...and so it came to pass, the beloved corporate Gods smiled benevolently my way. The word went from Oprah's company, Harpo Productions, to the Harrah's corporation to the people at Caesars, who reached out to local public relations behemoth Kirvin-Doak, who had an account executive to call upon me late Friday night with the news that I would be granted a single ticket to see Saturday afternoon's "Oprah Winfrey Show" taping with guests Cher and Tina Turner at Caesars Palace. I had totally failed in earlier attempts to get a ticket. But I was also not the only media present. Also there was Steve Friess (USA Today and The New York Times), Doug Elfman (Review-Journal) and fellow blogger Robin Leach. Some were contacted as late as Saturday morning.

I won't bore you, the television-savvy audience of Los Angeles, with too many of the details from a television taping. I am sure you know them far better than I do. But to me many of them were so un-Vegas I was in awe.

For example, there was no attempt to sell people stuff by Oprah's people! I don't just mean that all the tickets were free -- with the huge caveat that you had to be connected in Vegas or Oprah-land to get one. (And on Harrah's side, the biggest caveat being, of course, one way to a precious ticket was to be a person who gambled a good sum at a Harrah's property.)

Still, this audience was in hero mode. And on the Oprah side this was the first time I saw the Caesars Colosseum's ample souvenir stand empty  Just imagine how many Oprah shirts, magazines or coffee mugs with inflated prices the worshipful audience would have snapped up. When the usher confused Steve Friess' ticket with mine, one lady begged us to let me sit in front of her like her life depended on it. Why? I am shorter. But instead the crowd of potential shoppers was left only with the nearby Bette Midler souvenir store. The other totally empty spot in the packed arena was the men's restroom: vacant enough for Buddhist meditation.

I also now know why five hours are required for taping a television show. There was an exhausting more than 40 minutes of preparation in which we had to react from "golf clap" to seeing "something cute." And we were told wear lots of lip gloss and to practice being excited before Oprah came out. Lots of stuff had to be shot twice.

The big moment was one such instance. Tina Turner was meant to break the news that she was ending retirement and going on tour. Instead, she wandered about the issue in an answer so convoluted that Oprah finally blurted out the applause moment. They reshot that so Turner could tell people succinctly she was returning to the road. No Vegas show announced.

I was most interested in Cher. She has a show opening next month in the room, and I was hoping for some preview of that show. We got that with Cher debuting a fully produced "Take Me Home" with live vocals. Cher is 61 only in the possible way you could look during your best dream. 

There will be plenty of showgirls in sequins and Bob Mackie gowns. It is going to be a quintessential Vegas show.

I think I earlier expressed reservations about Cher being able to move tickets and hold the spotlight in 2008 Vegas. Let me take my foot out of my mouth right now while I still have time before the show opens. Cher is going to be the biggest hit in Vegas since "LOVE." Tickets are going to be impossible to get, and she is going to cause as big a sensation as Celine Dion.

On the clip you can hear a narrator solemnly informing us of other aspects of Sin City: "Dancing is a big part of Vegas."  You don't say?  The nightclub in the preview, if it were really in Vegas, would be the first club I have ever seen not littered with dark-suited security personnel wearing earpieces. Of course, no security is essential, because the game encourages bar fights that "captures the fun over-the-top Vegas vibe." Actually, the one or two fights I have ever seen in Vegas nightclubs resulted in an immediate and overwhelming show of club security ejecting people.

In fact, forgetting This is Vegas, the game, in the real Las Vegas the nightclubs have so much security... Well, forgive me if I digress a little in the telling of this story about real gaming of a nightclub's system. I can't resist; it was an only-in-Vegas evening. And it was one of the more amazing feats in tricking nightclub security I have seen. It wasn't a huge feat by "Ocean's Eleven" standards; but this small trick was plenty impressive, a stunt worthy of a lot of "buzz" points in my This is Vegas game.

This story takes place earlier this year, one Las Vegas evening of the sort that becomes early morning before the end.

I always say my life looks much more fun to read than it is to live. On this night, I had to visit five different nightclubs in five different resorts on the same evening for three different stories. This was not barhopping. I don't drink. This was pure work. I  had to take detailed tours and notes at some clubs and do interviews at others.  My goal was to do all the reporting and get home fast, because the first story  was due the next day. Or, since I would certainly not be done reporting until some early morning hour, the story would technically be due that very day, probably, before I could sleep.  The main challenge then for me was to get inside each nightclub efficiently.

Back in those days, meaning before the IRS visit to PURE, it wasn't exactly easy at any major nightclub on the Strip for a 40-year-old guy, even one on "the list," who wasn't going to slip a doorman $100 to get attention among the hordes of people waiting on the wrong side of the rope. I came up with a suitably Vegas solution. I begged a famous adult film star I know to come along with me as a favor.

This plan worked like a charm at every club. Instantly, the doormen would talk to her and she would explain why we were there. The ubiquitous dark-suited doormen would then check the list, communicate via earpiece, and we would be swiftly escorted to wherever I needed to be. We made it to four clubs between 10  p.m. and 1 a.m. Most of the time was actually spent waiting in traffic on the Strip, or standing in a corner waiting for a busy manager to have the time to talk with me. I had $100 cash with me at the start and, between taxis and diet sodas with caffeine, I quickly ran through the money.

LAX at Luxor was our final stop. It was also the busiest. This was one of the evenings of the Miss LAX bikini contest, which involved packing the club's stairwell with women in bikinis and high heels.  And there was a very long wait for the person I needed to interview. Even worse, my interview subject was not a club employee but a club guest who bought a VIP table. This meant that unlike every other club I had been to that night, I could not count on LAX to care much whether I got my work done.

Anyway, it turns out that getting inside a nightclub like LAX is one of two equally difficult access challenges. The other is going to the bathroom. Since we weren't actually club guests, we did not have the proper hand stamps, wristband or whatever it was to get back to the VIP area in which my interview was going to take place. I asked an LAX security person if we could get back to our spot if we searched out restrooms, and apparently that wasn't going to happen without more tipping than I was capable of offering. I quickly broke off the conversation because I was afraid he might start looking for my wristband or hand stamp.

Suddenly another dark-suited security man with an earpiece came over to say something I could not hear to my friend and hand her a business card. She spoke to him about our dilemma and we were set. He walked us both to the restroom. And, to get us there, we passed through in the most efficient way, even more exclusive areas of the club than the one we came from. He made other security part for us like Heston in that movie. Afterward the man walked us back through all the dancers, different VIP sections and to our original spot.

It was a month later that I ran into this man again on another assignment, this time at the place where he actually worked. That night he was working security for Penthouse Pets who happened to be near where we were waiting and he had recognized my friend.  He explained to me that he figured with all of the security present at LAX for the bikini contest that night he could easily pass for an employee in the bustle of LAX. He was large. He had the uniform. He had the earpiece. He was proud of pulling this off for my friend of whom he was a fan. He was only coincidentally helping me out. When I got home I called my friend and she checked the business card she got that night and confirmed his story.

This is Vegas: Tricking nightclub security  to allow a group of three to pass unchallenged with all alacrity through various restricted and expensively rented club real estate in a packed nightclub to a bathroom in back is truly a challenge worthy of a skilled gamer.