Here are two items hot off the rumor mill and courtesy of a very reliable source …

Did Phil Ruffin’s sudden decision to pull out of a long-in-the-works $1.2 billion deal to sell the New Frontier to El-Ad Development seem a little, well, crazy? It could be crazy like a fox. Why sell to El-Ad for $1.2 billion when you could get $1.78 billion from Steve Wynn? (Which, if you’re keeping score, would bring the per-acre price of the New Frontier to an astronomical $51.6 million per acre.) Apparently, Wynn made an offer to Ruffin, which probably explains why Ruffin canceled his planned trip to New York, euphemistically saying his El-Ad deal "fell apart."

Speaking of escalating land values, Vegaseye.com has been reporting (second item, "W is for Weary") that the long-dormant W/Edge Group/Las Ramblas acreage may soon be sold at $15 million an acre. Our source adds another piece to the puzzle, saying that the new owners of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino — Morgans Hotel Group and a subsidiary of its banker, Credit Suisse — are the would-be buyer. Since $15 million/acre would be nearly double the going rate on Harmon Avenue and because Morgans has a history of overpaying for Vegas assets, it all makes sense.

By the way (and not that anybody asked), but if the Las Vegas Monorail builds its planned extension, going eastward on Harmon from Koval to Swenson, isn’t that pretty much going to run a cart and horses through the hoary notion of a "Harmon Strip"? Given the claustrophobic feeling that one obtains when motoring along underneath the existing monorail line, it’s unlikely to do any wonders for enticing visitors down Harmon.