| ::: ::: Recent entries: Jan 9, 2005 Older archives: :::
Reading: Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
We're going to Oahu in May - woo! Check out: Their website is crap, but these guys sell cool bags. They were across from us at the show, in one of the busiest booths on the floor. Artifact:
Aw, look what came from eBay! My very own Cap'n Jack. He even TALKS ("Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow - savvy?" "Now - bring me that horizon!") - EEEEK! Journal links: Amalah | Sunday, January 16, 2005 I wasn't able to check email while I was gone last week, so I asked my coworker to put an autoresponder on my Workplace account. "Hello," said my message, "I am out of the office this week attending the Macworld Expo, and will return your message after January 17." If this is urgent, blah blah blah. While I've done this before with no ill effect, my inbox is currently flooded with spam. It's a spamvalanche. Spam to the left of me, spam to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle - with spam! All titled "Undelivered mail returned to sender". All eleventy billion messages ranging from vic0din offers to BEST MORTGAGE DEELS to the titillating "They've scroured the world for these deep-throating babes and expose how they love having their mouths rammed...". I guess the autoresponder has been merrily chugging away at verifying my email address all week long. I mean, I normally try and avoid replying to mails that say "Urgent message from Bob concerning VIAGRA!!!", but for the last several days I've been sending them a helpful announcement about how I would be out of the office and all, so maybe we could catch up about those hot housewives with barnyard animals when I get back. Awesome. We did have computers with net access (well, patchy access, anyway) on the show floor, but those were our demo stations, typically five layers thick with Macworld attendees all week long. Much as I wanted to catch up on my journal reading, email and surfing was out of the question, unless I wanted some Star Wars dork watching me type in my gmail password. Not that all attendees were Star Wars dorks, ha ha! Of course not! What a cliche! I'd say only about 82% fell into that category. Other Macworld demographics went as follows:
As you can see, personal body odors were an issue. I wish we'd been handing out mints instead of buttons, because I cannot count the number of people whose breath could take the curl out of a fresh perm. Throughout each day, the Moscone slowly filled with a stale, palpable fog of farts, sweat, and the collection of a thousand unbrushed teeth. If that sounds gross to you, just be glad you weren't breathing it for a damn week - I feel as though I were exposed to asbestos or something. For everyone who exhaled last week's latte on me and complained about some obscure feature of Workplace's software, though, there was a perfectly nice, non-smelly person who was extremely pleasant to chat with - we got a lot of folks stopping by who just wanted to tell us they love what we do. That part is fun. And the people who come by to tell me they love my newsletter, well, they practically get a slobbering tongue kiss in response, my gratitude is just that overwhelming. Every year I wish we had more time to explore San Francisco, but we did have some good food. The Stinking Rose and Tallulah's, thanks for the suggestions on those, they were both incredible. A Mexican place I can't remember the name of that served up the most enormous delicious fat-laden quesadilla I've ever seen in my life. No Cha Cha Cha's this year, sadly, but I spent one night enjoying a slovenly evening staying in my room at the Hyatt, digging into a pint of strawberry ice cream I bought across the street at a Walgreen's. Party! And speaking of, from the Department of I'm Glad It Wasn't Me: my coworker went to one of the open bar parties (that featured the 'Macworld All-Star Band', heh) and indulged to the point of barfing all over himself later in the night - not once, but twice. If that wasn't bad enough, his companions took pictures of the event with their camera phones. Now he's got the memory forever preserved in jpeg format, as well as encrusted on his Eddie Bauer down-filled (now ralph-filled) vest. I'm happy to report that I have the day off tomorrow, so I can spend one more morning lazing around in bed before heading back to the office. Man, it's good to be home. |
