Las Vegas: For the first day this trip, I haven’t had any issues with data on my phone. This is likely due to the fact that the vast majority of the CES attendees are gone, so all the precious wireless frequency is free to be consumed by me. I’m not sure if AT&T could have really solved the problem with more towers because I think there comes a point that only so many phone are going to work on such a small amount of space.
I’m doing a Vegas post because when we land in Seattle it will almost be 11:30, and that’s just not going to work posting wise considering that I have to drive back to my house. The only thing I know about this next week is that I’ll be in Seattle for all of it. I think there might be one day of reduced (or no) work, but that requires me to look at my calendar to conform which is slightly inconvenient at the moment. I think answering that question can wait a few more hours without any negative impact.
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Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: Like they did at SXSW last year, Microsoft has some free shuttles running between the various hotels and the convention center that are wrapped in Bing branding. Apparently their campaign for this is to encourage everyone to “Get Bing on Your Thing”. I can already say that I have Bing on all my things, so while the message might be irrelevant to me, the free shuttle rides definitely aren’t.
The coolest thing of the day today would probably have to be a triple monitor, ASUS/Nvidia, passive (or at least no cable going to the glasses) 3D setup that actually shifts the 3D image as you move your head around. Don’t get me wrong, the room thing yesterday was extremely cool as sort of a concept idea, but this could actually be purchased and made a part of my setup. Granted, there are numerous other things that would be higher on my purchasing list, but it’s at least cool to have something on there at all.
Oh, and before I forget, go Seahawks!!!
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: So while I’d be more thn happy to tweet from the show floor, apparently Engadget and all the booths know a secret that I don’t as far as getting any sort of a network connection. Fortunately calling and texting seems to work fine, but good luck on doing anything “smart” with your phones. The situation at our hotel isn’t even really all that more stable, so I’m posting this from the Rainforest Café on the MGM Grand where we’re having a late lunch.
The coolest thing I saw today was probably a room of TVs in the Sharp booth so that as the video moved, you could look around and everything on all sides of you was changing. Aside from that we also had a group picture taken with the Messenger Buddy in the Microsoft booth and got driven around in a Bing shuttle. We saw all of about 20% of the show today, so tomorrow and Sunday we’ll easily be able to see stiff that we weren’t even in the vicinity of today.
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Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: Say whaaa? Another Las Vegas post? From the middle of the afternoon? But that can only mean… Yes, stalkers readers, I chose to volunteer to be bumped from my flight this morning in exchange for a flight later this afternoon and a travel voucher. Besides, my parents were going to be here until 3:00, so it wasn’t like I was going to be alone in the airport by myself, right? Not so quick, logic, because they did make standby on a flight that was essentially supposed to leave at the same time I was supposed to. So, they’re in Dallas, I’m on a 4:30 flight to Portland with a layover there before I eventually get to Seattle, and unless I want to pay for a taxi, there’s no way I’m getting home before midnight tonight.
If I was making this post from the comfort of my desktop in my apartment rather than my laptop in the airport, I would talk about how my calendar tomorrow is relatively empty, but since I do have an office now, I’m done working from home for the time being. In fact, I have something on my calendar every day this week, so having an office will be quite useful. What I wouldn’t be talking about is how I might be sleeping in a little longer than usual since I’m not going to be able to go straight to sleep as soon as I get home, but fortunately my first thing to do in the morning isn’t until 11:00.
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: The show we saw tonight I can’t actually type the name of, so I feel sort of bad for the people that had to do the marketing and promotional materials for it. The name is Le Reve (with the first ‘e’ in “Reve” having the carat-looking thing above it — in math, we’d just call it “e hat”), but fortunately my review of it is something that I can type. It was very good, similar to what I would have expected from O, and it definitely ranks higher than the show from last night. My score: 8/10.
I’m leaving Vegas early tomorrow morning (well, not early, 11:00), so effectively there won’t be anything going on tomorrow aside from waking up, checking out, and going to the airport. My return to my apartment might be longer than desired due to having to deal with a Sunday bus schedule, so we’ll see how that adventure works out. The worst case is that I’ll have to wait up to an hour, but we can hope that I’m not actually going to have to wait that long.
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: Before our show in the Luxor tonight (which inside looks quite a bit different from the last time we were these), I walked over into the Excalibur just to look around some before we needed to be seated in the theater. Now, this was the first Vegas hotel I ever stayed in, so it sort of embodies everything that Vegas is to me. Well, the staples like the entire floor of arcade and midway games are still there, but in this “kid oriented” hotel, I also discovered beer pong tables and dancing girls in bikinis that you could watch while playing blackjack. Maybe they feel they need to adjust their image some, but I just found those two things to be very unexpected in that hotel.
Criss Angel Believe was a show that I felt was suffering an identity crisis. While the magic was impressive, it was either a magic show with not enough magic or a Cirque show with not enough acrobatics. Definitely not my favorite Cirque show (of the Vegas ones at least), and not one that I ever feel like I’d need to go see again. It does, however, get points for being entertaining because the time went by extremely quick rather than feeling like the show was never going to end. My score: 6/10.
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: I may not be the card counting expert that I wanted to be by the next time I came to Vegas (courtesy of 21), but by making $50 on a little over an hour at a blackjack table, I think my skills are just fine. Now, do I keep gambling and risk my positive (for the moment) cash flow, or do I simply enjoy the shows for the remaining time here and be happy that I made anything at all? With two full days left I’ll probably continue to gamble some, but it’s a much different strategy after you’re already up rather than trying to fight to get back to even.
Our show tomorrow is A Cirque du Soleil production at the Luxor called Criss Angel Believe, and as far as I know, it’s what a magic show would be when done Cirque style. Due to the much nicer time zone arrangement this trip as opposed to my 21st birthday, I’ll actually be able to review the shows the same night that I see them rather than need to postpone my reviews until the next day (and post before going to that night’s show even). I doubt it will be able to out do KA, but then again, I doubt almost anything could.
Also, tonight might qualify for the most unoriginal, boring Thanksgiving dinner ever. Because my dad wanted to watch the Texas game, we cancelled our dinner reservations, and my parents and grandparents were just going to do something after the game was over. Well, I couldn’t wait that long, so I headed down and got a hot dog with potato chips. Yes, that’s right, my Thanksgiving dinner was a $9 Las Vegas hot dog. Either way, it was going to be something different than turkey, I guess.
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas: I’ve obviously spent most of my life in the Dallas area, now followed by Seattle. In third place is most likely Hot Springs considering how often we went to see my grandparents when I was younger, but my best guess for fourth place? Well, that would (surprisingly or not) have to go to Vegas according to my count. Yeah, with 12 or 13 trips here, I’ve probably spent close to a month in this city which would put it (as far as I can tell) in the fourth slot.
Vegas doesn’t seem like a city that shuts down for Thanksgiving, so I’m sure there will be plenty to do tomorrow during the day (aside from gambling, that is). One of my Vegas staples is actually available to me in Seattle now (eating at Fatburger, and it’s quite convenient for me even), but it will probably be the locale for lunch tomorrow. Dinner tomorrow might be a very interesting affair, so tomorrow’s post is very up in the air right now as far as it’s tone goes.
Las Vegas, Personal - Seattle
Las Vegas, 5:15 PM: Tonight (or tomorrow morning if you want to be picky) is when I’m catching my flight back to DFW so that I can go with the trainers down to Waco tomorrow. The current plan is that I need to be at HP at 7:30, so assuming everything is on time, I should have enough time to actually go home first before heading to the stadium. This will allow me to put up my AIM away message like I have all season long summarizing whatever game I’m at. Hasn’t let us down so far this year, so why break the pattern?
KA last night was a completely different show from Spamalot but still amazing in its own way. You have to wonder who at the Cirque offices thought, “Hmmm… we should make a Cirque with vertical fighting!!” Best Cirque I’ve ever seen, and I’d go back to see it again even. My score: 9/10.
Tonight is David Copperfield, the last of our shows. The reason I put this one at the end is because I figured it was the safest bet, but after having seen our first two shows, this one may ironically end up being the least impressive. I’ll post about it tomorrow after I get home from the game since that should probably be around 10:00 (Dallas time, not Vegas).
Las Vegas, Personal - Dallas
Las Vegas, 3:50 PM: Yes, an even earlier post today. We’re going to eat at 5:00 and then have a 7:30 show, so I figure that waiting until after the show again could have ill results. In fact, had I waited last night, I wouldn’t have been able to make a post by midnight Dallas time.
Spamalot was much better than I expected it to be. It used a couple of very well known Monty Python scenes (or maybe just lines, not sure), but considering that I don’t really like the movies at all, Spamalot was a welcome surprise. I chose to schedule it for the first night since I didn’t want to have it at the last and potentially end on a bad show, but I definitely think it’s a contender for my favorite show of the trip. My score: 9/10.
Tonight our show is KA at the MGM Grand, so my review of it will come tomorrow afternoon. This will be I think the 4th Cirque du Soleil show I’ll have seen, the first ones being Mystere (here in Vegas at Treasure Island), Dralion, and Varekai (both in Dallas on tour at Fair Park).
Las Vegas, Personal - Dallas