Columnist John Katsilometes: Saving some good news while rehearsing the writing of this column

Monday, Oct. 3, 2005 | 8:18 a.m.

Fabulous Las Vegas runs Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach John Katsilometes by e-mail at kats@lasvegassun.com or at (702) 259-2327 or (702) 812-9812.

Over the past three months I have written several test-drive versions of this column while running around the city with my head on a swivel, chatting up possible subjects and collecting information.

Seems a shame to waste all of it.

During that period I found that on a Saturday night it can take 1 hour, 5 minutes to drive the approximately seven miles from the Lakes, where I live, to Wynn Las Vegas. The best place to park in such an unfortunate event is not at the Wynn, but at the Fashion Show mall parking garage ...

I called the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., one Henry O. Sanchez, who said he had not met our own (Oscar Goodman). "He's really a fun-loving, freewheeling kind of guy," Sanchez said from his office at Las Vegas City Hall. "I'm not that way, but I'm quite a bit older than he is."

Sanchez is 68; Goodman 66. It's all in that bombastic attitude, evidently ...

Upon entering the new Hogs & Heifers at North Third Street and Ogden Avenue, I encountered a doorman standing next to a sign reading "No ties ... No (blank) holes."

"I can control the former, but I can't promise the latter," I said. The guy slipped a yellow band across my wrist and said, "Then we'd better mark you," and I thought of the protocol at Double Down Saloon, where no such sign or identifiable marker is required ...

I discovered a herd of rabbits hanging out at the Salvation Army facililty on Palomino Lane. These guys are apt to meander to your car, sniff the tires, sniff your shoes and are so clean they seem to have been groomed.

"They are our mascots," Salvation Army spokesman Charlie Desiderio said. "It's quite a phenomenon." The rabbits have been a part of the old Scotch 80s neighborhood near Palomino and Rancho Drive for at least 40 years and, says Desiderio, "They don't bother us. They are just there."

And like another famous rabbit, we keep going and going and going ...

Herd of notes

Good Morning' indeed: Today I was to be on "Good Morning America" (I hope I woke up in time to see it), discussing Roy Horn, and the person conducting the interview with his Las Vegas production crew was George Ciccarone. Ciccarone's name is familiar, possibly, because he conceived and produced the HBO America Undercover special "Cathouse," which centered on the happenings at Moonlight Bunny Ranch near Reno ...

More Horn: Horn turns 61 today; no splashy public parties are planned, but on a visit to the Secret Garden at the Mirage between 50 and 60 members of the SARMOTI ( Siegfried & Roy: Masters of the Impossible) World Fan Club serenaded him (in English and German) with "Happy Birthday To You."...

Barry interesting: In a story in Sunday's New York Times, LV Hilton headliner Barry Manilow tossed out the names Gloria Estefan, Phil Collins and Rod Stewart as stars who might perform permanently in Vegas. He also said, "I called Bette (Midler) and said, 'You should check this out.' "