I never told you all about my trip to Vegas! The boys of Invisible City and I attended the GAMA Trade Show, for manufacturers (us), retailers, and distributors of board games and card games. The trade show was in the Orleans hotel, which had a lot of smokers.

We had a fantastic time, soaking up information in the panel discussions like mad and meeting all the cool people in the industry. I chatted with Steve Jackson, who has since invited me to game night with his gang, but I keep missing the invitations. We also got taken under the wing of Marcelo of AEG, who hosts the Gamer High listserv (an unreal amount of piffle, but it's cute piffle, and it makes us part of the In crowd, so I'll take it), which posits that the industry is like a high school. Hadn't thought I'd be a frosh again any time soon.

But meeting Marcelo had a really spiffy side effect. See, he mentioned that he and some friends were "going dancing." I said I'd like to go, and Jon would come, too. We agreed to meet at 10:00 at the Alligator bar in the hotel, to then go over to the Ra at the Luxor (the big pyramid one on the Strip).

They weren't there at 10. I knew I'd been stood up. We watched a little roulette and then swung by the bar again, and there they were! And they sent me upstairs to change into something more clubby. Sigh. But they waited for me, and then Marcelo's gang went in someone's car, and Jon and I caught a cab, with the instructions to wait in front of the Ra.

Nobody's at the Ra. Well, there's a line of people waiting to be let in by the bouncer, but none of the gang we were going to meet. Taking the cab certainly took longer. Sigh... But while Jon and I stood in indecision, wondering if we should just get into line or not, Marcelo came out of the club, mentioned to the bouncer that we were with his group, and the bouncer lifted the rope and let us in. Yow! All these Beautiful People in line, and we get let in specially. The night was looking up.

Then Marcelo says, "Let me introduce you to your host." He leads us through the club and then into one of the VIP rooms, where there's a private party. We meet the bouncer at the door so that we'll be able to come and go with no problem, and then we're introduced to Peter Atkinson, former owner and CEO of Wizards of the Coast. [jaw drops]

We had so made it. There were folks there who take care of event registration for GenCon and significant contributors to Dungeons&Dragons Third Edition and just... People! We were in a swanky club, in Vegas, at a private party, attended by the movers and shakers in the gaming industry. Hot damn!

Of course you all know that my driving motivator is to meet celebrities and then become one. This was right up there on my list of Really Cool Stuff. What a night.