Staticfree Blog

SmileLoki and I went on an adventure, spur of the moment, because we could, and because it was there. True, in the grand scale of all adventures, this was a walk in the park, but as far as a certain scrawny computer geek was concerned, it was quite a trip.

MacWorld has been in NYC for the past few whiles in the Javitz Convention Center. Many vendors come, as well as the Holy Apple itself, and followers come to pay tribute to the benevolent ruler of their computers. Shown gleaming and proud on whirling pedestals of plastic ice, the latest and greatest are displayed, posing pornographically with their covers off and innards showing. Inside and out, they are seen to be beautiful; thin grates, teasingly glowing icons, and just enough ports to remind you that it's actually a computer.

Why, as two hard-core Linux users, would we go to an Apple festival? One might guess that it's a familial thing: with the recent advent of OS X and its intimate relation with Linux's sister, BSD. In a sense, similar to going to an art show where your friend is presented and seeing what they've done, seeing where they've gone in life, and seeing what their peers have done. There's also the novelty factor: so much new, shiny technology - the pinnacle of modern computer design by many's standards - all concentrated in a hands-on showcase. Finally, the other novelty - I simply hadn't done it before.

Waking early in the morning to catch a ride with Aelsha and Spinfire (friends from the vast network of the Interweb), SmileLoki and I traveled to the closest train stop that the drivers wanted to travel to. There was a train in the station heading to NYC when we got there, so we ran in - not noticing it was making local stops. On the train, we talked and read our respective books.

Arriving at Grand Central Station some 30-40 minutes later, we found the shuttle that took us within a few blocks of the convention center. SmileLoki lead the way through the trip, as she has a compass for a sense of direction, and a spacial memory like a map. We got there much earlier than I anticipated: a good 11:30 or so.

After watching a registration clerk fight with her workstation to spit out a badge (the system had inconveniently forgotten anything I submitted but my name, despite the fact that the web forms didn't allow for such a submission to even occur in the first place. Isn't technology grand?), we wandered towards the showroom. Pausing first to feed my external-brainpack some data from a little winking beacon (cute design. Prior to that, I wondered how long it would take to see such a device in existence.), we entered the showroom and instantly flocked to the pretty new G5 on display.

All I can say about the G5 is: my, what a large heat sink; boy, it sure goes fast.

We wandered the booths, poking at ideas, products, and toys. Bling-blings were presented of all shine and sheen, glossy and glowing, dancing and playing the guitar. From a rather normal (read: it didn't look like a showcase) Apple-schlockmeister, I grabbed a shirt which said, in big, white-on-black letters:

C:/DOS
C:/DOS/RUN
RUN/DOS/RUN

All summers I try to acquire at least a few new t-shirts to add to my collection. One can never have enough shirts with witty sayings or pseudo-religious icons.

After a trip to the food court to feed our bodies and briefly play on the open WiFi, we saw a few more booths and headed out. On the way out, the poor registration clerk said hi and bye, as she and we vanished off into the city.

We made our way to times square and basked in the sky spittle and radiant heat from cars trudging through the flocks of pedestrians. The city is beautiful in its ugliness: a fast-paced writhing network of verbally. tactilely and electronically-linked cells, shuffling through their individualities and lives; hiding from the world in their respective mobile steel exoskeletons.

I grabbed some cheap DVDs from one of the large, blinking stores in the square and we waited for SmileLoki's friend to return her call. He did, but wasn't going to show up. So we left for Chinatown to feed and head home.

There are many buses that go from Boston <-> New York City. The only difference between these buses is sketchiness and price. Normally, I'd take Greyhound or some other commercial entity that advertises on silly things like television and such. In the hopes of leaving as small a financial scar as possible, though, we decided to take the Fung Wah bus. Unfortunately for us, the Fung Wah bus didn't want us to succeed. We were hoping to catch the 18:00 bus back to Boston, but Fung Wah was sold out until 21:00. One other person in line with us seemed quite frustrated, and mentioned another bus which did the same route down the street.

We followed the man to a mostly Chinese sign with the name Travel Pack on it, seemingly advertising the route we wanted, but severely lacking any explicit place to take the offer up. After a bit of hunting around, we came across a Chinese woman sitting in front of a random 'lectroschlock store with a similar sign, verbally advertising, "Boston? $10 dollar!". We waited with her per her instruction, acquired some beverages and mystery-meat dumplings, and after a good 30 minutes trundled down the street to where the bus was supposed to pick up.

It didn't. Instead, we just got tickets at that street corner and followed another Chinese man to another street - one that looked a bit more fruitful in the bus department. We waited with a crowd. It grew as the bus continued to be elsewhere, and we waited more. Eventually a mostly unlabeled bus approached filled with people. Some other Chinese men armed with cell phones waved people into the bus, filling it up. We made our way to the front of the crowd, but only to be told it was full. Another bus came, unloaded, and left. The third (third is a charm) bus came, empty, and with room for us. It is on that bus that I write this now.

We arrived in Boston fairly late and met with my father near the Boylston T stop. He drove SmileLoki home and "home" I went. Ah, the Internet - my home.