CeBit ‘07!

Ξ March 13th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ |

Well I’m off to CeBit tomorrow for my first real tradeshow as a proper journalist, rather than a visitor who blagged his way in cause he “once wrote some stuff for a website”. I currently exist in a state of curious excitement with a hint of self importance.

The preparation has been hammered out the last few weeks and I’m still unsure if I’ve remembered everything. After getting a “Hitchhikers Guide to Trade Shows” from those in Bit and TR who have been before I’m well kitted on the camera front, except for the Macro lens, well kitted on the warm clothes and comfy shoes, but I’ve resorted to taking a four year old, 3.86kg Dell Inspirion 8600. Just walking the 20 minute trek to work gives me shoulder ache and I get here with the reminiscent pains of my teenage years as a paper boy. Now I expect to spend three whole days in the same mental state.

On a purely sociological front, I’m interested to see the type of people that are due to frequent this consumer electronics paradise. If the great unwashed perpetuate the crowds, or will it be a diverse mix?

It’s also been a month and a half since I started full time at bit and it’s been pretty manic. I currently sit in bitHQ at 8pm, again, after starting at 8:30am and both Tim and I don’t expect to be done with tomorrows content for a few hours yet (he’s doing image processing which takes more time, hence my blogging). I have to say doing a job you thoroughly enjoy overrules entirely my fiscal concerns. I really don’t care if I do almost double the hours full timers do in a 7 day week, and I hope it lasts for a while yet.

Getting to review the Vadim PC was freakin’ awesome, even if it was a ball breaking experience. That thing is seriously kick ass. He only sells something in the region of a dozen a week, but his attitude to a niche market to simply make the absoulte best PCs is one I’m thoroughly glad exists.

I’m turning over motherboards like there’s no tomorrow, and still enjoying it, although I know I have to work on my memory testing and I wasn’t particularly happy with my AMD 690G review. The next one will be better planned, that’s for sure.

I watched Andy (my house and workmate) play 23hrs of STALKER through its entirety and all the highs and eventual low he came through. It certainly looks like a great game worth splashing the cash out for, but I hope other multiple endings prove better than the one I’ve seen. For a games reviewer to go from saying something is a “9.5″ to “now a fucking 7″ after he completes just the main quests is not a good sign. It totally misses out on a single-player co-op mode as well. For details though, you’ll have to wait for his full review.
I’ve been bashing through Lego Star Wars 2 on the 360 in the evenings and weekends when I get a few hours free with Geoff in the office, and it’s just SOO much fun. It’s surprising how great it looks on the 360 at 1080i (even better on a £3k Fujitsu Plasma Screen :D)

NBS-Review was finally handed off to Brett the other day, so he can do with it what he likes now. I hope he makes a blog cause he’s full of rants, and I think if he doesn’t actually vent regularly, somewhat akin to a Volcano, he might actually pop.

This means on the podcast front there won’t be any more NBS-Review, but eventually there is talk of doing some Bit-TR podcast shorts. The idea is for some quick but regular 10 minute ‘casts about issues or products both sites are doing. Hopefully it’ll be of interest, but undoubtedly it’ll be quite tame compared to NBS.

For a hectic weekend off two weeks ago, I managed to organise myself into seeing Ludovico Einaudi in Bristol, then NIN in Brum the day after.  Both were fantastic in their own right. I’m actually huge fan of classical piano and my mate and I went to see him (he actually introduced me to his CD) and it was really very good. Certainly a different crowd to what my mate and I are used to but it was nice to sit and take in music for two and a half hours, rather than have it hammered into our heads. Not that I’ve got much against being at Gigs with loud music and NIN certainly didn’t disappoint. They played all their most violent tracks and a fair few classics, which made for a much better experience than the last time I saw them in ‘05.
Anyway, I’ll try to hammer out a “Behind the scenes CeBit: what we couldn’t post on Bit” sometime after I get back.