Matt Cutts may have missed the Yahoo Publisher Network party in the Hugh Hefner Playboy Sky Villa at the Palms hotel, but he was one of the few. I got up there late last Tuesday to find it packed with those enjoying some down time after Pubcon. And while it was a very, very close thing, I had to give Microsoft the edge in the party challenge. That's because they set up shop in the Palms the next night in the Kingpin Suite, with a two lane bowling alley. I love to bowl, so this was a slice of heaven. Below, more about swimming at Yahoo, bowling with Microsoft (including Natala Menezes making two strikes in a row in high heels) and yet a third night at the Palms for Greg Boser turning 40, along with why if you see some SEO in bed with someone else, to paraphrase Matt Cutts, it doesn't mean they share a deep rapport.

Sadly, I don't have photos of my own to share from the Yahoo party last Wednesday night. But it was great, with lots of fun, dancing and actual swimming in the outside pool that started up at the end of the evening. Lee's got a bunch of pictures over here of it. What a setting!

The next day, the party train started early, with drinks being offered to me at the show itself. I discovered that Nathaniel Broughton had started a Pubcon Drinking Game where different speakers were worth different points, if you could buy them a drink. I was pleased to learn I was among the 5 Pointers, along with people like Greg Boser, John Battelle, Jennifer Slegg and -- naturally -- Matt Cutts. Given Matt's popularity, I'm surprised he wasn't made a 6 Pointer all on his own!

I found this out because Chris Hooley caught me outside the show, to buy me a drink. Actually, he had a bag of little airplane sized bottles of alcohol, prepare to catch speakers and gather up photos. Outstanding game optimization. Each drink also was labeled with his DrinkBait.com URL. I had nothing but admiration for his technique, plus who am I to turn down a miniature bottle of vodka?

Yeah, that's us above. You'll find everyone Chris caught over here, including this dude:

You can't see it, but that's whisky for Matt. Apparently if you're from California, like me, it's vodka. Kentuckians like Matt, it's whisky.

Matt needed that whisky, by the way -- not that he drank it (in public). Let me illustrate what it's like to be next to Matt after a session ends and people are hoping for some Google goodness:

The man is surrounded by Cuttletts. No, I literally mean surrounded:

After the next day's super session with search reps, I watched people actually leap out of their chairs and race each other to the stage to be first in line.

Every time I see Matt mobbed like this, I can't help but think of that classic scene in Tapeheads where some groupies surround a band shouting out things like "teach me to read." Please, please rent that film -- John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles ("Roscoe's the name, and they call me the king. Grandmaster of the chicken and the waffle thing...). It's a real restaurant in LA, too -- and good, I've eaten there. Anyway, rent the film, then watch Matt and the crowds, and you'll appreciate it even more.

Thursday night, it was bowling time. Raised a middle class boy in North Orange County, bowling was something you did practically at birth. Three years in a junior league, and I loved every game day. My average never really came up above 145 or so (that may sound good to some, but not when your parents would routinely break 200). Despite not reaching the scores of my parents, I still had fun.

When we arrived at Microsoft's bash, the lanes were only occasionally being used. The bowlers among us quickly seized the high ground and organized a match.

Jim Stob from Position Tech had the stance:

Tim Mayer from Yahoo looked impressive:

And both were on my team, so even better:

Note that I've got the high score. A paltry 112, for shame.

Against us, Todd Friesen, Eytan Seidman of Windows Live and Melanie Mitchell from AOL. Todd looked impressive from the start, Eytan was strong, but Melanie seemed a non-contender. First she gutters, then gets three pins, then six.

After that, it's comeback city:

Spare! Strike! Spare! Strike! Strike! She took the top score of all of us.

After that, we did another match with different teams. Vanessa Fox from Google wandered off during the middle of this, so Natala Menezes from Microsoft adCenter stepped up to fill in.

All of us were in bowling shoes, I have to add. Natala was not. She was in high heels and didn't figure she needed to slip out of them. Expecting disaster, we watched her throw. Strike!

A strike! She just lobbed the ball down the lane and boom, down go all the pins. Next time she's up, damn if she doesn't throw a second strike. Honest -- I have video (note that I shot the video holding my camera vertically, then rotated with editing software to be horizontal, so it's kind of stretched):

By the way, I wanted to do a separate post in the spirit of Matt's SEO Mistake: Matt Friendship. I'll never have time to do that, so I'll dump the general idea here.

Matt stressed that it's easy for him to wind up being pictured with people he really doesn't know, so you shouldn't take that to me an endorsement or any personal connection:

I’m delighted when someone asks to have a photo taken with them, but that doesn’t mean that I know them or can vouch for them as an SEO. So if someone sends you a photo like this and tells that they’re good friends with me, take it with a grain of salt

Remember: just because I’m in a picture with someone doesn’t mean that we share a deep rapport. Heck, sometimes I might not recognize the person but I recognize their spammy sites.

Similarly, it's important to understand that if you see me pictured in bed with someone, it doesn't mean I know them or personally endorse them. It's easy to get in bed with anyone at these parties. For example:

In this case, I simply wandered into another room at the Kingpin Suite to discover Microsoft (Natala, far left) and Google (Vanessa, far right) putting the squeeze two search marketers (Mona on left; Jen on right). Hey, take a picture with us! See how easy it is to be put in these positions?

Seriously, at the Yahoo party, there was a second floor with a rotating bed and people encouraged to get in it. I never even made it to the second floor. These three did:

From left to right, Barry Schwartz, Rand Fishkin and Andrew Goodman would like to declare that just because they are in bed together doesn't mean they are in bed together.

Believe me, there are many more bed pictures slowly being deleted off of Flickr, I'm sure. It's a shame, because as I've explained, it was clearly only natural for so many to jump in and just show good clean conference spirit.

I'd never been to the Palms before these two parties. The next night, Greg Boser had his 40th birthday bash there. I finally realized that this is clearly the hotel to be in. OK, no -- I didn't see the Real World show filmed there (I last watched the Real World when it was in London). And no, I didn't see Hugh's three girlfriends in their reality TV show there. So I was clueless. But I certainly know where I'm booking my room next time.

There's the man himself:

Here are Googlers in white hats patrolling the crowd, as required by Nevada's gaming laws:

Here's Laura demonstrating impressive, spontaneous dancing skills:

And the nice thing about Vegas is that you're there but elsewhere at the same time. Want to star in a Broadway show? New York can come to Vegas:

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