Landed in Vegas today for Sony Online Entertainment’s Fan Faire event. This started out with me jamming out posts in the airport and trying to help the staff as best I could before I had to jump on my (late) plane for a long flight. The flight itself was actually really cool, as I got into a long talk about comic books, movies and geekstuff with the two people sitting in my row; Joe and Chris. *waves* I’ll forgo a plane nap to talk to cool people about interesting stuff!

Upon arriving in Las Vegas, I spotted a shuttle to the hotel. Aha, sez I, this will save me some money! Yes. It did. It exacted its cost in the hour and a half it took to get to my hotel. (Good side to this: I spotted where I can get a steak dinner for $6.95. Amusing side to that: It would cost me approximately $15-$20 in cab fare to get there and back to the hotel. Bwa!) Obviously, the shuttle will not be an option in the time-sensitive issue of getting to the airport. But it still ends on a positive note: I got a nice cheap air-conditioned tour of Vegas.

Check-in proved to cause some interesting snags, but corporate got it sorted out in short order. (Much love to Charles from the corp travel dept here.) Unpacked in excellent time, realized I’d left my charger cable for my digital camera.

You know - I really remember putting it in a suitcase. I’m strongly wondering if my other half found my charger stuffed in with the knickers in his suitcase; at GenCon.

In any event, I checked the hotel stores, but they wanted $250 for a 7.0 mpx camera that retails for $130 according to Ye Olde Interwebs. Called around trying to locate a power cable for my old camera - no dice. Have to order that from the manufacturer. So I hopped a cab for the nearest Best Buy and just bought a new digital camera since I’d been contemplating something with a smaller profile for travel anyway. (I love my 10mpx camera, but it’s gross overkill for what I do.)

Beyond that, I’ve

• scouted out all the locations for the convention/panels.
• peeked in on the main hall that SOE is setting up in. (Looks hawesome.)
• set up my schedule for coverage.
• reviewed a bunch of material on the games I’ll be looking at this weekend.
• landed a supersecretspecial spot in something this weekend that I can’t talk about or I’d have to kill you.
• had quite possibly the most disgusting cheeseburger I’ve ever had the misfortune to take a bite of. (I threw it out.)
• alternately, been amused that the fries that came with it were utterly delicious.
• watched a lot of people gambling.
• wondered if someone visited a couple of nearby hotels when they were making Bioshock. (Some of the decor is eerily similar to areas in Rapture.)
• spent $5 in a slot machine while enjoying a complimentary frosty adult beverage.
• turned that $5 into $42 within about 3 minutes.
• lost it back down to my original $5 in about another 20 or so.
• realized I am waaaaay too cheap to be a “good” Vegas tourist. I like my money in my pocket, and I don’t like paying retail, let alone retail x2.

For now, I’m going to go hunt down some dinner. A woman cannot live on fries alone!