Long day, yesterday. Throat hurts. Feet sore.
Good times.
Lots of meetings, and lots of cool stuff in the works. Met lots of cool distributors, and heard groovy things back about Dork Storm releases.
The Riviera’s convention floor is pretty amazing, and the wireless access is great (though it still costs ten bucks a day to get it in your rooms). Though poorly laid-out, most rooms are a heck of a lot closer to the convention floor than they were at the Orleans, where the GAMA trade show used to be held.
The Orleans convention floor was pretty awful: a hockey rink with a wood floor hastily placed over it. Though an older hotel, the Riviera’s trade floor is miles better.
But I fear this first Riviera GTS may well get slagged off by the average manufacturer.
Why? Three words: The Alligator Bar.
The Alligator Bar was a place at the Orleans where you could wander off to, knowing that there’d be someone interesting from the show to hang with at pretty much any hour of the day or night. Though the Margaritas were poor, many were free thanks to the Orleans Fun Pack. Alas, alack, there are no free drinks in the Riviera Fun Pack, constituting a gross misuse of the word “Fun” by any standard.
The Alligator Bar had tables where you could just sit and yak and laugh and hang. You could even do business there, if you were feeling wacky. No such location at the Riviera even comes close to providing those essentials for any gathering of gamers: drinks, seats, tables, space and ventilation.
“Where do we go drink?” is the question that seems most asked at the show this year.
“Nobody’s figured that out yet,” comes the standard reply.
I never thought I’d hear myself say that I miss the Alligator Bar, but I do.
*****
Rather swell party thrown by GenCon at the Venetian’s Vivid Club last night. I love Peter’s parties, mostly because I am afforded the opportunity to get into the kind of cool, trendy, swishy clubs I’d never be let into in a thousand years, otherwise. Many great shirts were on display (’twas the theme for the bash), and the I escaped at the sane hour of 12:30 am (which, to my midwest mind, still felt like 2:30 am), once all the best Go-Go dancers had gone.
What’s that, you say? Go-Go dancers?
Why yes. Along with tremendous Cosmopolitans, the Vivid had a Go-Go dancer competition.
It was less the innocent, quasi-Mod Go-Go dancing I remember from Laugh-In repeats, which is hard to do to Eminem. No, this was a more violent, erotically charged thing altogether. Indeed, a couple of the dancers looked like they were missing their poles.
“Vegas,” sighed Ken Hite, wistfully. “Combining the two things I love – Capitalism and Sin.”
Tonight, a printing company is throwing a party at Quark’s bar.
Good times.
*****
Anybody know where I can scan in a cartoon here in Vegas?
Preferably someplace close to the Riviera?
Go-Go dancers need not be present.
*****
Up $14.25 in Double-Down video poker.
Good times.
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