The first thing I notice about Las Vegas, being the news junkie I am, was that all the newspaper vending machines typically found at busy intersections have been replaced with smut boxes. The trashy mags found inside display loose women wearing nothing but censor bars.

“$49.99 Special,” they proclaim, “Danielle is a real girl!”

During the days, mischievous minds seek out their plunder. During the nights, hands are filled with 48OZ novelty drinks and colorful casino chips. Hoards of homo sapiens wander drunkenly from one bright, cacophonous money sink to the next. Even my most sober moments in Vegas have a certain blurred quality about them.

Clearly it is the ideal spot for a gathering of bloggers and Web innovators.

I was there with Graham Langdon, the founder of Entrecard. He saw the BlogWorld Expo as a prime spot to pitch his widget, a business card for bloggers. I was more than happy to join him on his business trip. Surely this was a place where I could learn something about what the blogosphere has that so many journalists feel threatened by.

After picking up the numerous boxes of swag he had delivered to the hotel, we headed to the Las Vegas Convention center to set up his booth.

Inside the Convention Center, bloggers and Web entrepreneurs were busy setting up their booths. His was right near Yahoo and Technorati. He was fortunate enough to have the guys who signed up for the booth next to us take out a last minute upgrade. He doubled his space and threw in another table.

The next day would begin the expo, but that night I just wanted to check out the town. We set everything up and showered off before hitting the strip.

Dinner at the Wynn was an exercise in pure indulgence. Langdon and I each enjoyed a $35 buffet where no amount of mango salsa mahi mahi or veal short ribs could keep us from the mainstay: fresh, juicy Alaskan king crab legs, melted butter and capers.

After a solid hour and a half of slow, persistent gorging, we rolled ourselves out onto the strip.

Next in line was the Venetian. Having been to Venice once years ago, I was amazed at this hotel and casino’s ability to mirror its likeness. One room we wandered into immediately sparked memories of Saint Mark’s Square. Costumed bards performed on a low stage while onlookers dined outdoors on linguine and lobster. Or at least they appeared to be seated outdoors, considering the cobblestones and a ceiling you would swear was the bright blue sky - at 2 a.m. Sure enough my eyes fell on a sign marking it “La Piazza di San Marco.” Then we remembered hearing something about a pirate show down the strip and caught the first gondola out.

It was quite the dense, herd of people grazing on the rope-lined boardwalk outside Treasure Island. The “Sirens of T.I.” show was set to begin shortly and onlookers were shoulder to shoulder in anticipation. Across the watery mote outside the casino, blue lights cast eerie specters on a menacing pirate ship. An Asian tourist with a clunky tripod caused an abrasive stir. We moved out of the area marked “wet zone.”

All at once, spotlights began to illuminate a cadre of sultry sirens of all nationalities that took to the ropes. Singing in the pop-infused air of the Pussycat Dolls, the lead siren, Sin, reveals she has captured a pirate. No doubt she was the lead at least partly due to how well she filled out her “captains bodice.” My favorite was a sassy Latina siren in a black and red flamenco dress.

The “unlucky” Eros then found himself in, as his Captain Mack would soon announce, “more booty than he can plunder.” They tortured the young swashbuckler with temptation and feathers until a red ship of his singing, dancing mateys arrived in the mote to the other side of the casino entrance.

Demanding the return of poor Eros, the pirates ran a shot across the bow. But alas, their cannons were no match for the sirens’ hotness, which somehow sunk their ship in a fiery conflagration of sexy hip twists and hair flips. In the end the pirates boarded the sirens’ vessel and they had a grand dance party with fireworks. Before running off to the crow’s nest with Captain Mack, Sin informed the onlookers that “The real treasure is inside” the casino.

The herd began to filter its way in.

“Is that the spirit of Vegas?,” I asked myself. “A bunch of pirates driven to shiplessness in the pursuit of plundering untouchable booty?”

Well at least the show was free.