Bleeding Neon

When I told the girlfriend I was planning to attend this week’s installment of the Las Vegas Beer & Blog meet-up, she tried wrapping her head around the concept, asking if it would just be people gathering in the same place but still hiding behind their computer screens, communicating only via tweets, texts and e-mails. I laughed it off, suggesting that this was a chance for relatively anonymous bloggers to come out into the sunlight, er, low bar lighting, and share ideas over drinks and revelry. And so, when I entered the Freakin’ Frog last night to see what all this beerin’ and bloggin’ was about, what did I see?

People … gathered in one place … behind computer monitors … with Twitter live in their browsers …

Um. Yeah.

Actually, it wasn’t that awkward. I mean, the event IS called “Beer & Blog,” so you might expect a few … dozen … laptops popped up around a table or two (or three … or four …). But really, the turnout last night was quite impressive for a three-week-old event in Las Vegas: more than 40 people, including KLAS-TV anchor/voice actor/Twitterer Dave Courvoisier.

I’m not typically what you would call a “joiner.” Except for a brief stint on a soccer team as a young boy, I never played organized sports. I didn’t get into role-playing games or extracurricular clubs. I’ve preferred to work alone creatively, learning how to create all aspects of a project rather than split up the work. And I don’t like to share my interests with others, whether music, books or hobbies. It’s surprising I actually play in a band that is about as democratically run as they come.

Plus, I think I’m awesome all on my own. Hey, if I don’t say it, no one else will.

So even turning up for an event whose driving mission is “bloggers helping bloggers over beers” was something of an anomaly for me. But I like to play nice and most of the people in attendance have graciously followed me on Twitter or right here, so I figured the least I could do was shake a few hands and share a few beers with my fellow Vegas-based social media mavens.

And it wasn’t too bad. Of course, it helped that I knew a number of the folks there (and may have been indirectly responsible for that happening in the first place) from both professional and personal life. Some interesting discussions flew around the room, such as bloggers-versus-journalists, anonymity in blogging and people who confuse the medium with the message.

However, considering I was chomping at the bit to head off to get some actual writing done, I think once was enough for me. Were I looking for a Thursday night drinking hole or new friends, Beer & Blog might be more appealing, but given the last things I need are more distractions, I’ll leave a seat open at the bar for someone else and return to stowing away in the corner of a coffee shop, with only the blank page or screen to taunt me.

(Photo courtesy Living in the Future)

No, not Ice T too! Criss Angel infected him with THE DOUCHINESS!! (Photo courtesy Tom Rutan)

As a new article reminds us everyday, you cannot be truly somebody in the world today unless you use Twitter, the micro-blogging service that allows users to post status updates of no more than 140 characters for all the world (or, in some cases, selected people) to see. Even more so than other forms of social media, Twitter has proven the great equalizer, allowing fans of TV, literature and movies to interact (somewhat) directly with their favorite actors and writers, enabling journalists and publicists to seamlessly connect and, of course, providing one more moving target for viral marketers and spammers.

You often see people post their daily “tweets,” or Twitter postings, on their blogs/journals/whatever, but typically reading those is akin to catching only one side of a phone conversation – it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. That’s kind of useless, annoying and honestly, a bit lazy (in my annoying and judgmental opinion).

But yesterday, a pretty funny exchange went down between myself and a few pals on Twitter, including writer Cynthia Moon Reed and my friend Mike, for whom you may recall I failed on national television. Cindi “re-tweeted” a post that illusionist Criss Angel, star of the terrible new Cirque du Soleil show, Believe, blasted Monday afternoon on Twitter: “Group of girls stops me for an autograph and one asks me when Motley Crue is getting back together. How would I know?”

And hence began the nonsense. Here’s the ensuing Twitter conversation, actually cleaned up and arranged for readability:

pjperez: Either a) they mistook crissangel for Tommy Lee or b) they assumed all douchebags hang out in a Clubhouse of Douche.

cmoonreed: Either way, I think it’s pretty damn funny that crissangel’s complaint seems to lack any spark of self-recognition or irony.

pjperez: He wouldn’t recognize irony if it was dressed as a giant man-eating rabbit and bit off his head.

cmoonreed: I actually thought that “Clubhouse of Douche” was the name of the bar in the Luxor.

pjperez: That’s actually R&R Partners’ new slogan for the LVCVA: “Las Vegas: The Clubhouse of Douche.”

cmoonreed: But a giant man-eating rabbit IS the plot of Mindfreak [pretty sure she meant "Believe" here]. And this LVCVA thing could totally be legit. I no longer know what is real.

pjperez: That is the magic of Vegas: Anything is possible. That you can beLIEve.

cmoonreed: If I BELIEVE in @crissangel do I get a free Max Factor makeover? Or perhaps a free drink at the new bar at the Luxor?

mikeyvegas is awaiting a future of open hostility from Mr. Mindfreak for pjperez/cmoonreed. No worries, I’ve got your backs, yo! Max Factor be DAMNED!

cmoonreed: I’m dying to know what his method of attack would be.

pjperez: What, is crissangel going to smear eyeliner all over cmoonreed and my faces? Or maybe throw a Playboy Bunny at us?

cmoonreed: I hope he uses magic!

Oh, Twitter, where would we smear Criss Angel without you?

I guess they've been short-Circuited, huh? Ha, I know, I am genius.

By now, you should be well aware of Circuit City’s pending complete and total shutdown in these fine United States of America (for some reason, the company’s Canadian operations are staying open, for now). That’s 30,000 people about to lose their jobs in 567 U.S. branches of the 60-year-old electronics retailer. Almost immediately after officially announcing the closures, the stores began running liquidation sales. And not surprisingly, the allegedly struggling American consumers flocked to Circuit City to get their grubby hands on what had to be fire sale deals.

But the deals suck. I went on the Saturday after the liquidation announcement to the location at Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard. Sure enough, the store was probably busier than it had been in years. However, after perusing the aisles for things I really didn’t need (I came looking for a Wacom Intuos graphic tablet, y’know, just in case), it occurred to me Circuit City’s prices weren’t very competitive. Even with 10 percent overall and slightly varying discounts in different departments, it seems as though all these shoppers would have been better off going to Wal-Mart or Target or even Best Buy. When you couple high prices with what I’ve read about increasingly bad/sparse customer service over the years, well, it’s no wonder that the venerable retailer found itself in big financial trouble. I mean, you don’t see Best Buy on the bankruptcy block, do you?

I went to a different location this week, figuring it’s been another week, maybe the liquidation prices are dropping. Nope. There were some killer deals on open box items, but there are always open box bargains in electronics stores. Maybe it’s good that the company’s liquidators aren’t shoving items out the door too quickly. After all, the sooner the stores sell out their inventory, the sooner they shutter the doors and Circuit City employees find themselves out on the street. Is it any surprise that Circuit City employees wear red shirts?

In case you missed the first entry in this series, here’s a quick recap: I’m rolling out 100 things about me that are either interesting, odd or otherwise notable. Some of these things are public knowledge, but a number of them will likely take you by surprise. Hell, they’ve taken me by surprise. Here’s the next 25 in our rundown: (continue reading…)

Who wants to be a camera whore?

I received a phone call from a colleague today.

“Was that you I saw on ‘Millionaire’ last night?” she asked.

It was. Kind of. It was my picture, and my voice, though it was my friend Mike who was actually “on” the syndicated edition of popular TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Last fall, Mike sent me an e-mail asking if I’d be one of his lifelines on Millionaire. I was honored and a little surprised, because though I certainly wouldn’t consider myself dumb, I’m not outstandingly smart, either. I just fake it. But I agreed, and Mike rushed over to my house with paperwork I needed to sign so he could overnight the agreements and whatnot to New York right away.

When the day of his taping came around, one of the producers called me early in the morning to make sure I would be available within about a two-hour time span, during which I basically waited for the phone to ring like a mother hen sitting on her incubating eggs. On my web browser, I had tabs opened for Google and Wikipedia. The phone rang.

“Hi, Pj, it’s Meredith Vieira.” She was live, with Mike, and he was going for $100,000.

Mike’s a smart guy. Real smart. Whenever we get together to play Trivial Pursuit, his team inevitably wins. He does things with computers I’m sure I can’t even spell let alone understand. So it was no surprise that he made it to $100,000. But it was a little surprising he’d call me at that point.

The question basically asked what moon dust smells like, according to the Apollo moon astronauts. I forget all four options, but two of them were “mothballs” and “spent gunpowder.” Those were the top two in my mind, and after talking to Mike last night after the broadcast, they were his as well.

I had 20 seconds from the time he started reading me the question and answers to respond. You’d think I could have easily typed “moon dust smell” into a Google search box and whammo — answer in .28 seconds. But put under pressure, the brain doesn’t work that way. I did what I would have done were I in the hot seat and not Mike: listened to all four options, mentally eliminate the obviously wrong ones, try to reason it.

There was no time. Mike urged, “two seconds!” and I just said, “mothballs.”

Mike went with my answer. And then … he went home. Not with $100,000, but $25,000.

Do a Google search for “moon dust smell.” Notice something? In that first page of results, there are conflicting results. And when you click on the first result — the official NASA Apollo Chronicles site — you would have found the correct answer, but it would have been too late. On my broadband connection, it took about 10 seconds for the NASA page to load. Figure a few seconds for me to type the query on top of that, and even had my fingers moved after Mike took a few seconds to ask me the question, I would have not been able to confirm the answer. It’s not as easy as it seems.

I was wracked with guilt for letting my friend down. Plus, I couldn’t tell anyone and Mike has had to sit on his results for almost four months (part of those confidentiality agreements they have you sign). Surprisingly, he did not murder me upon his return to Las Vegas. And not yet since.

Unwittingly, Mike got me back. Sort of. See that picture at the top of this post? Yeah, that’s the mugshot that Mike’s girlfriend Daniella sent to the producers to use. Not the “official” head shot I gave her. A goofy photo taken as I was partying down at 944 magazine’s two-year anniversary party at the Hard Rock Hotel. Likely intoxicated.

So for those of you out there watching Millionaire last night thinking “is that THAT Pj?,” yes. Yes it was. And thankfully, after yesterday’s broadcast, no one will ever ask me to be their lifeline on a game show ever again.

• • •

In other news, someone searching for “young girls bleeding photos” arrived at this website. Dear FBI: I have the IP address if you want it.