Tonight, the FedEx Forum in Memphis is set to host one of the biggest college basketball games of the year. The #1 Memphis Tigers will play host to the #2 Tennessee Volunteers. The Tigers (26-0) are undefeated this year and boast a 47-game win streak at home.

With all the hype, and the fact that I am from Memphis, one would guess that I would be cheering for a Memphis win. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. Honestly, I am completely sick of hearing about the Tigers on the local news, every single day. I hope they lose, not because I don’t like them, but I am just sick of hearing their name.

Anyway, getting back on track, this game is huge. The FedEx Forum has been sold out for a while now. Tickets have been selling on eBay for as much as $5,000! NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, a Tennessee alum, will be in attendance, among other celebrities.

One of my friend’s sister and her boyfriend dished out $1,000 for a pair of tickets to tonights game. I would never consider paying this much for a sporting event ticket, especially when I could watch it on ESPN in high-def for free (well, not quite free, but certainly not $1,000 either)!

The most I have paid for a football ticket was around $40. What is the most you have paid for a ticket to a sporting event, and was it worth it?

As you may already know, OCIA.net received a total overhaul last July, which included a new look as well as a custom-designed back end. Unfortunately, the OCIA.net Forums were not part of this upgrade and are still using the old software and layout.

I had planned to remedy this sooner, but finances have been tight lately so that has not been possible. But, with your help, this might soon become a reality!

It just so happens that my pal Derek Semmler is holding a contest where the winner will take home $106.34… which would go a long way to help get the new forums up and running.

So, I simply ask that you hit the front page of OCIA.net and click the square ad on the right side of the page that takes you to his blog. You would be doing a great favor for the site and who knows, you may even like his blog enough to bookmark it!

We decided to have our Super Bowl party at Sarah’s place this year. Last year we did it at my place and the year before that, we went over to Josh’s house. I just posted about 14 pics from last night - feel free to check them out over on my Flickr Page.

Oh yeah… HOW ABOUT THOSE GIANTS!??! WOOHOO!!!!

Super Bowl XLII is exactly one week away, and for the first time since 2000 (Tennessee Titans), there is a team in the Super Bowl that I will be cheering for (Go Giants!). I am not a huge NFL fan (but love college football), and usually only look forward to the Super Bowl as a time to hang out with friends, eat some good food and watch the commercials.

Last year we had a Super Bowl party at my place. This year, I think we will all be gathering at Sarah’s place for the big game… still have to work out the fine details. As long as there are deviled eggs, I’m set!

What do you have planned for Super Bowl Sunday? And, any predictions on the game? Let’s hear it!

Almost exactly one year ago, I posted my 2007 CES in Retrospect article. So, how did things pan out this year, and did I stick to my goals from last year?

To sum things up, comparing this year to last year was like night and day. As much as I hate flying, it was SOO much easier and faster to just fly there and get it over in about three hours… instead of 30 (yes, we drove last year). I decided that we would stay on the Vegas Strip this year at Treasure Island. Last year, we stayed with one of Keith’s friends who lives just outside of Vegas. This had its benefits - free shelter - but at a cost… that cost being time and convenience. Staying on the Strip saved us a ton of time and allowed us the freedom to attend more events than last year and meet up with some friends for dinner, to hang out, etc.

As far as productivity this year, things were much better as well. Last year, we posted a total of 10 CES coverage articles. This year, we wrapped things up with a total of 17 articles, which are listed below.

CES: Unveiled
Bill Gates Keynote
Booth Babes
Tagan, Data Drive Thru
OCZ Technology
AEE Show Floor
Arctic Cooling
Art Lebedev
Logitech
Yoggie Security Systems
The Parties
Thermaltake
Cooler Master, CSX, Zalman
Razer
Jook
The Cars
Tycrid

Splitting into teams worked pretty well this year, but I still have some planning to do for next year to fine-tune time management. I booked too many meetings and didn’t set aside enough “downtime” to write articles, which resulted in some pretty late (or early) nights and lack of sleep.

So what changes will I make next year? Well, that all depends on who/how many people from the site go next year. Early guesses would tell me four once again, which would be desired. Next year, I will aim to get two hotel rooms. Four people in one room… while it did work, was a bit cramped and can suck when some people are tired while others are working on articles.

Another change I have in mind, that I didn’t even consider this year, is switching up the job of taking pictures and taking notes. I discovered that if one person took all the photos and the other did all of the note-taking, only the note-taker was able to write an article because the photographer was busy taking pictures and didn’t know anything about the products. This isn’t really fair, making one person do all the writing when it comes time to do an article, so next year, I will look to rotate this job.

Finally, I am thinking about having a “day” and “evening” team. The day crew would get up and out on the show floor early, do some meetings, floor coverage, then have the rest of the day to relax a bit and get some articles done on the day’s coverage and be able to get in bed at a reasonable time. The evening crew would get things started later in the day and be responsible for hitting up the evening press events and parties at night. Parties are a great place to network and meet new people. This crew would of course be out real late, so they would get to sleep in the next day, then wake up, do some article writing and start all over again later that evening.

These are just some things I have to think about over the coming year, but either way, CES was a big success and I can’t wait until next year’s show! Big thanks to Josh, Keith and Airica for attending this year - your help was greatly appreciated!

So yeah, I realize that January is almost gone, but hey, it’s not too late for a New Years Resolution post, right?

Traditionally, I have not been very good at keeping resolutions. Like most people, I tend to forget about my New Years Resolutions pretty quickly. But this year, I am going to try really hard to stick to my promises.

So, what’s on my list this year? Well, most of my Resolutions are business-based.

First, I have decided to abandon doing product reviews personally on my tech site, OCIA.net. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing reviews, but lately it has just taken up too much of my time… time that could be better spent working behind the scenes, contacting new sponsors, setting up advertising deals, etc. That alone is a full-time job, so I am looking forward to devoting more time to that aspect of the site. I have a great staff of three other writers who should be able to handle these duties without issue.

My next resolution involves my finances. Last year, I started to track my finances using an Excel spreadsheet, where I keep detailed records of every penny that is earned and spent each month. This project has been great in helping me realize exactly where my money is going each month. My goal for this year is to further cut back on “useless spending”, like fast food and impulse buys, and focus on paying off some credit cards then putting some money into savings.

I also have some other ideas rolling around in the back of my head, such as starting a “make money online” blog and revamping the OCIA.net forums. I am still undecided on those, however.

So, what New Years Resolutions do you guys have for this year?

Today is the 1 year anniversary for this blog. I totally forgot that this date was coming up, and I had just started on writing a different post when it hit me!

In the past year, I have made a total of 626 posts which have received 1,399 comments. On Technorati, I have a Rank of 32,949, Authority of 180 and 149 fans (people who list me as a favorite).

Reflecting on the past year, this blog has really been a lot more fun than I anticipated. This is a great outlet to share my thoughts and opinions on various topics (Why Alexa Rankings Are Garbage and Why Being Single Is Great), take a trip down memory lane (Being an 80s Kid and Tool-Assisted Console Game Movies) as well as giving my friends a place to come and see photos from all of our random activities (Memphis in May BBQ Fest and Buffalo Wild Wings).

I have also had the opportunity to meet some really great people through blogging that I would not have known otherwise. I look forward to another great year for this blog. Thanks to everyone for their support and comments, which is what has made this blog what it is today. And a huge thanks goes out to my friend Bob Buskirk for giving me the idea and motivation to start this project a year ago.

Keith, Airica and I attended The Tech Zone Media CES Kickoff Party held at the Absolute Suite in Caesars Palace on Sunday night. The party is hosted by John Chow every year and is a great way to kick off the week.

This party was co-hosted by Bob Buskirk from ThinkComputers.org and Stephen Fung from FutureLooks.com.

We arrived a few hours after the party but there were still a good bit of people when we came in.

There were plenty of drinks to go around, thanks to the open bar… and from the looks of it, everyone made good use of it! Below are a few more random pictures from the party. Enjoy!

Bob, Ashley and I.

John and I.

Justin and I

Stephen and I.

From left to right, Justin, Bob, John, Me, Ramsom from Thermaltake.com and Mikie.

We started today off with brunch at the TI Buffet.

I had an omelet with ham, mushrooms, bacon, tomato and cheese. This was certainly one of the better omelets I have had in a while.

Dessert was equally as good, with my favorite being the chocolate covered strawberries.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Venetian to pick up our press badge holders. While there, I snapped a picture of the Gondola ride that takes you through the hotel.

Is it just me, or is this “live statue” guy just a bit too creepy?

Oh snap, Master Chief made Josh surrender!

Our next stop was the Exotic Car Showroom from yesterday, but today, Josh was going to rent a Lamborghini for a half hour… but just as he was going over the fine print of the contract, he noticed that you were responsible for any damage to the vehicle, regardless of fault or cause. So, say you are sitting at a stop light and someone rear-ends you. Uh oh, your fault! So he wisely decided to pass on the test drive.

I have always heard that The Cheesecake Factory makes some delicious cheesecake, and since there was one right beside the Exotic Car Showroom, we decided to stop in for a quick snack.

I went with the traditional cheesecake with strawberry toppings. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a little better… it was just a bit too creamy and soft for my tastes.

Josh ordered the Godiva Chocolate Brownie Sundae. Josh described it as “phenomenal” and “off the charts”.

After The Cheesecake Factory, it was time to attend our first CES press event, CES Unveiled.

Totally random photo of our hotel.

For dinner, we decided to try Kahunaville again, this time with Josh and Airica.

We had coupons for buy one, get one free cocktails so I tried the Cherry Bomb. The drink had a really weird taste at first but the aftertaste was pretty good.

When it came to dinner, we spared no expense! I had the Volcanic Shrimp Cocktail…

and Josh went with the Seafood Sampler. Both meals were just as good as they looked! The total bill for the four of us was $109.

These two were a bit on the hyper / goofy side at dinner, hah.

We started today off by visiting The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

We originally wanted to check out the exotic car collection here, but once we got inside and saw the awesome architecture, that plan took a backseat for a bit.

Caesars Palace is themed around Greek Mythology.

This is the first time I have ever seen a store use a real person instead of a mannequin in their store display window!

Looking for a giant stuffed dragon? You are in luck… but be prepared to shell out $5,500 for it.

We finally made it to the exotic car shop. We ended up snapping a few hundred pictures of the cars, but I will save those for a separate update. We might be returning again tomorrow… that is, if we can convince Josh to drop off $250 for a 40 minute drive in a Lamborghini hah.

Just some more pictures from inside the Forum.

After we left the Forum, we stopped by The Mirage to check out the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat.

The lighting outside was really bad today (too cloudy) so it was hard to get any shots to turn out decent.

Watcha’ starin’ at?

Shh, he is sleeping!

This is a totally random picture, but I thought it came out pretty cool.

We came back to our room after The Mirage then met up with our friend Joey. His dad works at the SunCoast casino and was able to hook us up with a comp’ed dinner at Senor Miguel’s.

As the name implies, this is a Mexican restaurant, but I ended up ordering a steak. Go figure.

The steak was really good; I didn’t quite finish it all.

The drinks here were also pretty tasty. I had an apple and strawberry margarita.

Josh had a jalapeño… which I imagine was pretty hot heh.