2005 CES Day 2 010606 - Black Eyed Peas and Jamal Anderson

Day Two is off to a rough start. I had returned to the hotel after 4am the past two nights and waking up in the morning is getting difficult. I had an 11am meeting with UbiSoft and 2 others in the afternoon including NCSoft. I finish off the day staying close to my booth for my meetings. Tonight's festivities included a dinner with some key people in the gaming and PC markets. At this point, I haven't really had a good chance to visit many booths at the show. I spent more time speaking with our partners who were 'concerned' that their logo was not displayed out our booth. As partners, we 'advertise' that the computers and / or the technology we're using are theirs. They do the same for us at their booth.

Dinner for the evening was scheduled for 830pm at Del Frisco's which is located off of Paradise Blvd. Just down the street from my hotel (Las Vegas Hilton) and the convention center. The invited guests were:

AMD - Daryl Lang (Account Manager) and his wife Marlene
Crucial - Mike Sanor (Support Mgr) and Terry (Manager of the Product Management group)
Oakley - Jason Spencer (Head Designer)
Hanaho Games - Conway Ho (President)
Sony Ericsson - Ralf Mueller (Product Manager)
Memorex - Rob Guthrie (Qualification Engineering Manager)
Western Digital - Steve Bell (Principal Engineer) and Tom (VP)
Myself and Christophe from Logitech

Del Frisco's was packed as usual but we're finally seated in a room adjacent to the cigar room. I've been to Del Frisco's before and really enjoyed the experience. Jason of Oakley surprises everyone including myself by bringing along several different pair of sunglasses for everyone. It was like having a Christmas party where everyone received something. The waiter was in awe as people were receiving sunglasses that retailed $400.00. Thump 2.0s, X-Metal Frames, Juliets, and Romeo 2.0s were handed out.

We start off dinner by ordering Crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, and crab claws for appetizers. A few different bottles of wine is ordered but I only remembered the DuckHorn that we had since it was the only one I drank. I also know the grand daughter of the Duckhorns who works at Crucial. The wine is very good. My main entree was a petite filet mignon cooked medium rare. We order asparagus, mashed potatoes, and mushrooms. My steak was very very good. I purposely ordered a smaller entree because I knew from the last time that there were so many different good things to eat and wanted to have room for dessert. I finish dinner off with a Del's Delight for dessert. It was similar to a chocolate shake with some alcohol. It was very good.

After the dinner, we head over to the wine cellar to tour one of the largest collection of wines in Vegas. They had some very expensive Duckhorn's and Far Niente's. From the wine cellar, we move to the James Bond wine collection. The James Bond wine collection is stored in a specially made mechanically wooden enclosure that is controlled remotely. When the host hits a button, the whole room lights up and the Bond theme begins playing in the background. During this time, the wooden enclosure begins to rise and open up exposing several special edition James Bond bottles of wine valued at over $700k. We are the last party to leave the restaurant and wait for taxis to show up. They took so long to show up that we notice the employees leaving for the night. We ended up paying for an $80.00 limo ride to take us away.

There were no concrete plans after dinner but Conway was able to acquire tickets to a party sponsored by some Adult industry movie distributors. The theme for this party was Pimp and Hoe. The headliner for the party was none other than George Clinton and the P Funk All-Stars. Terry, Mike, Christophe, and myself head over to the Empire ballroom to go check out the event.

As we arrived, George Clinton was just announced and came on stage to start the show. It was great to see him live but you don't realize how old he is until he starts moving. His movements were very fragile. George Clinton sang many of the songs that made him who he was. At one point, Too Short, was on the side of the stage watching when GC handed him the mic and he started freestyling. It was great to see Too Short again. He's long since been retired from the Rap scene but still a very famous artist from Oakland. Too Short screamed out the famous words, "Beeeotch!".

There were many people dressed in theme (Pimp and Hoe) and there were some really elaborate costumes. There were many women there that were more than willing to expose themselves for the cameras or on stage. At one point, George Clinton was being freaked by a voluptuous blonde who wore a nurses outfit and had a hem line just below the crotch. In a different part of the show, a brunette jumped on stage to show off her twins. I think the funniest part of the show for me was watching someone from the crowd below hand GC and roach. He took it and started smoking on stage right in front of everyone. He then handed it off to the different band members behind him.

Towards the end of the night, Mike was taking pictures of the many "Hoes" that were there. I'm sure there many famous industry folks in attendance in the VIP areas but I didn't recognize anyone except for Ron Jeremy who went on stage with GC and then appeared again in the VIP section. I guess Ron and I run with the same crowd (j/k).

After the party, we head home on the Monorail. It's 3am and we literally catch the last monorail train out of the MGM. When we arrive at the LV Hilton station, the guards close the station as soon as we exit. I'm thinking that its going to be a challenge to wake up the next morning to catch my 11am meeting.