If you think puppies, kitties and bunnies are your cutest pet options, you’ve never met a sugar glider. These pocket-sized, saucer-eyed marsupials cuddle, scamper, sleep and leap. They’re complex, intelligent and affectionate. There’s just one catch: They’re harder to care for than a troop of kangaroos in heat.

Native to Australia, sugar gliders are illegal in California but legal in Nevada. That explains why so many of them end up at the Lucky Glider Rescue & Sanctuary in Henderson. Gail and Ed Margulies run it from their home.

“There’s a little odor in here,” Gail, 55, warned me as I walked through the front door. “It’s not going to knock you over; just smells like animals is all.”

Gail Margulies used to work in publishing, then as a dental assistant, and then she opened the sanctuary in 2006. Since then, business has been good—which is to say, she watches over a lot of sugar gliders that could use good homes.

Gail walked me through her living room and into the “Rescue Room,” which was packed with sugar glider cages. Floor-to-ceiling. Each cage contained a colony of gliders, a hamster wheel, a climbing rope and a wooden box filled with miniature blankets. The Margulieses had taped index cards to each of the cages to remind them of the occupants’ names: Krissey, Ponchito, Sabrina, Duke, Tank, Chip, Hexx, Jinx and Little Man, to name a few.

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Okay, that's just the introduction to my sugar glider piece in this week's Las Vegas Weekly.  You can find the rest of the story BY CLICKING HERE.  And if you're not interested in clicking there, perhaps you'd be interested in CLICKING HERE INSTEAD.

I've been in Vegas 8 months and just got Cable TV yesterday. This is by far the longest I've ever gone without cable, and I only mention that because I expect some sort of medal.

I watched about 2 hours of TV yesterday, and learned some pretty incredible stuff...

1) Brooke Hogan is still on TV.
2) Something's going down in Iran.
3) Carlos Mencia is still not funny.

Last month I reunited Carrot Top and Gallagher.

Find out whether I'm joking or being serious here.

Shot this at a nearby sushi restaurant. Apparently "Extreme Current of Water Outpour Splash Results Strongly Below" was taken.

I
was at Stoney's Country Bar/Club last night, and every time the DJ played an MJ song EVERYBODY moved onto the dance floor. Joyous, joyous dancing. No solemn faces. Last night was a tribute to the man's art, not a preoccupation with his personal life or mourning of his untimely passing. I suspect it was the same at clubs across the country. Oh man, you should have seen all the cowboys trying to do the Thriller dance...

Today we began a new segment in Las Vegas Weekly: Books I Couldn't Finish. Here's the mini-manifesto that ran with my review of the Andre the Giant bio:

Life is too short to waste on crap. So, when I find myself 100 pages into a crappy book, I put it down and pick up another one. I’m not alone; lots of book reviewers abandon crappy books mid-story. That’s one of the two reasons so many crappy books go unreviewed in magazines like Entertainment Weekly and People. (The other is that many arts and entertainment editors—not ours!—prefer to spend what little book space they’re allotted discussing books they can actually recommend.)

In our new segment, “Books I Couldn’t Finish,” we’re going to tell you how many pages we got through and why we couldn’t get through any more. We’re just not going to tell you why these books don’t work “on the whole.” Because we don’t know. We didn’t get that far.

Saw this one on the way home from the bookstore. Having trouble figuring it out... Does it mean that haircuts are $9.95 for first-time customers, or that haircuts are generally $9.95, but that first-time customers will save "$$" on top of that. And if so, is "$$" code for two dollars?

DePaul University’s Provost just fired the Dean of my law school, Glen Weissenberger, for blowing the whistle on a university accounting scheme. I feel bad for Dean G, but even worse for the current and future DePaul law students who won’t get to benefit from his leadership.

I wish I were in Chicago right now to protest Dean G’s firing (both the actual firing and the method by which it was carried out), but it sounds like there are plenty of students and professors who are quite angry right now, and I’m confident they’ll make sure their voices are heard.

This was a bad, bad decision, and once the law school’s ranking drops and its alumni donations dry up (along with its prospective applicant pool), I suspect the Provost will realize this much. It'll probably take 3 or 4 years for this to happen, but it'll happen. Just watch.

I know airplane food is supposed to suck...but check out this salad from the Michigan to Vegas flight. It honestly might have been the freshest, most delicious salad I've ever eaten. (That's goat cheese and balsamic dressing, by the way). Particularly the multi-colored peppers...so fresh.

Overheard this at Starbucks this afternoon. Said the woman to the barista: "I survived a year on Milk Duds and coke."

So now I'm wondering whether she meant the cola or the drug. From a nutritional standpoint, it'd be easier to survive on the drink (more calories), but I've heard it said that coke decreases your appetite and makes it easier to go long periods without food, so in that sense, it might be easier to survive on Milk Duds and cocaine.