posted by Travis at 8:21 AM

The GIAS forum regulars have been busy photoshopping again. Click here for the damage. It might help if you read Mike's write up about our LotR screening first.

posted by Travis at 7:50 PM

This will be a long entry.

Wednesday after work, Kim and I came home and packed our stuff for Las Vegas. We packed enough clothes for two nights (just in case), picked our Hollywood Insider costumes, printed out directions to Bally's and left. The directions looked innocent enough: 170 S to the 134 E to the 210 E to the CA 30 E to the 15N all the way to Vegas. Somewhere around the 210 E leg is where we hit a wall. The directions specifically said, "take the CA 30 E towards Lone Hill Ave". We didn't see a CA 30 E, but we did see Lone Hill Ave where we got off. We realized that wasn't a highway, so we got back on the 210 E and continued for about 20 more miles. We thought we may have missed the 30 exit, so we headed back on the 210 W. When we hit Pasadena, we knew that something was amiss. In reality, there is no CA 30 E and you have to actually go AWAY from Lone Hill Ave. After a few calls to Pajaro, we were on our way and hit Bally's at about 12:30am. We knew that we would be busy all day Thursday, and we still wanted to gamble some, so we headed downstairs to the tables.

We took out $200 and sat down for some blackjack. The lowest we could find was $15 a hand minimum, which I wasn't particularly comfortable with, but we proceeded anyway. We had it in our minds to double our bets when we lost, but at $15 every hand, you will quickly be betting over $100 a hand. On the big amounts we would chicken out and bet smaller, but then we would win. We lost our $200 the first night. When we got back to our room, it was about 2am, and I had not eaten anything since my lunch at noon that day. I ordered room service and got a hamburger, fries, and a milkshake. Not bad for $27.

The next morning after getting the run around some, we were able to pick up our ShoWest badges and invitations to the Universal product reel screening. It was about an hour of trailers for their movies this year. The highlights were the new Hulk trailer and the preproduction stuff on Van Helsing. Hulk could be really good. We saw some scenes of the transformation and a lot of new action scenes. I'm really looking forward to it. Van Helsing is another monster movie from Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) starring Hugh Jackman as the monster killer and apparently every monster from the Universal library. The art they were showing looked really good.

After the reel screening, we went to the luncheon. It didn't take us long to realize that this is not a side of the business that interests us. The people who were at this luncheon were not movie fans at all, but rather money fans. They don't care if Hulk is any good, they just hope it sells a lot of Mountain Dew.

After the luncheon, we went to the screening of Dreamcatcher. It was pretty similar to the book right up until the end. Kim liked it, but I don't think I liked it very much. I don't think that Stephen King's slang from his books works on the screen, and I didn't believe Morgan Freeman as a villain. After the movie finished, we had some time before the dinner started, so we thought we'd try some more blackjack.

This time we were adamant about sticking to the strategy. This time we found a $10 minimum table and we had better luck. Armed with $200, we started playing. Eventually, the "strategy" dictated that we bet all of our remaining money (now $100) on the next hand. Remembering our mistakes from last night, we did. Betting $100 on one hand of blackjack is an interesting experience. It takes the game to another level. We won that hand, thankfully, and were rejuvenated. We went back and forth winning and losing and we were doing OK for a bit. We hit a slump and decided to sit out a few hands. Now with the strategy in mind, we couldn't figure out if sitting out a hand meant we should restart our bet at $10 or bet our remaining $105 on the next hand. We had left the table and the dealer was shuffling, so that was clearly a break. However, we had been lucky on our first hand from a new deck every time. So we sat down and bet it all. We were dealt a 12, and the dealer had a 7 showing. I leaned over to Kim and said, "He has 17, I fucking know it." So I took a hit and got a 2...14. 14 obviously loses to 17, but maybe he only has 9 under there and he'll have to hit. So I stood on my 14. The guy next to me took a hit and got an 8, the 8 that would have given me 22 and broke me if I had taken it. So I felt better about it. However, the dealer DID have 17 and he scooped up my black chip and red chip without even looking up. Kim and I left the table a little sullen. We got some satisfaction out of the fact that the hand was unwinnable, and that we played it right.

We still had some time before the big awards dinner, so we walked over to Caesar's Palace to browse around for a bit. The dinner ended up being a waste and we left before the stars started getting awards. Since we had just dropped $400 gambling, we thought that I should probably show up for work on Friday since I don't get paid if I don't show up (my being a contractor and all). Our drive home was much quicker than the drive out there.

At the end of it all, we had a lot of fun and got to play Hollywood for a day. Normally, a post like this would be full of pictures, however, our camera and its brand new batteries were not working, so we have none. You'll just have to take my word on all of it.