Monday, July 11, 2005

Dead tired. AD:TECH? If I ever want to commune with an event that requires the stamina of three formals and a prom, well, hello and take a seat. Today was a sensory overload, and I’m at the point where coherent and sustained sentences disappear momentarily, eclipsed instead by a series of images.

My day began on a train in the Norshore, where a little Norshore girl whispered to her Norshore mother and suspiciously stared at a woman wearing a burka. There was pointing. Repeated pointing, as if the woman would explode in fire and terrorism.

The train stopped an hour later. Long walk. Badge and a lanyard. The dance of business began, slowly and then overwhelmingly, with booth after booth of exhibitors. One woman fainted, ideally from the excitement of direct marketing. I thought she was napping, no joke, and I almost stepped on her in my mad dash for information and trinkets, trinkets of unspeakable allure.

If you’re 40-something, don’t have enough self-awareness, and you’re still doing this, heaven help you. There was a man explaining search optimization to me with a passion bordering on ferocity. It was as if I had pissed on his wife and promptly asked him to sell me a toilet, informative pitch and all. 20 business cards later, I’m back on the train, back in the Norshore, straight to bed, then you, now back to bed.