Getting Started at MEDC 2006

Today I got my conference bag. One of my rituals is to empty it out and see what swag I've got.

Not bad. Of course only a really sad person would post a picture of their entry badge as well...

Now promise that you won't copy it and take over my identity.

In 'Vegas even the lifts have chandeliers in them.

I'm not sure if they had one of these in Venice. But they have one here.

At the end of this beautiful corridor there are some slot machines. A lot of slot machines.

A view of my hotel from the walkway.

The only way to get in or out this hotel is via the moving stairway. Apparently this broke down last month and twenty people were trapped on it for two days. (I have used this gag before, but I still like it).

I got this lovely sumo kit. You get to make a .NET Embedded controlled robot, which you can program in C#. Wonderful. On Wed. we get to make them fight each other. But first I have to build it.

I'm doing session 2. Scary eh? More tomorrow.

Venetian Posh

Neat view. I wonder if I could hit the pool from here.....

But now I am in 'Vegas, and staying at one of the poshest hotels in the city thanks to a Microsoft discount deal (I dread to think how much this place would cost if I was paying full price). I'm here to talk at the Microsoft MEDC (Mobile and Embedded DevCon) 2006.

My talk is on Tuesday about casual game development (the games are casual, not the development). My luggage has found me. I gave the case a serious telling off. I went and fetched it from customer services, and was comprehensively snubbed by the chap that I saw in the lift. I think he was of the opinion that anyone actually carrying a largish item of luggage must be staff, and in my case not even very well dressed staff.

My goodness this place is posh. Last time I was in the 'states I had room at a Howard Johnston motel in San Jose. This worked fine for me, although when I was talking to one bloke I mentioned where I was staying and he said "How interesting.." in a way which made me think that I'd just told him I was recently released from prison. However, posh as this place is (and it is very posh – I'll post some pictures later) Howard Johnson does have the edge in several important respects.

Mirrors: the Howard Johnston bathroom contained precisely one mirror, which was easy to avoid. In my current bathroom there are five. Five. That means that when I stagger out of the shower feeling particularly fragile (as I just have) it is impossible to turn so that I can't see the lanky, white, pot-bellied creature which has just emerged. And to make things worse, some of the mirrors are on opposite walls and reflect each other, so that I can actually see hundreds of pasty me's, disappearing off to into the distance. Must do wonders for the recruitment at the fitness spar. Does nothing for me.

Shampoo: in the Howard Johnston there was a single soap dispenser in the bathroom which dispensed a multi-purpose concoction good for cleaning your hands, face, hair and shoes. In the Venetian there are a number of different bottles which contain different lotions, most of which involve cucumber for some reason. However, they are all very similar in colour and all very hard to use. I had to squeeze the conditioner bottle so hard that it flew out of my hands and then proceeded to ricochet around the shower cubical for a few noisy seconds. Later I found I have conditioned my hair with body balm.

Coffee: in Howard Johnston's a room contains a percolator and enough bits and bobs to make a few drinks (it also contains a fridge – which was so efficient in Warren's room that it froze his can of Pepsi rock solid – but we'll pass over that). In the Venetian there is nothing of the sort. Instead there is a well stocked minbar which is squatting in the corner daring me to take something off its sensor laden shelves so that I can make even more money for the establishment. I'm going to make precisely one purchase (a jar of Venetian banded jelly beans ($9.00) on the last day for number one daugher. So there.

WIFI: Howard Johnston had free WIFI. True, I'm not actually sure it was operated by them, but it did work and was free. The Venetian seems to have nothing of the sort. There are a bunch of networks with enticing names but nothing that seems to work. The room guide talks about internet access but no details are available. Then again, perhaps people who come to 'Vegas and then have an urge to surf the web would be regarded by the resort operators as a lost cause from a profit point of view.

Access: I could get to my Howard Johnston room straight from the car park. As could lots of other people I suppose, but at least entry was quick and immediate. To get to my room here I have to use two lifts and pass a bunch of security guards. Actually, I quite like this, as in the HJ I had to put things into the little floor safe all the time, which meant kneeling on the area of carpet which was damp when we arrived and never stopped smelling funny. I did wonder if they had been cleaning off the chalk outline that is drawn around dead bodies in CSI. Or perhaps it was a dropped jar of pickles. Anyhoo, I reckon that the Venetian wins here, as I've looked around carefully but I've found no evidence of such things. Or any pickles for that matter.

However, having said all this, I do really like this room. I just wished I earned enough to be able to afford it properly.

Off to Vegas

At least this plane doesn't have hydraulics.

Here's a little tip for travellers. If you are travelling via Amsterdam airport (or Schipol) make sure that in your hand baggage you include enough clothes to get you through the night after you arrive. Don't just think about doing this, like I did. This means that when (and I do mean when) your luggage gets lost you can at least have something to change into when you finally reach your hotel room at twenty eleven o'clock or whatever time it was that I finally got here. Having forgotten this step I was stuck with the clothes I was standing in. Which after around 20 hours of travelling are probably actually capable of standing up by themselves.

The very helpful lady at Las Vegas airport just went "Ah, Amsterdam" like it happens all the time. The other interesting thing about Amsterdam is that you can land at a runway which seems to be at the other side of the city. Once we had touched down we must have spent around twenty minutes motoring along to get to the terminal. We even stopped at two pedestrian crossings (this is not actually true, but it would be so neat if you could have planes waiting while you crossed the road). The whole thing reminded me very much of a World War 2 flying game from way back. We discovered that if you didn't leave the ground you could taxi all the way to the target at 200 miles an hour (including over the channel) drop your bombs with total accuracy and then rumble home without a scratch on the plane. These days of course you would get caught by loads of speed cameras.

Anyway, apart from losing my luggage, and the plane breaking down as it was taxiing onto the runway to take off, it was a fairly uneventful journey. I used to have an Austin Mini, a car made up of roughly equal parts rust and filler. One day, as I was approaching a junction, I put my foot on the brake to slow down a bit and the pedal went all the way down the floor without (and this is the worrying bit) having any affect on the speed whatsoever. Scary stuff. The pilot of our plane out of Minneapolis must have had roughly the same sensation as he discovered that one of his hydraulic systems did not actually have any fluid in it (which turned out to be what was wrong with my Mini too). So we had to find a none-broken aircraft which added an extra 90 minutes (but a lot of excitement) to the final leg of the journey.

The best plan with jetlag (I've been told) is to force yourself to stay up as late as possible so that you quickly get used to the new timings of day and night. It is now 9:30 pm. The heck with the best plan. I'm off to bed.