Say, did you hear about Snoop Dogg blowing up an armored car in the middle of the Nevada desert as part of a publicity stunt to celebrate the 10 millionth visitor to Zynga’s latest “Mafia Wars” expansion, “Mafia Wars: Las Vegas”?

Maybe you did. Maybe you even watched it happen at MafiaWars.com, since the event was streamed live…and if you did watch it live, then you no doubt noticed that, despite the designated start time having been established as 6 PM PST, it didn’t actually go down ’til a little bit later.

Yeah, I noticed it, too. Except I noticed it live from the Nevada desert, since I was standing right there when the whole thing went down. And it wasn’t much of a surprise to me, since I’d been watching the events unfold for the previous two hours.

And, now, here’s the story of what happened and how I came to be there.

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Last month, we observed, “Everybody loves Snoop Dogg…or if they don’t love him, they at least know who he is.” An approximation of the phrase could very well be said of the online game phenomenon known as Mafia Wars: even if you don’t actually play it, you’re almost certainly aware of it. (You can play the game on several mediums, but for my part, I’m well familiar with the cry of my non-playing friends who bemoan the constant barrage of Wars-related posts on Facebook.) Tonight, the man who brought gin and juice to the masses is joining forces with the latest game in the franchise, “Mafia Wars: Las Vegas,” to – for lack of a more cultured phrase – blow shit up.

Snoop Dogg will blow up a four-ton armored truck to commemorate the 10 millionth visitor to “Mafia Wars: Las Vegas”, which debuted on July 21. That’s right: it was launched less than a month ago, and it’s already hitting the 10-million-visitor mark. That’s how popular this game is. The massive explosion is taking place in the Las Vegas desert, but it’ll be streamed live via the official Mafia Wars website, so everyone can watch Snoop Dogg light it up.

A handful of people, however, will be there in person to watch the event go down…and – ahem – yours truly will be one of them.

Stay tuned to your friendly neighborhood Bullz-Eye Blog for the post-event wrap-up, wherein I’ll offer my firsthand experience of the event and, if everything goes according to plan, the details on my few minutes one on one with Mr. Dogg.

Ah, I can smell the secondhand smoke already…