CES 2007: 200,000 Geeks, One Router

It’s actually not all that uncommon to have internet connection issues at a convention. Power outages even. In fact, of the half-dozen or so conventions I’ve attended within the same number of months, I’ve had trouble of one type or another in connecting to the internet, or using my phone. It has something to do with supply and demand, I think. We live so much of our lives along those narrow strips of orange on the system grid maps, that when we stray from them, or, as is the case at most shows, all collect in one node at one time, something’s bound to give.

That’s seems to be what’s happening here, today. Our internet has been up and down, a lot like what’s happening in the videos they’re showing down the hall from the CES Tech Innovations Hall, where silicone-enhanced vixens ranging in age from 18 (as far as anyone knows) to 80, accompanied by muscle-bound men of all sizes and shapes have been slowly engorging the Adult Entertainment Expo, which is set to explode all over Las Vegas on the 11th.

Again I find myself in a scene approaching the truly bizarre. Another dichotomy of play, courtesy of the most Fabulous city on Earth. On one end of the Sands Expo Center, we have thousands of high-tech innovators congregating to network, show each other their wares and explain in great, titillating detail how they produce their ecstatic displays of entertainment. And at the other … porn.

It’d be hard to tell which was which just from looking at the faces of the attendees. Geeks from all over (130 countries) have been milling about the CES exhibits, mouths agape, eyes abulge as they take in display after display of sleek, technological sexiness. Crossing the streams of these two conventions must have been someone’s awesomely twisted joke, and I for one like it. Bravo, Universe!

Meanwhile, birds are dropping down dead in Austin, Texas, a mysterious gas smell pervades Manhattan and our internet connection at The Venetian is glitchy. Whether any of these three things are related to each other, or possibly some impending apocalypse remains unclear. All I know is I want to send some emails, then hit the slots.