A Las Vegas Monorail train adorned with NBA All-Star Game theme art pulls into the Las Vegas Hilton station last year. While decked out for the game, the monorail doesn't go to the Thomas & Mack Center, where the game will be played today. That is among insider tips for getting around Las Vegas offered to NBA fans today by the Road Warrior. Photo by Jane Kalinowsky.

Welcome, NBA All-Star Game fans, to our dusty lil' desert oasis! Hope you brought some cash.

Not because we plan to clean your pockets out like a nuclear-powered Hoover. No, siree. It's just that the NBA is bringing so much to do or see this weekend to our usually boring Mojave outpost that I'm sure there will be something you'll want to splurge on. Like souvenir T-shirts. Or home loan-sized dice rolls at the craps table.

With the NBA and a smattering of local bed-and-breakfasts taking care of what to do, you might be asking yourself how to get around. As The All-Knowing Traffic Guru of Las Vegas (patent pending), I can definitely give you some inside tips on how to vamoose around Las Vegas, which loosely translates from Spanish to "Lots of Valets." To wit:

No, you can't legally drive drunk in Nevada as long as there are at least two hookers in your car. That's just an old Vegas wives' tale. DUI laws apply here, too, Sparky.

If you want to know if you're being scammed, first find out if you are inside a cab. I'm not saying all our behind-the-wheel ambassadors are looking to gouge you. Most are decent folks. But there are some foxes driving four-wheeled henhouses out there. And you're looking like a chickadee.

Like those who partake in "long hauling." That's when a cabbie takes unsuspecting tourists on a longer-than-necessary route from the airport to the Strip via the underground airport tunnel and Interstate 15.

Then again, you might want to be hoodwinked. These days, the longer route might be the faster route (and an acceptable route, but only with your consent). The usual airport-to-Strip paths along surface streets have become traffic-choking road work zones in recent months, leading to daily monster-sized traffic meltdowns on Paradise Road and Harmon Avenue.

Which, coincidentally, are two prime routes from the Strip to the Thomas & Mack Center, where today's game is being played. So give yourself a good 12 hours to get to the arena. Give or take a day.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Unless it happens in a cab. Most of our cabs are outfitted with surveillance cameras. Not for HBO and "Taxicab Confessions." Rather, it's for "CSI: Las Vegas" and the cops. Which could lead to your inadvertent appearance on "Prison Break."

Throw your hands in the air, and the cabbie won't care. You can't just hail a cab from any old street corner here. Seriously. It's against the law. You have to phone for one or grab a taxi at a cab stand.

If you're at a hotel, you have to get in a line with a few hundred other people who'd be looking for a cab anyway, so you can get one of a few dozen cabs that would be lined up looking for fares anyway, all so you can tip a doorman a buck or two for simply standing between you and the cab. It might be the best racket doormen have going. But it's not the only one. That's because ...

If you want to go to a strip club, you'll get taken for a ride. Literally and figuratively. If a doorman offers you a limo to a strip club with the hottest girls in town, your doorman is taking a kickback. Likewise, if a cabbie talks you into going to a strip club with the hottest girls in town, your cabbie is taking a kickback.

Just assume that you, plus Vegas, equals somebody getting a kickback, OK?

And no, the girls probably won't go for that baby-oil-and-mountain-goat routine the doormen or cabbies might suggest is absolutely doable.

Parking is free! Yep, free! Why would we want you to spend a twenty parking your car when you can blow a couple hundred bucks parked in front of a video poker machine? Now get to work and keep my taxes low!

You can take mass transit most anywhere. Yep, you can get from your five-figure skybox seats, blinged-out VIP soirees and your private jet using easy, convenient Citizens Area Transit buses.

Just remember, the driver can't make change, and there's no Cristal allowed on the bus. Fo' shizzle.

The Las Vegas Monorail is a great way to avoid traffic. And destinations. It might be more valuable to list where the monorail doesn't go than where it does. Nonstops include the Thomas & Mack, Mandalay Bay (where many All-Star events are taking place), everything on the west side of the Strip, the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, "Cravings" at the Mirage (my fave buffet), the Liberace Museum, Bugsy Siegel's tomb, Hoover Dam, Siegfried and Roy's estate, the "Fat Elvis" show and whorehouses (for which you'll have to cab it to adjacent Nye County. Unless the cabbie instead talks you into going to a local strip club with the hottest girls in town, of course).

If you're looking for the Caesars Palace monorail station, don't look in Caesars Palace. It's actually behind the Flamingo, even though it's branded as the "Flamingo/Caesars Palace" station.

So, to get to Caesars from the station, you have to walk down from the station platform, cut through the Flamingo Hotel, cross busy Las Vegas Boulevard and walk through Caesars' front courtyard to its lobby. As a straight shot, that's almost a half-mile away. And did I say a one-way fare is only five bucks?

"MGM" stands for "Monorail? Get Marching." Some other stations are in less-than-central locations. The MGM Grand station is also in back of that mega-hotel.

A long walk from the platform to the Strip through MGM prompted my pal Eric Henington from Chicago last year to observe, "You need a monorail to get to the monorail."

Red lights are optional. Don't take my word for it. Just count how many cars keep barreling through an intersection, long after the light goes red. Be sure to bring an abacus and body armor.

And no annoying "red light cameras" here. They're illegal in Nevada! Really. Likewise, we won't tell you when to quit boozing, gambling or whatever else you're into, sicko.

Have a swell time, hoopheads!

If you have a question, tip or tirade, call the Road Warrior at 387-2904, or e-mail him at roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com or OSofradzija@reviewjournal.com. Please include your phone number.