This past week I went to Vegas with I Got Shot Gun and Cadillac to cover the premiere of “Get Smart” at the Cinevegas Film Festival.

This was probably the most fun I’ve had covering an event.. not to say I don’t enjoy covering the tech conferences, but this was something a little different!


photo by Eric Nakamura

Our first night in town we went to the Palms Hotel and Resort for a charity pool party. Now, our first thought was “Oh, so there will be swimming..right?” No.. Definitely not. Good thing we used our better judgment and wore normal clothing. Oops!

The next day was the big premier at Planet Hollywood of “Get Smart”. Michael (my wonderful producer) thought it’d be best to get there early (and by early I mean at least 5+ hours). We got to the event just as they started setting things up for the red carpet.

Good thing, because this gave us plenty of time to roam around the mall which lead us to an amazing discovery: A Photo Magic Booth!

I thought it’d be funny to get my face on Dwayne Johnson’s (The rock) face and see if he’d sign it. Well, what do you know — I managed to make it happen and even slip him an autographed wallet size photo.

Previous to talking to him on the red carpet, his publicist told me “We don’t have time for autographs.. especially old wrestling photos.” I cringed and decided to explain the situation to her. She agreed it was quite funny and that he’d probably go for it.

Finally, after all the fun and adventures around Planet Hollywood, it was time for the red carpet event. Again.. I’ve never covered this type of an event so I didn’t really know what to expect. I figured we’d probably be able to wing it with no problem. We looked to the right of our assigned spot and see Inside Edition and Access Hollywood. Psshh, they’ve got nothing out our photoshopped photo!

I only had a minute with Dwayne but we did get into a small discussion about the iPhone after he mentioned his favorite tech gadget was his Blackberry. It didn’t make the final edit, probably because I spent most of the time trying to convince him he should reconsider now that the 3G version will support the Microsoft Exchange Server!

All in all, this was a great weekend. I also streamed some live video from qik so feel free to head over there and check out some unedited goodness from the weekend.

Thanks again to IGSG for the great event!