WPBT 2010 Is Officially Booked - Now we wait

I booked the hotel MONTHS ago. That MGM special was locked in back in June, but there was still a small chance that everything might get scuttled. It's be a busy world here. I figured eating the cost of the hotel reservation was worth locking it in, but locking a airfare, that's a little different. It's the scale.

But tonight, it got locked in. I'm financially commited to attending the WPBT Gathering December 9 to 13th. I leave the frozen tundra at 11:20 AM. This is going to be a big departure from last year. As of right now, I'm travelling alone. 2008 - OhCountess was with me. 2009 - Drizz shared the journey (and it was his birthday...cheers!). Ya, this year, I'll be going through checkpoints and killing time all by myself. OhCountess has had to make a change in plans. She was looking forward to returning, but alas, it's not in the cards.

So, back to the plans...

I'll arrive at McCarran around 1 PM, shuttle over to the MGM, check in, stretch out in the suite we reserved for two, wonder why I need this much, get thirsty/hungry and head to food and then the Imperial Palace (Geisha Bar) for extended drinking hours. If you are going to be around Vegas already, let me know. I really can't wait to see everyone again. Saying I'm looking forward to it is an enormous understatement.

Friday begins the official itinerary based travel period. I've scheduled a tour of The Neon Museum with Katitude and others for 2 PM Friday, December 10. This place is awesome. Last year's tour was definitely a highlight.

Last year, Yestbay and I headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame in the lunchish period. This was before the Neon Museum tour. Anyone interested in going this year? I think the Gamblers Book Shop is still next door, but I'm not sure. Both places are great for the history/nostalgia buffs. Leave me a comment, send me an email or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter.

Now, there's something new I'm interested in doing but have no idea how to pull off. Most years, the weekend of the gather also falls on the same weekend as Bourbonators. I was kinda hoping to getting the whiskey drinkers among us to get together and sample a bottle of something tasty. Again, let me know if you are interested or have ideas about how to get our hands on something tasty.

Friday night. I'll probably shuffle chips for a few hours at the [insert poker room name] and trying to grind out of a hole a little spending money on the felt. Then off to Mandalay bay for Steel Panther. They are now playing Mandalay Bay so the travel should be WAY less complicated. Here's my write up from last year.

Saturday: tournament. Team Skol (Drizz, Matt and myself) will cleaning up at the Aria card room. Hopefully I don't mean working off debt by pushing vacuums around. Can't wait!

Sunday: open. This is typically they day I wonder around wearing out the shutter on my camera. I haven't heard if the sports book gatherings are organized. Since this is still open, that's a definite possibility.

Departing Monday morning. My flight departs at 9:18 AM. Much better then the usual 7 AM flight I've taken in the past. 5 AM shuttles suck.

I really can't believe it's only a month away. I'm also old enough to know that this will be the longest friggin' month of the year. Ugh. Waiting is tough.

So, I'm in.

WBPT Trip Report: Part 4 - Pinball Hall of Fame #WPBT

#FACEPALM

I was going through the posts view in Blogger and noticed, um, Hi! My name is OhCaptain, and I'm a dumbass.

This post was from back in January. January 4th to be exact. I formatted the pictures, typed up some words, hell, I probably even spell checked (but I wouldn't count on that). But apparently, I never actually published part #4 of my WPBT Winter Classic recap. WTF? How did PirateLawyer not say something? CK...I have proven you correct again. Son of a biatch! Here's the rest in grouped link form if you need to go back and read anything...

This is probably still OK. There was no Eh Vegas! this year, and the Gentile Summit gather isn't for [looking at watch] less then 48 hours away...I got my entire recap done before the next blogger gathering..right?

Without further adieu (screw it, I'm not rewriting this. As is from the past...):

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The holidays are both awesome and suck. All the time off from work rocks, spending time playing with the kids and the Mrs rocks, but this year I failed in my goal to process all the pictures I took in Las Vegas during the Winter Gathering. I do have a photo dump here that might have made PirateLawyer's day had it not been for recent entry into the Uncle's Club. Huge congrats, BTW!

This time around, I seemed to have a lot of planned options for my camera. I had seriously considered hanging out with the golfing crew, but I wanted to make sure I got to the Pinball Hall of Fame and the Neon Graveyard. Without PirateLawyer organizing this, I pretty much failed at getting a big group going. I have to make a huge apology to Maigrey. She had asked me the night before to call her when we are going. I completely forgot! I'm very sorry.

This first picture is the new front of the Pinball Hall of Fame. Yeah, it's not much. From what I gathered, they moved just weeks before we got there. Yestbay had rented a car for the weekend and after a nice breakfast at Harrah's buffet, we headed over.

I'm hoping for the future of the place, they do just a bit more with the front. If we hadn't been specifically looking in this very location for the place, we would have never just stumbled upon it. The old front had a big painted window that really looked awesome. In all actuality, the inside was as I'd hoped...roomy with plenty of room to grow.

The rest of this post should be just a photo dump. Yestbay mostly played like a rock star. I kept hearing the crack of the free game on the machine he was playing. At one point, we played some doubles. I was always good for a lose of a credit, so this really helped him work down that count.

I was inspired to photograph some of my favorite games. I played a few because how could you not? But mostly, I just walked around and shot. For you photography buffs out there, I'd like in the future to bring a few things:

• A faster lens - this place is poorly lit and all the glass makes flash photography virtually impossible.
• A sheet or some other blocking device - there's a lot of glare on the top of the glass from the lights above.
• A tripod - something that always hinders me in Vegas. I never bring one with because of space concerns. Next time, I might just buy a cheap disposable one or a really nice one and ship it home.

This first shot was a game I hadn't seen in YEARS. Dragon's Lair. This was pretty much the first and only game I had ever truly mastered. This was a game driven by a laser disk, think of it as a precursor to all of the stupid DVD games to come. There was only one set path in the game to the ultimate high score. Memorize this path, and you'll get there. My friends growing up came up with challenges to the game to make it interesting. Since most of the game could be played by timing and audio cues, we would play blindfolded and see how far we could get.

This year, I noticed more of the great video games. There were a few last year, but there just seemed to be more this year. I dropped a few quarters in this one. I still sucked at it, but it was fun.
The structure of the games is pretty much the same as last year, only bigger.
They seemed to grouped a little, this wall isle seemed to have old school video games on one side, old school pinball on the other.
When I was walking around, I started to really think about the art and design that went into these machines. As a kid, you mostly just think about the winning. I thought this was particularly interesting, you see that red dress? Yeah, it moves out of the way to reveal a sexy night gown. Inspiration to win the game for a teenage boy can come from my places, usually it's just the groin.
I had never really stopped and looked at this one before, I had seen it countless times, this was one of my favorite pinball machines. There are many iconic figures on this one. I'm sure at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev seemed to be a timeless character, like Marilyn Monroe and Santa, but I'd guess that any under the age of 35 has no idea who he is or could even spot him on the back of a pinball machine.
Yeah, more huge spacious isles. I think it could accommodate each and every blogger at the gathering.
Old school number wheels rock.
I took a couple hundred pictures here and might post them on Flickr later. I hoping to prove CK wrong and get all of the recaps I want to get done posted before March. Still to come, the Neon Graveyard, Steel Panther and football in lap of luxury.

Stay tuned!

{Note: I left the last paragraph in after just reading it. Funny as hell, huh? Those other posts...they've been up for months. Hehehe. I rock. #FACEPALM}

WBPT Trip Report: Part 8 - Football at Lagasse Stadium #WPBT

I usually schedule my flight out of Vegas for Monday morning. I hate saying good bye, especially on this weekend. You know, you probably won't get to see some of these people again, others it will be far too long before you get to hang out. Leaving in the wee hours of Monday morning kinda feels like sneaking out in the middle of the night only with a few hours of sleep.

In 2008, I had traveled with OhCountess. Sunday was our day to go explore Las Vegas just the two of us. Nice dinner, romantic walks, quality time without the kids and distractions. This year, no mrs. She's just not a big fan of me having a romantic dinner without her. TheLuckBox put up a few tweets telling everyone that a private room was arranged at the Palazzo's Lagasse Stadium. All we needed to do was drink and eat to some amount of cash. This group should be able to drink to any set bar tab amount. We be that good.

This post will kinda be a pic dump. As you'll see from the pictures, this place was amazing. But to be honest, the best part of the whole experience was that this room provided a way for everyone to just mingle and chat. No hookers. No Dealertainers. No slot machines. Just great conversations. It was awesome. Well, maybe the fact the Vikes won didn't hurt either...

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This first picture gives you a little bit of an idea just how big this place was. You can even see the faint glow of the Galaxians machine in the back. Drizz, Waffles and Maigrey can give you lessons if you need them. I didn't get my 10,000 hours in when I was a kid. I sucked.

Yeah, there's a pool table in here too. Those PDA looking things in some of the guys hands, those are wireless units for doing all kinds of betting. Such as, will the next play be a run or a pass. Degenerates.

This is the pit we watched the Vikes win. That's the biggest LCD I've ever seen. Holy crap. Hey, honey, me want one. Tanks.

Mediocre teams like the Patriots were show on smaller inferior TV's in back corners. Hi Dawn!!

Drizz and the Wife have a bet every year. The Wife's only real character flaw is she's from Wisconsin and has never been able to shake her love of the Cheeseheads. The Packers sucked this year...so Drizz provided here with a shirt she could wear and truly look as classy as she really is. The #4 and the word "Favre" on the back really brought out the color of her eyes.

LOOK! Purple shoes! How cool!

She's just thinking about how awesome she'll look in purple. You can see it in her expression.

Damn! She's looking mighty fine! Hubba hubba!

This was in the hallway outside of the private suite. She kept tearing up. I didn't get it.

Everyone smiling. Harmony and peace filled the land.

Mmmm...salty.

By the end of the day, it was really filling up in here. I'd like to introduce you. Hello, blog reader, this is almost everyone. Everyone, it's the blog readers. Say hi and shake hands...

I failed to get this last two post out by March. Sorry CK. I did get this one out before Mastodon Weekend, which I wish was heading to. I really hope we get this same room next year. It was a great way for everyone to just hang out. I wish I had taken better advantage of it, there were many people I just never got to chat with that I had hoped to. Regrets I hope to rectify next year. Is it too early to book my room? I'm ready to go back. Just say the word.

WBPT Trip Report: Part 7 - Neon Graveyard #WPBT

Alright. Almost done. CK challenged me to get the rest of my trip report out before March. My calendar says February so it looks like I might just make it and besides, Mastadon Weekend is also just weeks away, not that I'm going. :-(

Late last spring/early summer, I was having a nice chat with Katitude. Seems we were both ready for the WPBT Winter Gathering. Let the record show, I'm ready right now. Anywho, one of the things she really wanted to do this past year was go to the Neon Graveyard. What's this? I'd never heard of it...but she thought it would be fun to head out with the cameras and do some shooting. Besides mind numbing hours at the card tables and more beers then my liver really wants to process, there's one more thing I really love to do in Las Vegas...shoot!

Kat set the time and signed up for the 2 p.m. tour on Friday. They only have 2 times a day they do the tour and photographers will tell you, the worst light of the day is noon, which is, of course, the only other tour time.

As I wrote about before, Yestbay and I were enjoying the Pinball Hall of Fame and the Gamblers Book Shop. Both of us had signed up to take the tour with Kat and with time pressing had pulled ourselves away from the great stories being told at the book shop.

On our way back, SpecialK had contacted us looking for a ride to the graveyard. No problem, he was down on the strip, all we needed to do was find it. Ok, we found the strip, but how the hell do you enter it heading the right direction to pick him up and still be going in the right direction to get to our destination. If you have ever driven off strip in Vegas, you'll know what I mean...cuz look! It's right over there!!!! Anywho.

Kat sent me a text too. She's down back at the IP and also looking for a ride her and BettyUnderground. Thankfully, Yestbay had rented a 4 door...economy. Cozy is good :)

Having found Kat and Betty in front of the IP, picking them up while never really stopping, we headed to the V to pick up Special K. He was to meet us out front for another moving pickup. You really can't stop on the Strip. Unfortunately, we over shot him and he was running like thief through the entrance of the V. Nice moves by the way. He made the car and we headed out.

The graveyard is on the north end of the strip pretty much the end of it. That's the complete opposite end of the universe from where we were. Yestbay did some fantastic driving and with the power of the iPhone, we were able to call the museum and ask them to stall the start of the tour by just a couple of minutes. We were enroute and tourists. Please forgive us. Betty handled that conversation like a pro.

So here we are, at the museum. We got there to hook up with OnAFoldDraw, Butch Howard and his wife. This place was awesome. There were so many interesting things to see and photograph. Our tour guide was great. He was telling some of the most fascinating stories you've ever heard about Vegas and the twisted metal and glass laying around this empty lot. By next year, this lot will have a real building to house the relics. Should be fun although, as you'll see, there's a certain charm in the rusting piles they have right now.

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This first picture was of the a dude with a mullet playing pool. I loved this sculpture. I'm sharing it not for the quality of the picture, frankly, I tried and tried and just could never get a good shot. The background is horrible. I just thought he was really cool. Maybe next year there won't be a power line behind him or I remember to bring a lift truck.

I shared this one on my photoblog as well. They have several piles of letters laying around. Showing some great wit and fun, they often spelled words. Ya!

You don't see them now, but there apparently were trailer parks-o-plenty around here.

Sin or sing...you decide.

Boneyard - This kinda gives you a feel of where you are.

There were lots of stories told about the old Stardust facade. Behind the Binion's sign, which was cool too, was a piece of the old facade. My wife and I went to a show there, back in the day. The fun thing was hearing the stories that the theme the Stardust was trying to portrait was that of the nuclear age.

This was back behind the Stardust stuff. You took your life in your own hands going back there.

Dollars are always cool.

Rubber ducky, you're the one, you make bath time lots of fun. Rubber duck, I'm awfully fond of you.

What's a blogger tourist trip without a group photo. Gangs all there! If you look close, you can even see Betty. She's the two finger on the shoulder of OnAFoldDraw.

I don't think I can thank Kat enough for getting this ball rolling. This again was a totally awesome experience that I would have never even known about if it wasn't for her. Thank you.

WBPT Trip Report: Part 6 - Steel Panther #WPBT

With OhCountess not travelling with me this year meant finding my way out to the Green Valley Ranch to see Steel Panther was a given. I turned 40 years old this past summer. If you do the math, you will notice that I was a snot nosed, pimple faced teenager during the '80. Metal music rocks. I'm pretty sure I burned all of the pictures of me with a mullet.

Before heading to Vegas, I had to do a little research into this phenomenon. My first stop was Wikipedia. As it happens, this band used to be called Danger Kitty. I stopped reading. That was plenty. It listed them as a parody band, but as far as my knowledge of parody bands goes, Spinal Tap rocks...Hello Cleveland!

So the proof always being in the pudding, I purchased their album, Feel The Steel. From "Death to All But Metal" to the "Girl From Oklahoma", parody my ass. This metal rocks! (Note: this ain't safe for work. Please wear your headphone and if you don't like songs about Asian hookers (she smells like sushi...), fat girls, and odes to strippers...um, this ain't your bag). This is over the top metal...basically it's about hookers, blow and sex and not your high school heath sex. 'Nough said. (*Disclaimer: there's no way this is actually PG, the lyrics are damn near X. Be warned it's pretty much the definition of offensive.)

After playing limit hold 'em with the cowboys, we left the MGM in various cars, limos and magic carpets. As is tradition for me, I took my annual ride with F-Train only this year, it was in HIS car. So glad I did, it's about a $30 car ride. Thank you sir!

Since this post is gonna turn into an über post in no time, and also because I lack the skills to trim the photos to a number smaller then 22 (23), I'd also like to thank CK for the gracious ride home. To say I was really sober enough to find my way back is a stretch. Thank you!!!! ($3 Red Stripes - the cheapest beer I drank all weekend. I should been buying more each time...)

Without further fanfare, here they are, my photos from Steel Panther.

Our view from the table. The venue ain't huge. It's just right.

Satchel complaining about [some degeneracy]

Michael Starr

Rocking the metal axe. Well done dude.

Never missing a high note.

Not much prompting necessary getting crowd participation.

My shot for the cover of Rolling Stone.

More high notes. By the end of the night, he left no notes unplayed.

Dude! Chicks dancing on stage!!!!

It's a dirty job, but someone needs to do it.

More from the full stage. Lighting was awesome.

Lexxi Foxxx - the perfect metal hair.

This is how bass players pose.

OK, maybe this one is the cover of Rolling Stone.

Kick it!

Oh, shit. That crap makes my nose burn.

Rock goddom.

Chilly and Badblood. Thank you Mr. Badblood for introducing me to the band.

Happy livers. Chilly, Badblood and the good Dr. Chako.

Chilly, The Wife and the Doc. ROCK ON!

CJ, not sure and some guy that wondered into the booth.

Cheers! (Um dude, we usually do this with glasses)

Well, that's the night at the Green Valley Ranch in a nutshell.

[Secret devil sign fist pump] Until next year.