Memories of Keynotes & Macworlds past
Wish I was going to Macworld! Wish I could be with all YMLers going this special year. I'll have to settle for attending Macworld '10, the first without Apple and Steve. Glad I made the last Keynote he gave at Macworld '08, and I saw a few others in years past.
This year's announcement of no more Apple exhibits and no more Keynote makes the past years of shivering in line as the fog rolls in, or standing in the pouring rain with no umbrella, outfitted in various torn garbage bags acting as a better-than-nothing raincoat at 3 and 4 a.m. in a line of people hundreds deep, all worth it.
Memories from '08 Keynote:
Missing Lesh and Duh who could not attend. Walking very quickly and timidly ALONE from the Pickwick to the Keynote line, as my YML line buddie Dan (Hanineal) failed to meet me in the Pickwick lobby and had overslept. Getting to the Moscone regardless, and discovering lots of cool new Mac people in line, all as friendly as anyone from YML. TJ was also there, met an artistic guy from the Netherlands, and a few business owners from various distant places and countries, all using Macs in their own ways. It was such an interesting mix of people and ages, and countries all brought together to share one annual obsessive event.
At the Keynote I felt the reality distortion field, endured a crying baby next to me, cheered announcements (excellent but not Earth shattering), lost at Keynote Bingo, and uttered a "What the — ?" when Steve got to the usual one more thing-ish part of the show and surprise musical guest. I was psyched with hope to hear Steve announce the long awaited Beatles iPod and maybe surprise guest Paul McCartney and instead got Randy Newman and no one more thing awesome product. Obviously I was flung from one extreme emotion to the other at warp speed. At that point, I had a premonition I quickly brushed off, that told me Apple was not as "into" this Keynote WOW stage show as they had been in past years.
Now that the Keynote is no more, at least I am lucky enough that I can say "I was there when..."
This is a good time to insert a thank you to Your Mac Life for it's contests. If I hadn't won that first time years ago, my department wouldn't have seen the value in it and pay for all the other ones.
I think others should post their Keynote memories here, since there won't be anymore. But I hope the next era of Macworld Expo will continue to provide us with it's most useful asset: LOTS of variety in products and training for the vast amount of Apple products, which widens each year. On the non-educational front, there will be the YML parties to look forward to—and that infamous Chocolate Cake, that somehow seems to be the only cake that goes well with beer.
Let's all remember the poem (I think it's Neo's) that gets posted here every year about Macworld and the Grinch (Enderle) that stole Macworld. Let's not let Apple steal it from us either. Hopefully IDG will come up with new innovative ways and special events that will make Macworld still worth spending the money it takes to make the pilgrimage. Look at the bright side, we can all sleep late Tuesday mornings, and I won't miss my garbage bag rain attire.
~ pattii
• ~ ~ ~ • I left my heart in San Francisco.....among the Macs & Margaritas • ~ ~ ~ •
memories from 2001
My wife and I thought Macworld would be fun thing to do and a chance to see San Francisco so away we went, had a blast and hoped some day to go back again. Maybe I should book a flight right now.
Anyway, each year before expo I post up this web site I made so long ago on the YML mail. It reminds me of our trip and makes me wish I was going again. I discovered Shawn's show a month after we got back and have listened ever since. I hoped one day I could meet the "YML" gang and its extended family and party all week ;)
Have a fun time in SF gang
Vito
http://www3.telus.net/vito/Vitos_page/mori/buckman_mw_san_fran.htm
Vito—Love your web page
Vito—Love your web page with pics of Macworld 2001—what great memories it stirred! It reminded me of how the Mac Faithful were still basking in the initial glow of Steve returning to power at Apple, and all of us had begun to jump into the relatively new OSX and loving it. Your product reports were a fun reminder of what "wowed" us for computer power in those days. ; )
~ pattii
• ~ ~ ~ • I left my heart in San Francisco.....among the Macs & Margaritas • ~ ~ ~ •
TJ or Amishman is also
TJ or Amishman is also MacSociety on YML. I go by all 3 names so you know who I am.
Yup, I am so thankful to have attended the last two Macworld keynotes. I have attended Macworld for so many years but never attended the keynote. Luckily, I won a Platinum and Super Pass right here on YML two years in a row. Like getting struck by lightning. I never win diddly, but won these cool passes. Thanks YML for these cool contests.
I am thankful to have met you Pattii and also Dan and enjoyed boogie-ing down with you at the YML party. I love dancing but it has been years since I had last danced (since my wife does not like to) so I enjoyed jumping around on the dance floor with my new friend.
I guess now we will just have memories unless IDG can pull a rabbit out of a hat and keep Macworld going. I am hoping they will. It will be different though. Why else or what else can we do so we all still get up at 2AM and meet at 2:30AM at Moscone like we did for keynote. We need to find something else I guess. An all nighter party maybe. hmmmmm.
Anyway, nice to meet you last year and hope to see you again at a future Macworld.
tj
Macworlds
I've been to many. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a mac-mac (***shrug*** at bynkii). I'm excited to see new Macs and Apple. I love the over the topness of Macworlds, and the PRESENCE that Apple has there. I understand Apple is a company, but they cultivated that ethos of being a "different" sort of company, which in turn, inspired the cult of Macintosh. Whether they wanted it or not, the company as well as the products they produced started a strong community, which now I've been told is irrelevant to Apple and dwindling as an economic base for them.
I don't really feel entitled for special treatment from Apple. I have come to expect that Apple is a different kind of company (mistakenly) because THEY are the ones that told me it was, and for a long time - it was. I did get VERY good customer service, and I stuck with the product because I see something different and appealing in the Mac and the Mac OS. I'm different from the IT manager and the enterprise customer base. I felt differently towards MY computer, just as maybe a painter feels about his paints, a dancer about her shoes, a musician about his instrument. Call me a mac-mac, all you want. This computer is an extension of me, of my creativity. Sorry, but that also touches Apple. I don't demand Apple need give me this or that. I do wish and do think it is right that they should be different and recognize not only mac-macs but the rest of the customer base as well. I know this will send John into a conniption, but I chose a mac, NOT ONLY because of the quality of the machine, but the FEELING and CONNECTION I got from the Mac AND APPLE. And I think a lot did the same, and probably still do. Just as one may get a mustang for the FEELING or the IMAGE they project by having one. The iconoclastic image did a lot for their bottom line.
I wish very much Apple would recognize that this is one of the things that DOES hurt (probably not significantly enough for them) customer good will and, makes Apple just another big corporation. We don't want it to be another big corporation - rightly or wrongly. I think this is one brick removed from the wall of the connection Apple had build with all its customers, which includes the macmacs as well as the switchers and the don't-give-a-ratassers. And as much as I would like to see Apple not pull out from expo, it may be the way of the world. I'm proud to like my computer more than I should. I get mad at it when it crashes, I curse at it when it beachballs on me, and I don't deny that it is just a computer with all the problems a computer has. But my affection for it AND, for better or worse, Apple, is there because I have a career, mac community connections, and well, an expanded world because of this machine. Expo was (and still is) the chance to gather with the like-minded and the curious, to make friends, to make connections, to have fun and learn of what's new in the Mac-verse. I hope expo still goes on and goes on strong. I am in a position of late to take advantage of the conference tracks and seminars, but I go to expo mainly to see the friends I made and be in a city I love, drowning in a very mac-mac atmosphere of the circus that is MWE.
I have many memories of the 8 or so expos I've been to, a lot of the very fuzzy, and some are (shutter) all too clear. But I am not so jaded as to not feel excited during the Stevenotes, and shiver at a new Mac Pro on display. Yes, I think Apple's absence will diminish expo somewhat in the short term, but I'm convinced that 70% of what I came to expo for is still there - friends, community, liquor, and all things Maccentric.
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Ms Duh wrote: "I have many
Ms Duh wrote: "I have many memories of the 8 or so expos I've been to, a lot of the very fuzzy."
Lordy lordy lordy. Too many memories to mention quickly (especially while I'm at work). I'll have to sit down and think about it, but after reading your post Duh and especially the line above in quotes - one memory jumps out at me. Lordy, do you remember our very first YML (aka The MacShow) party at Decade in New York, great looking security guy at the door (former NYPD) and our trek back to the hotel in the cab with Jessica, Sam Crutsinger's assistant at the time. To this day I still pity that poor cabbie - the 3 of us were way more than 3 sheets to the wind and our conversation was just one long vowel movement. LMAO!!
Fun times, fun times.
When I get the chance, hopefully over the holidays, I'll try and recall a few other amazing Macworld memories.
~Sly
Memories
Drunk Dialing with Sly (mad significant other on the other end of the phone)
Monopod
Following King into the bathroom with the video camera
Helium
Bowling
Skating (or in my case, falling)
Piano Bar
HAPPY HOUR at the Serrano
6 people eating free food for the media on one media badge
Chasing a ghost of Steve Tyler down the concourse
Seeing/shouting at Woz as he was coming out the men's bathroom
Bat Shit Crazy Lady for MW roommate
Stevenotes (lovin' the Stevenotes)
John hiding my camera battery
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Decades
That was the FUNNEST party. I had SO mucho mucho fun there.
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Nice reminder of the old
Nice reminder of the old skating and bowling YML events. I still have that great shirt you designed for the occasion that year, Duh. We haven't done anything like that at the last 2 Macworlds and you haven't been there either. The skating was before my time. The Bowling was the first year I attended, I think. I've been to 3 and they're blurring into one another (must be caused by the Margaritas at various locations, and the beer tasting at the Thirsty Bear).
And I hope there is another bus trip to the Apple Store since I couldln't go this year.
Next year---can't wait! 2010 : )
~pattii
• ~ ~ ~ • I left my heart in San Francisco.....among the Macs & Margaritas • ~ ~ ~ •
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