I'd like you to meet Matisyahu. Simply amazing. Check this out too:

 

 

Its his best piece, IMHO.

 

Fin

I said I'd take some time off from blogging. But as you all know I don't have any self control.

 

The very day I got back from NYC there was an email waiting for me that said, "Welcome back! Now buy a ticket to LA. You fly tomorrow."

 

So here I am in LA. Beverly Hills to be more exact.  It was entirely up to me to get myself a hotel, so I opted for The Standard. I've been to the one downtown and its a hoot. Rooftop bar, unisex bathrooms, funky orange and white rooms.  Well, we've got the funky rooms, but mine is blue and white. No rooftop bar though. They made up for it elsewhere:

 

-Live model in a glass box behind the reception desk.

-Sexual inuendo's abound.

    "Slip it in" on the room key.

    "Blow - Hard, Harder, Stop" on A/C knob.

-In house TV programming devoted to guys in double breasted suits who are walking dogs in an undecorated white room.

 

Its fascinating. Not unlike a train wreck... you just can't tear your eyes from it.

 

Fin

Day 10

 

With rain stopped, sun out and spirits high we walked the 10 or so odd blocks to Javits.  The booth was crazy, crowded, controlled chaos as usual.  Load out went exceptionally well and we found ourselves walking out at just 10 past 10. Now, all the important stuff is over. The reckless debauchery that usually takes charge was replaced with two quiet beers and some football highlights... and sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.  I guess we were more tired than we thought.

 

Day 11

 

Its.. holy crap.. I slept til 10:30! Shower, pack. Call Chris. We grabbed lunch at the Fridays in Times Square.  Some dude parked his car in front of a 'No Parking Anytime' sign and was dismayed when the transit cop started wrting him a ticket. His 400lb girlfriend was even more upset.  There was an accident in the Middtown tunnel (the route we normally would've taken to JFK) so the cabbie took us through Harlem as a short cut. Damn, and I thought Tacoma had problems.

 

Nothing out of whack with the flight. No turbulence. No crazy people.  BUT! The moon was pretty spectacular to watch. Especially as we got further down to the cloud ceiling on our approach to Seattle. Poofy, silvery clouds. Like a sea of silver cotton balls. Mars was even out too. A distinct red dot to the left of the moon. Sweet.

 

And there you go, from day 1 to 11. I'll take some time off, Eli. :)

 

Fin

I posted some pictures from my shitty camera phone.

The craziest part of the show right now is the theater presentations. We have a guy from MS demoing the 360, not unlike what was done with the keynote. Everytime he takes the stage, Chris and I have to walk the console and all the accessories up in his wake. Like sentinels for a don or armed guards escorting a precious gem to a bank vault. People yelling - Can I touch it!? Can I take your picture!? Let me feel it!! When the presentation is over the once small crowd has grown into a seething mass of hundreds of people. All yearning for a glimpse of this next gen xbox.

 

And here's Chris.

 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

back to you fin....

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Parsons.

 

Normal booth stuff today. Oh! For lunch we got gyros from a street vendor. Good schtuff.  There were some celebs that walked through. Carmen Electra, DJ Skribble, some other dudes. The weather has cleared up a bit and that allowed us to walk home.  We all went to dinner at a place called Thalia. Tasty italian hybrid cuisine.

 

After dinner we were supposed to go to a bar on the upper west side. 420? I think? W 80th and Amsterdam.  Instead, common sense took over and we went to bed. Probably the best decision of the trip thus far.

 

Until tomorrow!

 

Fin

It's done! It's done!!

 

In front of a packed house (standing room only, seriously), Peter Moore delivered yet another beautiful presentation on the Xbox 360. Every component, every demo, every game went exactly as rehearsed.

 

I don't know why I stress over these things so much. Every thing always comes together in the end, flawlessly. Maybe its the fact that I DO stress over it (and develop xbox shaped ulcers in my stomach) that makes these things happen. Parsons and I were talking about it and he said he gets like that too. It just boils down to we don't give ourselves enough credit when we're pre-eventing. Neither one of us have had an all out failure and we're always saying to ourselves... this is the one.... this is the one show that's going to fail.

 

But it didn't.

 

After the keynote I went home early to get some rest. I left the booth with a couple friends hoping to catch a cab at 5:30pm. Now, what we didn't know is the Lincoln Tunnel is right down the street from Javits and traffic durning rush hour is always at a stand still. Complete standstill. You've heard of grid lock traffic, right? Bumper to bumper with no one moving. Horns, shouts, chaos. Yeah. We have a winner. To top it all off its pouring down rain. So instead of catching a cab we end up walking the 10 or so blocks back to the hotel... in drenching rain.  Oh no, wait, there's more. Its not enough that I have to walk in the rain, but I have to tote my tech bag, a roll on with a 360 dev kit, PSP, digital camera, iPod nano, wireless controllers, A/V and giant power pack... AND another satchel with a dev kit and other electronic shit.  Lets recap: me, rain, 3 bags (60 lbs?) priceless electronics, 10 blocks of love.

 

We finally arrive at the W. Clothes beyond saturation. My hopes of taking a nap have been dashed because I now have to ready myself for dinner. I had forgotten! Dinner! It just so happens that a friend of mine came to town on business too. Completely different line of business though.  Shower, iron, shave... all that jazz.

 

We meet in the lobby, have a drink and then head to Ruby Foo's in Times Square. This place is always awesome. Asian fusion is how they describe their cuisine.  Dinner started with sushi and green tea and moved on to Pad Thai, Kung Pao Chicken, Jasmine Rice and hot sake.

 

Dessert was an event in itself. I asked the matre 'd where we should go and he replied, with out skipping a beat - Serendipity.  He said there'd be a little bit of a wait... eh, no problem. We arrived at Serendipity and an hour and a half later we had a table. This is at 11:45.  We overheard the matre 'd there talking on the phone to someone trying to make reservations for the next day. No deal. Evidently reservations are 3 weeks out already. I ordered their signature item - frozen hot chocolate - and my friend got something that we later named "death by chocolate". Now I know why it took an hour and a half to get a table.  When we went down stairs to leave at half past midnight, the line had grown to a wait time of over two hours! But, alas, it does not matter. If you ever go to NYC, Serendipity is a MUST.

 

I got back to the hotel around 1am and... yes... got some decent sleep. 7 hours to be exact.

 

Now that all the difficult stuff is over and we're coasting, its time to have a little fun.

 

Fin

What day is today? November?

 

So tired... I don't think I've ever had so much red bull in all my life. I wish I could say more but I can't remember anything that happened outside of the fact that I was here.

 

Yes, its still raining. Yes, its flooding all over the place. 

 

Keynote rehearsal went great.

 

Zzz..zzz..zzz... 

 

Fin

With one event in our wake, the day dawned with the advent of a new one: Digi Life. Parso and Lee are working the booth and I'm working the keynote. We are going to have a kick-ass presentation, I can tell you that right now.

 

On only three hours sleep, we started off at the old event wrapping up the shipping details.  We then went directly to Javits (the convention center) to start workin on DL. Normal work stuff, nothing exciting. But let me tell you something about the union electricians here - if there was an award for not knowing how to crimp net, these guys would get the gold everytime. Holy crap. Not only are they incredibly slow, but they don't even know the standard cable order! I had to re crimp damn near everything when their backs were turned. Luckily Parso didn't have the same experience in the booth.

 

So after work we cabbed it back to the W and went to dinner. The place was called Blue Fin - a sushi joint. Pretty good spicy tuna rolls and the sake was.. drinkable. Two and a half stars outta five. Dessert consisted of martini's and vodka cran's in the lobby bar. Which, by the way, has incredibly hot bartenders and servers.

 

Fin

Whoa! What a day...

 

Chris and I managed to get the only retarded cab driver in NY and ended up getting lost on the way to the venue. Everything during the show went smooth as glass.  We played 360 most of the day and into the night during the party. Rumors of the Beastie Boys making an appearance were floating around, but they never showed.. ah well.  The party broke at 11pm and we ended up staying til 2am just messin around. Another long day.

 

*Addition*

 

All in all the event was a huge success. Check it out: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000153062828/

 

Fin

Well, it was another 17 hour day... though this one was mostly spent playing 360, eating hors d'oeuvres, drinking tasty punch, checking email and chatting.  The beauty part of our job is once the network is up and we're "supporting" it, all we do is sit on our asses. We went down to Cafe Duke again and got some more of those killer paninis.

 

Yeah, thats about it. Nothing too exciting. More tomorrow.

 

Fin 

 

 

6:30am to 11:00pm. Now thats a hell of a shift.

 

Today was the big setup day for the 360 press event here in NYC. The venue the marketing people chose is a large dance studio on the 4th floor of some decrepit building in SoHo. Don't get me wrong, SoHo itself is cool, with its elitist shops, fancy restaurants and general snobbery (the likes of which you will not find in Seattle). Its just that this one building is on its last legs. We've aptly named one of the lifts the 'man eating elevator'. Just as you're walking in, the doors will close on you. Fast. Either trapping a limb or your back pack... or say if you had a dog on a leash? Curtains poochie.

 

Anyway the setup went way better than expected. 45 xbox 360's networked together, all with wireless headsets, all on xbox live and an ultimate livingroom. It could've been much worse, but luckily for me my team knew their schtuff.

 

For lunch we walked down the street to a deli/store that a local suggested to us. Dean and Deluca. Mix equal parts of Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Cost Plus World Market and you get D&D. We walked in, did a lap and walked right back out. It just wasn't our style. We ended up at a place called Cafe Duke. I don't often speak in superlatives, but this place makes the best panini's ever! Ever!

 

After we finally get through with all the BS show site has to offer we catch cab back to the W. Parso and Lee decided to call it a night, but a friend of mine was in town for another event so we decided to grab a drink before bed.  I go up to the room, shower, change and wind up at the little bar on the 7th floor. One Grey Goose and one Level martini later, I'm headin to bed.

 

New York... crazy. Oh, and below are the pics from last night. The rain!

 

Fin

Okay, so how can I have Day 1 and 2 in the same day?! I flew in yesterday, smarty pants. Today, right now, is the culmination of Day 2.

 

Last night I set my alarm for 8am sharp. I woke up at 9:30am, sharp. Oops. After a 15 minute groggy shower I pack up my stuff to go downstairs and check out. For today is the day I change hotels!

 

Let me back up a bit.

 

I was orginally supposed to be in NYC from the 10th to the 17th. As fate (or luck?) would have it another xbox event came up. So they had me change my flight and hotel reservations to come in earlier. The flight change went through without any problems. The hotel, however, is a whole different story all together.  My main hotel - W New York Times Square - was completely full on my arrival date so I had to stay at the W Court for a night. It put me within walking distance of curry so I didn't complain.

 

One more crazy cab ride and I'm at my permanent residence of W 57th and Broadway. I walk in the front doors expecting to find the typical W lobby scene: dark, thumping house music, accent lights here and there, black and white art, abstract sculptures... but no. A bank of elevator doors. Thats all. Evidently the reception desk is on the 7th floor. Whatever. In, up, ping, out, ah... there we go. Classy, hip martini bar to my right and welcome desk to my left. All complimented with the familiar thump of ambient techno. Mmmm...

 

It was either the fourth or fifth swipe of my card that finally opened the door to my place. In any case my key card frustrations melted away when I saw the room they gave me. Get this: Times square, 43rd floor, corner room. Times square to my left, east river to my right. Simply stunning. Not only is there a RAD view, its larger than your average NYC hotel room.

 

I get settled once again, order some lunch and dive into email. This is where I spend a majority of my afternoon. It was pretty damn sweet too because my desk is right up against one of the giant windows and there was a raging storm blowing through the city. Windy as hell and pouring down rain. It made quite the scene.

 

A few hours later I get a call from Parsons and Lee - my two co pilots on this magic carpet ride. We meet down stairs and go to dinner at the Hard Rock. It was absolutely POURING rain on the way to the restaurant so we stopped to buy umbrellas, which did nothing. It was awesome. Girls dressed for a 'night on the town' were running and shrieking. Rivers of water were tearing down Broadway. People trying to take refuge under anything. Everyone is completely soaked, including us. Hilarious.

 

More pandemonium tomorrow, I guarantee.

 

Fin

The non-stop flight was uneventful (finally!) and I managed to take a good chunk out of my book.  Deplane, get luggage, crazy cab ride through the midtown tunnel... and we're at the W Court at 39th and Lex. I was at this very hotel in June for a different event. Anyway, after I get situated I embark on my quest for dinner.  The cabbie said that I was 10 blocks away from little India and some of the best curry in the city. How could I pass that up?  So with the Chrysler building looming over me I trudged through the balmy rain to little India. After walking past 10 or so curry places, I decided on a grungy looking take-away called Haandi.  Chiken Tikka Masala, rice, naan, salad and a diet coke - $8. Now its not the best I've ever had... but hey, I'm eating curry in Mahattan, so who cares!

 

On the way back I snap a few pics of the Emipre State building with my cam phone (which still sucks). Below are the resuts.

 

Fin

Tonight I fixed my dad's neighbor's internet. She paid me in banana bread. We need more of that, ladies and gentlemen. More banana bread I say.

 

Fin