View 343 January 3 - 9, 2004 (original) (raw)
This week:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Thursday, January 6, 2004
Consumer Electronics Show is huge, and there's a lot of walking involved. Tonight was Show Stoppers, one of the press reception/exhibitions that have become so important for press coverage of the shows. Last night was Mobile Focus/Digital Focus. All these shows are excellent and a great aid to the press, but they are also exhausting. The show hosts try their best to keep the invitees limited to "significant press" in part to keep the costs down -- Los Vegas hotel catering isn't cheap -- and in part to keep the crowds down so those who go to these special showings have a chance to talk to the exhibitors -- as we almost never do on the show floor.
It all works surprisingly well. I presume there are some who don't get in who ought to be there, and a few times I have brought a guest I thought fit that category, but usually I leave that to others. I've been to too many of these shows to get into the gears....
Met Cheryl Currid, Andy Seybold, Will Hearst, John Lazarus, and John Dvorak as well as many other old friends at Show Stoppers. Will Hearst is now Chairman of the Board of Akimbo www.akimbo.com so I suppose I'll have to pay more attention to that group now if only for old friendship's sake. Besides, Will is pretty sharp. Lazarus used to be in charge of strategy for Microsoft, and did right well out of his stint there. Andy Seybold annually hosted the wireless conference dinners at Comdex, and can take his bows for his successful predictions: wireless is now ubiquitous, as he said it would be.
Alex and Dan and some of the other Chaos Manor associates were tech crew providing wireless and wired up connectivity for the show. All told I had a good, if exhausting, time. Not perhaps as exciting as the old Pournelle/Dvorak COMDEX parties that Will Hearst paid for (this was the party you could come to if you could find it), but those days were long ago. The legends keep growing, but some weren't legends, like the time we were running low on drinks and Philippe Kahn put cases of champagne on his credit card to keep things going...
I got some work done in the Press Room today. It's all complicated by my resolution to stay on a low carb diet while at this show. So far I have done so. No bread, no potatoes, and no desserts, with one exception: I did have a strawberry dipped in melted chocolate last night. Tonight I managed no dessert at all. And none of the free chocolates and hard candy that is everywhere on the show floor. If I can quit smoking after thirty years -- and I did, almost 20 years ago -- then I should be able to stay on a stupid diet for a few weeks to get rid of some excess pounds. Or so I hope.
Tomorrow another day of walking the show floor. There was a time I could do that endlessly but sciatica makes me stop and sit down every couple of hours. Just as well, since that forces me to make notes.
And I am grinding out the column, word by word. Just stare at the screen until beads of blood appear on your forehead...