Today had its highs and lows. I began by getting in line for the keynote at midnight with friend and had a great time. Our pre-keynote meetup at 4AM in front of the Apple Store was great! Everyone was really happy to be there and it was a slightly smaller meetup than last year’s but still a lot of fun. We got in line around 4:30AM which actually was perfect. Last year, our 4AM lineup was around the block and this year it was half of that and that’s how if felt. Overall, the keynote traffic just felt lighter. More news crews but a lot less people.
We finally piled into the hall as Phil Schiller delivered a less than stellar keynote presentation. I wasn’t amazed and that’s just how it goes. He did a fine job on delivery but it wasn’t a steve-note. The announcements were “meh” and I can see why Steve skipped the presentation this year aside from simple medical issues. After the keynote, I stayed in the press room most of the day and finally venutred out on the exhibit hall for 2 hours to run through and take stock of everything but it was packed today on the show floor and I’ll be spending more time on Friday.
I was tired today from not sleeping all night and I started losing my voice so I went home for a 3 hour nap which turned into a 7 hour nap which meant that I missed every single party tonight. I woke up at 10PM, I couldn’t speak since my throat was totally rocked from 3 days of speaking to people and I just didn’t feel well. Laura convinced me that we should still go to the iSkin party and after some hot tea, I went but still couldn’t speak above a whisper. So I missed VMWare, MacRumors party and the iPhone intelligence party at Harlot. I’m sorry to all of the hosts of these parties (who are also my friends) but I just couldn’t make it after a night up at the keynote. I really am kicking myself for missing those parties.
The iSkin party has been “the” party since my first Macworld over 5 years ago. I went in 2004 to their party at Club six and every year since has just been awesome! This year, the club was nice (fluid lounge), the music was ok, the drinks were overpriced as usual but iSkin just didn’t have it. I’m not going to go into full details but iSkin promised me things that they didn’t deliver and I’m a little upset about that. I don’t ever ask for special treatment but they told me, “bring your friends, we’ll put you in VIP we have product demos, giveaways and free drinks.” I arrived and my contact was busy flirting with 3 different women and my other contact just didn’t seem to understand as we was chatting up with someone else. I bought an overpriced rum & coke and left with my friends to another location.
We joined up with a few others and 8 of us went to an irish pub to have some drinks and wrapped up the evening at Cafe Mason at 3AM. I enjoyed the company of my friends that I only get to see once a year when they come to Macworld. It was a good evening despite being sick, losing my voice, oversleeping and getting screwed by iSkin.
