Wow, an Austin Powers reference? Really? And I thought I was above that…

Anyhow, next week I’ll be at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas, primarily to give a workshop with my esteemed colleague Tom Merritt (of Buzz Out Loud, Real Deal, East Meets West, The Sword and Laser, and CNET TV fame). Holy crap, Tom, you’re on a lot of stuff! Our workshop is entitled “Developing an Engaged Community (a.k.a. Don’t Feed the Trolls)”:

You want an engaged community. You want your audience to interact with your show and help spread the word. Then you get flamed. Then your feedback is filled with trolls. What do you do? Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt have dealt with the best and worst of the online community and share their experiences and specific tips and tricks for dealing with a passionate audience. They’ll tell you how to reward the good convert the bad and avoid the purely evil. You’ll come away from this workshop armed with knowledge on how to make your community a better place for you and your listeners to grow your show.

If you’re going to be there, the workshop is at 10:30AM on Thursday. But that’s not the only reason I’m heading to Vegas! There are a few great parties on Friday night that you should check out, like the Revision3 Meet-Up at the Double Down Saloon from 6-8PM (with me, Zadi Diaz and other Rev3 peeps), and then the Coverville 500 party at Bally’s at 7PM (presumably until whenever we feel like it).

I’m really excited to meet some of the podcasters that I’ve always admired, like Brian Ibbot from Coverville and Scott Johnson from The Instance and Extralife Radio (is Randy Deluxe going to be there? I don’t even know!). Should be a great time, hope to see some of you there!

In case you missed the story tonight, Mahalo Daily be doing video for the Engadget folks this week at CES. Starting this weekend, in fact! So you can catch the videos either on our site, or using the video tag over at Engadget. This is my third year covering CES, and I’m looking forward to seeing what new and shiny toys will be unveiled this time around.

There’s already crazy news with HD DVD canceling their entire freakin’ press conference (basically because Warner Brothers went with Blu-ray), so I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting CES.

Keep your eyes open for the videos, and rest assured that I’ll be twittering my fool head off about every gadget I come across. Heck, you can even follow CES2008 on Twitter nowadays! Here’s hoping my flight to Las Vegas won’t be delayed or canceled because of rain. Seriously!

There’s going to be an Engadget reader meetup tonight at UCSF! There hasn’t been one in SF for three years, so I’m excited about it. They’re giving away tons of gear, so get there early (doors are at 7PM)! I’ll be there hanging out and eating the free food, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

And then on Thursday I’m giving a talk at UC Berkeley! For those of you on Facebook, here’s the event listing. For everyone else:

Date: Thursday, October 11, 2007
Time: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: 156 Dwinelle
City/Town: Berkeley, CA

I’ll be talking about podcasting, new media and how I became involved in the industry. It’s open to anyone, and it’s free. Hope to see everyone out!

Just got back from Japan yesterday, and I’m exhausted from all the time traveling involved. I left Tokyo at 6PM Sunday, and arrived in San Francisco at 11AM… Sunday. Frickin’ weird. Luckily, I didn’t have a chance to meet and marry my own father, thus negating my very existence.

Here are my photos, and Ryan wrote up a good rundown of the trip on his blog too. Everything started off a little hectic with Tokyo Game Show, plus the obvious language barrier. I tried to cram using JapanesePod101 (a fantastic podcast, btw, along with Japancast) which would have worked wonders had I not started listening to it on the plane ride over there. Also, sitting in the middle of a five-person row for a 10-hour flight? No fun.

Overall, my favorite parts of the trip included drinking spring water from a waterfall at Kiyomizu, eating okonomiyaki, being chased by hungry deer in Nara, and shopping in Shibuya.

But a lot went down while I was away, obviously! I’m proud to report that my first (paper) magazine article has been published in this month’s PC Gamer Magazine! It’s a gaming preview for the next World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. I’m super excited about it, so check it out! Here’s a preview below, it’s on page 43:

Sorry, had to blur the text — don’t want to get sued before they pay me! And finally, I did a photo shoot with my friend Lan Bui while I was in Santa Monica, and he’s posted them on his Flickr page. I was really nervous, but we had a lot of fun and I’m psyched about how the pictures came out. OK, I have a ton of crap to catch up on before I pass out from exhaustion. Back to the grind!