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2012 NHL Hockey Playoff Predictions

April 8, 2012 Leave a Comment

Last year I posted my 2011 NHL Hockey Playoff Predictions, and I ended up going 7-1 in the first round. I came up with Vancouver playing Boston in the finals, but my finals prediction ended up failing. Still, a pretty good showing.

With the playoffs getting set to start on Wednesday, it’s time to give my predictions for this year’s playoffs. Everything after the first round is a bit of a crapshoot because of the way the NHL reseeds the teams before the next round. But, whatever… here we go:

Round 1 – Western Conference

Los Angeles Kings (8) vs Vancouver Canucks (1)

Last year I voted with my head when I picked my beloved Kings to lose to the Sharks. Well, this year, I’m going with my heart. I think Jonathan Quick is going to steal this series for the Kings.

Winner: Kings in 6 games

San Jose Sharks (7) vs St Louis Blues (2)

If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that the Blues would have been within 1 game of winning the Presidents trophy as the best overall team in the league, I would have ruptured something laughing at you. But, here we are. All I can say is, good luck Sharks. Wait, I hate the Sharks. It’s going to be fun watching them live up to their annual playoff disappointment!

Winner: Blues in 5 games

Chicago Blackhawks (6) vs Phoenix Coyotes (3)

The Coyotes goalie has been INSANE recently and I have a feeling the Blackhawks are going to have a tough time getting pucks behind him. Never bet against a hot goalie.

Winner: Coyotes in 6 games

Detroit Red Wings (5) vs Nashville Predators (4)

I think these are the two teams that nobody in the west wants to play right now. It’s nice that only one of them will make it through to the second round. Nashville is a gritty team and their power play is one of the best. Detroit is just getting back a bunch of healthy players. This is the series to watch in the west in the first round. It’s going to be a great one.

Winner: Predators in 7 games

Round 1: Eastern Conference

Ottawa Senators (8) vs New York Rangers (1)

Last year I picked the Rangers in the #1 slot to get upset by Washington. It was my one error in last year’s opening round. I made the biggest mistake. I bet against the hot goalie. Dumb. This year is different though. Lundquist isn’t standing on his head like last season. I think this is going to be a really tough, high-scoring series. And, as much as I’d like to say we’re gonna see another 8 knock off a 1, I just can’t.

Winner: Rangers in 6 games

Washington Capitols (7) vs Boston Bruins (2)

Tim Thomas has kinda come back down to earth after his amazing season/playoffs last year and Washington finished the regular season strong after playing pretty mediocre most of the year. But sadly for the Caps, they’re goalie situation is a mess.

Winner: Bruins in 4 games

New Jersey Devils (6) vs Florida Panthers (3)

Congrats to the Panthers for finally making it to the playoffs. Enjoy the next few games. They’re the only ones you’ll be playing in the playoffs this year.

Winner: Devils in 4 games

Philadelphia Flyers (5) vs Pittsburg Penguins (4)

Holy crap, it’s like Christmas in April. If you don’t already have a DVR, go get one. Now. These teams hate each other. This series should be the most entertaining of the first round. Hell, maybe of the entire playoffs. I know there’s not usually many fights in the playoffs, but I’m gonna say this series breaks that rule. Oh, and for my prediction, I’m going with goalies on this one.

Winner: Penguins in 7 games (man, I hope it goes 7 games)

Round 2: Western Conference

Kings vs Blues

The Kings played the Blues really tough this year. But, I still think the task may be a bit too big this time around.

Winner: Blues in 6 games

Predators vs Coyotes

I think the Preds are gonna wear down the Coyotes and score a bunch on the power play.

Winner: Predators in 6 games

Round 2: Eastern Conference

Devils vs Rangers

This should be a pretty fun series to watch. In the end, the Rangers are gonna be too much for the Devils

Winner: Rangers in 5 games

Penguins vs Bruins

Let me just say, I think this series is going to decide who wins the cup this year. I’m going to go with the Penguins to light up Tim Thomas for a bunch of goals. If I’m wrong and the Bruins win this one, you can switch my picks to Bruins to repeat.

Winner: Penguins in 6 games

Western Conference: Round 3

Predators vs Blues

This should be a pretty good series. I think it’s going to be a really close one. I’m gonna go for the upset here.

Winner: Predators in 7 games

Eastern Conference: Round 3

Penguins vs Rangers

The media circus around this series should be an absolute blast! How about this for a great finish: game 7, overtime, in New York… Crosby scores and immediately points at Tortorella on the bench who’s head explodes.

Winner: Penguins in 7 games

Stanley Cup Finals

Predators vs Penguins

You may not think so, but I think this would be a really entertaining final. In the end, I’ll have to go with playoff experience to come through.

The Champs will be: Penguins in 6 games

So there ya go. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Oh, and if you have your own predictions, leave ‘em here, too.

 

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2011 NHL Hockey Playoff Predictions

April 12, 2011 8 Comments

As a fan of the LA Kings, this has been a really entertaining season to watch. The Western Conference has basically been in ‘playoff mode’ for the past few months. For a while there were something like 8 teams separated by less than 10 points. Completely nerve-wracking as a fan. But also, completely awesome!

With the playoffs starting tomorrow, I wanted to put together a quick post about my predictions for this year’s playoffs.

Round 1: Western Conference

Vancouver Canucks (1) Vs Chicago Blackhawks (8)
It’s great that the defending champs squeaked in to the playoffs… The bad part is, they get to face the top team in the league. Sadly, the first round is all the Blackhawks are going to see.

Winner: Canucks in 5 games

San Jose Sharks (2) Vs Los Angeles Kings (7)
For the first time in history, 2 teams from California are playing each other in the playoffs. As much as I love the Kings, with their recent injuries and their recent lack of ability to score goals, I just can’t see them getting past San Jose. (I hope I’m wrong on this one!)

Winner: Sharks in 6 games

Detroit Red Wings (3) Vs Phoenix Coyotes (6)
The Coyotes are one of the most impressive teams this season. Finishing 6th in the West is a HUGE accomplishment considering they have only one player who scored 20 goals this season. Unfortunately for them, the Wings are a playoff hockey machine.

Winner: Red Wings in 6 games

Anaheim Ducks (4) Vs Nashville Predators (5)
With the Ducks in the playoffs, this marks the first time that all 3 California teams have made the playoffs in the same year. Both of these teams are tough, tough teams. I think these guys are going to beat each other up in a grueling series that I expect to see multiple overtime games.

Winner: Predators in 7 games

Round 1: Eastern Conference

Washington Capitals (1) Vs New York Rangers (8)
I think the Caps are a much better team this year than they were last year. They cut back on the run-and-gun style and play a much better brand of defensive hockey that should take them far… Unfortunately for them, I think they are going to have a difficult time scoring against the Rangers who’s goalie is an absolute monster. Upset time!

Winner: Rangers in 6 games

Philadelphia Flyers (2) Vs Buffalo Sabres (7)
This is a toughy. Philly is really strong, but in the goalie department, it’s hart to bet against Ryan Miller in Buffalo. If this was strictly a goalie game, I’d go with another upset here. But, I think Philly’s overall team is going to be too much for Buffalo to overcome.

Winner: Flyers in 6 games

Boston Bruins (3) Vs Montreal Canadiens (6)
How lucky are we that these two teams that hate each other SO MUCH [remember this hit?] get to play each other in the first round? Man I love playoff hockey! I think this is going to be the most entertaining series. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be a very long one.

Winner: Bruins in 5 games

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) Vs Tampa Bay Lightning (5)
Sidney Crosby missed 41 games (half the season) and still lead the Penguins in scoring. Makes you wonder where this team would have finished had be been healthy all season. Unfortunately for the Penguins, I think the’re going to get the opportunity to go hang out with Crosby pretty soon.

Winner: Lightning in 6 games

Western Conference: Round 2

Vancouver Canucks (1) Vs Nashville Predators (5)
I’m predicting a few lopsided victories in this one.

Winner: Canucks in 5 games

San Jose Sharks (2) Vs Detroit Red Wings (3)
I think this is going to be the best series of the 2nd round. And, I think this series is going to send the Sharks faithful in to a deep depression. Once again, their regular season greatness is going to come up short.

Winner: Wings in 6 games

Eastern Conference: Round 2

Philadelphia Flyers (2) Vs New York Rangers (8)
This should be another entertaining series, but I think the Flyers are going to prove to be too much for the Rangers and their goalie just isn’t going to be able to save their bacon this time.

Winner: Flyers in 6 games

Boston Bruins (3) Vs Tampa Bay Lightning (5)
I’ve been rooting for both of these teams all year (I had both goalies on my fantasy team), so this is going to be a fun series to watch (for me, anyway). I think Tim Thomas is going to steal the show this time around.

Winner: Bruins in 5 games

Western Conference Semifinals

Vancouver Canucks (1) Vs Detroit Red Wings (3)
I think this is a series that could easily see some games with scores like 5-4, 6-3, etc…

Winner: Canucks in 6 games

Eastern Conference Semifinals

Philadelphia Flyers (2) Vs Boston Bruins (3)
This is another series I’m really looking forward to. I think this may be a really physical series with a lot of bumps and bruises. I’ll go out on a limb and say the home team wins every game in this series… except the last one.

Winner: Boston Bruins in 6 games

Stanley Cup Finals

Vancouver Canucks (1) Vs Boston Bruins (3)
This isn’t about playing it safe. This isn’t about just riding the top team in the league all the way through the playoffs. But, Vancouver is a pretty amazing team. This season they scored the most goals (262) and allowed the fewest goals (185) of any team in the league. Curse of the president’s trophy be damned!

Skating with the Cup: Vancouver Canucks in 5 games.

So that’s my predictions. Agree with me? Think I’m crazy. Leave a comment and tell me who YOU think is going to win.

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A date with The Goonies

June 6, 2010 2 Comments
Celebrating 25 Years of The Goonies

In order to maintain your geek cred, there are a number of movies that are required viewing. The list is really long and won’t even begin to list them all here. One movie that most geeks will agree is on the list would be The Goonies. I am a tad bit embarrassed to say that I have never seen it. I feel shame.

I am not sure how I missed seeing it when it came out. But after that, it somehow had always slipped through the cracks. Last year when we had our 24 hours of movies marathon, Todd was going to bring it over, but got sick and missed the marathon. We scheduled another movie marathon earlier this year, but it got cancelled and has yet to be rescheduled. So, it’s not for a lack of trying, it just hasn’t happened. But that is about to change.

Thursday morning I received an email from Netflix letting me know that they had received the last movie I had sent back. About an hour later I received another email informing me that The Goonies is on the way. Since I had a flight to Chicago scheduled for Friday afternoon, I knew I wouldn’t be seeing the movie until I returned on Sunday evening. But then, something funny happened. Ryan sent the following tweet:

Celebrating 25 Years of The Goonies

So, it seems that my destiny was to see The Goonies for the first time on the 25th anniversary of its release. I have been looking forward to seeing it for a long time, but one more day won’t kill me.

See ya tomorrow, Goonies.

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Membership has its privileges: beer

April 12, 2010

When you live in Las Vegas, you tend to take some things for granted. Like having 24-hour access to world class dining and entertainment. The idea of “last call” is completely foreign to us. But on a recent trip to Texas, I ran in to something I had never had to deal with before; a dry county.

I am a big fan of several bands who frequently play in Texas. So as soon as we booked our trip, the next thing I did was check the tour schedules for the bands. At first I was thrilled when I found out all but one of the bands was playing in Texas the week I would be there. But then geography class came rushing back and I realized that “in Texas” didn’t mean “close to where I will be in Texas.” Luckily, Mickey and the Motorcars were going to be playing in Denton which was only 90 minutes away. So we headed out early and made our way to the Rockin Rodeo.

After stopping for some awesome BBQ at Rudy’s, we made our way to the bar, arriving at 8:00 exactly. The sign says the doors open at 8, and I’m surprised to find there is nobody there. The doors are locked and we have to wait about 10 minutes for somebody to finally open them.

We are greeted by the cashier. She asks for our IDs and $10 for the cover charge. Todd is first to hand her his ID. She swipes it in a machine, prints out a receipt and asks Todd to fill in his name, address and phone number. As he is filling it out, it dawns on him to ask, since we are paying cash, why would she need this information. She goes on to explain the following:

“This is a dry county, so in order for us to be able to sell alcohol, we are designated as a private club and to enter you need to become a member.”

OK, this isn’t the first time I have seen places bend rules to fit their needs. Hell, we have laws in Vegas that say you can’t smoke in places that serve food, but I know a dozen places where you could still ask your waitress for an ashtray. Even still, I found it entertaining that they were dancing their way through this loophole.

We were probably the only people in the club for the next 20-30 minutes. It finally started to fill up an hour or so later, and the opening band hit the stage. We noticed that several of the patrons had writing on the back of their hands. In big black marker it said “X-18″. We found out that the club isn’t restrict to 21 and over. People who are “of age” get a fluorescent green wristbands that let’s the bartender know it’s cool to sell you beer. While the youngsters get a marking that will last through a week of showers. I had to laugh when I saw one of these under-aged guys drinking a beer using the hand with the huge marking. I would think he would want to stuff that hand I’m his pocket while drinking the beer to keep from getting thrown out…

One other oddity about the club were the restrooms. I have been to sporting events were the restrooms have a trough that dudes line up at to take a leak shoulder-to-shoulder. But, if a place goes to the trouble to install urinals, I have become accustomed to having dividers between them. Not here.

The show was great and the place, oddities and all, was really pretty cool. I could definitely see myself going to another show there. Why not, I am already a member!

Filed Under: Entertainment

Viva Elvis review

January 10, 2010
vivaelvis.jpg

viva-elvis

On New Year’s Eve we had the chance to go check out the latest Cirque Du Soleil show, Viva Elvis. New Year’s Eve isn’t a day I would normally head down to the Las Vegas Strip since they close off the streets around 6:30 when the mayhem starts to happen. But, these tickets were for the 4:00pm show, so we figured we could high-tail it out of there and be back home long before the crazyness began. Lucky for us, that is exactly how it happened!

We left the house extra early since we were going to a brand new casino, on the strip, on New Year’s Eve. We figured we’d need extra time, and boy were we right. It took us over an hour to get from our house in to the valet parking at Aria. This drive should normally take us no more than 25 minutes. Once we were parked we headed inside. The new casino is gorgeous, of course. We made our way to the theater and quickly found our seats in the balcony.

A few minutes before the show started, one of the characters from the show walks through the crowd handing out prizes for correctly answering an Elvis trivia question, singing like Elvis or for giving your best Elvis lip curl. The fan interaction is always fun and I’m glad that aspect got added in to the show.

I’m not going to dissect the entire show, but I do have some constructive criticism I’d like to share:

First up, the stage/seating. In most of the Cirque shows, the stage itself plays a pretty big part in the show. If you have ever seen ‘O’, Mystere, Love or especially Ka, you know what I’m talking about. In some of the shows the people sit on all sides of the stage, in others the stage moves and contorts to change the dynamic of a scene. In Viva Elvis there are a few times where the stage has sections that raise or lower, but for the most part it’s flat and the audience is sitting all on one side like you were seeing a movie.

Next up, the dancing. If you ask people who have never seen but only heard about a Cirque show what they are all about, they’ll most likely tell you about the amazing acrobatics. This show has a couple acrobatic segments, but there are far more dance sequences than there are acrobatics. Not trying to take anything away from the amazing trampoline segment, but that’s a pretty small portion of the show compared to how many times you’ll see formations of dancers shaking their stuff. I’m not saying they aren’t good at it. But throw in some back flips or something. :)

And finally, the narration. Most of the Cirque shows tell a story or take you on a journey, but, they don’t necessarily do it with spoken word. They do it with creativity. In Viva Elvis they use an actor playing the part of Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’ manager. He walks in and out of scenes throughout the show walking you through the life of Elvis. I’ve always thought that Cirque shows were meant to be enjoyed universally no matter what language you spoke.

I certainly don’t mean to bash the show. We both enjoyed it and there are definitely some bright spots to be found. For example, the two drummers in the show are absolutely fantastic. The trampoline scene, like I said before, is great. I could have watched those performers for hours! They also have some great footage of Elvis that they intertwine with the show nicely.

I know the show is new and I write this hoping that they see it (everybody reads my blog, right?) and can make some edits to the show to make it awesome. It has a good base, it just needs some polish.

In my best Elvis voice, ‘Thank you very much.’

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2009 – a year in photos

December 31, 2009
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2009 was an awesome year for me. I did a ton of traveling, I met dozens and dozens of really great people, I learned a ton of new stuff and, in general, I had a really great time. When I sat down to try and write a recap, the only way I could really remember all the cool things I did was to go back through my blog archives and my flickr feed. Photos seemed like a lot more fun, so here’s a recap of 2009… with photos.

January – WordCamp Las Vegas

I was absolutely blown away be the response I got from putting together WordCamp Las Vegas. That smirk on my face is definitely me thinking, “Did I really just pull this off? Yeah, I think you did.” The success of that event is something that I’m very proud of and the list of people I would need to thank for their support would take too long so I’ll just say a collective ‘thanks’!

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January – Beer ‘n Blog

One of the best parts of running WordCamp was sparking the interest of a group of Las Vegas bloggers to get together on a weekly basis to talk tech over a couple pints. I think this was taken at the first event. We had nearly 50 people in attendance. What a blast!

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February – Twestival Las Vegas

One of the great things about social media is the ability to bring people together offline. When you tell people that they can come out and have some drinks and all the money goes to charity, well, I’d call that a no-brainer.

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February – Photo Safari Noobs

Take 4 guys, throw them and all their camera gear in an FJ Cruiser and point them towards Denver. Stop everywhere along the way that looked like it might make for an interesting photograph. That’s exactly what we did. It. Was. Awesome.

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February – WordCamp Denver

WordCamp was the thinly veiled disguise that we used in order to sneak away for the Photo Safari trip. Here we are at lunch with Micah Baldwin, Ben Huh, Austin and Jeanna  during a break at WordCamp. The lady in the foreground has kicked Todd out of his seat so she could get a photo with Micah because he’s awesome. Yes, we made fun of him for it.

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March – Redondo Beach

My family has owned and operated a fish market called Captain Kidd’s in Redondo Beach for the past 30+ years. I grew up working there and even after 10 years of eating there 5 days a week, it’s still my favorite place to eat. This is us with 4 generations of our family getting together for some seafood.

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April – WordCamp Reno-Tahoe

Yeah, I know. This isn’t a photo. But, it WAS the first time I got to stick a badge on my website that said I was speaking at an event. WordCamp Reno was one of my first public speaking events. I wasn’t as nervous as I was expecting to be. I am very appreciative of Colin Loretz for the invite to to speak.

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May – WordCamp San Francisco

The granddaddy of them all. WordCamp San Francisco. There were nearly 800 people at that event! It was so big that there were people there I was TRYING to find and wasn’t able to. That’s a pretty big event in my book. While we were there we took some time to play the part of tourists. We went to Alcatraz and the Height/Ashbury district, but can you believe that we didn’t get to see the Golden Gate Bridge? Next year, I guess…

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June – Paxton graduates

One of the proudest days of my life, that was. Watching my Son cross that stage as they called is name and handing him his diploma. That’s something I never did. I dropped out of school long before graduating. I don’t regret the decision I made all those years ago, but, I am sorry that my parents didn’t get to experience what I got to experience that day.

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July – Whuffaoke in a trailer park

When Tara Hunt decided to move cross country, she didn’t just pack her stuff and drive. No, she sent her stuff with some movers and she drove a Winnebego from one side of the country to the other stopping at very spots to bring karaoke to the masses. Thanks to some last minute changes of plan, we ended up singing karaoke in the RV park at Circus Circus in 115 degree heat. As crazy as that all sounds, we had a great, great time!

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September – Breakfast in Utah

Have you ever asked your spouse “Where would you like to go for breakfast tomorrow?” and have
her respond with a restaurant in a different state? Me, too. One Friday night we decided that having breakfast just outside of Zion in Utah sounded like a good idea. We got up early, threw the kids in the car and off we went. The best part is, we didn’t even go to Zion. We had breakfast and basically turned around and came home. This was a bench a stopped to photograph on the way back out of town.

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September – WordCamp LA

Lots of travel this month. We headed back to Los Angeles for WordCamp. We all crashed at my sister’s house and then spent Saturday on the Loyola Marymount campus which was really nice. The night before we introduced some friends to the family restaurant where we BS’d for hours. This photo was taken during Shayne’s presentation a few hours before I spoke at the event. I had plenty of time to get him back… but I’d save that for later…

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September – WordCamp Portland

Since moving to Las Vegas, I have said many times that I don’t think I could live anywhere else. Portland changed my mind on that one. I instantly felt like I fit in perfectly with the tech scene they have up there. When I mentioned that to some people back here in Vegas they reminded me that the sun comes out only a couple times all year up there… That may be an issue since I hate being cold… The move is currently on hold. This is a shot of the amazing streaming video that Portland provided. From what I was told, this was the best live feed of any WordCamp to date. Kudos to them!

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October – BlogWorld / WordCamp Las Vegas

Running WordCamp as part of BlogWorld was certainly not as smooth as I would have liked it to have been. But, for all the troubles, there were some really great sessions that came out of that event. One other great thing about the event was that Shayne was planning on attending. Time to plot my revenge. The shot below is a 9 foot tall, 8 foot wide mural we made out of Shayne’s avatar. We hung it on the wall in our photo studio and then had him drop by for a tour.

shayne2

November – WordCamp Phoenix / New York

Many months earlier I was offered the opportunity to speak at WordCamp Phoenix. I gladly accepted. A couple months later I was invited to speak at WordCamp New York. I accepted that, too. It wasn’t until I was booking airline flights that I realized these two events were on back to back days… nearly 3000 miles apart. I made both events but vowed to check calendars BEFORE agreeing to future events. And here’s a shot of the store directly next to the hotel we stayed at in New York.

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November – Jamaica

The internet access was expensive and terrible so we didn’t bother using it. The resort offered a bunch of activities but we didn’t take part in any of them. For the first time in I can’t begin to think how long, I did nothing. To borrow a line from the movie Office Space, “I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.” Even though we took the trip over the Thanksgiving holiday, this trip was in honor of my wife’s and my 20th wedding anniversary.

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December – Chicago

My company was kind enough to send me to Chicago for a conference. I can’t really blame them that the conference was scheduled for December in Chicago. I want to blame somebody, though. Look at that photo above… Now, look at the photo below. These were taken only about 10 days apart. This just isn’t right, folks. For the record, the day I left Chicago it was 4 degrees with a –18 wind-chill factor. :-/

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December – Holiday party

For the past couple years my company has really nailed the holiday party! No sit-down dinner needed. Just some snacks and an open bar at a club in one of the Las Vegas casinos. This year was at the Palms. We were responsible adults and rented ourselves a room so we wouldn’t have to try to drive. That turned out to be a good thing since there are parts of the evening that I can barely remember. That’s when you wake up and dread the “You were tagged in a photo on Facebook” notices… Thankfully, we didn’t have that issue… this time. ;)

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I’ve already got my camera ready to document 2010 as it unfolds!

Happy New Year!

- John

Filed Under: Entertainment Tagged With: ,

Blog World Expo: The Party Edition

October 22, 2009
shayne-mural

One of the greatest parts of any conference is the after parties. Have your conference in a town like Las Vegas and it’s not hard to imagine that the amount of parties available to you is mind boggling. We definitely did our share of partying, too!

Here’s what our weekend looked like:

Wednesday Night
Mural of ShayneWe had friends arrive on Wednesday, so after I went to the Track Leader Orientation, we all headed out for dinner and a nice long chat. We followed that up by surprising Shayne with a 8′ x 9′ mural of his Twitter avatar in our photo studio. If you ever want to make a mural yourself, let me tell you that this was 120 sheets of paper and 4.5 hours of cutting/taping/hanging. But it was worth it!

Thursday night
Ted Murphy & John HawkinsThis was the first official day of Blog World Expo. I spent a few hours at the convention center, but mainly just to meet up with and say hello to a few friends in from out of town. The fun began around 5:30 when we met up at Bar Louie for our weekly Beer n Blog meetup that was set to kick off the WordCamp weekend. We had a turnout of about 60 people including a few people I had beer really looking forward to meeting; TechnoSailor (Aaron Brazell) and Ted Murphy from Izea (pictured with me here). Both of which, as expected turned out to be really nice guys. After spending 4 hours downing Blue Moons with the group, we headed home to rest up for the marathon day we expected on Friday.

Friday Night
Jeep hitting beam in parking lotAfter a full day at WordCamp/Blog World, we headed out to the Hard Rock Hotel. You know it’s going to be a good night when you are pulling in to the parking garage and the guy in front of you is towing a Jeep on a flat bed and you get to watch the Jeep hit the “7′ clearance” sign followed by the next 3 concrete beams. Ahh, welcome to Vegas. (sorry the photo isn’t better on this one!)

Once inside the Hard Rock, we headed to the poker room where Blogs With Balls crew had organized a charity poker tournament for Ante Up For Africa. Pro poker player Annie Duke co-hosted the event and brought along a dozen big name poker pros to play in the tournament as well. Each table had 1 pro poker player and 1 pro blogger. They had put bounties on each of the pro bloggers, so if you knocked them out of the tournament you’d win a gift basket. I’m happy to say I knocked out our table pro and took home 7 xBox 360 sports games! We had a great time it was all for a great cause! HUGE thanks to Dan Levy for getting me and my friends in to the tourney and for putting on such an awesome event! Check out the video on YouTube.

Saturday Night
After WordCamp/BlogWorld ended it was time to strap on the party boots just one more time before sending everybody home. We started off hitting up the official BlogWorldExpo BBQ that went on poolside at the Hilton. They had an open bar and a HUGE spread of great food. The party was well attended by tons of speakers from BlogWorld which was nice since I was busy running WordCamp all weekend, I wasn’t able to chat with many of them during the previous 2 days. I really enjoyed getting to chat with Darren Rowse in person since I’ve been reading his blogs for such a long time. It’s was also nice to be able to chat face-to-face with people I don’t get to see in person too often like Jim Kukral, Aaron Hockley, Shayne Sanderson, Austin Passy, Darin Hardy and at least a dozen others.

Aaron Brazell & Jeremy Wright signing KaraokeOnce the BBQ was over we had to make a tough decision between two events that both sounded like a lot of fun. In the end we opted for the one that required zero driving. We walked inside the Hilton and headed over to the spot where they were doing #TechKaraoke. Nobody from our group sang, but we amused ourselves by watching the drunk geeks singing (I use that term loosely) and by having a “Fake ReTweet war”. Don’t know what that is? Well, the bar had a large screen (10′ x 10′ -ish) where they were showing Twitter messages that people had tagged with #bwe09. So, what you do is write up a tweet in the form of a retweet of your buddy. For example:

RT @my_buddy: Wow, I sure hope this rash goes away! Another great time in Vegas! #bwe09

This would then scroll across the screen and we would laugh our heads off. There is nothing like childish humor plus alcohol to make for an incredibly fun evening!

After a few hours of Karaoke and fake tweets, it was time to head back home and spend Sunday resting up! We were a tired crew after 4 long days and nights. But, we are looking forward to doing it all again next year!

Filed Under: Entertainment, General, WordCamp Tagged With: , , , ,

24 Hour Movie Marathon

August 23, 2009

A few months back I was checking out a site called iwearyourshirt.com and after clicking a few links found that Jason from IWYS and his buddies had done a 24 hour movie marathon. The idea sounded cool, so I called up some buddies to see if they’d be interested. Sure enough, I know a bunch of movie fanatics. The plans were made and today’s the day!

The idea is this: invite a bunch of friends over, each person brings a movie to share, draw movie names out of a hat to determine the order, sit back and watch a ton of movies with your friends. Since our group is just 8 people, we’ve asked each person to bring 2 movies.

The following is a time log of our adventures!

11:30 am – The TV is set up, food in the crock pot, snacks on the table… we are ready to go!
12:00 pm – Movie #1: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (Paxton)
12:10 pm – DVD player fail. New DVD player set up, restart Ace Ventura
1:55 pm – Movie #2: Fight Club (John)
4:25 pm – Movie #3: Bubba Ho-Tep (Rob)
6:00 pm – Movie #4: Big Fish (John)
- 15 minute break to go grab some food.
8:30 pm – Movie #5: The Simpsons Movie (Blake)
10:00 pm – Movie #6: The Princess Bride (Chris)
11:45 pm – Movie #7: Castaway (Myya)
2:10 am – Movie #8: Grandma’s Boy (Chris)
3:45 am – Movie #9: Clay Pigeons (Marcia)
5:35 am – Movie #10: The Sixth Sense (Myya)
7:30 am – Movie #11: Super Troopers (Myya)
9:10 am – Movie #12: Man From Earth (Rob)
10:40 am – Movie #13: The Matrix (Adam)

End time: 12:50 pm for a total of 25 hours of movies.

Nobody was able to hold out the entire time without catching a little bit of sleep. Rob held out the longest and napped a bit during The Matrix.

We had an awesome group of people and though everybody is pretty tired right now, we all agreed that we’d do it again. Just not next weekend.


Filed Under: Entertainment, Movies

Comedy, the hard way

August 16, 2009
comedy-header

A week or two back a good friend invited me out for an evening at a comedy club here in town. He had received complementary tickets, and I was glad to have the opportunity to hang out with my friend, so this seemed like the makings of a great evening!

We arrived to the casino an hour early. We made our way to will call where we picked up our tickets without incident. Having at least 30 minutes to kill before it was time to make our way inside the show room, we stopped off at the bar and had a beer. We were having a great time BSing when I looked down and realized it was 5 minutes until show time. We drained our beers and headed on over.

When we walked up to the door I could already see inside. The place was empty except for maybe one or two tables. The hostess walked us to a table right up front. Having been to MANY a comedy show in the past, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be sitting so close. All it takes is for one comic who thinks he’s the next Don Rickles and you are in for a long night. We took our seats and a within a few minutes the MC for the evening took the stage to a smattering of applause. I immediately flagged down the waitress and ordered another beer. This was going to be tough.

A -large- part of the fun of going to a comedy club is laughing along with the rest of the crowd. There have been many times when somebody in the crowd gets laughing so hard that they, in a way, become part of the show. This fuels the rest of the crowd to laugh and cheer and because of it the comedian settles in to a rhythm with the crowd and feeds of it.

But what if nobody’s laughing?

Here’s the thing, there wasn’t anything wrong with any of the comedians specifically. If you put any of them in front of a crowd of a couple hundred people, they all would have done just fine. Especially the ‘headliner’. He was really funny. But, with only 8-10 people in the audience, it’s hard to build up any sort of real laughter. Think about it. If somebody tells you a joke, even if you laugh, you are only going to laugh for a couple seconds. Now, consider that not EVERYTHING the guy says is funny to all 8-10 people. So now you have 3 or 4 people doing little more than chuckling at any one time. This is not a situation where it’s going to be fun for the crowd or the comedian.

Thankfully the show wasn’t very long. That’s probably due to the fact that none of the comedians had to pause waiting for laughter to die down before telling their next joke. We were able to salvage the night by heading across town to catch the second set of the Sin City Sinners. What’s not to love about a bunch of rockers playing ’80s cover tunes in a small club with Ron Jeremy hanging out at a table with no less than 3 hot blond chicks at any given time?

If you plan on going to a comedy club and you walk in and realize the place has less than a dozen people in the audience, save yourself and ask for a refund immediately. You’ll thank me for it.

Filed Under: Entertainment, General Tagged With: ,