More from the Engadget Reader Meetup

I didn't win any of the prizes, but I got a shirt like this one. They had a lot of stuff to give away though. I was as thoroughly impressed as I could have been, you know, not actually winning. There were a number of cellphones for T-Mobile and Sprint (and I really, really need a new phone), 10-15 Gameboy SP's with fucking Mario Kart, a number of iPod accessories, SPOT watches w/ service, and other stuff. I'd guess there were 50+ giveaways in addition to free handouts at the door, no cover, a free drink (yes, the boozahol kind), and t-shirts; all this for less than 500 people. I hazard that more than 1/3 of people there got something in addition to a free drink. And you know what, during the raffle, 3 total people got excited enough to do more than raise their hand when their number was called. WTF?!??!?! The audience was so macho or something that they didn't even clap or cheer when someone won something really cool. The people around me, with one exception (Eric, fellow Apple alumni) were bitching about this cool, free stuff they're getting, much of it costing several hundred dollars. Seriously, Fuck those guys.

Well, I'm still happy. I got to play with the heads up display from the guy at Microvision (check my last post) and learned more about SPOT, though the monthly fee is discouraging given the direction my monetary flow. I got to talk fairly extensively with Peter Rojas, co-founder of engadget as well as gizmodo (though he is no longer affiliated with the latter). He spoke about some of the challenges of the business and mentioned that weblogs, inc., parent company of engadget and a number of other focused blogs, was purchased by AOL. This would have been really uncool except they let him retain full creative control as well as fitted him with a significant severence package should they try to oust him. I would like to talk to him further about this as I am quite interested in the subtleties of business formation. It sounds like he learned his lesson the hard way with gizmodo but got right back out there. Enough rambling, thanks Peter, if you see this, and once I have a couple of decent columns written, I'll be sure to send them your way.

Mark aka Raul the Poolboy