All the complaints about this and that are neither here nor there to me. I have a small amount of work to do but for the most part I go as a vacation. It may not sound like one to most people. But I have the time of my life, in spite of and because of what E3 is and has become. Allow me to share what E3 '06 was for me, a total industry outsider.

Day one was a doozy. Woke up Wednesday at 6am eastern for my 8am flight from Philly to LA. The flight landed at 1130am pacific (230 eastern). When I landed, I caught the bus to the rental car lot, picked up my car, and drove right to the show, walking through the doors around 12:45pm. At this point I had been up eight hours already. I stayed until the show closed at 6pm and was going to visit the "I am 8-bit art show" at Gallery 1988, but I had a headache that would kill weaker men, and decided I'd wait till tomorrow. I did make it there on Thursday, and it was just as cool as last year's show. By the time I got to sleep it was 4am eastern and I had been up for 22 hours, flew cross country, and spent 7 hours on my feet.

I crashed with a friend in Venice, sleeping in his studio apartment on a borrowed air mattress. I woke up at 6am to get on the freeway before the LA traffic could ruin my day. I got to the convention center at around 6:45am, and then sat on the floor until the doors opened at 9am. Then I waited in line, played some games, walked around, waited in line, played games, etc. Rinse and Repeat for 3 days, 10 hours each day on the show floor. Luckily, my DS was there to help pass the time waiting in line.

Somewhere in between waiting outside 2 hours for the doors to open, grabbing swag and waiting 3 hours to play the Wii I found time to sit on the convention center floor and eat a $13 dollar lunch with consisted of a cheeseburger and fries, a hot dog, and a large diet soda. God I can't wait till next year.

Getting hands-on time with a game not coming out for months or years, no matter how limited, is cool. When I talk to friends about upcoming games I can say, "Oh yea, I played that, it's pretty cool." Games like Okami all of the sudden became must-own. Others, like 99 nights, are games I'll now pass on.

I personally saw what all the blogs were talking about, PS3 screwed the pooch and Nintendo stole the show. I can tell you first hand the PS3 demos were uninspired, and unless something changes Sony may be in for a rude awakening. Of course I can also tell you the Wii is not the second coming, at least not yet. And the Xbox? well, they kind of flew under the radar but had some real strong games, Dead Rising and Lost Planet especially.

Highlight of the trip? Playing 10-way Tetris DS while we waited for hours to play the Wii. It really did make the time fly by. Everytime a game was about to start there was a moment of anticipation, a collective breath-holding as the DS's synched up. There was so much interference in the room sometimes it kicked out. When the game started, everyone would sigh in relief, laugh, then get down to the business of clearing lines. There's something hilarious about losing a game, then seeing some random person in line pump their fist in celebration. There were so many of us with DS's around you never really knew who you were playing against.

Not often are you surrounded by that many fellow gamers, all reveling in your collective geekdom. To put it simply, it's great. And at my age, I gotta tell ya, I can't think of another situation that'll produce 5 people in the same room with a Nintendo DS, let alone a few hundred.

By the time I flew home on the red eye Friday night, my feet hurt so bad I could barely stand. As a matter of fact they would hurt for the rest of the weekend. The last few pounds I had lost were back on, my eyes hurt and my ears rang. But it was one of the best vacations I've had.

I feel bad for the people in the industry who can't enjoy it. Some of them are too busy to, some I think can't see the forest for the trees. I couldn't count the number of blogs I read out there where people complained about why E3 sucks. To the people out there that want to go but have never had the chance, I'm here to tell you, it's hands-down flat-out awesome. And you may get a great photo, like the one to the left.

If you ever get the chance to go, take it. If you're a true gamer and get to experience it without any of the nonsense of deadlines, appointments, and interviews, and even if you have those responsibilities remember where you are and why you got into videogames in the first place. If you do you'll have the time of your life.

And Bring your DS with you, we'll play some multiplayer. You'll find me in a line of people, nose buried in my DS, with a huge smile on my face.

(In the interest of full disclosure I'll let it be known I was one of those people who ran to get into line at the Nintendo booth, and I'll tell you why. When I first got there, the show didn't open for another 2 hours. As it got closer to opening, the crowd filled up and got out of hand. When it became clear it was going to be a stampede to the Wii booth, I made the decision that if I just walked, I would've wasted waking up before dawn and sitting on the floor for that long. So I just decided to suck it up and run like hell.

It occured to me as I tried my best to run that I'm turning 30 next year, I think that's when I realized I'm probably as mature as I'm ever gonna get, and I'm ok with that.)

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