Gals glide, slide, whirl and twirl at Pole-a-Palooza competing for $10,000 prize. DJ Karma will be providing the soundtrack.

From the venue:

The Bank’s superlative Sunday night super-party sets the tone with the return of everybody’s favorite, Pole-A-Palooza! Gals, get ready to hit the pole and compete for the $10,000 prize! Resident DJ Karma is on hand to make sure the night rocks steady so come and unleash your pole princess at The Bank!

Miss America Organization

As we congratulate Miss Wisconsin Laura Kaeppeleron on being crowned Miss America 2012 Planet Hollywood in Vegas, we learned one thing – blonde is no longer in vogue … at least this year anyway.

All five of the top five contestants including Miss Arizona Jennifer Sedler, Miss California Noelle Freeman, Miss New York Kaitlin Monte and Miss Oklahoma Betty Thompson are all of the non-blonde persuasion. While blondes do have more fun, maybe the seriousness of the economy and all of the other crap in the world had judges join Team Brunette.

Laura performed “Il Bacio” during the talent portion and even won the talent portion of the unaired, first-night preliminaries. Other prelim winners were Miss Utah Danica Olsen (fitness), Miss Oklahoma (talent), Miss Texas Kendall Morris (fitness), Miss New York (fitness) and Miss Hawaii Lauren Cheape (talent).

In addition to winning the title, Laura won a $50,000 scholarship and will travel 20,000 miles each month raising awareness for her charity Circles of Support – which mentors kids of jailed parents – and the Miss America Organizations platform partner, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Should she not be able to fulfill her duties, Miss Oklahoma is on deck and will takeover as first runner-up with Miss New York in the hole (to continue the baseball analogy) as second runner-up.

Memphis at Spearmint Rhino

Vegas strip clubs often get overlooked for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Maybe it’s because they don’t package and promote New Year’s as an event – they should.  They could bring in some famous strippers for a special performance which would certainly bring in more folks than Scott Disick. And hell, even if you didn’t didn’t want to lean on the celebrity crutch, boobs kind of sell themselves.

Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club is having a performance by Tone Loc. Not sure that’s what we’re going for, but we’ve heard ‘Wild Thing’ in strip clubs a million times all over the world so it’s not that much of a stretch. It’s a start.

If you don’t want to hang out with celebrities on The Strip and looking for just a plain strip to ring in the new year, here are your best bets.

On the opposite end of the celebrity/talent spectrum, you have Stevie Wonder performing live at the Cosmopolitan on New Year’s Eve. Take the holiday out of the equation and it’s a special treat in and of itself. Ringing in the new year while Stevie WOnder performs, well, doesn’t get much better than that. Prices, as expected are well, kinda pricey, but includes the aforementioned Mr. Wonder and open premium bar.

On a programming note, with the street closures in preparation for all of the hoopla on The Strip, it’s recommended you get there as early as possible.

The show starts at 10:30PM so even if you’re in bed (or someone else’s bed) by noon, you should still be good to go.

2011 was a big year for LMFAO – their hits and beats kept on getting bigger and bigger. At last year’s party, everyone sang along to ‘Shots’ and the modified ‘I’m In Vegas Bitch.’ This year, ‘Party Rock Anthem,’ ‘Sexy and I Know It’ and ‘Put that A$$ to Work’  will be added to the neon campfire sing-alongs.

DJ Air and DJ Homicide will be bookending the show, respectively.

Freakin’ Frog near UNLV is targeting this specific demographic with a New Year’s Eve party that features no cover, live music, fireworks watching and free scotch, scotch, scotch, scotch. The ever-tasty Famous Grouse is fulfilling the free scotch portion of the evening while California bands Tall, Dark & 90 and Heroes Last Stand are fulfilling the live music duties. There are also whisky tastings including Louis XIII from Rémy Martin.

They’re pretty amped up about the hoopla on The Strip with one of the funniest emails we’ve seen in awhile. You can read the email below, but we advise against their advisement of avoiding traffic hassels unless you aren’t scotching it or have a designated driver.

Another Vegas New Years Eve. Insane traffic. Amateurs and tourists take over The Strip. Sky-high prices, to hang out with a million drunk Facebook friends.

Or not.

Freakin’ Frog’s got a great alternative. Great Music. Nice people. Free Scotch from Famous Grouse. And a terrific way to see fireworks, up close, without having some 30-going-on-17 arrested adolescent dump his drink (or worse) all over your shoes.

Vegas is getting a lot of new in 2012 and one of the high-profile launches is the infusion of So-Cal hotspot brand Hyde into the Bellagio. Hyde is ringing in the new with a black-tie grand opening on New Year’s Eve.

Hyde will bring some much-needed cache back to the Bellagio opening in the old Fontana spot featuring a Grand Salon, a Study and a Terrace overlooking the famed Fountains complete with a VIP booth suspended over the water.

You can still get tickets for the grand opening and at $300, they’re fairly cheap for a black-tie event. This is by far one of the best New Year’s eve events. You get to play dress-up, have a swanky New Year’s Eve and be a part of Vegas history, whatever that means.