Well, November is upon us like the dawn call of a doorbell ringing religious zealot - that is unbelievable, unexpected and generally unwelcome. With the end of the sunny weather and the upcoming thrills of thanksgiving there is a mixed blessing lurking in the midst for anyone connected to the computer industry. Yes! I speak of Comdex: “And the Lord spaketh and He sayeth - let there be a mighty trade show where the meek may gather in the city of Sodom where they shall get there earthly delights before I smite the rest of the planet”.
Each year, I inexplicably find my self looking forward to fall Comdex. By the time I’ve arrived and actually checked into the hotel, I wonder why. Let us recount the annual experience at the near mother of all trade shows.
First you have to get to Vegas. This in itself is a huge trauma. Your flight will almost certainly be canceled or you will be bumped to one that arrives at 3am via Chicago (which is fine unless of course like me, you are flying from San Francisco). Once you arrive you begin the Vegas experience for real. You “deplane” (which has always sounded to me like removing bits of unwanted plane from your clothing and hair) and traverse about five miles of airport lounge by foot, dragging a 300 pound suit carrier full of literature because there are no baggage carts anywhere. You pass around a hundred and fifty thousand slot machines to the baggage claim. Assuming they have not lost your luggage (hurrah!), you then wait an hour for it to arrive on the wrong carousel. The security guards then actually check your luggage against the claim stubs. This in itself is such a novelty that around 0.5% of those passing through actually have them ready and chaos ensues once more. Apart from the other “computer types” that swarm the town, you now have the unique experience of sharing a few days with 70 year old ladies with 1950’s hairstyles and what would appear to be the official outing for the “Bad Taste Society”. It seems a certain, more senior segment of the male US population think it reasonable to present themselves in society wearing clothing that contains the colors fluorescent orange, purple, green, red and blue, often at the same time and with a 19 year old prostitute dangling from one arm and a cigar and a bourbon hanging from the other. This is fine, its a free country etc. until they decide they want to be your friend and talk loudly at you all evening. Now bear in mind we’re still outside the airport at this time waiting along with the rest of the free world for a cab that runs on natural gas to make it more smelly.
Countless hours later, your cab arrives and the driver immediately tells you how Vegas is nothing like it used to be because there are no real criminals there anymore except of course Disney and other major corporations. He then proceeds to tell you how Comdex (and in fact everything else in Vegas) is the biggest of it’s type in the world. This is the drivers most regular faux pas. The biggest computer / technology show in the world is Cebit in Germany, and I think it’s a lot bigger. The cab driver disagrees even in the face of documented evidence because everyone knows that “Las Vegas and America are the biggest and best things possible in the world and to think otherwise is madness or stupidity”. Yes this, it seems, is what you must convince yourself if you are contemplating living in this tasteless armpit of a place.
You get to the hotel via Tucson and every square inch of “the strip” (I’m sure we passed the “Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch” 3 times which is remarkable considering the club is in a pedestrianized area), with a couple of alleyways thrown in for good measure and of course the infamous traffic lights. These are deliberately extra long between changes for no reason other than to drive cab fares up. What a town!
You eventually get to the hotel which resembles an exploding volcano with pirates fighting ancient Egyptians in the moat and a rollercoaster running through the middle of it. it is 3-00am and there are a thousand people waiting to check in. There are 2 people on the check in desk and each guest is inexplicably taking about half an hour to hand over a credit card and receive a room key. Several days later when you reach the front of the line, the girl who was going to serve you, stops for a break and you have to wait for the “difficult” customer to stop whining about how they really wanted a western exposure on the third floor with a hot and cold running vodka dispenser by the bed. The cost of the room has of course jumped from $25 per night to $750 per night, “Just for the Comdex week you understand, because we know you’re stupid enough to pay it”.
The room is pleasant, but you can’t breathe through your nose anymore because there is 0% humidity in it. I solved this by running the hot tap on the shower for a couple of hours each day, fuck em, fuck their water shortage and fuck their energy bills, they should have moist air and they shouldn’t live in the dessert.
The neighbors of course are a different matter. Mine sounded like they were raping farm animals all evening, God only knows what was going on in there. And of course the people above me decided it prudent to move all the furniture around at 4am each morning.
So it’s only 4-00 am and, what the hell! you’re in Vegas, time for a quick gamble before bed. You sit down at the blackjack table for about 3 earth minutes and the Vegas space time continuum kicks in. Suddenly it’s 6am, you’re broke and there are 12 empty cocktail glasses in front of you. It’s obviously time for quick shower before the customary breakfast with a thousand people wearing the same clothes as you.
You hook up with your colleagues and between you carry the half ton of crap that everyone forgot and foisted on you at the last minute to put in your suitcase. Only there is a hitch. First you have to get to the convention center (an aircraft hangar on the outskirts of town) and you are 142nd in line for a cab. Having parted with a small inheritance and once more traveled past the Glitter Gulch club another 3 times you arrive outside the big Comdex sign. For reasons best known to themselves, there are huge quantities of Japanese business men posing for photos in front of it. Can you imagine what it must be like to be married to one of these guys. Dinner parties must be a blast. “Like to see my photos? This is Hyuki in front of the big Comdex sign, and… and what’s this? Yes! Yes, another photo of Hyuki in front of the big Comdex sign. Hold on, I can’t believe it, it’s Hyuki again……”
The unions hire Hells Angels to prevent you from wheeling anything across the show floor. You can carry it of course (yeah sure! Anything that has wheels has them for a good reason, carrying is not considered optional), just as long as you don’t “wheel” it. We improvised by removing the wheels from the dolly and dragging the greasy axles across the carpet until we were out of site of the door. Remember so far you have not started to do business yet, the show has not even opened.
Then that glorious moment, all the doors open and about a million drooling imbeciles are loosed upon you. Recipients of free tickets provided by deranged promoters. Entire families from Arkansas wearing sweaty K-Mart clothes and “I love Comdex, Y’hear!” pins take it in turns to ask moronic questions so you can supplement their education and computer 101 classes, because they were skipping school at the time presumably to fornicate with relatives. The most up to date peice of technology they have experienced is the eight track cassette player. You have to explain every term you use like “Disk” and “screen” in vivid detail which they then repeat back to their 3 year old children. You do this because, you never know! it could be the CEO of MacDonalds checking out the marketplace before making a large purchase (it never is by the way). After about an hour and a half they smile and and say they aren’t really interested in computers, they just want the kids to learn something. Life is barely tolerable at this stage and you are considering drowning yourself in the restrooms, if you could only find them. It would seem that your feet have swelled to 7 times their normal size and are attached to a coat hanger that has somehow become embedded in the base of your spine. You can’t breathe and there are no showers handy to rehumidify the area.
Just when it can’t get any worse, it does! Lunch is served. It is evidently designed for the wealthy suicide prone showgoer and has been prepared from the contents of the nearest dumpster. It is served by aged orangutans with personality disorders and costs about $20 for a bowl of chili that even Taco Bell would have trouble identifying. Better find the restrooms soon now!
The afternooon is filled with you repeating the same thing over and over again seemingly to the same person. Finally the day ends and you collapse in a heap, while the really persistent 400 pound guy with the beard, shorts, sandals and a vest with 400 computer pins on it, finishes his diatribe about the birth of the AS400 and how IBM is run by aliens working for the CIA. You retire to the nearest cab line for an evening of standing around with other forlorn would-be travelers. Here’s a trick. Go to the front of the cab line and ask loudly if anyone is going to the <enter name of your hotel>. If anyone says yes, ask if they would mind sharing if you pay the fare, they rarely refuse (unless it’s me, because I’m usually staying in a hotel no-ones ever heard of).
When you arrive at the hotel, having eventually walked there through hoards of Mexican families forcing pornography on you, it’s straight to the bar for cocktails served by your grandmother in a bikini (gahhhguh!). Then it’s off to the “fleecing pits” to donate your cash to the needy casino owners association. Try to enjoy this experience, it continues exactly like this, every day for the next five days or until death, whichever comes first.
Assuming you make it to the end, the psychotic “piece de le resistance” is the journey home and nothing short of active service in a really “hot zone” can prepare you for this. I have seen people threaten physical violence to others to get to the front of a line for a flight home. I have seen people forcibly dragged, kicking and screaming from planes that they have attempted to board without tickets before the gate is open. I have seen people lie cheat and attmpt to bribe their way onto flights out of Vegas. This is not a reasonable place to stay, visit or even contemplate. Comdex is probably responsible for 90% of hate crime and I expect for the very existence of the NRA and terrorism. If someone ever offers you tickets, do the sensible thing, JUST SAY NO!
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