CES 2009 banner over Sands entrance

In January we went to CES. Five months later, I’m publishing the roundup of what we did. It’s for entertainment value; you know how I roll.

2009 marks the first year Icrontic has visited a major trade show in an official capacity. The Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we were on hand with four staffers to cover the madness.

On Wednesday, January 7th, Robert “Thrax” Hallock and myself landed in Las Vegas. We left Detroit at 2pm and made it to Vegas around 7pm PST, after a brief (and almost missed) layover in Denver. Our flight was on Frontier Airlines, and while I had never heard of them before this,  I was pleasantly surprised at the service and amenities on this “economy” airline. Our flight was as pleasant as it could have been.

We had a pre-paid shuttle to our hotel (Circus Circus), which in hindsight was a great idea. Cab fare to the hotels can be almost $30.

At the same time, Peter “Buddy Jesus” Gill took off from Oklahoma to meet us there, Brian “Pseudonym” Novak left from Detroit, and Greg “Fatcat” Jones likewise got on a plane in St. Louis.

Wtf are palm trees? WE'RE FROM MICHIGAN

Thrax and I hadn’t eaten since 9AM EST, so we were absolutely famished. When we finally arrived at Circus Circus, Fatcat was already waiting for us in the lobby. We lugged our bags to our room (not in the main hotel, but the “manor house” which is a fancy way of saying motel) and while on our way, Thrax and I got to touch our first real palm trees. We took pictures, of course.

We threw our stuff down, and heeded the siren call of the casino buffet. We headed over to the main building and immediately began stuffing our faces with the amazingly wide variety of food. In the meantime, Buddy J was en route, and we told him to meet us at the buffet because there was no way were we going to cut our meal short just to be polite. We finally found him and then headed out to meet Pseudonym.

We met up with Pseudonym and then tracked down our buddy Eric Ryder. Finally we all got into a cab and met Ryder, Masaru, and Tony (all from OCZ Technology) in the lobby of Bally’s Casino. We had a great OCZ/Icrontic dinner, complete with a crappy waiter and an incident in which I knocked a glass of water over into Masaru’s lap, and that was pretty much our first night in Vegas.

We were not interested in the women of AEE. We were here for tech.

The next morning, Peter, Robert, and I headed off to do the thing we came to Vegas for. First stop was getting our press badges. That turned into a mess since the booths scattered around the hotels for badges were only for visitors and exhibitors. Press was a whole different matter. We had to go through some logistical rigmarole due to the fact that Robert was supposed to be in one place, and Peter and I were supposed to be in another, but all of us needed to go to a completely different place to get our press badges. We parted ways, and Peter and I headed over to the Sands exhibition hall for day one of our coverage. We eventually figured out where to get our press badges, and then crossed the threshold onto the show floor (after passing by many amazing and scantily clad women—did I mention the Adult Entertainment Expo was being held in the same building?) We were not at all interested in the women of AEE. We had srs bzns to attend to.

Entering the show floor for the first time was a pretty overwhelming experience—and this was just the “small” hall. We had a meeting with CoolIT Systems almost as soon as we got there, so we started to head towards their booth.

Peter spent about a half hour with the CoolIT guys, checking out all of their new stuff, while I went over to the EA Games booth to see what was going on with SimAnimals and The Sims 3. We met up after a bit and made our first visit to the press lounge. After a delicious (and free!) lunch, we tracked down Thrax. His first meeting was a bust because the company that had scheduled to meet with him was supposed to send out a limo driver to pick him up, and the limo driver “couldn’t find him.” He met up with us in a foul mood, but the chaos and excitement of our first CES show floor visit quickly turned him around.

On our first day, we covered the length and breadth of the Sands convention center. We saw some pretty great things, like the world’s first 1TB SSD, a very cool concept for a kids MMOG that ties into real life charities, the newest stuff coming out of SuperTalent and FSP Group (such as their Everest Pro 1.2K PSU) the crazy Lian Li blue $700 monstrosity case,  and of course tons more. During our walk, I had to scoot out for a bit and make my way to the Wynn for a meeting with our ad provider. I left the Sands, got into a cab and told him to take me to the Wynn. Without batting an eye, he proceeded to pull out of the driveway, turned, drove about 50 feet, and then pulled into the Wynn. He totally noobed me. I did not know that the Wynn was directly across the street from the Sands. That was a $6 mistake. Jerk.

All work and no play makes IC a dull boy

As the workday concluded, we got ready for some social stuff. We were scheduled to meet our old friend Jeanelle and our new friend Janelle at a sushi restaurant called Ra Sushi. The whole crew, including Pseudonym and Fatcat, assembled at the restaurant. We had a great meal (those crispy tuna rolls are amazingomg) served by a dude named BROWN EYES (yes, that was his actual name, but whatever) and then hit the mall and did a bit of sightseeing and shopping to get ready for the big OCZ party that was being held at the Bellagio later on in the evening.  When we arrived at the Bellagio, none other than Eric Ryder was there on the ground floor to greet us and escort us to the party.

The troops, in full battle gear, Day 1.

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