Back from Vegas…

What a weekend. As some of you might know, I went to Las Vegas over the weekend for the Midway Winter Gamers Day 2007 event. I’ll tell you a little about that in a second, but first… a new desktop (the old one wasn’t quite safe for public viewing, and I was going to be using the laptop in McCarran International Airport):

Anyway, we’ll move right along, and put this under a cut…

I arrived in Vegas on Thursday. After getting checked in and my clothes unpacked, I made my way over to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino for the Gamers Day event. After getting myself checked in and chatting briefly with Ed Boon and Shaun Himmerick, it was time for the actual presentation part of the event to start. To my dismay, they didn’t allow ANY filming of the presentations. It was just as well, as the presentation that was given for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Wii was the same video shown on GameSpot a few days before. Once that was done, I went ahead and got some game time in on Unreal Tournament 3, which turned out to be a damn fun game. I also got to play a few matches of the Playstation Network version of Mortal Kombat II, which was also fun. :-) Once I had gotten some food (Chinese and sushi… yum), I went upstairs and set up my camcorder and laptop so I could interview Ed and Shaun.

The interviews more or less went off without a hitch, although Shaun ended up mocking my rather complicated setup. (I’ll post later about that if anyone’s interested.) If you’re interested in viewing or listening to the interviews, you can download them from the news story on MK Online, located here. After I finished the interviews and packed my equipment back into my backpack, I went downstairs and took a bit of time to play some Stranglehold. That too was a pretty fun game, and I look forward to playing it. Once the event ended, we all headed back to the hotel, and then a good number of us went to the Rain nightclub in the Palms, in which Midway had reserved the entire second floor. After having some drinks, talking to some people, and brainstorming a bit for some possible future MK Online projects, I left with the others back to the hotel, and after watching Tim and Natalie try some gambling, went off to bed.

Friday morning was rather uneventful, other than getting some breakfast at House of Blues. I also started work on the interviews, working to turn them into MP3 files and Quicktime movies. The Ed Boon interview came off without a hitch. The Shaun interview… well, didn’t. During the import of the video, it got corrupted. Blah. By the time 4 PM rolled around, there was no way I was going to be able to get the Shaun interview video up, so I uploaded the MP3s of both interviews and the Quicktime video of the Ed interview. Heh, for all his laughing over my setup, it worked to my advantage. :-) (I had audio and video recorded separately). Later that night, I ended up going down to the blackjack tables for a bit. “For a bit” are the operative words, as less than 40 minutes later, I walked away $90 poorer. After getting some dinner from McDonald’s in the Luxor, I went back to my room and tried again to get the Shaun interview video working. I removed the old imported video and tried to get it synched with the audio… only to have the project file get corrupted. Meh. At that point, I gave up and went to bed.

The next morning, I went and got some breakfast at House of Blues. After that, I wandered around the casino a bit, and finally sat down at a blackjack table to see if my luck had improved. Nope. After 30 minutes, I had lost another $100. Smarting a bit, I went back upstairs for a bit to wind down. After napping a little, I went downstairs to get some lunch at House of Blues. (What? They have good food.) Once that was done I went to do a bit of shopping; Misty wanted a shot glass, so I got her a Criss Angel one. (No comments from the peanut gallery. That means you, Missy.) From there, I went back to my room, and went ahead and worked on the Shaun interview once last time, this time wiping out the entire project and starting over. This time, the video was imported without an issue, and I managed to get the audio synced with the video. After uploading it, I relaxed for a bit and kept an eye on the site and channel.

Finally, around 7 PM, I went back down to the casino, and looked for something to play. I didn’t feel like playing slots, and was not about to get raped by blackjack again. So, I decided to bite the bullet and do something I had always meant to do but never worked up the courage to try: I went to the poker room. I got seated at a 2-4 limit Hold Em table, and played for three hours. By the time I left the table and went back to my room, I was up $60. I’ll consider this a bit of a lesson: play poker, not blackjack. The money lasts longer and I know it much better. :-)

This morning was uneventful. I got up, packed, went down and had breakfast, and checked out of the hotel. I also got Misty a second shot glass before leaving. The flight back was uncomfortable, as I was in the row in front of the exit row and couldn’t recline my seat; in the meantime, the guy in front of me had his all the way back, making me feel like a sardine. Meh.

So, all in all, it was a very fun trip. I ended up being $130 down, but on the other hand I learned to stick with the poker room instead of playing blackjack. Now I just can’t wait to go back… not to mention can’t wait for Stranglehold and Unreal Tournament 3 to come out. In the meantime, though, I get to go back to work tomorrow and play catch-up. Fun fun…