Got back from New Orleans late Friday and have spent the last two days chilling out, doing not much of anything besides playing Tachyon.

The last week was fun despite having to spend 9 to 6 on the SIGGRAPH show floor every day, and despite being across from some company who is doing a TV show called “VeggieTales” featuring 3D rendered vegetables spouting wholesome Christian family values and singing inane songs which drove me insane. To summarize the week:

• Saturday: Got into New Orleans in the afternoon, spent the day doing nothing. Wandered around French Quarter in the evening, including a stroll along Bourbon Street which was definitely an eyeopener - lots of places offering sleazy entertainment mixed in with good live music of all sorts and tonnes of people in a festive atmosphere milling around.
• Sunday: Spent the day setting up the booth, including a few hours assembling furniture (joy) and fiddling with miscellaneous computer bits. Went out for dinner with some coworkers and industry folks at “Cafe Sbisa”, which turned out to be monstrously overpriced and not that good.
• Monday: More booth set up, went over demos. Dinner at House of Blues which turned out to be an ugly chain establishment. Highlight of the evening: eating a habanero pepper for the first time - did it in one go, and providing great entertainment for coworkers from Seattle - the waitress took pity and brought a glass of milk and water over. Afterwards attempted to find a happening bar with same coworkers from Seattle - “Let’s go find that bar where that bigoted racist but astoundingly rich midget abducted us yesterday!” - but failed.
• Tuesday: Booth duty - demos. Managed to score a ticket to the Digital Domain Party, also at the House of Blues. Very good music - some R&B, “Five Blind Guys from Alabama”, & zydeco - plus open bar with very stiff drinks - blurry recollections of evening.
• Wednesday: Booth duty. RenderMan user’s group meeting at 6:30 - good, as far user’s group meetings go. After that I had a ticket to the Disney party at Generations Hall (I received an invitation the week before and lorded this status over the rest of the Pixar people who hadn’t and had to beg for theirs during the exhibition - ha!). Good nibbling food, open bar, more excellent music - gospel singers, voodoo drummers, weird entertainment as well (fortune tellers, fake body piercing).
• Thursday: More booth duty, then booth tear down. I didn’t bother to look around the exhibition floor much this year - wasn’t really motivated. In the evening, I was given a ticket to the papers reception at the Aquarium of the Americas, which was very cool. Didn’t see anyone I knew outside of work though, besides some denizens of Vertigo.
• Friday: Wasted the day, except for lunch at Cafe Mulate’s which was probably the best meal I had all week - blackened catfish covered in crawfish etoufee.

Yes - I completely avoided the academic/research point of SIGGRAPH - did not attend a single paper!