WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters’ Notebook

IF THERE IS A CONSTITUENCY IN NEVADA THAT WEARS SUNGLASSES IN THE DARK and enjoys dry toast and hot jams, Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd is aiming straight for it.

At the opening of Dodd's Las Vegas campaign office last week, a white board in the main room was taken up by a well-rendered drawing of Jake and Elwood Blues, the Chicago duo played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in a movie this reporter has seen at least five times and can quote at some length.

Above the Blues Brothers was written: "We're on a mission from Dodd."

MOLLY BALL

DODD WAS ON HAND FOR THE OPENING OF THE OFFICE, and one of the first things the Connecticut senator did was bear-hug former Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan, who was there to see his old friend and colleague.

Opening his suit jacket, Bryan revealed that a pen had leaked in his shirt pocket, leaving a large black stain. He blamed it on Dodd.

"I had an explosion here," Bryan said. "I got so excited when they said you were coming, I just lost control."

MOLLY BALL

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "He's huffing from a can of Instaflate, and he keeps passing out. Then he gets up, does it again and passes out."

IT "APPEARS PROBABLE," ACCORDING TO A NEW YORK BOND RATING FIRM, that the Las Vegas Monorail will end up in financial default. Officials with the rail system shrugged off that assessment last week. But if the pessimists are right, someone will have a big ol' train on their hands. Here are a few suggestions for what should be done with the monorail should it go belly up:

• Sell it to former Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren, who makes it street-legal and uses it for shopping trips to Albertsons.

• Convert it to Monorail Museum, with archival stories and footage about its pending collapse. Expansion becomes necessary.

• For a small fee, disgraced former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny helps get it turned into the world's first fully mobile CVS pharmacy.

• Sell it for spare parts to EuroDisney.

• Convert it to the nation's first strip club on rails. (Poles already installed).

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE A CEREMONY FOR 80 COUPLES SIMULTANEOUSLY exchanging vows in a Texas Station conference room on 7/7/07 any more romantic?

As the minister began reading the vows on that lucky date, his cell phone went off.

"There's my phone. How do you like that," he said as he fumbled in his pocket. Taking a look at it, he said, "There's a little heart that comes up so I know it's my wife."

He had just restarted the ceremony when the phone went off again. "We're going to have to have a talk about this," he said.

DAVID McGRATH SCHWARTZ

TOWERING ASSEMBLYMAN HARVEY MUNFORD, D-LAS VEGAS, MAKES EVERYONE LOOK SHORT, even Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Posing for photographs with Munford, who had just agreed to endorse him at an appearance Friday in Las Vegas, Obama observed, "The only problem with this picture is, everybody's going to think I'm only, like, five-(foot)-six."

MOLLY BALL