Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Nerds and the air we breathe..A retrospective
Well I’m back.
CES is the same as it ever was, packed and covered in Nerd juice. If you have never been to CES let me give you a run down of what to expect.
First CES stands for the Consumer electronics show. It is the world’s largest trade show, basically because it is open to the public if you pre-register…if you don’t then you have to buy the really expensive 200.00 all access pass where you can hear people like Bill Gates speak on the coming attractions in the electronic age.
Imagine 300,000 Trekies, 90% of them non English speaking, all wandering around drooling about the new 120” LCD HD TV…sorry my nerdery is showing..the 120 inch liquid crystal display high definition television. Which IS pretty cool, but does anyone really need a a 9 foot television? Especially one that costs 100K?? NO, so anyway you are completely surrounded by these people that have normally questionable hygiene habits, and then you put them in Sin city for a week, stir in the HUGE amount of strippers and prostitutes that work in Vegas and add in 5-7 days of bad food, and alcohol, and you have an assault on your senses that would cause a buzzard to fall off a shit truck at 100 paces. The point is that the stuff there is just for teasing, you can’t buy any of it and there isn’t much playing with it, so all you have is walking and looking and if you’re in the business of in electronics, then you can make contracts to buy a ton of stuff, at a later date.
As cool as I think some if the stuff is, there is NOTHING there that you can’t find with a simple Google search and absolutely NOTHING you can’t buy and have shipped to your house once you find it on line.
I did however get my picture taken with Darth Vader
and a random Stormtrooper, AND Jackie the Jokeman Martling!!
Whom I just LOVE, every since I saw him on “Make me Laugh” in the 70’s and yes I’m old so go fuck yourself. Sorry that the picture is so fuzzy but my older brother is a shakey homo who has parkinsons...ok he just can't hold still.
Here are some random other pictures as well.
This one is the dumbest waste of money I have ever seen. It doesn’t even have a steering wheel!!
This is the true definition of a “Lowrider”
On the way home I snapped this picture of the coolest thing I have ever seen. I watched the Dr. put one of these in on the discovery channel a few years back, but I have never seen one in person. This is one of those amazing head implants that allows a deaf person to hear again. Most of my dad’s side of the family including him, are deaf as posts and have had some sort of hearing aid for most of the last 20 years if not the last 80…so I am looking forward to seeing how soon I’ll be fitted for my own hearing device since my brothers tell me I’m more like that side of the family, and less like Mom’s. But I also have had a lot of deaf friends and acquaintances over that last 20 or so years and one guy in particular really made my day once upon lifetime ago.
I was working at Riley’s Bar and Grill in Chico CA and one of my regulars was this deaf kid, he used to come in and try and teach me sign language, and I would try and see how alcohol would affect a guy that couldn’t hear. So during this alcohol induced bonding period we became pretty good friends, well at least the kinda friends who would share a pitcher if they saw each other out and about, not the kind of friends who sat around and watched “chick flicks” without the social stigmatism. Then one day he stopped dropping in. It wasn’t that I noticed right away it, it took me a couple of weeks and then only when he showed up at the door did I realize that he had been gone.
He used to come up to the door and put his hand on the wall and tell me what was playing, and whether or not he liked said band, saw them in concert, wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire or what. It was a pretty cool game.
But then one day when he was gone for a month or so, and I didn’t know it he came walking up, (I would have said sauntered, but he really wasn’t the sauntering type.) and we started chatting. He looked up at me and said, “AC/DC…I saw them in Oakland coliseum in the 80’s” I replied, “Yeah, I have liked them for a while but I haven’t seen them…..” and it hit me………. He was standing a good 10 feet away from the wall and he could HEAR the band, not feel the vibes from the wall but he could actually hear the music.
HOLY FUCKING DIVER!!....I screamed! You can fucking hear! He replied, “Shut up you’re making me deaf with all of the screaming!
I laughed and asked him “how?..... the fuck?...What? ( yeah I was eloquent back in the day) He then explained that he had a hearing procedure that restored his hearing from 20% in the left ear to 68/70% and 10% in his right ear to almost 50%. I didn’t know what to say so being the big sissy that I am I just grabbed him and squeezed him like he was a bag of Charmin. (the older kids will get that one). But I just was so happy for the little guy I couldn’t help it.
So anyway that is why I thought this was so cool! Not only that but it is one step closer to hard wired heads just like in “Johnny Mnemenoic” or the original story Gibson wrote “Count Zero” Anyway it is cool.
CES is the same as it ever was, packed and covered in Nerd juice. If you have never been to CES let me give you a run down of what to expect.
First CES stands for the Consumer electronics show. It is the world’s largest trade show, basically because it is open to the public if you pre-register…if you don’t then you have to buy the really expensive 200.00 all access pass where you can hear people like Bill Gates speak on the coming attractions in the electronic age.
Imagine 300,000 Trekies, 90% of them non English speaking, all wandering around drooling about the new 120” LCD HD TV…sorry my nerdery is showing..the 120 inch liquid crystal display high definition television. Which IS pretty cool, but does anyone really need a a 9 foot television? Especially one that costs 100K?? NO, so anyway you are completely surrounded by these people that have normally questionable hygiene habits, and then you put them in Sin city for a week, stir in the HUGE amount of strippers and prostitutes that work in Vegas and add in 5-7 days of bad food, and alcohol, and you have an assault on your senses that would cause a buzzard to fall off a shit truck at 100 paces. The point is that the stuff there is just for teasing, you can’t buy any of it and there isn’t much playing with it, so all you have is walking and looking and if you’re in the business of in electronics, then you can make contracts to buy a ton of stuff, at a later date.
As cool as I think some if the stuff is, there is NOTHING there that you can’t find with a simple Google search and absolutely NOTHING you can’t buy and have shipped to your house once you find it on line.
I did however get my picture taken with Darth Vader
and a random Stormtrooper, AND Jackie the Jokeman Martling!!
Whom I just LOVE, every since I saw him on “Make me Laugh” in the 70’s and yes I’m old so go fuck yourself. Sorry that the picture is so fuzzy but my older brother is a shakey homo who has parkinsons...ok he just can't hold still.
Here are some random other pictures as well.
This one is the dumbest waste of money I have ever seen. It doesn’t even have a steering wheel!!
This is the true definition of a “Lowrider”
On the way home I snapped this picture of the coolest thing I have ever seen. I watched the Dr. put one of these in on the discovery channel a few years back, but I have never seen one in person. This is one of those amazing head implants that allows a deaf person to hear again. Most of my dad’s side of the family including him, are deaf as posts and have had some sort of hearing aid for most of the last 20 years if not the last 80…so I am looking forward to seeing how soon I’ll be fitted for my own hearing device since my brothers tell me I’m more like that side of the family, and less like Mom’s. But I also have had a lot of deaf friends and acquaintances over that last 20 or so years and one guy in particular really made my day once upon lifetime ago.
I was working at Riley’s Bar and Grill in Chico CA and one of my regulars was this deaf kid, he used to come in and try and teach me sign language, and I would try and see how alcohol would affect a guy that couldn’t hear. So during this alcohol induced bonding period we became pretty good friends, well at least the kinda friends who would share a pitcher if they saw each other out and about, not the kind of friends who sat around and watched “chick flicks” without the social stigmatism. Then one day he stopped dropping in. It wasn’t that I noticed right away it, it took me a couple of weeks and then only when he showed up at the door did I realize that he had been gone.
He used to come up to the door and put his hand on the wall and tell me what was playing, and whether or not he liked said band, saw them in concert, wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire or what. It was a pretty cool game.
But then one day when he was gone for a month or so, and I didn’t know it he came walking up, (I would have said sauntered, but he really wasn’t the sauntering type.) and we started chatting. He looked up at me and said, “AC/DC…I saw them in Oakland coliseum in the 80’s” I replied, “Yeah, I have liked them for a while but I haven’t seen them…..” and it hit me………. He was standing a good 10 feet away from the wall and he could HEAR the band, not feel the vibes from the wall but he could actually hear the music.
HOLY FUCKING DIVER!!....I screamed! You can fucking hear! He replied, “Shut up you’re making me deaf with all of the screaming!
I laughed and asked him “how?..... the fuck?...What? ( yeah I was eloquent back in the day) He then explained that he had a hearing procedure that restored his hearing from 20% in the left ear to 68/70% and 10% in his right ear to almost 50%. I didn’t know what to say so being the big sissy that I am I just grabbed him and squeezed him like he was a bag of Charmin. (the older kids will get that one). But I just was so happy for the little guy I couldn’t help it.
So anyway that is why I thought this was so cool! Not only that but it is one step closer to hard wired heads just like in “Johnny Mnemenoic” or the original story Gibson wrote “Count Zero” Anyway it is cool.
