocessor and that software-based console prototype platform was later supplanted by a workstation-hosted console simulation board, representing the finalized console hardware. SGIs performance estimates based upon their RealityEngine supercomputing platform were ultimately reported to be accurate to the final consumer console product
32.
Golden Nugget 64
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Golden Nugget 64 is a multi-player virtual casino video game for the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Westwood Studios, published by Electronic Arts, Golden Nugget 64 is unique because it is the only gambling/casino game released in North America for the Nintendo 64. The game starts off by having the player create an account with $1000 which is saved on the controller pack, players have the choice from one of ten different popular casino games. Each game has its own set of rules and a guide to learn how to play. ”The background music is a laid back piano score while the sound effects all ring true, the male dealer is voiced by Chris Rausch and the female dealer by Donna Rawlins. They have very few standard dealer lines, some things that make the game unique include, Big Winners this is a type of “high score” list which shows things like, Best Single Win and Best Session for each of the ten different games. It has three different lists for the casual, novice, and veteran levels, slide-show this feature shows real life pictures of the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Winning Stats for each profile this feature shows stats for each game, along with your current bankroll, it shows statistics such as, success rate, the number of wagers placed, and average wagers. Prior to “Golden Nugget 64” being released, “Golden Nugget” for the PC was released in 1996 and for the PlayStation in 1997, in each game, there are two modes, Casino and Tournament. Casino mode allows you to whatever game you choose, while Tournament mode requires you to use your poker tournament skills to solve a mystery starring Adam West as a fictional crime fighter. Like the N64 game, players get $1,000 to play with, along with 9 markers, if all markers are depleted, they must re-register at the Registration Desk. Pai gow poker, Played with a deck of 52 cards and one joker. Players are each dealt seven cards, in which the high hand must rank higher than the two-card low hand. Years later Golden Nugget Casino was released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, the newest installment titled “Golden Nugget Casino DS” was released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS. IGN gave Golden Nugget 64 a good 7.8 out of 10 overall praising the game play, gameSpot users gave Golden Nugget 64 a good to fair score of 6.9 out of 10 with a total of 28 reviews
33.
Nintendo DS
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The Nintendo DS or simply, DS, is a 32-bit dual-screen handheld game console developed and released by Nintendo. The device went on sale in North America on November 21,2004, both screens are encompassed within a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP. The Nintendo DS also features the ability for multiple DS consoles to directly interact with each other over Wi-Fi within a short range without the need to connect to a wireless network. Alternatively, they could interact online using the now-closed Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service and its main competitor was Sonys PlayStation Portable as part of the seventh generation era. Prior to its release, the Nintendo DS was marketed as an experimental, third pillar in Nintendos console lineup, meant to complement the Game Boy Advance and GameCube. However, backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance titles and strong sales ultimately established it as the successor to the Game Boy series, on March 2,2006, Nintendo launched the Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer and lighter redesign of the original Nintendo DS with brighter screens. On November 1,2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi, another redesign with several hardware improvements and new features. All Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units, making it the best selling game console to date. The Nintendo DS line was succeeded by the Nintendo 3DS line in 2011, on November 13,2003, Nintendo announced that it would be releasing a new game product in 2004. The company did not provide details, but stated it would not succeed the Game Boy Advance or GameCube. On January 20,2004, the console was announced under the codename Nintendo DS. Nintendo released only a few details at that time, saying that the console would have two separate, 3-inch TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and up to 1 gigabit of semiconductor memory. He also expressed optimism that the DS would help put Nintendo back at the forefront of innovation, in March 2004, a document containing most of the consoles technical specifications was leaked, also revealing its internal development name, Nitro. In May 2004, the console was shown in prototype form at E32004, on July 28,2004, Nintendo revealed a new design that was described as sleeker and more elegant than the one shown at E3 and announced Nintendo DS as the devices official name. On September 20,2004, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo DS would be released in North America on November 21,2004 for US$149.99. It was set to release on December 2,2004 in Japan, on February 24,2005 in Australia, the console was released in North America with a midnight launch event at Universal CityWalk EB Games in Los Angeles, California. The console was launched quietly in Japan compared to the North America launch, the Nintendo DS was seen by many analysts to be in the same market as Sonys PlayStation Portable, although representatives from both companies have said that each system targets a different audience. At one point, Time magazine awarded the DS a Gadget of the Week award, at the time of its release in the United States, the Nintendo DS retailed for US $149.99
34.
Golden Nugget Casino DS
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Golden Nugget Casino DS is a 2005 video game released by Majesco Entertainment for the Nintendo DS. The game, named for the Las Vegas casino of the name, is the first Golden Nugget themed game released for the DS. A prior game was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, although the cartridge saves a players winnings, a player can reset the amount to $2,000.00 at any point. Reviews for the game were mediocre to average, IGN. com gave the game a 5.0 out of 10, noting heres really nothing broken about Golden Nugget Casino. Its just that the developer didnt exactly go above and beyond the call, all youre getting is the ability to play these casino games in a single player fashion
35.
PlayStation
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It is created and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment since December 3,1994, with the launch of the original PlayStation console in Japan. The original console in the series was the first video game console to ship 100 million units,9 years and 6 months after its initial launch and its successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is the home console to date, having reached over 155 million units sold as of December 28,2012. Sonys next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold over 80 million consoles worldwide as of November 2013. Sonys latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling 1 million consoles in its first 24 hours on sale, the first handheld game console in the PlayStation series, sold a total of 80 million units worldwide by November 2013. Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, which launched in Japan on December 17,2011, PlayStation TV is a microconsole and a non-portable variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. The main series of controllers utilized by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, the PlayStation Network is an online service with over 110 million users worldwide. PlayStation Mobile is a framework that provides PlayStation content on mobile devices. Content set to be released under the framework consist of only original PlayStation games currently, 7th generation PlayStation products also use the XrossMediaBar, which is an award-winning graphical user interface. A new touch screen-based user interface called LiveArea was launched for the PlayStation Vita, additionally, PlayStation 2 and original PlayStation 3 consoles also featured support for Linux-based operating systems, though this has since been discontinued. The series has also known for its numerous marketing campaigns. The consoles origins date back to 1988 where it was originally a joint project between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom. However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between the two companies. The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga, who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo. At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a non-gaming role regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was rejected by Kutaragi who was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to the board
36.
Fallout: New Vegas
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Fallout, New Vegas is an open world action role-playing video game and is the fourth major installment of the Fallout video game series. The game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment over 18 months and published by Bethesda Softworks, the game is set in a post-apocalyptic, open world environment that encompasses a region consisting of parts of Nevada, California, and Arizona. This war was caused by an international conflict between the United States and China over natural resources and the last remaining supplies of untapped petroleum. The main story of Fallout, New Vegas takes place in the year 2281 and it is not a direct sequel, but it does mark the return of some elements found in the Black Isle Studios-developed Fallout 2. Players take control of a known as the Courier. New Vegas has received positive reviews, with praising the games writing, quests. It received criticism for its glitches and bugs, New Vegas was a commercial success, shipping more than 5 million copies altogether, and is estimated to have sold around 12 million copies worldwide. It received a Golden Joystick Award for RPG of the Year in 2011, some of the improvements and new features included, Combat is improved upon, with the V. A. T. S. System being updated with several new V. A. T. S. -specific attacks, and a number of new kill animations being made for several of the games melee weapons. The Character Creation section of the game was refined to take less time than Fallout 3, with players able to skip the tutorials, the option to make any last minute changes to their character occurs when the player steps beyond the boundaries of the starting location of Goodsprings. More Perks were included to the game to provide options for improving the players characters upon levelling up. More weapons were added to the game, including, the 9mm Pistol, the Single Shotgun, Powder Charges, Dynamite, Trail Carbine, a new skill, Survival, is introduced into the game. This skill impacts how much food and drink restore to the players HP. They can do this by visiting casinos, buying chips with the three major currencies in the games, and playing blackjack, slots, or roulette within them. Players can also play a game called Caravan, which was specifically designed for the game and has its own rules. Although players could craft items in Fallout 3, these items were limited to a few unique weapons, with New Vegas, crafting was expanded to allow creation of food, drink, drugs and ammunition along with unique weapons. Some special items cant be made until their recipes/schematics are found, players can now harvest plants to use in recipes, similar to Bethesdas The Elder Scrolls series. In addition to crafting, players can also modify weapons with special firearm modifications, such modifications can improve the rate of fire or the size of the magazine, or add a mounted telescopic sight to allow for greater range
37.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
38.
Young Electric Sign Company
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YESCO is a privately owned manufacturer of electric signs based in Salt Lake City, founded by Thomas Young in 1920. The company provides design, fabrication, installation and maintenance of signs, the company was created by Thomas Young on March 20,1920. The young sign painter had left England just a decade earlier to immigrate with his family to Ogden, in the beginning, his shop specialized in coffin plates, gold leaf window lettering, lighted signs and painted advertisements. As the science of lighting and sign-making advanced, so did Tom Young’s signs, in 1933, YESCO opened a branch office in the Apache Hotel in Las Vegas. The company erected their first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club, YESCO – soon became recognized as a leader in the sign industry, tackling large and complex sign projects. For example, it erected the first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club in the late ’30s. YESCO continues to design, build, install and maintain signs, in recent years, YESCO has built a substantial outdoor digital media division of its business. YESCO has approximately 1,000 employees, more than 40 offices, additional smaller manufacturing and service facilities are located through the United States and Canada. YESCO offers sign and lighting service franchises in states east of Colorado, in 2015 Young Electric Sign Company sold YESCO Electronics, a child company, to Samsung. In this sale Samsung gained the YESCO Electronics manufacturing plant and all the employees of YESCO Electronics, YESCO Electronics is known for their outdoor electronic media signs. NBC ushered in the millennium with a new YESCO “message globe” in its NBC Experience store, the electronic sign quickly became recognized as one of the most distinctive electronic displays in the world. From the outside of the building, it looks like a brilliant illuminated globe, the 35’-diameter hemisphere is covered with thousands of full-color LEDs. Colorful video and special effects, along with animations provided by YESCO’s media services group, are displayed on the globe’s surface, when it was first turned on, it literally stopped traffic on West 49th Street. Perhaps the world’s most recognized electronic sign, Vegas Vic was designed by, upon its installation in 1951 over the Pioneer Club on historical Fremont Street, the 40-tall electronic cowboy immediately became Las Vegas’s unofficial greeter. The 135-foot tall marquee features a 100-foot high, 50-foot wide, concave, double-faced LED message center with a first-of-its-kind “moving eraser. ”Conceived by Steve Wynn, the eraser weighs 62,000 pounds, and is counterbalanced by a 62, 000-pound weight inside the sign. The sign uses 4,377,600 LEDs and the eraser is powered by a 300 horsepower motor at its base that runs a gear, some of the retired signs include the sign for the Silver Slipper casino and Aladdins lamp from the first version of Aladdin Casino. In 2004 the Binions Horseshoe sign Harrahs, YESCO installed the vaulted canopy arching 90 feet above four blocks of Fremont Street. Born in Sunderland, England, in 1895, Thomas Young was 15 years old when his family emigrated to Ogden, hard-working and talented, the boy applied his passion to making signs, becoming a Master Sign Writer
39.
Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel
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Binions Gambling Hall & Hotel, formerly Binions Horseshoe, is a casino on the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned by TLC Casino Enterprises, the casino is named for its founder, Benny Binion, whose family ran it from its founding in 1951 until 2004. The hotel, which had 366 rooms, closed in 2009, Benny Binion bought the Eldorado Club and Apache Hotel in 1951, re-opening them as Binions Horseshoe. The casinos interior had a flavor, like an old-style riverboat, with low ceilings. It was the first casino in downtown Las Vegas to replace sawdust-covered floors with carpeting, Binion also instituted high table limits. When Binion first opened the Horseshoe, he set the table limit at $500—ten times higher than any other casino in Las Vegas at the time. Ultimately, Binions raised the limit to $10,000 and even eliminated table limits completely at times. Unlike other casinos, the emphasis at Binions was on gambling, the casino was also very egalitarian, there were no private pits for high rollers. Other members of Binions family were involved in the casino and his sons, Jack and Ted, supervised the games, while his wife, Teddy Jane, kept the books until her death in 1994. Benny served time in Leavenworth Penitentiary from 1953 to 1957 for tax evasion and he sold a majority share of the casino to fellow gambler and New Orleans oilman Joe W. Brown to cover back taxes and legal costs. It was generally understood, however, that Brown was only a caretaker and he did not regain full control, however, until 1964. While Brown operated the casino, he installed the famous $1 million display on the casino floor and he sold the display in 1959 and it was later recreated using 100 $10,000 bills by Benny in 1964. The display became one of the casinos attractions, as a convicted felon, Benny was no longer allowed to hold a gaming license, so his sons took over day-to-day control when the family bought out Brown. Jack became president while Ted became casino manager, Benny assumed the title of Director of Public Relations. In 1970, Jack began hosting the World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe, eventually, the WSOP became the largest set of poker tournaments in the world. In 1988, the Horseshoe expanded by acquiring The Mint, a hotel on the west side of the casino. The expansion of the casino from this purchase provided room for Binions first poker room, Ted was under constant scrutiny from the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1986 onward for drug problems and associating with known mob figure Fat Herbie Blitzstein. He would ultimately be banned from entering his familys casino
40.
Golden Nugget Atlantic City
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Golden Nugget Atlantic City is a hotel, casino, and marina located in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Opened in 1985 as Trumps Castle, it was renamed Trump Marina in 1997, landrys, Inc. purchased the casino from Trump Entertainment Resorts in February 2011, and the sale was approved in late May. Landrys took control of the property on May 23,2011, the third level is the main area of the property. At its center is a 210 ft long reception area from which point every amenity—the casino, ballrooms, restaurants, showroom, or meeting rooms—is within a short walk. The resorts 2000-seat ballroom and 462-seat theater have played host to an array of entertainers including Prince, Sting, Steve Martin, Ray Charles, Billy Crystal, Air Supply. On Memorial Day weekend in 2013 Haven nightclub opened and it opened in 1985 as Trumps Castle. In 1988, the casino became one of the settings for the show version of Yahtzee. Unable to make its payment on $338 million in bonds. Hilton offered to repurchase the property for $165 million, which Trump rejected, a deal was ultimately reached to give the bondholders 50 percent ownership of the Castle, in exchange for reduced interest rates and forgiveness of $25 million of debt. The plan was filed as a bankruptcy in March 1992. Trump reacquired full ownership of the Castle in a deal in December 1993. He then sold the property in September 1996 to his new publicly traded company, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. Trump then began negotiations to sell a 50 percent stake in the property to the Rank Organization for $325 million and convert it into a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Discussions fizzled in December 1996, and Trump said he would look for a new theme, the sale and expansion were canceled, however, in March 1997. The Castle was renamed Trump Marina in June 1997, despite a later price reduction to $270 million, Coastal was unable to find financing, and the agreement was terminated in June 2009. Negotiations continued while Atlantic City casino values plunged, with Coastal offering $75 million for the property in February 2010, bondholders who had taken over Trump Entertainment Resorts after its 2009 bankruptcy remained eager to sell Trump Marina and focus on the companys two other casinos. Landrys purchased the property for $38 million, taking control on May 23,2011, landrys then spent $150 million on renovations that were completed in spring 2012, opening new restaurants and clubs and a new outdoor pool and modernizing the resort, the marina was also renovated. The roof of the Golden Nugget currently houses the transmitter tower and broadcast facilities of WWFP90.5 FM which is licensed to Brigantine, the station broadcasts a Christian music format
41.
Golden Nugget Lake Charles
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Golden Nugget Lake Charles is a 242-acre waterfront casino resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana, U. S. A. owned and operated by Houston-based Landrys, Inc. Pinnacle Entertainment announced plans in 2006 to build Sugarcane Bay, a casino resort. The plan was canceled in 2010, and Pinnacle returned the license to the state. Ameristar Casinos purchased Creative Casinos in June 2012 for $32.5 million, the project was renamed as Ameristar Lake Charles. In December 2012, Pinnacle agreed to acquire Ameristar, in order to obtain approval for the merger from FTC antitrust regulators, Pinnacle agreed to the sale of two of the combined companys properties, including Ameristar Lake Charles. A sale agreement was reached with Landrys, Inc. parent company of the Golden Nugget casinos, in December 2013, construction topped out on the 25-story accommodations tower. Located just two hours from Houston, Fertitta had long desired a casino-resort near the headquarters of Landrys, the casino opened to the public on December 7,2014. The casino floor at Golden Nugget Lake Charles features a 6-table poker room,1,600 slot machines,60 table games, the resort is also home to Louisiana’s first Blue Martini, a Florida-based cocktail lounge. The 242-acre resort is home to a new 18-hole championship golf course, with driving range, club house, pro shop. List of casinos in Louisiana Golden Nugget Lake Charles
