Well, you know how everyone talks about “unconferences,” right? Well, Nick Douglas is writing over at Valleywag again. Hey, I thought he got fired. I’m so confused. Next you’ll tell me that Sam Sethi and Loic Lemeur are working on CrunchTechEurope together. Or, that Andrew and Amanda are ReBooming.

Anyway, come on Nick, we all know what video is really good for, right? Wink, wink!
That’s right. Really long interviews with geeks! 🙂

Anyway, Nick is doing something over on Valleywag called “DiggBait.” Hmmm, the latest thing is if you can figure out how to get Digg to ban you then you’ll end up with more traffic than if you got on Digg’s home page. Why? Cause then all the other bloggers who can’t figure out how to get on Digg will link to you to make fun of the whole Digg meme.

I’m too lame to figure out how to get Digg to ban me, though, so Nick, you’ll need to work on this on your own time.

Seriously. If you want to get on Digg, just get a Digg tattoo or something like that. Particularly in a painful place on your body. That should do the trick.

Ed Bott is asking what he’s missing on his CES schedule.

Oh, let’s see.

How about an appearance on the ScobleShow? I still have some slots left open. By the way, we’re gonna be doing the “Retrevo Gang” at 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. every day in the Seagate booth.

I’ll have something fun for you up at the PodTech/Seagate BlogHaus — news will be announced there on Sunday afternoon. Make sure you get your name on my invite list (leave your email on the comments or send me an email). It’ll be going 24 hours a day during CES and I’ll be there a lot.

Ajay Juneja is bringing his ultra cool car. Oh, if you need a ride around Vegas, let me know that too. I have some, um, connections.

Wanna see Stevie Wonder? I know someone at Monster who has tickets.

Or, we could go over and beat up DirecTV and ask them why they don’t have more HD channels? 😉

So, anyway, here’s who I have on my “CES Dream Team” list:

Leo Laporte. Hell, he lives two blocks from my son (seriously — Leo’s son has Patrick’s math book from last year). To me Leo IS CES.
Jason Calacanis. I wonder, what would happen if Jason and Seagate’s CEO Bill Watkins got on the same microphone? Hmmm. But Jason started Engadget, knows CES better than anyone (he was EVERYWHERE with Peter Rojas last year) and is a gadget freak to boot.
Mark Cuban. He’s Mr. HD to me. I’d love to get his thoughts on what he saw on the show floor.
Dave Winer. He needs a new Surround Sound system and would be fun to see the show through his eyes.
Doc Searls. We had a blast hanging out last year. Doc always seemed to get into the keynotes. That takes skills and connections and often both.
Gina Trapani. I bet she’d have some good “how to survive CES” productivity tips. Mine? Wear comfortable shoes and carry your own bottled water. It’ll be a lifesaver for those times when you’ve stacked up five meetings back to back.
Chris Pirillo. Cause he buys every gadget I do, except a few weeks earlier.
Ryan Block. He writes for Engadget. What else do I need to say?
Peter Rojas. Ryan’s boss. What else do I need to say?
Kevin Rose. Just to see if I could get something on Digg. Just kidding Kevin! But not really. 😉
Tom Warren, aka “Creamhackered” over on Neowin. That guy knows more about Windows than anyone other than maybe Raymond Chen.
Om Malik. I like Om and his take on gadgets.
Staci Kramer. Paid content. We can talk about PodTech and how it’ll get paid for content. Bad pun.
Vic Gundotra. The guy is the biggest gadget whore I’ve ever met. I can’t wait to see his blog start back up again.
Michael Gartenberg. He too was all over CES last year. In fact, I’ll bet that he has more gadgets that’ll be announced at CES than anyone else. He just doesn’t talk about them.
Walt Mossberg. He’s the king. Still is.
The Heiny family. They were all there last year and they knew where to go for the hot stuff.

OK, I’m starting to get dreamy.

Who would you want to walk around CES with?

Back to the news…

UPDATE: It’s Brandon LeBlanc’s first time to CES. We’ll do a “CES survival guide” for Brandon. I have a love/hate relationship with CES. It’s big. All the important vendors in the gadget space are there. But, that also makes it suck. I remember getting off the airplane at 12:15 a.m. to get into a two-hour-long taxi line. Not fun. I’ve got some ways around the taxi lines this year, though.

UPDATE 2: Staci Kramer is going (she’s awesome) and is looking for a room at the Venetian. If you have one, Staci is a worthy person to give it to.

Alright, I live in Half Moon Bay. A mere eight miles from Silicon Valley. A 30-minute drive from Sand Hill Road. An hour from Google. But I can’t get HD.

Oh, I’ve tried to give money to the content industry.

Over the air antenna? Nope. Not a single signal received. Mountains are between me and the main transmitters.
Comcast cable? Oh, we have cable. I’m typing to you on it. But no HD.

So, I go off to DirecTV and spend around $300 on the DirecTV HD PVR and get a satellite dish and all that. It works great. Except when I want to look at NBC, CBS, ABC, or PBS in HD. No, those channels are locked out. So, I call up DirecTV and ask what’s up. Turns out I can’t even buy them. They are kept from offering them by the local station owners.

Hmmm, let me get this right. I can’t buy access to Lost or any of those other shows that you guys offer on NBC, CBS, ABC, or NBC, but I can watch ESPN. Got it.

I also can’t see any local news in HD. Wonderful.

Yeah, I get all those channels in standard def. Wonderful. Here’s the thing. Dave Winer showed me how to get good stuff hooked up to my TV over the Internet.

I haven’t had any TV since moving from Microsoft, by the way. I survived by renting movies and playing more Xbox and by watching more YouTube (hell, if I can’t get HD I am gonna at least watch some original content — first thing that came up on my TV? Dr. Phil. Hey, Dr. Phil, can you tell me why this industry is doomed and why we won’t even shed a tear? Just like we didn’t really shed a tear when Tower Records went out of business?

Amazing.

I can get video off of DivX’s Stage 6 which looks just as good as any standard def TV channel does.

TV is dead. Mark Cuban, you need to step on the gas on HDNet. These guys have left a seam for you to drive a truck through.

Ahh, the guys who brought us Skype are gonna maybe provide the answer with something they call the Venice Project. Gizmodo says it’ll kill YouTube. Oh, hell, don’t kill that! Kill my local freaking TV stations who are too clueless to figure out how to get me HD. That’s who we need to club with a ClueStick.