2Tone Vegas Trip Report #18 - CES/AVN, low poker content, porn stars, low-rez pics

[2Tone]

Two Vegas trips in two months in one too many. But CES came just 30 days after the Vegas marathon, and with work covering my expenses, I was back on a plane to Vegas.

I flew down Thursday night, arriving around 7 p.m. Since I didn’t get the green light from my company for the trip until pretty late, I was stuck on Southwest Airlines, and staying (again) at the Imperial Palace, way overpaying for both. And, this being a business trip, I was without my crew of friends.

On the way to dinner I swung by the Bellagio poker room, which was busy, though Bobby’s Room was empty. I ate at the Bellagio buffet, which, as always, was good, if pricey. Some of the seafood was a little dry, but I can’t complain about unlimited and very tasty tiramisu.

After dinner I set out in search of a limit game. None to be found on a Thursday night at Caesars. None to be found at Bally’s. The consensus is that any Vegas 1/2 NL game is soft, and it’s pretty sad that I’m not confident enough in my NL cash game to play. But past experience shows that soft as they may be, they are not soft enough for me. If I can’t find limit, I’m going to punch my own weight at the .50/$1 game at Bill’s. Now this one I can beat, and won a small amount simply by playing as straight forward as possible.

I had to be up early for conferences on Friday. And by now I have my up-early the next day Vegas routine down, and it involves supporting some of the very same hard-working ladies I had seen on my last trip. It is my pleasure to be contributing to the Vegas economic comeback, one cold domestic light beer and lap dance at a time.

Friday was spent most spent in conferences, with limited time to walk the floor. While the most weren’t anything all that exciting to anyone not in the field, I did attend a one amazing session about “the artist as an entrepreneur,” with panelists including Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse , executive producers and writers of “Lost,” and Shawn Ryan, creator and writer of “The Shield.” For my money these are two of the best written shows ever to air on television, and it was fascinating to listen to them describe the process. Afterwards, I got a couple minutes to chat one-on-one with both Lindelof and Ryan, which for a media geek like me was pretty thrilling. Lindelof joked about the famous “Lost numbers” showing up the recent mega Megamillions drawing. I was amused/surprised to see how much Ryan resembles Michael Chiklis/Vic Mackey.

After a long day of sessions on Friday, I treated myself to shave at the Art of Shaving in Mandalay Bay. I’d never had a straight razor shave before. While they bill it as very soothing/relaxing, I wasn’t able to really relax until after the blade was away from my neck. Still, all in all, it was a very pleasant indulgence, and I was pleased with the end result. To borrow a Ludacris phrase I’m “half man and half gorilla,” walking around with a 5:00 shadow by half past three. I hadn’t had my face that smooth since I was 11.

Friday night I checked out the Cosmopolitan, the newest hotel in Vegas. It’s a large, elegant space, full of high-end shops, restaurants, and a hot new nightclub. Their buffet was cheaper and better than the Bellagio, offering small plates of all kinds of great stuff.

I wandered over to the Mirage, which was spreading a surprisingly tight $3/$6 game, but I was able to eke out a small win. Around 10:30, I got in line for Jet, armed with a free pass. A half hour later I was in, and had a surprisingly good time, dancing to a good set of house and hip-hop, amidst an upbeat, friendly crowd of all types.

Saturday I had more time to walk the floor. Among the coolest stuff …

A treadmill with a large video screen hooked up to Google Maps, so you can virtually run anywhere in the world. The machine actually measures your pace/distance and display progress accordingly, so for example, it would be the correct number of miles around Central Park.

A printer that makes three dimensional renderings of any images in surprisingly good detail.

Alpline ski goggles with a built-in digital GPS display in the field of vision, including altitude and other measurements.

A 65” touch screen monitor.

Wireless power, used to light up cereal boxes on store shelf, run a blender from a kitchen counter, etc.

A number of cool solar applications, including a solar powered Iphone speaker/charging system.

And of course everyone had a tablet – there must have been a dozen varieties of them. The only one I really liked was from Samsung, and won’t be available for another six months – it has a full keyboard that slides out, and runs Windows 7, including Office – it was the only one I saw that I could see fully replacing a laptop.

Meanwhile, avoid buying a 3D-TV that needs glasses – they aren’t fully there with the no-glasses required models, but they were looking pretty good. Fuji had a camera that takes 3D pictures, which were gimmicky but cool.