For a city that’s known for the fast life, choosing an average Joe to represent it in a new marketing campaign may seem an odd choice.

He’s 45 years old. He sells insurance. And his name is Las. Las Vegasdotcom. Everything was fine, you see, before the explosion of the internet. Now everyone thinks he’s a web site. And now everyone wants Las to hook them up with the very best of Vegas.

The new campaign debuted today.

The ad’s goal, of course,  is to tell viewers about all the cool things Vegas has to offer and ultimately drive potential visitors to the LasVegas.com web site and convince them to book.

One video shows Las being accosted on the street by a man who wants to know about the secret pizza place inside the Cosmopolitan hotel. “What’s secret about it?” he asks. “That nobody tells you where it is? Or they don’t even tell you what the toppings are and you just sort of get a grab bag of toppings?”

Another asks, “So the sharks at Mandalay Bay? Like, have you swam with them? Do I need insurance for that?”

“The new website and ad campaign are based on comprehensive research about our visitors and what they want,” said Courtney Fitzgerald, spokesperson for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. ”Based on our research, we know we have two audiences: the ‘core’ and the ‘persuade.”’

Each audience represents more than 40 million potential visitors a year.

Fans of  Sin City’s famous “What Happens Here Stays Here” campaign need not worry — the famous slogan isn’t going anywhere. The new campaign is designed to “compliment” what’s already in place, Fitzgerald said.

The character Las Vegasdotcom isn’t too far off the typical Sin City visitor. ABC built a profile of the typical Las Vegas visitor based on data from the LVCVA. If you’re a married white male, late 40s, employed making over $100,000 per year and love to gamble, it seems Las Vegas is your vacation spot of choice.

Supermodel Crystal Renn appeared on “Good Morning America” this morning to share tips on how you can be super-chic all the time — even while on a budget.

Crystal’s Style Tips

1. Even if you don’t have the budget to shop designer, invest in one classic designer bag.

2. Buy the perfectly cut blazer for your body. Everyone knows the appeal of the classic little black dress, but the perfect blazer will take you a long way. Whether you pair it with trousers or a dress, it immediately adds chic to any outfit. If you have curvy hips, opt for a blazer with strong shoulders; it balances the body and adds angles.

3. Want long legs? Wear long pants that just skim the floor. Underneath wear the highest shoes you can walk in.

4. Don’t be afraid to shop in the men’s section. Sometimes the sizes are better and the fit looser.

5. Buy multiples of whatever works.

6.  Accessorize! Use quirky accessories to show personality — whether that is your Grandma’s ring or an interesting necklace from your travels. Because I wear so much black, I usually layer on a bunch of rings and my simple crystal necklace to make a statement.

7. For evening, I like drama so I turn to designers such as Zac Posen, who know how to cut for a woman’s body and whose dresses scream glamor. Gowns can be very expensive, so opt for a designer’s more financially friendly line, such as Posen’s Z Spoke. You can save dollars and not sacrifice chic.

Image credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

For the second year in a row, New York City hotels are offering big discounts during what’s typically one of the slowest times of the year.

24 hotels are participating in Hotel Week NYC, which kicked off Friday and runs until Jan. 20. Room rates of $100, $200 and $250 are available at a variety of hotels — some of which typically charge upwards of $500 a night. A few of the participating hotels are also including breakfast.

“Last year’s first-ever Hotel Week generated 500 room nights for the eight participating hotels. In 2013, we hope to double these numbers at a time when every hotel could benefit from incremental business,” said Nancy Friedman, founder of Hotel Week. “This is a great time for hotel guests to take advantage of the many post-holiday sales and have a relaxing, affordable vacation at the same time.”

Following is a list of participating hotels: 

Gansevoort Meatpacking NYC

Gansevoort Park Avenue NYC

The Maritime

The OUT NYC

The Jade Hotel

The Hotel @ Times Square

nyma, the new york manhattan hotel

Pod 39

Pod 51

The James New York

Hyatt 48 Lex

Ace Hotel New York

Library Hotel

Casablanca Hotel

Hotel Giraffe

Hotel Elysee

Sanctuary Hotel

Hotel Belleclaire

Cosmopolitan Hotel – Tribeca

Washington Jefferson Hotel

The GEM Hotel Chelsea

The GEM Hotel Midtown West

The GEM Hotel SoHo

Comfort Inn Midtown West

Comfort Inn Times Square South

Guests can call hotels directly and mention “Hotel Week” or visit the hotels’ websites to make a reservation. The promotion is subject to availability.

                                                                                                                         (Image credit: IBM)

The future of food might not be in the kitchen.  Thanks to research at IBM, the future of food could very well be controlled by your computer.

“In five years, computers will be able to construct never-before-heard-of recipes to delight palates – even those with health or dietary constraints – using foods’ molecular structure,” says Dr. Lav Varshney, a research scientist for IBM, in a new video for the company’s annual 5 in 5 campaign.  This year’s campaign focuses on the five senses and a new era of computers based on cognitive systems.

Varshney chose to work with food because “It’s so visceral, it’s part of who we are.  Everyone eats,” he said.

He and his six-person team, which includes a chef-turned-computer engineer, are working to design recipes that predict unexpected flavor combinations that taste delicious.

The goal of the program is to “design food that tastes good that is flavorful but is also healthy,” he said, “We’ve been using some ideas from culinary science and chemistry as well as psychology.”

The system looks to foods, such as strawberries, white wine or cooked apples, that are generally perceived as pleasant.

They use the flavor-pairing hypothesis to match flavors like black tea and bell peppers.  The hypothesis is the idea that “in two ingredients that share a lot of flavor compounds, chemicals that make up the food, they typically go together in western cuisine.”

They hope to create more flavorful lunch meals for kids who generally skip their sandwich and opt for dessert.

“Various governments have imposed a lot of nutritional standards, school lunches have to meet these very stringent requirements and kids end up throwing away the food,” said Varshney.

It would also improve food options in hospitals and nursing homes as well as provide tasty recipes for those with food restrictions like food allergies.

But the system isn’t as simple as an app that would select random combinations.  The team is also taking into consideration how the food looks.  Creating recipes that have never been made before has required a bit of testing.

Varshney hopes that the machine will eventually be “Good enough that you can predict without testing.”

Flight BA2664 was headed from London’s Gatwick Airport to Tunis. The flight was diverted to Lyon, the airline said, following “the continued disruptive behavior of two female passengers.”

British tabloid The Sun reported the women were drinking Malibu rum and swore at children. They reportedly threatened the family of a British Airways flight attendant and tried to storm the cockpit and hid in the lavatory and tried to smoke.

The paper quoted a passenger as saying, “They decided they were going to meet the captain and marched towards the cockpit. It was very frightening.”

“Our customers and flying crew deserve a safe and enjoyable flight experience,” an airline spokesperson said. “We do not tolerate any disruptive behavior onboard our flights.

“They were handed over to the custody of the French police and detained upon arrival in Lyon.”

Image credit: Getty Images

Forgetting your phone charger at your hotel is one thing. Forgetting your breast implants? Well, that’s quite another.

A set of breast implants was one of the unusual items left behind by hotel guests at U.K. hotel chain Travelodge in 2012. Some of the other forgotten  items included a Persian Chinchilla kitten worth about $975.

The kitty was staying at the Birmingham Airport Travelodge while participating in a cat show. The hotel chain says  “the owner was in such a dash to get to the show that she forgot the cat box containing Porsha. En-route to the venue she realized as the car journey was very quiet. Luckily Porsha was having a nap and did not realize that her owner had left her behind.”

Porsha wasn’t the only animal left behind. A guest who was attending a fish festival in the area of the Brighton Seafront Travelodge left behind a bucket of live crabs.  At the Bristol Severn View property, a pet python named Monty was forgotten.

Percy the micro pig was also left behind.  A micro pig, in case you don’t know, is a miniature pig that can weigh as little as 30 pounds, which might explain his fate.

A Rolex watch, a set of false teeth with diamonds, the original Harry Potter wand that was used in the “Harry Potter” films and an 8-foot  pop-up spray tanning booth were among the other items.  Travelodge said the women who left the spray tan booth behind at the Basildon Wickford Travelodge were so busy “nursing their hangovers” that they neglected to notice they had left it.

One of the most popular items left behind? Teddy bears: 76,500 of them. “Fifty Shades of Grey” was the most popular book left behind, with 7,000 copies discarded.

And those implants? They were left at the Newcastle Central Travelodge. The guest was en route to London for a cosmetic operation. She had purchased the implants from a U.S. seller, according to the hotel chain.

Items at Travelodge hotels that were not claimed within three months were donated to Cancer Research U.K. charity shops.

The budget chain operates 527 properties and welcomes 13 million guests every year.

Image credit: Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images

The UK’s Birmingham International Airport may soon be renamed for rocker Ozzy Osbourne if one record executive gets his way.

Jim Simpson, boss of Big Bear Music, is behind the effort, reports the Birmingham Mail. The call to rename the airport comes after plans for a Black Sabbath Day in the city were apparently shelved.

“Ozzy might not always have been a paragon of virtue, but he is a genuine flesh and blood Brummie,” the paper quoted Simpson as saying about the heavy metal vocalist and songwriter.

Renaming the airport for the so-called Prince of Darkness would fit right into the city’s hope to market Birmingham to tourists as a music destination. Though that plan may not come to fruition, the councilman behind the idea is open-minded about a freshly-minted airport named for Osbourne.

Councilman Philip Parkin told the Birmingham Mail, ”It’s an interesting idea and I’ve got an open mind but I think something like that would need to be consulted on fairly widely because it’s a significant part of our infrastructure.  I would be interested to know what people thought about that as an idea. I still feel in general we need to be making the most of the talent we have got and did have in this city and with something like this we have to ask people their opinion.”

Of course, if Birmingham International was named for Osbourne, it wouldn’t be the first airport in the UK to be named for a rocker. Liverpool John Lennon Airport is named for the famous Beatles member who was also a Liverpool native.

                                                             (Image credit: Gluten Free South Florida/Facebook)

Home to an assortment of bagels and donuts, Dunkin’ Donuts is testing two new gluten-free products in select stores.

“A few select Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the Boston and Miami areas are currently carrying gluten-free muffins and donuts. These include Blueberry Muffins and Cinnamon Sugar Donuts,” said a Dunkin’ Donuts spokesman.

Food Trends 2013: Push-Pop Cupcakes and Boozy Bar Food Make List

The Gluten Free South Florida Facebook group warns:  “Donuts are DANGEROUSLY DELICIOUS!!!! Must try!!!!!!”

Frank Guttenberg, a local franchisee commented on page, “I am a local franchisee who has worked with the brand for two years after my son was diagnosed with Celiac. We are close but the brand needs to complete all of the testing. It will be in other locations soon but for now the initial test is a small test to make sure we do this properly. I am fortunate to have a chance to do this in my Miami stores but hang tight it will hit the broader market in the not to [sic] distant future.”

The cinnamon sugar donuts sell for under a dollar each.

In October, the company applied for a trademark for “Bagel Bunchkins,” the bagel version of their popular Munchkins donut holes.  In November, they released a holiday menu which included red velvet cake donuts and gingerbread coffee drinks.

Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t the first nationwide chain to go gluten-free.  Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A and Burger King all have gluten-free options for customers.

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Did you leave everything for the last minute this New Year’s?  Celebrity caterer Mary Giuliani has quick tips on how to throw a fabulous fete even if you’re a party-planning procrastinator.

1.  Drink:  Create a champagne bar with your favorite type of bubbly and give guests the chance to play “mixologist.”  Offer mix-ins like fruit juices, purees, berries or bitters for a fun way to customize their drinks.  Garnish.

2.  Eat:  Serve breakfast at midnight!  After the clock strikes 12 and toasts are done, serve up breakfast foods like mini bacon, egg-and-cheese sandwiches or mini short-stacks of pancakes.

3. Play:  Give guests a playful goodie bag when they arrive filled with bottled water, aspirin, vitamins and drink cozies.

4. Recover:  Don’t send guests home empty-handed.  End the festivities by sending guests home with a “hangover kit” filled with coconut water, eye masks or a vegetable-and-fruit smoothie.

Recipe: Mary’s Hangover Helper Smoothie

1 bunch Kale
1 green apple
1/2 Lemon
1 small piece of Ginger
1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

Juice and serve

Image credit: Getty Images

Just in time for the end of the busy holiday season, Cape Air and a regional airport in New Hampshire are promoting flights to Boston and New York for $12.

In attempt to qualify for federal grant money by flying out at least 10,000 passengers this year, the airport and Cape Air, its only airline, are offering holiday travelers the last-minute steal of a deal – $12 each way.

“We’re basically sold out,” said Trish Lorino, director of marketing and public relations for Cape Air. “That’s the highest number of enplanements for Lebanon Airport in quite a long time.”

The promotion, introduced on Christmas Eve, is an attempt to reach 10,o00 enplanements – a term to describe people flying out of an airport - for Lebanon Airport, a small, regional airport in the upper valley of New Hampshire. Once the airport hits the 10,000 mark, the FAA will give $1 million in grant money to help fund projects for the community airport.

“The typical projects would be safety, runway and taxiway projects, and equipment purchases,” said Rick Dyment, manager of Lebanon Airport. “We would be able to improve the city’s airport with these funds.”

With the last-minute push to entice holiday travelers, Cape Air expects to hit that 10,000 level within the next day or so.

“By us [Cape Air] lowering that fare, it was our attempt to support the airport and get them to the 10,000 enplanement level,” said Lorino. “The timing was ideal because it was a holiday week and people had flexibility and the freedom to travel.”

READ: Cheap Travel During Dead Week Coming Up

Prior to the economy-friendly offer, a round-trip flight from Lebanon Airport to Boston’s Logan Airport would cost travelers an average of $130. One-way flights to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., would cost flyers $160.

The $12 fare reflects the fees and taxes on the individual flights.

Upon landing in White Plains,  passengers are offered ground transportation to 35th Street and 8th Avenue in midtown Manhattan – a service that’s included in the $12 fee. Free parking at the New Hampshire airport is also available.

“The total time from Lebanon Airport to midtown Manhattan is two and a half hours,” said Dyment. “You can fly from Lebanon Airport to Boston in 55 minutes and then connect to other airlines in Boston.”

But the deal won’t last long. Cape Air’s offer is only good through the end of the year.