Today I got a text from a friend with a very simple question: If an invitation says smart casual, would you expect everyone in attendance to be wearing a suit?  My feeling on this is that suit = business attire and has nothing whatsoever to do with the word casual and so that was how I replied.  But, I wonder...am I way off the mark on this?  I'd comment about the differences between American and European fashion sense, but anyone that's ever stood in a U.S. airport's customs line knows there's an impassable chasm between the two. 

The simple fact is that the definition changes as the industry changes.  I've been going to i-gaming conferences since the 2000 GIGSE and I can tell you that event had a heavy dose of jeans and Hawaiian shirt-wearing types and was a far cry from say, the 2007 EiG where suits were the fashion mainstay.  The industry has evolved and a side effect has been the influx of suits. 

Impromptu poll: If an event specifies dress as smart casual, would you don your Armani three piece or opt instead for your high-end jeans and dapper button-down?

This industry is funny.  We interact with each other via email and telephone and a few times a year, we actually see each other.  It's sometimes hard to imagine each other in our day-to-day lives since we only get to see short glimpses of our real lives.  So in an effort to share some of the more mundane aspects of producing conferences and exhibitions, we've now got a "Daily Entertainment" category. 

Today's Daily Entertainment came in the form of a fur-covered, four-legged beast known as Dexter.  You may know Mark Balestra, our esteemed publisher of IGamingNews.com and the Internet Gambling Report and it is he that is responsible for bringing Dexter to the office almost daily. 

Dexter is named after a TV program of the same name that shows on Showtime in the US.  The program is about a homicide detective who moonlights as a serial killer in his free time (I know, interesting premise, right?) and the furry version lives up to his namesake.  There's not a fluffy stuffed animal or water dish that is safe from his sharp and menacing teeth.  Trash bins quiver in fear under his watchful gaze and vein hope of something edible being discarded within so he can pounce and spread the wrappings around the floor of the office.  Passersby look on in anxious anticipation of whether he'll bound over the rickety fence barring him from the outdoors and pounce on them, possibly tearing their throats out. 

I give you...Dexter:

He's vicious.  Vicious, I tell you!