Sunday Morning Coffee — November 16, 2025 — Sunday Morning Scramble

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV.

Good morning. Some great news. I have thrown away all my indica gummies and melatonin. Now that former baseball player Darryl Strawberry has received a presidential pardon for tax evasion and drug charges I finally can sleep peacefully at night.

You probably missed it and can’t blame you if you did but the Olympics were held last Monday night here in Vegas. Olympics? Yep — the best of the best of 10 Vegas hotels squared off in the Housekeeping Olympics at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena. If you went to the sportsbook and laid a C-note on the staff of Bellagio to win the Bed Making Competition oh so sorry, but the team from Resorts World won the gold by a pillow case. The Cosmopolitan took third. However, the favorite did prevail in the Vacuum Race as the combined team from neighboring ARIA/Vdara resorts swept to the gold over host Mandalay Bay, who teamed with the fine folks at Luxor. Mandalay Bay/Luxor rebounded and fittingly mopped the floor over ARIA/Vdara and the Cosmo in the Mop Relay. However, the ARIA/Vdara team literally cleaned up as the overall Housekeeping Olympics champion with Resorts World settling for the bronze. Over the next year all teams will sharpen their craft on their respective guest rooms and return in 2026 for what will be the 36th year of this insanity.

Vegas Hospitality workers, and the Nevada coffers, are sobered by news that room tax receipts based upon visitation for the third quarter ending on September 30 were down 14% or $25 million from the same period a year ago.

Where’s the beef? Probably among Wendy’s stockholders. The burger chain announced plans to close hundreds of their 6,000 restaurants over the next few months in an attempt to boost profits for the 55-year-old rapidly outdated chain. This is on top of the 240 closed last year. So far, not so good. Wendy’s shares dropped four percent over the past week and 21% ytd.

Away from fast food joints, Restaurant Business Magazine has released its rankings of top dining choices in the United States for 2024. By sales, the top two independent restaurants are on Miami Beach within a mile of each other — Joe’s Stone Crab with $49.4 in gross sales, followed closely by MILA, a fusion of Japanese-Mediterranean at $49.1 million. To be classified as an independent the restaurant must have no more than five locations across the country. The most expensive dining spot in the country is Eleven Madison Park in NYC with, ready for this, a mind boggling $750 per check average, slightly more than a Dave’s Single and Frosty at Wendy’s. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the busiest restaurant by gross sales in this town is one I’ve never given any thought to—Top of the World Steakhouse at The Strat with almost $26 million in sales.

A tale of two NBA teams going in opposite directions: Defending champion Oklahoma City, picking up from where they left off in last June’s title run, have started the ‘25-‘26 season 13-1. Indiana, who lost to OKC in Game 7 of last seasons NBA Finals, are 1-12.

Good to have season three of Tulsa King back on Paramount. Stallone is terrific as Dwight Manfredi and even better when you consider he’s 79. Also returning on Paramount is season two of Landman with Billy Bob Thornton that begins tonight. Both shows were created by Taylor Sheridan and keeps you coming back for more. The one I really want to like is The Morning Show, back for a fourth season on Apple. Jennifer Aniston is terrific, but the show has so many characters that you need an old fashioned program to figure out who’s who and that still might not be enough.

Here are some income tax stats provided by the IRS: the top 1% of U.S. earners pay nearly 46% of total income tax collected; the top 10% pay nearly 76% and the bottom 50% pay less than 3% of the total. For years I have been in favor of a flat tax. We pay a flat tax, no matter income levels, on all goods and services we purchase. Should be that way for income tax too.

Too much time on my hands: Why are Kenyan marathon runners so stinkin’ good?

Mason Williams, who composed and performed the great instrumental “Classical Gas” that hit number one on the charts in 1968 was more than a three-time Grammy Award winner. He split his time between music and being the head comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS. Williams, 87, still fiddles with music performing as an ensemble classical guitarist with various symphony orchestras from his home in Eugene, Oregon.

This proves you don’t have to be pretty to be attractive: Monday night’s football game between the shitty Cowboys and even shittier Raiders is the second-most expensive game of the season on the resale market. The Cowboys are 3-5-1; the Raiders 2-7. The average resale ticket price is $687, second only to the Eagles and Cowboys on opening night at $712. Once Dallas fans get to Vegas for Monday night’s game they’ll find the resale tickets they bought to be much more reasonable than the Strip resort fees they are about to pay.

With the NFL season heading down the stretch the Rams are 5-1 favorites to win the Super Bowl, according the Westgate Hotel sportsbook. LA is followed by the Chiefs at 6-1 and the Lions, Seahawks and Eagles at 8-1. The Jets, not mathematically eliminated for another week or two, are 100,000-1. It’s still too low.

Two things the Jets and Giants have in common: they share a stadium in New Jersey and so far this NFL season each team has won only two games. They are both bad. Very bad. Between them their combined record is 4-12. However, the Giants have statistically accomplished something never done before in the NFL. Percentages tell us they easily should be 5-5, not 2-8. Consider these crash and burns: in the fourth quarter of the Dallas game on September 14 the Giants chances of winning were 90%; against Denver on October 19, stats had the Giants 99% to win with only minutes remaining and last Sunday with the Giants leading 20-10 late and driving against Chicago they were forecast at 95% chance to hold the lead. They lost all three. At least with the Jets we know after the opening kickoff there’s no chance, so any hopes we might have had are dashed quickly; we don’t have the ultimate disappointment our big city brethren do.

When you go to a Raiders game in between sacks and interceptions, your mind tends to wander. Did to me two Sunday’s ago. I found myself, for no explainable reason, wondering who invented the whistle? Well, it dates all the way back to 1883 in Birmingham, England, and Joseph Hudson who, like me, also had some time on his hands. Mr. Hudson developed what is now known as the ‘pea whistle’ producing that shrill, attention-grabbing sound. A year later his whistle became the official sound of the London Metropolitan Police. Then he debuted a version for sports at a London soccer match. His company today is known as Acme Whistles, and still dominates the market. Over here we use Hudson’s whistles for all team sports — football, soccer, basketball, hockey, volleyball et al except for one. Baseball needs whistles. Let’s start with a long, shrill sound when a batter is punched out on strikes.

Finally, and I’m not making this up, the more I read about the security breach at the Louvre, it’s really not surprising the robbery happened in broad daylight right under their foie gras. The password for the museum’s security surveillance system was not n2GjK!e3#46 or the like as suggested by computer. Instead the powers that be and internal brainiacs created a custom one: LOUVRE. Not sure how any outsider could have cracked that bit of ingenious.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger