Waiting for Guitar Hero World Tour, small line, big Vegas. Standing in line for the release of GHIV:WT at the lone Best Buy in town, that is participating in the midnight release.

Bite of Las Vegas

Las Vegas is known as a party town, they feature a lot events as one might expect from a major city.

However, some of the execution is less than optimal. Events can be a let down compared to many of the San Francisco Bay Area events that I have attended in the past.

Of course, our memories are hard to surpass, so we will get with the present.

BOLV 08, the music, food festival of Las Vegas featured many local restaurants and some fine bands, headliners incluced Puddle of Mudd and Lifehouse.

We arrived to POM playing and they were good, definetly going for crowd participation. Our long wait in the beer line was accompanied by their "tribute" to AC/DC, doing a cover of TNT. That was cool, especially on the cusp of the Black Ice release.

They were followed by Lifehouse, whom seem to frequent LV and the events of the sponsoring radio station. This is the third time I have had the chance to see them play life in LV and they are certainly a guilty pleasure band of mine. Their set started with a number of lesser know, but excellent songs. They were excellent as always, becoming a consistent band that flys under the radar for the most part.

Food wise, it was unimpressive, the problem with the LV bite event, is that too many fast food / chain restaraunts participate. Pizza Hut, really? Really? Panda Express, Fuddruckers, and a number of other places that, I am not thinking oooh, I need to sample their food. We kept our sampling light as we arrived late in the day and went more for the music then the food.

We did have some greasy but awesome lumpia's from a local place, oh but they were good. Other than that, I did not sample any food, nothing caught my eye and even late in the evening the lines were long.

We settled on hitting our local brewpub for a late night snack after we left the event. There I had some lovely beer cheese soup and we snacked on an assortment of brats and the most delicious saurerkraut ever. Washed down with a lovely Big Dogs IPA, excellent meal but for our overly obnoxious waiter who so busy trying to upsell us everything under the sun, that he did not see to our needs. Oh well it was his tip.

LV Renfair

Otherwise known as The Age of Chivalry blah blah blah, some other crap, whatever. We attended renfair last Friday afternoon and I failed to post my blog from there, may have been the whole being in costume thing. It really doesn't allow for easy phone usage, or eating or drinking or movement of much kind, such is costuming.

Although we missed last years event, we have been going fairly regularly for the past 5 years. As the fair grows, it turns more into a cross between renfair and San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair. It is more BDSM and less SCA, oh and almost as many damn Captain Jack Sparrows as there are at SDCC.

At any rate, we had a fun few hours, the weather was good for being in costume, not so much if you were in normal Vegas gear, shorts and a tee. It was windy, a bit chilly and dusty, could have done without the dust.

We had some fine Rogue Ale and Stout, purchased a new hat and very tasty Scottish meat pie. Ran into a few friends and aquaintances, and quickly headed it out before dark. Not much more to say about it, just another weekend in Vegas.

NOT @ Blizzcon

In a perfect world, I would be typing this out from Blizzcon. This however is far from a perfect world we live in and dreams do not always come true. Unable to secure tickets to Blizzcon, I am sitting at home, at my computer typing this while I listen to, try to listen to the opening ceremonies on a choppy audio stream. My phone is a chippering away with endless Twitts from the WOW podcasting & blogging community. A community I continue to build towards becoming part of, yet fail miserably doing so, since they are all in Anaheim and I am in finally pleasant (temperature wise) Las Vegas.

I will get to do an awesome live blog from the fabulous Las Vegas Renfair this evening. Until then I will continue to QQ in my blogs and Twitts and try to follow the action online.

NME Final Day or Maybe Felicia Day

Final day of the New Media Expo and we are just saying goodbyes to the folks we met. Also picking up some swag, which as usual is easy to pry. Vendors don't really want to haul it back to there far corners of the world.

Pretty quiet over all today, we see Felicia Day wandering around getting a lot of attention... again. Just couldn't find a good reason to talk to her, and wanted to let her have some peace.

We were quickly distracted by being cited, once again on the WOW Insider Show podcast. We listened in live on my phone.

So we headed out, and home to spend the rest of the day playing some Rock Band and watching some exibition football.

Coverville 500 & NME Friday Night

So we continued our Twitter stalkings @ the New Media Expo. On a side note, Twitter is really the ultimate stalking tool, and we made full use of it, following the Twits to the Rev3 party at the Doubledown Saloon. On another side note, the DD Saloon is the biggest dive in Las Vegas, in what the locals, at least the gay locals refer to as the Fruit Loop. It's small block that is mostly full of gay / lesbian bars and business, the DD Saloon is not one of those. I grabbed a beer there and watched Felicia Day completely pool shark Veronica Belmont. It was pretty funny.

Not much else to do there, it was standing room only and everyone was enjoying the relatively fairly priced alcohol. Hopefully the rest of the crowd enjoyed more than I did because, at the concert the bar prices were outrageous. Now I realize that the Casino is mostly to blame for the prices at the concert, but c'mon. I get an Anchor Steam at the DD for 4 bucks, but it's gonna cost me 9 bucks for a Corona @ the concert. CRAZY shit.

Other than that, the concert was great, but I could have done with a little shorter sets. The Dr. Whatchamacallit guy skit went on a bit long, the suicidal lyrics chick with her guitar was pretty depressing. Jonathan Coulton was awesome, Chance and the Choir showed promise, but at that point we were way to tired to stick around for Richard Cheese. So we missed all the drama from that part of the concert, which I won't further discuss, because it's been talked to death.

I got to briefly stalk Randy Deluxe from The Instance and let him know how much I enjoyed the podcast. Figured it was my last chance to get in a hello since, Saturday at the show as a relatively slow and short day. He was very nice and introduced himself formerly, I really wish I had more time to chat with him and some of the others (NotPatrick) from that group.

Also got to watch Felicia do her crazy little dance around the ballroom, not that we were ya know, stalking anyone or anything like that. Yeah ok, so concert, guess that is about all I have to say, good job Brian Ibbot on the concert.

Kill All Pirate Pink Pigtail Gnomes

So apparently wacky table neighbors are easy to find in Vegas. They have pink hair, think they are a pirate and apparently drink their hubbies under the table.

They are also obnoxious, loud and drunk. But I will let the picture speak for itself.

Borgsphere

So we popped over to the Hilton to get some late lunch. We have been plied with drinks today and why stop now, it's a con. That means drinking in the circles I run with.

So we wandered into the Star Trek area and decided to eat at Quarks. First up the lovely melon Borg sphere, it bubbles, it smokes and apparently attracts Klingons.

The place is pretty crowded, apparently there is an Everquest con here or some such thing. Also with the Experience shutting down everyone is getting in a visit.

Time to eat.

New Media Expo

So we survived the Joan Jett concert and awoke to find the out the encouraging news about additional Blizzcon tickets. You can read more about that on my gaming blog, Rally's Gaming Notes, regarding that entire fiasco.

After breakfast we made our way down the strip to the convention center to the 4th annual New Media Expo.

First impressions, these people like to talk. First stop outside of the exhibit hall was the hospitality suite for podcast-tuneup.com. They treated us to Jackson Hole Soda and cool swag.

Second impression, being at the convention center when it isn't CES and not crowded... damn Comic Con needs to move here.

We are heading back to up there for the one pm podcast demo, should be fun.

Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

So here is my pool side live blog from the JJ concert. Only in Vegas baby... more later.

Defcon Sunday & Postop

So I did not get around to posting yesterday, so I will one shot it here. If I had to describe Defcon in one word, that word would be Beer. There was beer everywhere, everyone it seemed like, was drinking at all hours of the day. At least the hours I attended. Which is cool, I love beer, but it just made me want to drink and I had to limit that participation.

At any rate, I hit a few panels on Sunday, "Mobile Hacking Spaces", "Internet Wars 2008" and "Hacking the Internet, No Really". All of them were very interesting, ok so the first one was not all that interesting from anything other than a curiosity stand point and was thusly attended by the small crowd I had seen all weekend.

The Internet Wars panel / debate was quite lively and interesting, made more interesting by the presence of beer and Dan Kaminsky. The biggest drawback of this panel, as well as all the others, was the lack of microphones for audience questions. The beers this panel was handing out for good questions, however, encouraged folks to walk to the stage and use a mic up there to ask the questions.

The final panel of the day, running right up until the Awards / Closing Ceremony took place, was the technical panel on how the convention wireless network was highjacked and rerouted through a server in NY.

I decided to pass on the Closing Ceremony to have a night home with my honey and we watched a bootleg of Dark Knight. Thus closed my first Defcon, I will be better prepared for next year, to hopefully attend and get a much fuller experience from the con.

Mobile Breakdown

So my best-laid plans to blog mobile from Defcon were foiled by my phones not allowing me to log into my blog. I usually post via SMS messaging and then edit the post for grammar and better photos later on... However, I have since modified my phone and did not have the correct address to mail to and could not log in order to look it up. So my one drafted post got sent when I was home last night and nothing else.

Which brings me to the evolution of this blog and my audience of one. I would like to spend more time writing and less with the random one or two line off shoots. Of course part of that was the chaos of Comic Con, Defcon is a bit more mellow. Not as much happening at once, but still a lot happening. I will be spending the day there today and hope to have a little more of interest to write about then yesterday.

Tomorrow I will know whether or not we can successfully procure Blizzcon tickets and add that to upcoming events. New Media Expo is next week, but I will probably only be there on Thursday, have to work Friday and probably won't go back for Saturday unless something good comes up.

Possibly one other event between now and then, will have to see how I feel about doing a blog from that event, as I may not have a lot of my gadgets with me at that time.

So hopefully with the technical difficulties behind me, on with the show.

Defcon 16

Defcon has landed in Las Vegas and in a bout of spontaneous geeking out, I am here to cover it.

License plate in hand I am off to the "Taking Back Your Cellphone" panel to see what I can learn.

This place is packed with people and electronic devices. A few very amused tourists keep getting lost in the shuflfle of the crowds. It's like Comic Con stuffed into a much smaller venue. This is both exciting and makes me nervous about my having enough geek cred.

Surived the Con

So the 08 SDCC is in the books. There were some improvements over last year, but also a lot of the same mistakes. Such as, just because a bunch of unwashed 20 something masses camp out all night for a panel, does not mean that those of us who don't should have no shot at seeing that panel. That is until we get back and watch it on YouTube. In terms of swag, we kept it simple this year, and I have only spotted a few things on Ebay that I feel the need to procure.

All in all not a bad trip, but need to re-evaluate again next year. The crowd may have been relatively the same size as last year, but it always feels bigger.

SDCC Final Day

Would you dare to sit next to us?

Take Two

Enter next victims... boring couple are seatmates number two.

But it's all good because our buddy Mark is here so we are happy. And our new boy Colin and he now understands that "the hammer is my penis".

Life is good but they need to get us more interesting tablemates.

Ohhh My... Now you've gone to far

"Hey I remember you guys and I have been fired and hired again since."

anonymous waiter @ dick's

You know you are in trouble when they remember you. Also when your table mate starts wiping up salad dressing with cloth napkins.

Table Report

So first report, we have table mates. A browncoat, a bleeding fat man, the quiet one and the hand washer who thinks we are both cool and not @ the con.

At least two of them are drinking so that is a plus, they are moderately amusing and annoying at the same time.

More to come...

The Return

Dick's Last Resort, where else we would finish the weekend. Just settling in to people watch and have some frosty beverages.

Hopefully many pictures and blog entries to follow.

Sat Post Op

So Saturday night we kept it pretty mellow because we were all pretty wiped out. We had a few beverages on the veranda, shot some photos and just chilled.

It's Sunday morning now and we are all packed up and getting ready to head out for todays adventures.

First stop Seaport Village.

Stalking Happens

One of the more interesting, or boring, depending on your perspective, things that happens at cons, is running into the same people.

Someone catches your eye and you notice them time and time again. It happens.

So upon trying to leave Coronado Island (actually a peninsula), we were once again assaulted by the Plastic Wine Glass Witch tm and her evil league of evil golden girls, as they followed us to dinner.

BALLS

But dinner was tasty.

Around San Diego Update

Much water today not so much sun but that did not keep me from getting sun burnt. Bay tour, back to the hotel, ferry to Coronado and sipping over priced cocktails.

People watching the mundanes, they are every bit as freaky as the con geeks.

Especially Plastic Wine Glass Witch tm, watch out for her and her pack of followers.

FIX IT

Sooooo, I have a lot of problems with the organization at this year's Comic Con. We had some pretty bitter disapointments on Friday due to poor planning... and putting a warning on the web site that you need to get in line early for a panel does not constitue fair warning.

Case 1: Red Sonja on Thursday - We arrived for the panel to find it full and rather large line of people still waiting to get inside. We quickly scratched that off our list and bemoaned why it was in the very small 6cdef block of rooms.

Case 2: WOW Panel on Friday - Again in the dreaded 6cdef rooms, we arrived early to find the room filled to capacity and the line already capped. The line was longer than the amount of space in the room, and as they have been so gleefully rubbing in our faces all year, they are not clearing rooms in between panels.

Here is a free clue from me to SDCC, 10 million people play the game, perhaps a room with a seating capacity of greater than 1000 would have been more appropriate.

Case 3: Dr Horrible Sing Along - 6b even smaller than the others, 2000 people in line 3 hours before it begins. WTF, for a convention that is supposed to celebrate the pop arts, they know jack about what is popular and what is not.

When I have to miss three panels, because I didn't want to sleep overnight in a line to see one of them, it is time to make some drastic changes. Either stop selling so many damn memberships or move to Las Vegas. It's really simple, the con has outgrown San Diego.

Don't get me wrong, I relish coming to SD every year, I love it here. But this is the second year in a row where the event has been marred by poor planning, horribly long lines and throngs for rude smelly fan boys (and girls).

FIX IT

Bones

The Bones panel, was noticibly missing Emily Deschanel, but the rest of the gang was along for the David Boreanaz show. Anyone who saw him a few years back when they brought along the Bones pilot for viewing, knows how crazed the man can be on stage.

I think it would be really interesting to see him and Nathan Fillion on stage at the same time, that could be quite interesting.

They showed some extended sequences from the new season of Bones and discussed some of the hooks ups that will happening this season. Apparently everyone is going to be spending a lot of time in bed with various hook ups. Also Zach will be back.

Among DB's quotable's was the assertion that they should do a Some Like It Hot episode where
Booth needs to dress up in drag, because:

"I would look great in high heels"

Dr. Horrible

"Its actually shaped like a little hammer."

"I love you with my hammer."

The ever so quotable Nathan Fillion reigned over the Dr. Horrible panel. It was great to see the cast and creators. Joss is always a showman at CC panels and he surrounds himself with funny talented people.

Felicia got caught Twittering and apperantly Jed Whedon is the man behind the Dr. Horrible Twitters.

NPH also on hand got to play "straight man" to Nathan's constant barrage of quips. Including a lot of hammer references.

The soundtrack should be available in a couple of weeks. Also The Evil League of Evil is recruiting for the DVD.

Big Bang

Big Bang Theory Panel this morning, good highlight reel, boring panel. The cast was cute and had good chemistry but the moderator questions were a bore along with the usual self indulgent audience fare.



No real spillage on season two, just more of the same. More into Leonard and Sheldons backgrounds, learning more about the gang.



Picture later.



No love on the Joss / Dr. Horrible signing tickets, oh well. Quick bite to eat and off to the Dr. Horrible panel.

Day Two

Friday is on, breakfast at the pub. Then off to convention for day two. Today is Dr. Horrible day and whatever else we can squeeze into the day.

Last night finished out early, tonight we need to having a bit more staying power. Because the Dr. Horrible sing along is tonight at 10:45.

The hammer is my penis

And so it begins... our evening at Dick's Last Resort. The waiter steps into it early, and often. He asks what is with the hammer on my shirt. I Jossfully, faithfully answer...

"The hammer is my penis"

Felicia Sightings

We cut across the sails pavilion to hit the Red Sonja panel in the lower 6 spectrum. It was way over capacity and we were forced to jettison that from our schedule. We did get to see a few shots of Rose Magowan as RS.

Also along the way we passed a very frentic Felicia Day, finally escaped from the awful traffic and at the show. She had been twittering updates of her ordeal.

We grabbed a quick snack and headed down for the signing of the Guild DVD. Where we had our second Felecia sighting of the day. Got the DVD (purchased earlier that day) signed by Felicia and Jeff "Vokk" Lewis.

We chatted for a few minutes about WOW, her drive into SD and Dr Horrible, she was very sweet. Mentioned we would see her tomorrow and parted.

"Anything goes... and it did."

Torchwood panel, pretty freaking hysterical. John Barrowmen is hysterical, they all are pretty funny and engaging.

They just finished a deal to air Series Three on BBC America. They all really are into the show and seem to get along well.

So far no James Marsters questions, thankfully. However there has been way too much over sharing in regards to fan fiction.

It never amazes the length that some fans will go to in order to get a reaction or stand out. Right now the panel is singing tunes from Miss Saigon.

Panel should be wrapping up and off to Red Sonja.

Epic Poster Tube Fail

The idiots at the Fox booth created the traffic jam from hell by constantly shutting down their line and chasing people away.

As expected, the moment you turned your back they would begin letting more people in line. Finally someone as frustrated as I was called security and got the line opened up.

Also as expected they stopped giving out the item as soon as I finally got into the line. This kind of thing is one of the most frustrating aspects of the convention.

Into The Bowels

And so it begins...

Into the line for registration, not quite at Seaport Village, but close enough. Apparently some people were lining up last night, that is a bit insane.

But the line is moving and that is all that matters. We hope to have most of the moning to spend in the exhibit hall, gathering swag.

Lots of fun updates once this begins in earnest.

Day ZERO in the books

The Wonder Twins are already in bed and half asleep. So I suppose it is time to put the wraps on SDCC day zero.

At any rate, we have a long day ahead of us at the con tomorrow, so off to bed I go.

Dick's Last Resort

Our usual hang out, we stopped by for a night cap. Tamer than usual, but still pretty crazy, especially Red Satin Jacket Man tm.

Some geeks are cool, but some just need to be left in their cages.

Rockin' Baja Lobster

Having a few cocktails and dinner at the Rockin' Baja Lobster. Another great place to eat and sit outside enjoy the weather.

@The convention center

Just landed at the convention center, hopped the shuttle over and now walking downtown for dinner.

Already pretty crowded but not nearly as bad as it will be tomorrow...

the train just broke down in front of us, wonderbar.

Nap time is over...

Just finished up a power nap and time for a few drinks and make a decision on dinner. Fish, we are thinking... plenty of choices. Think we are leaning towards Rockin Baja Lobster for some buckets of grub.

Elephant & Castle

Settled into the hotel, stopping for a meal at the pub attached to the hotel. After that it's anyone's guess as to what we will get ourselves into.

Just chilling for the moment, having a pint.

Touchdown San Diego

The breeze, the mild temp, we must be in San Diego. Ahead of schedule and in one piece, now fingers crossed for an early hotel ceck in.

Fabulous Barstow

No not really, expensive gas, expensive fast food, we are definetly in California now. Pictured is the Barstow train station McDonald's thingy where we grabbed a quick snack after gassing up the vehicle and Storm getting her nicotine break.

Not much exciting there just some homeless bumming smokes from Storm... and a lot of bees. Did not even buy any scratchers from the convience store, maybe on the way home.

We are hoping to land at the hotel noonish, we are just getting started.

Zzyxx

The first of many fabulous sights to see on the drive from Nevada to California... the famous Zzyxx road.

My travelling companions and I are just chatting about past road trips as we close in on Barstow. My companions being my girlfriend Storm and our good friend Rainee.

We are currently being visually assaulted by a slew of Ron Paul for president signs amongst all the tumbleweeds.

Next update from Barstow.

On the road

Quick stop at the ole Starbucks and hit the ole road and leave the desert behind. We are on the road for the next sixish hours, the trek from Vegas to San Diego.

We just crossed the border into California, woot.

Last bit of packing...

While they certainly have grocery stores in San Diego, it is sometimes easier to bring the neccessities along for the ride.

That is why all the important packing comes right before we hit the road.

Dr. Horrible Swag

A couple hours before I found out the California Browncoats would have shirts for sale, I had placed an order with Jinx.com.

Just means I get to show off my spiffy new shirt at dinner tonight, gotta love the self portrait...

Also picked up another shirt for the con on Friday, and one for Storm. Friday is pretty much Dr. Horrible day @ the con. Joss and the cast will be there, Neil, Nathan and Felecia.

Check it out on Itunes if you missed it last week.

The clowns have arrived...

Apparently the clowns are my two travelling companions... the vacation is officially on.

We aren't in Cali yet...text n drivin

Faster than a speeding bullet, racing home to finish up packing. Beer run, cat food run, then chilling for the rest of the evening.

Last hour of work - SDCC Countdown

This is about the only thing to carry me over and into vacation... I about lost it when my boss was singing to "Send in the Clowns" in his office.

The last two hours of work before vacation truly are hellish. *-(

Countdown...

Here we go, I have set this up to kick off my mobile blogging starting with San Diego Comic Con this week. At the moment I sit at work waiting to get the HELL out of here and home to finish packing and prepping for the trip.

Going to start mobile posting from my phone, as I try desperately to survive until 5pm PST without losing my mind.