I just had a brief phone conversation with adult superstar Aurora Snow. We have never met, but I am thinking of doing a profile of her for Las Vegas Weekly. She doesn't live here, yet in a sense she has become a regular headliner albeit just a tad south of the Strip at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sunset to be precise, the location of Pleasures topless bar which even when she is not in town, advertises itself as "the Home of Aurora Snow." (Snow will actually appear in Las Vegas on stage next at Pleasures January 5-7.)

Not coincidently, January 7 is the annual AVN awards at the Venetian, and Snow attributes a large part of her fame to being chosen AVN's Female Performer of the Year in 2003.  She described them to me:

They are like the mainstream's Oscars. All year long performers, directors and companies do their thing and come January you see who has done the best. Everyone does well, but who has done above and beyond just doing well and that is what the awards reflect.

Snow was particularly happy about being chosen in 2003, because she credits her AVN award with allowing her to work behind the camera. "It allowed me to get my foot in the door as a director and I don't think that opportunity was available to me before I won the award." Of course, the AVN awards is one of the hardest tickets to get in in Las Vegas; fear not I will be there taking one for the team and letting Buffet readers know what happened.

(photo by Francine Orr/LAT)

These two were here (near Boston) to spend some time for the holidays...They found out they were wanted for arrest and were ready to come back.

If Craig was going to kill her, he would have done it with his hands---not a noose or duct tape or anything. Craig would've grabbed her by the neck or choked her easily. I know how Craig thinks.

My column from this week's Calendar Section:

In other cities the end of the year is when you slack off at work or reflect on the year just past, but in Las Vegas it's a time of high-profile openings. The next few days will see the debuts of two major nightspots (Tryst and Jet), a high-end restaurant (Stack) and an audacious topless bar/nightclub (Seamless).

The timing is no coincidence, says Robert Fry, managing partner of Pure, a nightclub at Caesars Palace that opened last New Year's and quickly became very hot. "You want to build momentum, so rather than open in November you'd rather save it," he says. "January is a real busy month, with conventions and the Super Bowl. Usually, Vegas is nuts, and the room rates go up and the people who come here just let off steam. It really is a very fun time. There really is not a lot of risk [to opening then] because every place is sold out, so you know your club will be busy right off the bat."