I'm not kidding. While we never wound up getting any love out of the ESA in order to roll three deep to E3 this year, we did get a nice reach around from PAX and will be on a plane to Seattle next Thursday.

What am I looking forward to? Well, I'm looking forward to hitting the booths for EA, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, D3, and Activision to name a few. I want to see what is going to go down with the rhythm game wars, if Oneechanbura is going to be one of the games that makes it to my "Replay Classics" list, and if Sony has "Home" ready to go.

And bee-tee-dubs, when I say "we'z goin,'" I mean that "I" [just NinJaSistah] will be in attendance. Pandalicious punked out and will not be heading to the coast with me. I'm sure she'll refute the "punked out" piece of that statement, but it's the truth folks.

How about you, what do you want to see come out of PAX 08? I'll try to spend some time checking out some of the titles you want to know about.

Finish What You Start...

When it comes to great looking high fashion tech accessory cases you can have practical but ugly, great design but not really useful or you can get both great design and practicality but you are not going to get both without paying big bucks.

As a result we end up with mediocre bags that fit are needs but really were made with the supposed "hip" business men in mind... but no more Golla's new spring collection fills our particle side as well as having a mean design sense. They make every thing from bags for your phones and ipods to laptop sleeves and backpacks. The company is based in Finland and all of there products have a great European style to them yet the designers have thought about all the ways people are going to be using there technology.

Music Bags
The music bags really stood out to me because while they were design with the mp3 player in mind they really can be for a variety of devices from you phone to camera. There are multiple pockets where you can slip in an ID or metro card and there is even a great zipper pocket on the back so you can put items you want to be really secure. They have also opted to not do a belt clip in favor of a small carabineers which I think will led it's self to be more versatile.

Backpacks
Golla also introduced new colors with both males and females in mind for there backpack collection. For anyone who has had to dig through there bag trying to find that one item that you swear you had with you only for it get lost in the dark pit then this is the bag for you. The back compartment is for you laptop but unlike conventional backpacks you load your computer from the side making it so much easier to fit everything. The second compartment where I at lease end to just dump everything else into has see-through zipper compartments so you can put everything into it perspective place. But just in case you forget where you put it you phone those see-though pocket come in handy.

So the final part where can you get these bags? Depending on what you are looking for there are a variety of places from cellular store like AT&T Wireless for the phone and music bags to Target for the laptop sleeves and backpacks. While the holidays are over and we are all strapped a little for cash now you can think of these are part of your New Years resolution to get organized.

Posted by FreeLoader Megwin

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Ok, I've pulled myself back from the brink of drunkitude once again to bring you the highlights of my day on the CES trade show floor, and by far I have to tell you Razer really got my attention today folks.

To be fair, it was a split between Razer and the Frag Dolls... but I only got a few seconds with the dolls and about an hour with Razer so they "won" the competition.

In case you didn't know, Razer does high end gaming peripherals... and I do mean high end. Everything I saw today had the best response times, well thought out components and features that a gamer could want or need. The Tarantula keyboard has extra banks of keys on both the left and right side [L1-L5 and R1-R5] that you the user can program all yer favorite macros into. You can play with the delay so that you space effects out over a second or fraction there of. No longer must you search or hunt for your shaman's totems... program em' and be done with it, because it's game time!

The most impressive thing that I saw today actually wasn't functioning. Razer has been hard at work on a new speaker system that [once you have a unit not missing the power cable] may damn near eliminate the speaker sound bounce problem without sacrificing look or audio quality. The Mako speaker system may just be a dynamo in pimps clothing if it actually provides the kind of audio quality that Razer president Robert Krakoff seemed genuinely sad not to be able to show me. The satellites [I use the term loosely because I have nothing else that I can call them for now] feature downward firing sound to a circular opening and plate. Sound flows out in 360 degrees so you don't have to. No more pointing speakers directly at yourself, the sound will fill up around you making games sound a little more real and intense. Hopefully I can swing by Razer's booth again tomorrow to actually test them out because I may need me some new speakers!

The last thing that I looked at from Razer today was their new 1800dpi infrared mouse. This thing looks and feels the balls. I should have one in for review shortly, so I'll hold off my final verdict until I've put the thing through it's paces... but the silicone/rubbery membrane type texture of mouse "buttons" alone made me want to get all freaky deaky on some PC games... and y'all know how I don't do that.

All in all my time with Razer today made me realize that they aren't bullshitting when they say "by gamers. for gamers." And for that reason alone they will always get my full attention from now on.

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I know the posting from me has been a little lax of late. I've been doing that nasty "day job" thing in order to pay off the AMEX that I put my Wii and PS3 bundles on, but I'm back y'all... just in time to head off to CES!

As I type this, I prepare my luggage for it's inaugural "covering [insert event name here] for ESH" trip. Yes, my journey to Las Vegas will be my first actual outing covering an event for ESH. Be on the lookout starting next Monday for tidbits, news breaks, and all around cool ass stuff coming from me and Evermore next week.

For those of you not in the know CES is the Consumer Electronics Show. It's the tradeshow that all the big boys, runts, and "tall for their age" electronics manufacturers descend upon in order to reveal their new products for the regular consumer at. Yes, CES can be the show that starts the buzz that becomes hype and then consumer demand that requires manufacturers supply. CES is the real consumermas... and we'll be there!

I'm hoping to see some bomb ass gaming computers, home theater setups, gaming peripherals, A/V racks, all the things you need to assemble the most awesome, badass, mega, uber, colossal entertainment center this side of Skywalker Ranch. Yeah, you heard me. I'm also looking forward to visiting the video games section of the show. Sony, Blizzard, Aspyr, and Microsoft are going to be there, so I'm hoping that I can bend them to the will of hooking a sistah up so she, in turn, may hook you up. Social networking at it's purest form baby!

So what are you guys interested in seeing or hearing about? Hit us up, and let me know... I'll try to get around to it while I'm in Vegas. MMMMM, nearly free trip to Vegas... [salvates Homer Simpson style]

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We finally got some cash together and figured we ought to hit a big convention/tradeshow and CES was the obvious choice. CES is the Consumer Electronic Showcase, basically anything and everything electronic that companies could possibly want to sell to you [the consumer] make their debut here. CES has been going strong and growing strong since 1967, so to say that we are excited to become part of this rich tech history would be a slight understatement.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "Why is the ESH crew going to CES? Isn't it just a bunch of TV's on display?" It's a valid question to ask, but it ain't accurate. CES is actually the show that COMDEX and even the former incarnation of E3 were modeled after, and while there will be a lot of new TV technologies introduced at the show there will also be lots of home theater setups, sounds systems and components, wireless technologies, and even video game related items that will surface from the show. I think as gamers sometimes we forget that getting our hands on the latest and greatest game stuff isn't limited to just a console, or piece of software.

No matter who you are you have a gaming rig that you use, be it just a 23" TV or an elaborate setup containing a 7.1 surround sound system, 42" flat screen LCD TV, a chain of UPS', several gaming consoles, a harmony remote, and a theater style seating arrangement. [Huge sigh] With that said, one of the things that you will start seeing around ESH will be our takes on different components that you may or may not want to add to your rig, so it only makes sense to us that we start by going to CES. We are going to be looking at different audio setups, home theater systems, peripherals for both computer based and console based gaming, LCD TV's [this will come in handy for those of you wanting to upgrade that tiny little 25" TV to something a little sexier] mobile gaming, and gaming in general. And we can't forget portable media stuff, mostly because they won't let us. We'll be on the look out for the hottest new gadgets at the show that will help you get the most out of your iPod, portable video player... hell we'll even take a look at stuff for the Zune while we're at it. We are committed to covering your electronic needs, but only in the good way.

While CES is not E3, Microsoft and Sony are going to be there, and there is going to be a separate "video gaming" section on the tradeshow floor, so we aren't going to be forgetting our roots any time too soon. It just seems to us like it's time to take that next step forward in covering the whole spectrum of gaming life, that I think sometimes gets overlooked. You can't use a game console without having a TV to hook it up to. You can't hear the games without some kind of sound system hooked up to [or built into] that TV your connected to, and you have to have some place to park your ass in order to play and enjoy those games you are playing... and in January, NinJaSistah and Evermore are going to bring you some first hand accounts of the new toys you'll want to add to your rig from CES.

This will be one time that what happens in Vegas, doesn't stay there!

Finish What You Start...

Alright, I type these words as my muscle vibrate in sweet and sour agony sauce. I'm now in day two of the move from the old apartment to the new and you'd think by now I'd be done. I'm not, but I'm close.

Anywho, I needed to take a break [because I'm tired of washing floors and finding boxes] and saw an email in my in box that I had to share with you...

As you may or may not know CEA, the people who run the monster tradeshow that is CES said that they will not be producing an all gaming tradeshow [separate from CES] next year. Couldn't get enough folks interested in ponying up money to run that shin-dig... but IDG said they can, did, and will.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL FOLKS! IDG is creating a new show, called GamePro Expo that will be what E3 used to be like. The event is scheduled to go off in L.A. next October 18-20th. My calendar is marked already, what about yours?

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