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.

So I was called for jury duty. A few weeks ago, I attended the empaneling session, which seems to be a rare thing. They assign you to a jury while taking your schedule into account. It made the whole thing rather painless. I was scheduled to report this morning at 10:00. In the jury duty documents, they make a big point about how there's no parking at the courthouse, so I rode the 'Dillo for the first time. It's free, and mostly serves downtown, with a few stops off at park-and-ride lots (all in south Austin). Some of the 'Dillos are regular buses, but one I rode today looks like a trolley, complete with wooden seats. It was very cute.

I left the house at 8, returned at 8:15 because I thought I had forgotten some necessary paperwork (but there was none to forget), and then drove south on IH-35 for 45 minutes (bleah). The 'Dillo arrived shortly after I did, I chatted with a fellow juror and helped her find the courthouse, and then arrived about ten 'til ten, right on time. I read my copy of Six Easy Pieces, physics lectures by Richard Feynman, so that I could answer honestly that that was the last book I'd read, in case the lawyers asked. Partly, I thought it would be likely to get me dismissed, but mostly, I couldn't admit that what I've been reading these days is a John Saul novel entitled The Right Hand of Evil. It's a dumb title; the book is okay.

By 10:20, we had been dismissed. Oftentimes, when faced with the reality of an actual jury, people will settle their cases. But that satisfies my obligation, so I've done my bit, and I'm off the hook.

But it was too nice a day to dash right back to work. I mean, really. I'd blocked out the whole day, and I was only two blocks from the library. What's a girl to do? Nosing around for something either on spirituality or feminism, I found The Tao of Womanhood, which seems a good compromise. I looked for a book that Tameka had recommended, but I wasn't entirely sure of the title, and I couldn't find it. I think it was Reinventing Ophelia...or Redefining. Meeker, you can leave me a note by clicking on those little spiders right there.

I was back to work by noon and had lunch outside with a friend. Nice morning. Wish every day could start with a jaunt to the library. That would be heaven.

On a more upbeat note, this past weekend was the District 55 Toastmasters conference, in San Antonio. My friend Shafali, who had already won at the Club, Area, and Division levels, took second place in the International Speech contest at the District level. I'm so proud of her. I heard some good talks on leadership, and I got re-fired up about Toastmasters, deciding that perhaps I really could be club president in the coming term. Jon came along, and he's bound to join soon, too. There's a local club that meets on Saturday mornings, so we might attend that one.

Then on Sunday, Ben joined us for The Mummy Returns. It was pretty cool. There were some plot decisions that I didn't find satisfying, but it looked really cool. And there was no more blood than a scratch on the face, which was rather weird, considering somebody got ripped into four pieces. Very cartoony. Also, we were treated to some movie trailers that look promising: Tomb Raider (yay, Laura!), in live action with lots of computer effects, and Final Fantasy, in really spiffy computer animation of the quality seen in the Starship Troopers: Roughnecks series. Jurassic Park 3 looked skipable, though Sam Neill is so lovely, I might suffer through it just for him--as a rental.

And speaking of hotties in movies, Hugh Jackman is doing another film, due out June 8. It's called Swordfish, and it's about hackers (ho-hum). I received an email about it because there is some serious Dell product placement in it. Interestingly enough, Dell doesn't have to pay for the placement, just provide the servers and racks temporarily. How wild. Maybe in Rocky XII you'll see people playing Inevitable.

A press release has gone out. 3,000 to 4,000 shall fall. Résumé tonight.

Oh, I should have mentioned the other day: I've also got some experience in relational database design.

Faithful reader Derf asks just what it is I do, in response to my lamentations about layoff threats. Well, silly, I'm a programmer. I work for Dell's I/T (Information Technology -- and, no, I don't know why there's a slash there. Drives me bananas.) department, developing web-based applications for the procurement (negotiate for the parts that go into Dells) department, using ASP, SQL, DHTML (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and VBScript.

Basically, I have fulfilled my destiny: I am a Web Diva.

And I might be job hunting in the next few weeks. *winning smile*

Little known fact: Okay, maybe it's better titled a "hardly known fact," since most of you will probably say, "Duh, Sharon, even I knew that." So, my hardly known fact: Six hours in a car on an early May afternoon in Texas is hot enough to cause a bottle of nail polish to explode. Wheee.

I've got an idea for a new reality-tv program: Layoff! Each week, another dedicated, hard-working employee will be voted off the island.

It's the secrecy I can't stand. Rumors are rampant throughout Dell, and they're even getting published in the paper, but the silence from above is deafening. I'm trying to stay loose, to roll with it. I figure, this very job came up out of the blue, and I was just flexible enough and adventurous enough to grab it as it ran past; so if it's time for it to go away, then that must mean there's another longhorn running by. I've got my hand out.

Note to self: Tech writer? No, it's time to spiff up that résumé...

I'm more of an art officianado than I'd thought.

I was explaining to a friend why my pal Jesse's costume is funny. To summarize, there is this huge metal sculpture on Penn State's campus that we have affectionately dubbed "FROH," for "Fighting Red Onion Head." (Look at it; it'll make sense. No, the name, not the sculpture.) Now, FROH had always reminded me of another huge metal monstrosity in Allentown, home of my youth. And here, today, in that Collegian article linked to above, I find that the same artist and the same donators are responsible for both sculptures.

I recognized somebody's style!

And they're following me. If I see one in Austin, I'll let you know.

What the heck kind of a word is "tater tot" anyway? I mean, "tot"? Ew.

Don't you just hate it when people don't update their blogs in forever?

Yeah, me, too.