Vegas & The Amazing Meeting (Part II)
Continuing from a previous post . . .
I woke up Friday morning at 8am, well rested and with a fairly clear head; something that has never happened to me before in Las Vegas. I normally see the older tourists meandering along the streets and shuffling through the casinos early in the Vegas daylight hours, and I imagine they are most likely well rested while my friends and I are usually just looking for some heavy fuel and a good Bloody Mary through sunglasses that won't come off until around midnight. Of course there's always the possibility that those older folks are actually young people who partied even harder than we did the night before and that's just how they look after the Las Vegas night kicked their asses, but I'd wager against it. That morning, however, after I went down to the conference and enjoyed a Continental breakfast of some fruit and a danish, I was fresh enough to do a mall walk and roam the strip all day with the blue hairs.
And by the way, just out of curiosity who are the limp-wristed nancy boys that invented the "Continental breakfast"? It's not breakfast. It's barely an appetizer for chrissake. I need to fill the void at breakfast. Give me something with substance.
The hotel has got balls to lay that spread out for us when there are any number of great belly-busting buffets all over town. I heard tell that the Riviera's buffet wasn't among that number, so maybe they were just trying to go in a new direction. Unfortunately, it had about the same impact as when Garth Brooks' went in a new direction by pretending to be a rock singer named Chris Gaines. Crap is crap, not matter what direction it's going.
The meager meal notwithstanding, Jason, Rebecca, Boo, Simon, several others and I took our seats near the stage. The conference began in earnest at 9am with a nap-inspiring presentation by Skeptic Society founder, Dr. Michael Shermer. To his credit, the material was indeed interesting, but if you're under the gun at a conference with heavyweight scientists, top-notch celebrities, and an extremely sharp audience, you better bring your A game.
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott followed Shermer at the podium. Eugenie Scott is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). This woman fucking rocks. Plain and simple. If you're not familiar with her or the NCSE, they do many great things, not the least of which is continuing the fight to keep so-called "creation science" out of our public schools. Scott and the NCSE were part of the team that won the recent Federal Court case (Kitzmiller v. Dover) that kept Intelligent Design from being taught as an alternative to Evolution in Pennsylvania public schools. Do yourself a favor and read up on Dr. Scott and the NCSE. They are the good guys for sure.
Nick Gillespie and Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine followed Dr. Scott by presenting some pretty cool libertarian ideas. If I recall correctly, Nick's mantra was something along the lines of, "Teenagers need to be more violent and have more sex." These guys are for free minds and free markets, and they're pretty cool to boot. Dressed in black with a flippant air of sleaze about him, Nick could have easily been a member of The Velvet Underground. And Ron looked like that one preppy we all knew in college who could always get you good drugs.
We took a lunch break, and then Neil Gershenfeld, of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms gave a presentation on the Fab Labs he's been involved with. These Fab Labs are really amazing things. If you're smart, look into it and be astounded, and if you're not smart, look into it and get a headache trying to figure out exactly what's going on. The basic idea of the Fab Lab is to turn digital computation from being a tool we use into a thing, an end product if you will. And this is done using source sharing and tabletop fabrication of prototypes. Sound complicated? Maybe, but it's really cool, and there are now several Fab Labs around the world.
Next to visit the stage was the venerable magic duo, Penn & Teller. I got the impression that P&T were there just to give our brains a rest, because all they did was open the floor to questions. Sounds boring, but with Penn's boisterousness and occasional wit, and Teller's thoughtfulness (yes, he does talk), it turned out to be an hour well spent. If I had one complaint it's that Teller didn't talk more. I've met him before, and he's a very contemplative though soft-spoken man, but he adds a great deal of value to any discussion.
After Penn & Teller cleared out, Dr. Richard Wiseman took the stage. Richard Wiseman is psychologist and an author, but he's not your therapist, Dr. Phil bullshit artist type psychologist. Wiseman is more of a research psychologist, and he's done studies on some very interesting subjects, like luck and the funniest joke in the world. He takes these sort of avant-garde subjects and applies good science to them. And he is scathingly funny as a presenter.
Wiseman's presentation led perfectly into the after dinner show that featured SNL alum Julia Sweeney and musician Jill Sobule. Their show was outstanding, earning rave reviews from everyone.
That's how the first full day of the conference ended, and we still had the Las Vegas night ahead of us!
For me, I grabbed a quick bite, and decided to play some black jack in the Riviera's casino. While at the table, several friends and conference attendees ambled by, asking if I was going to the Whiskey Party. I told them I absolutely was.
The Whiskey Party is sort of a tradition at the conference. It was started by my friend Mark a few years ago. What happens is this: The girls all get together in one room and have a girls-only Pajama Party. Now the pajamas for said party are indeed Vegas-worthy, but for the first couple of hours, they stick to the girls-only rule, which is kind of a bummer. But while that's going on, the guys gather in another room, each with a bottle of his favorite whiskey, and we drink, scratch, and swear, like men do. The good news is, the girls invariably find out where we are, and soon the parties are mixed into one. And the new hybrid party goes off. With girls in Vegas-worthy pajamas and guys full of whiskey, how could it not?
So, I played black jack for a couple hours, ran to the liquor store, and picked up two bottles of Jameson. I took a shower, and put on something comfortable. Hey, I know how these parties go. If you're okay with having various inorganic and organic substances spilled, poured, or smeared on your nice clothes, by all means dress to the nines. Me? I wore jeans and a T-shirt. Easier to wash clean.
When I arrived at Ed's and Simon's room for the Whiskey Party, I was surprised to see that some of the girls were already there. I didn't mind of course, but some of them decided to forego the preliminaries, and jump right into the rager. And that's what it turned into.
Now, remember, this is in a hotel room. By midnight, there were approximately 45 people crammed in there, and a few more spilling out into the hall. There was so much whiskey, it makes my liver hurt just to think about it. At one point some of the girls from the Pajama Party showed up with enormous chocolate dicks on sticks. Each girl present was then invited to demonstrate her "skills", and might I say, the suppression of the gag reflex was impressive on some of them. I won't name names to protect the innocent, but I'm seeing a lot of these girls in a whole new light.
But that's the type of thing that went on all evening. Raunchy, sleazy, disgusting. You know, fun.
As most of the people at the party were not religious, my friend Kelly decided to have some fun with the Bible that the Riviera was kind enough to place in the nightstand. It amazes me that hotels in a place called Sin City contain Bibles. But that's just me. What do I know? I suppose some sinners want immediate redemption, so they rush back to the hotel to recite scripture and beg for forgiveness. We didn't let anything so asinine detract from our sinning.
Sometime later (time had become a weird, twisted construct thanks to the whiskey and other party paraphernalia, so it might have been an hour or it might have been 30 seconds), someone came rushing in with the conference webcam and a laptop hooked up to the Internet. As a courtesy to those unable to attend, the JREF had set up a webcam and was broadcasting images of the conference at regular intervals. One of the party people had "commissioned" the webcam, and it was now broadcasting images of the party to folks ALL OVER THE WORLD!.
I can't recall everything that transpired in front of that camera, but I'm certain that no less than 75% of it was illegal.
The rest of the party was pretty much a blur. I recall doing an impression of Dr. Richard Wiseman that met with some approval, but the weird thing is, I don't do impressions. I also remember a friend of mine donning a hat, sunglasses, and a cigarette, and he looked just like Hunter S. Thompson. In my mind there is a lingering image of a pile of girls on the bed. I have no idea what they were doing or why, but does it really matter? And I don't recall if any farm animals were introduced into the fray, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.
And so the party raged until about 3:30 or 4am. Ed and Simon seemed okay if everyone stayed, but folks began to filter out anyway. The casino bar awaited the diehards, and that's where we headed next. I often wonder how much whiskey a man can drink in one night, and I'm proud to say that I participated in some practical research that night. I have no idea what time I finally made it to my room, or if Rebecca was with me when I did, but somehow I woke up at 8:30, and threw my body into the shower to prepare for the conference.
It turned out Saturday would be even better than Friday.
Stay tuned for the next post about TAM and my Vegas weekend.
I woke up Friday morning at 8am, well rested and with a fairly clear head; something that has never happened to me before in Las Vegas. I normally see the older tourists meandering along the streets and shuffling through the casinos early in the Vegas daylight hours, and I imagine they are most likely well rested while my friends and I are usually just looking for some heavy fuel and a good Bloody Mary through sunglasses that won't come off until around midnight. Of course there's always the possibility that those older folks are actually young people who partied even harder than we did the night before and that's just how they look after the Las Vegas night kicked their asses, but I'd wager against it. That morning, however, after I went down to the conference and enjoyed a Continental breakfast of some fruit and a danish, I was fresh enough to do a mall walk and roam the strip all day with the blue hairs.
And by the way, just out of curiosity who are the limp-wristed nancy boys that invented the "Continental breakfast"? It's not breakfast. It's barely an appetizer for chrissake. I need to fill the void at breakfast. Give me something with substance.
The hotel has got balls to lay that spread out for us when there are any number of great belly-busting buffets all over town. I heard tell that the Riviera's buffet wasn't among that number, so maybe they were just trying to go in a new direction. Unfortunately, it had about the same impact as when Garth Brooks' went in a new direction by pretending to be a rock singer named Chris Gaines. Crap is crap, not matter what direction it's going.
The meager meal notwithstanding, Jason, Rebecca, Boo, Simon, several others and I took our seats near the stage. The conference began in earnest at 9am with a nap-inspiring presentation by Skeptic Society founder, Dr. Michael Shermer. To his credit, the material was indeed interesting, but if you're under the gun at a conference with heavyweight scientists, top-notch celebrities, and an extremely sharp audience, you better bring your A game.
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott followed Shermer at the podium. Eugenie Scott is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). This woman fucking rocks. Plain and simple. If you're not familiar with her or the NCSE, they do many great things, not the least of which is continuing the fight to keep so-called "creation science" out of our public schools. Scott and the NCSE were part of the team that won the recent Federal Court case (Kitzmiller v. Dover) that kept Intelligent Design from being taught as an alternative to Evolution in Pennsylvania public schools. Do yourself a favor and read up on Dr. Scott and the NCSE. They are the good guys for sure.
Nick Gillespie and Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine followed Dr. Scott by presenting some pretty cool libertarian ideas. If I recall correctly, Nick's mantra was something along the lines of, "Teenagers need to be more violent and have more sex." These guys are for free minds and free markets, and they're pretty cool to boot. Dressed in black with a flippant air of sleaze about him, Nick could have easily been a member of The Velvet Underground. And Ron looked like that one preppy we all knew in college who could always get you good drugs.
We took a lunch break, and then Neil Gershenfeld, of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms gave a presentation on the Fab Labs he's been involved with. These Fab Labs are really amazing things. If you're smart, look into it and be astounded, and if you're not smart, look into it and get a headache trying to figure out exactly what's going on. The basic idea of the Fab Lab is to turn digital computation from being a tool we use into a thing, an end product if you will. And this is done using source sharing and tabletop fabrication of prototypes. Sound complicated? Maybe, but it's really cool, and there are now several Fab Labs around the world.
Next to visit the stage was the venerable magic duo, Penn & Teller. I got the impression that P&T were there just to give our brains a rest, because all they did was open the floor to questions. Sounds boring, but with Penn's boisterousness and occasional wit, and Teller's thoughtfulness (yes, he does talk), it turned out to be an hour well spent. If I had one complaint it's that Teller didn't talk more. I've met him before, and he's a very contemplative though soft-spoken man, but he adds a great deal of value to any discussion.
After Penn & Teller cleared out, Dr. Richard Wiseman took the stage. Richard Wiseman is psychologist and an author, but he's not your therapist, Dr. Phil bullshit artist type psychologist. Wiseman is more of a research psychologist, and he's done studies on some very interesting subjects, like luck and the funniest joke in the world. He takes these sort of avant-garde subjects and applies good science to them. And he is scathingly funny as a presenter.
Wiseman's presentation led perfectly into the after dinner show that featured SNL alum Julia Sweeney and musician Jill Sobule. Their show was outstanding, earning rave reviews from everyone.
That's how the first full day of the conference ended, and we still had the Las Vegas night ahead of us!
For me, I grabbed a quick bite, and decided to play some black jack in the Riviera's casino. While at the table, several friends and conference attendees ambled by, asking if I was going to the Whiskey Party. I told them I absolutely was.
The Whiskey Party is sort of a tradition at the conference. It was started by my friend Mark a few years ago. What happens is this: The girls all get together in one room and have a girls-only Pajama Party. Now the pajamas for said party are indeed Vegas-worthy, but for the first couple of hours, they stick to the girls-only rule, which is kind of a bummer. But while that's going on, the guys gather in another room, each with a bottle of his favorite whiskey, and we drink, scratch, and swear, like men do. The good news is, the girls invariably find out where we are, and soon the parties are mixed into one. And the new hybrid party goes off. With girls in Vegas-worthy pajamas and guys full of whiskey, how could it not?
So, I played black jack for a couple hours, ran to the liquor store, and picked up two bottles of Jameson. I took a shower, and put on something comfortable. Hey, I know how these parties go. If you're okay with having various inorganic and organic substances spilled, poured, or smeared on your nice clothes, by all means dress to the nines. Me? I wore jeans and a T-shirt. Easier to wash clean.
When I arrived at Ed's and Simon's room for the Whiskey Party, I was surprised to see that some of the girls were already there. I didn't mind of course, but some of them decided to forego the preliminaries, and jump right into the rager. And that's what it turned into.
Now, remember, this is in a hotel room. By midnight, there were approximately 45 people crammed in there, and a few more spilling out into the hall. There was so much whiskey, it makes my liver hurt just to think about it. At one point some of the girls from the Pajama Party showed up with enormous chocolate dicks on sticks. Each girl present was then invited to demonstrate her "skills", and might I say, the suppression of the gag reflex was impressive on some of them. I won't name names to protect the innocent, but I'm seeing a lot of these girls in a whole new light.
But that's the type of thing that went on all evening. Raunchy, sleazy, disgusting. You know, fun.
As most of the people at the party were not religious, my friend Kelly decided to have some fun with the Bible that the Riviera was kind enough to place in the nightstand. It amazes me that hotels in a place called Sin City contain Bibles. But that's just me. What do I know? I suppose some sinners want immediate redemption, so they rush back to the hotel to recite scripture and beg for forgiveness. We didn't let anything so asinine detract from our sinning.
Sometime later (time had become a weird, twisted construct thanks to the whiskey and other party paraphernalia, so it might have been an hour or it might have been 30 seconds), someone came rushing in with the conference webcam and a laptop hooked up to the Internet. As a courtesy to those unable to attend, the JREF had set up a webcam and was broadcasting images of the conference at regular intervals. One of the party people had "commissioned" the webcam, and it was now broadcasting images of the party to folks ALL OVER THE WORLD!.
I can't recall everything that transpired in front of that camera, but I'm certain that no less than 75% of it was illegal.
The rest of the party was pretty much a blur. I recall doing an impression of Dr. Richard Wiseman that met with some approval, but the weird thing is, I don't do impressions. I also remember a friend of mine donning a hat, sunglasses, and a cigarette, and he looked just like Hunter S. Thompson. In my mind there is a lingering image of a pile of girls on the bed. I have no idea what they were doing or why, but does it really matter? And I don't recall if any farm animals were introduced into the fray, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.
And so the party raged until about 3:30 or 4am. Ed and Simon seemed okay if everyone stayed, but folks began to filter out anyway. The casino bar awaited the diehards, and that's where we headed next. I often wonder how much whiskey a man can drink in one night, and I'm proud to say that I participated in some practical research that night. I have no idea what time I finally made it to my room, or if Rebecca was with me when I did, but somehow I woke up at 8:30, and threw my body into the shower to prepare for the conference.
It turned out Saturday would be even better than Friday.
Stay tuned for the next post about TAM and my Vegas weekend.
posted by Sam Ogden at
12:11 PM
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