WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters’ notebook

It is the cliche that will not die. It's like a zombie. It's like a dead rat inside your wall whose smell you cannot rid your house of no matter how much you clean the place with sweet-smelling and dangerous liquids.

"What happens in Vegas ..."

It is this decade's "If you build it, they will come."

Examples?

It appeared this week alone in news stories and blog posts about a Florida airline, Las Vegas CEOs and their big mouths, some kind of horse racing festival in Ireland (really), and -- we are not kidding -- a play about nuns in New Zealand.

Can it stop now?

This cliche has clearly jumped the shark.

RICHARD LAKE

A marshal working the security scanner at the Regional Justice Center suppressed his irritation with humor after a man failed to comprehend the obvious.

Marshal: "You have to remove your belt."

Man: "This belt?"

Marshal: "No. Orion's belt." The marshal pointed toward the sky then.

The comment drew laughter from everyone, except the man, who simply stared upwards like he had no idea what was going on.

DOUG MCMURDO

Parent Bob Cloutier hadn't heard of the new 15-minute video that uses computer animation to show geologic processes while hikers ascend Cathedral Rock Trail. But, to him, it sounds like a good idea and for a reason the U.S. Forest Service never intended. The video, downloadable to smartphones, is broken into nine segments played as hikers reach checkpoints marked by numbers along the trail.

While lagging 20 yards behind his three sons on the trail, he said, "It can give me a break without looking bad."

TREVON MILLIARD

TWEET OF THE WEEK:@SharronAngle (former state assemblywoman and U.S. Senate candidate): What else to say on @SenJohnMcCain? Elizabeth Drew quoted a Sen: "Dealing with John McCain is kind of like dancing with a cactus." #pricked