Creeping into your fresh cup of coffee is a new episode of the ESH podcast, and this one is a bit different than most.

It's not a full crew episode, nor is it a top 5, this episode is all NinJaSistah, and it's all rant.

I've pulled together all my thoughts about the last few video game trade show events that I've gone to and created nearly an hour of the good, the bad, the ugly, and hopefully the fixes that are needed to truly make tradeshows accessible, fun, and educational for all.

To give you an idea of the paths this episode goes down, here are some of the titles I didn't pick for it:

• The E3 Gods Must Be Crazy
• CES: Where The Elite Meet To Deceit
• Fair and Balanced: It's Not Just A Slogan... It's A Phrase
• Stop Excluding A Sistah
• and finally
• COMDEX Got So Big Nobody Went There Anymore

Yes indeedy, it's a good old fashioned tongue lashing... so sit back, relax and enjoy ESH podcast episode 117: "How To Get Treated Like A Meat Popsicle."

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If you're a long-time listener of the ESH podcasts, you'll find this one has a completely different feel. That's because this episode was recorded absolutely live at the E For All show this past weekend.

Ninjasistah appeared live at the show, along with guests Loserly from Dead Pixel Live, April Carlson and Mandie Bettencourt from Girls Got Game, who discuss the true integration of girls and gaming sites.

Pandalicious represents, as usual, by talking about her fear of upcoming live-action movies made of her favorite anime stories. And MagicMysticGrl shows up after a long absence to talk about everything .hack.

Here are the headlines that were rejected for this one:

Working Part-Time, 43 Hours a Week

In Anime, Girls Will Be Girls, and So Will Boys

When Microphone Positioning Becomes Erotic

Panda Has a Filter, She Just Has to Remember to Put It On

High School Musical? These Guys Are Old Enough to Take the GED

You Are Now Entering a WoW-Free Zone

I Never Said I Wasn't a Hypocrite

It's a loud, boisterous and lots of fun. Enjoy Episode 116: Live from L.A., It's Sistahs for All.

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Day two is nearly done here at E For All and today was much more busy on the floor than yesterday.

I spent most of my day walking around the show floor people watching and talking to folks that either cosplayed to the event, or looked like interesting couples/families to me. I was really impressed by how many families were in attendance today, and wanted to take the opportunity to find out why so many folks turned out.

The two families that I spoke with [both with kids in the 6-9 range] came out because they were looking for a family activity to do on the weekend and being able to take their kids out to an event like this where they can touch and play games while they are supervised [as well as the parents themselves getting a chance to play] seemed to be a great idea. This is ridiculous cool to me. I've been preaching more parental involvement in the lives of kids playing video games, and I'm glad that E For All is an event helping to facilitate this.

I haven't yet seen any families stepping up to the RockBand or GuitarHero titles, I'm hoping that will change soon. I'd love to see some mom and dad on drums and vocal with the kids kicking it on guitar. What I can say is that I'm on RB GH overload.

Well, almost.

As far as games go, I wasn't too impressed with FarCry 2, but I knew I wouldn't be as I'm not a huge FPS fan, but Entropia Universe was cool and Gears 2 is OFF THE HOOK!

More to come on Entropia tomorrow.

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OK. Got off the plane. Got in the cab. Got out of the cab. Now what?

I got to the L.A. Convention Center later that I would like. But I got here in one piece. Yeah, Panda, I direct that at you. You punk.

I've never been to the L.A. Convention Center before, but it's a great looking facility. Check in was a breeze and since it's the first place I hit since I dropped in L.A., I decided to do a lap around the convention show floor just to see what I could see.

What I found out was that 2 o'clock on Friday was a great time to go to E For All. With the exception of some of the booths that are doing contests, there are literally no lines today.

I took a couple of pictures that I'll be putting up later, but where the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) felt kind of cramped, the feeling in the L.A. Convention Center is definitely spacious. There's plenty of room to walk. It's well lit and generally an inviting place for gamers.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised how light the foot traffice is, considering that this is the opening day.

But, just like PAX, E For All is definitely about people getting in contact with games. The World Cyber Games (WCG) is here and the qualifying rounds are well underway. What's really weird, at least to me, is that almost all of the machines in that area all have that eery, alien, weird, vibrant blue lighting to them, like they were running on Smurf blood. But the stage has been set for the WCG Finals, which I'm really looking forward to. The events are mostly team events, with the exception of games like Guitar Hero III and Project Gotham Racing 4.

What doesn't surprise me, which actually makes me a little sad in the pants, is that the majority of the WCG contestants are guys. As I was doing my floor tour (before catching up with the All Games crew, and catching DerrickH, the host of Dead Pixel Live staring at my boobs), was the lack of female contestants at WCG. I was really hoping that having groups like the PMS Clan, Gaming Angels and Gamer Vixens here that it would draw more women out to the event.

But hey, it's only Day 1. They might show up tomorrow, and I just didn't get the memo.

All in all, my first impressions are good and I think I'm in for a lot of fun. I'll let you know more when I know more. And don't forget, ESH is going live happens Saturday afternoon on the All Games website at 1-ish Pacific Time. Oh yeah -- gamer on!

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I'm sitting at the SJC airport waiting to get on a plane to head to LA for E For All

There is a lot of stuff going on at E For All this year. A lot of people are going to be in the house including EA and Ubisoft whom I'm really interested in seeing, [Please, please, please surprise me and bring Prince of Persia with you] but there are some lesser known [at least to me] companies that will be at the expo that I'm curious about and plan on visiting while I'm at the show.

First up is Dude Thing Creations. They make a peripheral stand for RockBand/GuitarHero games and I like the look of the stand. I'm not a musician, [not even close] so I always felt that going to Guitar Center to get an actual guitar stand would be kinda poser-ish, but this custom stand that the "Dudes" have put together is sensible and downright sexy. It would fit right in with my living room decor so I'm going to swing by and find out more about these dudes and their things.

Nova Gaming is going to be in the spot, and I'm curious about their new B4L bag. I'm not a huge LAN fan [he he, I mades a pun] but I am a fan of specific purpose gear bags, and hate jamming gear into a backpack when I do venture out of my apartment to game.

And then there is Tritton who has made my heart go pitter patter with the announcement that their SEE2 Xtreme now supports OSX on the Mac. I've been looking for a new monitor for my MBP and decided that I'd love to go super-pimp on my desktop setup [when I'm there] with a pair of monitors flanking my lil silver slate of awesome. To be able to have monitors connected via USB over DVI connectors with no lag... ::DROOLS::

Now that I've drooled on myself, I think I'll stop. Plus, planes almost here. Talk to you in a few. Let me know what you are curious about, and don't forget to catch ESH Live tomorrow on the All Games Radio Network!

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