At the bar, UNLV can keep playing Colorado until they don’t fall to the first-round upset.

Let’s see, after Insert Coin(s) blew away downtown, Hooters tried to do a barcade, now Insert is in the works to bring a franchise to one of the casinos, and the Cosmo is turning the former Droog spot into the EA Sports Bar March 31.

Let the Great Barcade Trend/Landgrab of Aught 12 begin! By the middle of next year, you won’t be able to get a cocktail in this town without someone jamming a 360 controller in your face.

The EA Sports Bar is going to be a temporary setup at the Cosmo with PS3s, nine “living room vignettes,” an antique foosball table and TVs showing sports, just in time for the Final Four. Given the very real nature of the Madden cover curse, expect the Cosmo to get hit by a meteor sometime in mid-September.

By Jason Scavone

The man needs him some Defender. (Photo by Nikki Villoria)

Insert Coin(s) is diving right in to alt hip-hop. After bringing in De La Soul a couple weeks ago, tonight they’re bringing in the non-Mos Def half of Black Star, Talib Kweli, to DJ tonight. They’re bringing in more performers in the coming months, and if the first two are indicative of the direction they’re going, we’re going to end up with a live re-enactment of Beats, Rhymes & Life. Click for more words and pictures »

By Jason Scavone

(Photo by Gabe Zapata | SpyOnVegas.com)

Good lord, hanging out with De La Soul, smoking cigarettes and playing GoldenEye were the only things we ever wanted to even do in the mid-’90s. Where was this tableau 15 years ago?

By Jason Scavone

Should auld acquaintance play some Defender.

Someday, in the not-too-distant-future, all roads in Las Vegas will be blocked off on New Year’s Eve. They’ll be dancing up and down Decatur. They’ll be partying on Paradise. They’ll be making merry on Maryland. (You want more alliteration? We can do this all day. Bring it.) Because piece by piece, that’s the direction we’re moving.

The Strip was already shut down and Fremont has its permanent street party in extra-full swing for the occasion, but this year the Fremont East district got in on the act.

Spearheaded by Insert Coin(s) owner Chris LaPorte, the New Year’s block party had the street shut down from Sixth to a few dozen feet she of Las Vegas Boulevard, with a slew of bands taking a stage set up at the northernmost side of the blockade.

In the works for about a month, Downtown Countdown 2012 stood as a free alternative to the $30 entrance fee for Fremont’s Tributepalooza. Pride and the Vanities, Otherwise and Rhyme N Rhythm did the music for the evening. We were concerned that the people-watching might not stack up to under the canopy on Fremont, but there was at least one girl in giant pink angel wings, and the waitresses at Insert Coin(s) had on Tron-inspired outfits, so it wasn’t like the night was devoid of its share of weirdness. And that’s all we ask out of New Year’s: That when we struggle to recall the fuzzy memories of the night before, we’re not entire sure if what we think back on was booze-inspired hallucination, or some messed up shit that really went down.

By Jason Scavone