After leaving Digital Experience at Ceaser's and heading back to our hotel, I was able to snap some night-time pictures of the Las Vegas Strip from an elevated walkway near the intersection of Flamingo Dr. Check them out below:

 

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I know there are probably a lot of you that have not been to Las Vegas, so I took some photos of the Entrance to The Venetian, Treasure Island across the street and the main plaza in the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian during the Day.  Thought these would give you a small feel for just how cool this place really is.  The Sands Expo and Convention center is connected to the backside of the Venetian, but that only contains maybe a quarter of the total exhibitor space here for the show.  However, the Sands does host all the major keynote addresses, and many of the larger press conferences.  Enjoy the pictures, and I’m sure there will be many more from myself, Chuck, Ben and John going up all week.

 

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While snapping photos in front of the Venetian, I captured Chuck and Ben with their Billy Badass poses on.  Well, maybe they look more like Hans and Franz, or those two guys from ‘A Night at the Roxbury’.

So, I've got a new girlfriend. She's a truly amazing woman who I really enjoy spending time with. For any gamer, getting a girlfriend is a life-altering event. For someone who isn't as hardcore as most gamers, it doesn't affect my gaming time as much as it would some others. I don't  really spend the countless hours most other gamers (and gaming writers) do playing. I wouldn't classify myself as a casual gamer by any means, but I'm not extreme either.

What has been interesting for me is that she actually has been an impetus for me to do some gaming (and not in the "my girlfriend is driving me nuts, I need to get my game on" way, either). After a month and a half of not gaming really at all, we trotted out Rock Band the other night. We'd been talking about it for a couple of weeks, and being a pretty serious music fan, she was anxious to give it a try.

It turns out that she has pretty damn good rhythm, as she has settled in as the drummer and driving for behind the "Brule Blues", our drum and vocals combo, currently playing the seediest clubs of Europe. After catching the Rock Band bug, she even wanted to play a late session the night before we had to get up at 4:30 AM to get her on her way out of town for the National Championship game. She's more into the faster rock songs, so we're a ways from hitting our stride as a band. As we unlock more tracks (and download a few), I think we're going to continue enjoying a couple nights a week of rocking out.

As I sit here in the airport waiting to board our plane to CES, I am reminded of the good and bad about these conferences.

 The good:

- Free food and drinks (this goes double in Vegas)

- Meeting new people and establishing new contacts

- Getting an early view of upcoming products, and hopefully getting in line to review them for our loyal readers

- Leaving Columbus mid-winter and getting away to a (kind of) warm locale.

- Gambling.

 The bad:

- Being up at 5 am to catch a plane

- Rooming with Chuck.

- Spending 4 hours on a plane twice in 4 days.

- Rooming with Chuck.

- Waiting in line for lunch, badge & bag pick up, and anything else really worth doing.

- Rooming with Chuck.

- Listening to jaded journalists complain about how X's product doesn't measure up to expectations for the 500th time

- Did I mention rooming with Chuck? ;)

Although we will be heading out to CES bright and early on Sunday Morning, CES doesn't officially start until Monday.  However, tomorrow will be a full slate with the Digital Experience, Press events from Samsung and Sony and of course Bill Gates final keynote as Head of Microsoft.  We will provide plenty of coverage, as Chuck plans to Live Blog it right here on GamingNexus.  You can also catch a live feed direct from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/ces/   I plan to also post info that I see on the show floor and highlights from the various press events via my Twitter account.

Everybody's reporting now that Warners finally chose a side and that's Blu-Ray. Could this be the end to the format wars? The Consumerist has a nice little summary of the distribution in exclusivity formats:

Blu-Ray:

• 20th Century Fox
• Walt Disney
• Lionsgate
• Warner Bros
• Sony
      - MGM/UA
      - Columbia TriStar
• New Line & Fine Line

HD DVD:

• Paramount
• NBC Universal

Doesn't look too good for HD DVD does it? While this doesn't mean an end to HD DVD it certainly does look bleak. I'm just glad to finally see a small light at the end of the tunnel though. If this is indeed it, I do feel bad for all those people that invested in HD DVD. It's still not good enough for me to warrant any purchase of Blu-Ray movies yet as I want a clear cut winner and the death of one format. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see Gates announce a Blu-Ray drive for the 360 or a 360 SKU with a built in Blu-Ray drive. I'm just kidding of course. :)

 

Conan O'Brien was back on the air and he shot a video of what he's doing during the writer's strike. What does this have to do with gaming? Well check him out on Rock Band!

 

OK this is kinda cool..

 

So is Bill Gates going to announce another Xbox 360 SKU? Stuff has their prediction of what it would have if it indeed becomes true. Do we need another 360 SKU? Probably not and I know Chuck's going to scream pretty loud if they do announce another one. I remember the days when it was just one version of the console that you can buy. Those were the days. Now we have to have multiple versions in various price ranges. The only one being Nintendo that doesn't partake in this silly practice. I would definitely love a 360 that was quiet and cool. One with a built in HD DVD? Probably not.