For the most part, Oracle was playing nice this year. No acquisitions announced at the last minute. No wild claims about bullshit products. It was a much more subdued conference for the company.

Not quite so for Sun Microsystems, a shrinking violet at this year's show. Sun's made quite a business out of selling Unix and Oracle systems together. While Sun's head of PR was in attendance, and no doubt countless underlings as well, there wasn't much there to tie the two companies together. Rather a shame for anyone who's been betting that Oracle would buy out Sun as a way of backing into the hardware market.

Not that that would ever have happened anyway. Really, the reason Sun's not here is that it acquired its own database, MySQL earlier this year. Why play with the big boys when you can own something that's really not ownable?

It should be noted that Larry Ellison is far too in love with his sail boat.

(Photo via Oracle Apps Blog)

And isn't there something that's just completely unagreeable about giving Oracle employees space in the press area? Even if they are paid-for bloggers.

HP's woes don't tie to anything more than personal illness. As a bonus blind item, which HP'er showed up late, didn't have a badge, fainted, then vomited all over the registration desk?

Anyway, all the drunken out of town soccer moms, PeopleSoft devs and DBAs are on Treasure Island tonight watching UB40 earworm its way into their subconsiousness. Normally, the ConFonz would be all over this shwanky free food and booze event. Too bad the Fonz can't stand to be within 5 miles of UB40. Auditorily-mandated restraining orders are a bitch.

The party circuit last night was no different. With MySpace at SFMOMA,Yelp at the Cartoon Art Museum, and a host of others scattered between the W and the Thirsty Bear, it was a mild party night to say the least. All suits, all half-drunk, all talking on their fucking Bluetooth headsets, despite the deafening music and chatter.

"What?! No, paradigms! Do you hear me? No, no no no, I said 'going forward' ... no, can you hear me? Shifting paradigms going forward ... No ... Facebook... No ... I said 'paradigms'!"

Last night's parties got off to a slow start, with a cavalcade of rejected HTML gurus drinking themselves to enjoyment at the House of Shields. They were obviously depressed by the conferences boring tone, and focus on moneymaking. These were the once-weres, the might-have-beens, and the suitless masses.

The suits were over at the W, where Sun, Accel Partners, and the German government all had their soirées. Sun's was relatively subdued, what with all the press and juicy Java details. The Germans were quite awkward, with a schwanky full-service meal served inside a miniature conference room, complete with menus, crystal glassware, and expo booths around the side. Oddly, no one really felt comfortable eating, only standing around and watching as the German consulate folks resisted the beer.

Of course, the real suit-haters were over at the Yelp party around the corner. Kind of appropriate for them to have it at the Cartoon Art Museum, since Yelp, without a buyout offer from Google, is basically a cartoon impression of a startup. It's been around so long now that Google can only see them as a potential competitor, and a potential database to buy.

But that didn't stop the Yelp folks from bringing in all their relatives, friends and roommates to crowd the venue and eat the free food. In half an hour, only two suits made it in; the rest were urban hipsters seeking a free meal, some of them looking homeless.

As for Accel Partners, Facebook's big venture-capital backer, over at the W, it was a standard W affair, with potstickers and chocolate cake. Inside, it was all "How's your capital?" and "Can I stroke your cock for you Mr. Wagner?" The real function of this event was to provide adequate alcohol to fuel the maniacs who would eventually wander into the MySpace party after 8.

Here's a tip: if you want your party to be wild and crazy, and packed with drunks, start it after 8. That's exactly what MySpace did, and that's exactly what happened. When you get down to it, this event wasn't really too spectacular. The food was standard, the drinks were relatively cheap, and the art was in danger of being puked on. Hmmm ... sounds a lot like MySpace's clientele.

But if you're tasked with covering the year's most important event for processor-geeks, you can damn sure shut the fuck up while Intel engineer James Reinders explains how multi-threaded programming hurts like 8 bitches on a bitch boat.

Intel did its little dance, talking about how more power and more cores can help businesses. And, yes, Reinders is no Steve Jobs. But compilers that support software transactional memory are still really fucking cool.

These sniggering Brits obviously didn't attend AMD's new processor launch last Monday night. That event redefined yawning and boredom. At least Intel had the decency to pay for its venue... The ConFonz hears that AMD's constant ball rubbing of Lucasfilm resulted in the garnering of a free place to hold its party and press conference: both in the Presidio, and both completely fucking dull.

No surprise, of course. Isn't BEA a former darling of the VCs and the stock market? Isn't VMware a current darling of the VC's and the stock market? Last week, anyone walking across Fourth and Howard in San Francisco could be forgiven for feeling as though they we looking at "before" and "after" shots. VMware would be the quintessential "before," meaning, they're currently worth billions since Microsoft has barely even stepped into its market for "virtualization" software. BEA Systems would be the "after," showing off the results of having IBM, Sun, and Oracle all stomp into its application-server sphere of influence.

BEA's currently got a rogue stock holder demanding the company be sold off (Oracle, you listening?). VMware is still snug in EMC's bed, around 90 percent of its stock safely in those big ass EMC vaults of cash — meaing it only has one real shareholder to please.

Just a scant week ago, a cavalcade of Yahoo — make that Yahooligans, given how they behaved — went over to Berkeley to volunteer at the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. Ostensibly, they were there to build PCs and install Ubuntu Linux on some recycled hardware.

In theory, these budding young bags of sperm and PHP should have spent about three hours checking RAM, formatting hard drives, stacking monitors and testing keyboards. Instead, the wily "volunteers" just made a big stinking mess, completed only a single Ubuntu install and then complained when they didn't get free food. Oh, and they were constantly running over to the free computer lab so they could check out how their stocks were doing.

Far be it from the ConFonz to pass judgment on these wayward, purportedly helpful souls. But it certainly looks like Scientology's favorite search engine is staffed with white-boy slackabouts who are afraid of a decent day's work. Perhaps the ConFonz should apply there. It's been three months now, right? Just enough time for Jerry Yang to realize that filling Semel's shoes is like stepping into a small pond of hair conditioner.

The fabulous and sexy Conference Fonzerelli has trouble avoiding parties. Even when he stopped to retch up the last of his peyote buttons into an alley off second street, he found himself standing outside of the PingIdentity party.

Elsewhere, Microsoft held a press gathering at the Cartoon Art Museum, irony unimagined. Just another indication of the Mickey Mouse attitude Microsoft has towards security.

So, remember, application security scanning is a 30 million dollar a year industry, max. And yet, Veracode is the bell of the ball at this year's RSA Conference. Lets all hope those shiny new employees and pr people help to get the company acquired before CA's seed money runs out.

Still, best quote of the day goes to Microsoft: "I love RSA, you can assume everyone here is not a complete retard."

[Photo: Getty]

To quote Tristan Tzara: Dadadadadaadaaadaadaaa!

Why did humans ever use these cursed compilations of circuits and crunchy capacitors before the Internet? Without this pulsating tendril to connect each of us to that heaping ball of darkness we call the Net, we'd all just be sitting at home, alone and naked, weeping softly into our pillows.

As it so happens, there's this thing called the network, and it's the heart of our businesses, right? These giant high schools we call enterprises are all standing on top of metric fuck-tons of data. There are entire hordes of people who tend the databases. They come from all walks of life. They are small town folks, big town hot shots, and basement dwelling nerdlings. A smattering of swaggering dickheads rounds out an otherwise evenly spaced herd of around 35,000 shwag grabbers.

More after the jump.

The most popular implement of branding was the translucent hand fan with laser-message inscribed on the blades as they spin. Elsewhere, big blue "We're # 1" fingers came out for jousting and slap fighting sessions.

Then, there was Joan Jett, who fucking rocks. She may be older than the milkman, but every DBA in San Francisco woulda fucked her that night at the Cow Palace. One Optio executive threw his tighty whities at her, sparking off a chocolate fondue fight that had to be broken up by the gorilla-sized negroid guards.

The contingent from the Ganges was certainly feeling its thizzle, as they swapped wives and lap-sittings in a dark corner of the Cow Palace: sacred ground. But it was the Altova honkies that had the best night of their lives. Someone handed over extra wrist bands for their hookers, and the group took over the dance floor with crazy tranny-man gyrations.

Oh, to have seen the surprised looks during the unwrapping ceremony that undoubtedly took place later that same evening.

Too bad Larry Ellison couldn't be found at his own party. Undoubtedly, he was in his orbital throne, gazing down from above through those beady samurai eyes. Who knew that business could give a man the 1000-yard stare?

The Office 2.0 Conference at the St. Regis Hotel was more of a young-executive spa and pampering than it was an actual conference. A mix of serious suits, marketing mavens, and stinkin' startups stood around the first four floors of the fabulous St. Regis. You could recognize them because they were staring into their brand new 2 GB iPod Nanos, free to everyone who attended.

You read that right. Free iPod.

The press room had free laptops.

The conference rooms had free food and exquisite coffee all day long.

*Ahem* Everyone out there looking for a way to attract and keep the press: mimic the Office 2.0 conference. The press loves free food all day long. The press loves free iPods. The press loves free laptops/press kits. And when you give these sorts of things to the press, they are far more likely to feel that inborn guilt welling up. Hell, it may even drive them to check out the booths in the halls.

Obviously, Apple was here to play ball. So was that crazy European red-head who kept hogging the mic.

It's comforting to see this many people using Linux on their laptops. Frightening, but exciting. And, you should see the Conference Fonzie's Ethereal logs! Linux users don't encrypt their mail passwords either. Who knew that Disney was going to buy Yahoo?

Anyway, the Office 2.0 conference had good competition from Salesforce.com, which took over the fabulous Moscone West. Scratch that fabulous. Salesforce.com is all about the class act. They rent the Palace, they buy the good bags for attendees, they serve the best food the Moscone has to offer. They book Colin Powell to come and do his G W impersonation (He has the accent down, but the poor man has a bum right knee. Scoots himself around on a little rolling platform.) But going against this St. Regis affair, Salesforce.com looks like a buncha doofuses. Woulda been much cooler if they had been showing off actual production stuff instead of announcing what they intended to do next year. And who the fuck wants to rent a cubicle at their headquarters?

So then, the DNA Lounge, the MOMA, the Thirsty Bear. Everywhere there's crazy parties. Oh, and Dorkbot tonight! What's not to like?! A great week for the Fonzerelli.

Hell Jesus. Why did Intel go and change all of its product names? The Conference Fonzie has never seen so many X's and J's and L's in the same words before, and frankly, it frightens him. What's with all these women wandering around the show floor of this year's Intel Developers Forum? And what's this newfangled Tamiflu processor? Perhaps these kind fellows here selling these hand-held video cameras have an idea what's going on.

CF: Where's the damn Geek Challenge?

Booth Dood: What?

CF: God dammit man, I'm in a hurry. I've got a noon meeting with Otellini, and I can't keep him waiting? Point me towards Intel's main booth!

Booth Dood: Sorry, sir, I've no idea what you're talking about. Would you like to buy one of our video cameras? 10 hours of footage captured on 2 Gigs of memory card!

CF: Dear God, you're just making this shit up, aren't you?

Camera in hand, the humble Conference Fonzerelli wandered from booth to booth, passing up weird vendor names, like Aptivus, Viramune, and Merck, desperately searching for some sight of sanity. Everyone here was washing their hands obsessively in the bathroom, and the primary schwag on the floor consisted of pens and giant pads of sticky notes emblazoned with logos down the sides. This was no ordinary Intel Developers Forum. This was clearly some sort of strange, otherworldly palace of transdimensional computation!

Wait a minute. Wasn't the Developer forum over in Moscone West? The ConFonz seems to be in Moscone South! Sweet merciful Buddha, how did I get into this terrible fake conference, and where did this shoulder-bag and badge come from? And why wasn't there any food in the fucking press room!?

Soon, the light of understanding fell upon the brow of the addled king of the technology conference scene. This was not, in fact, the Intel Developers Forum. This was the annual ICAAC meeting, and god knows what that acronym stands for. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica folks selling their books down at the end of the South hall couldn't explain the letters. And neither could they explain the usefulness of their long obsolete product.

But why were there so many clearly commercial booths here? Why sell cameras to microbiologists? And why is everyone here talking about AIDS and birdflu? Holy Zarathustra, this place is shrinking and closing in. Escape must be attained quickly!

And escape was had. Across the street and around the corner, the ubiquitous emperor of expos found the registration desk for the IDF, at long last. Inside the expo floor, everyone chowed down on the near-top quality Moscone chow. The wildly experienced ConFonz had never seen so many different selections from the Moscone menu served at one time. From wraps and fajitas to salads and cakes, to the Asian food in the press room, Intel obviously couldn't settle on a single food type for this event. Too bad they did settle on limiting the coffee a bit. Still, it was flowing freely in the massive press room. Incidentally, the locks on those press laptops? Combination = 0000. Take one home with you! The ConFonz did! These are free, right?

And the schwag is pretty nifty too! Ah, basking in the warm glow of Paul Otellini's rotund form, the ConFonz finally understands: Everything is going to be OK. The world isn't being sucked into some strange and indescribable vortex of nonsensical names and colorful sticky notes. In fact, it's being quickly jerked towards the beer taps and plastic wine cups of an evening Intel booze bash on the expo floor. God help us all. Oh, and Otellini: nice shoes!

So, BEA World is going on at Moscone North this week. Last year, the event was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, so this year is certainly a step up. The Conference Fonzie finds himself wondering if this company is in fact making any money here, what with the sky-high prices charged by this place. They obviously sprang for the more expensive meals, though the spreads hint that these sandwiches are the second-cheapest on the menu.

A note for BEA CEO Albert Chuang: Lose the windbreaker. If you're going to try and emulate Steve Jobs by wearing an actual black turtle neck, you need blue jeans to go with it, not the Gap's new skinny black pant. And the beige windbreaker on top made you look like some sort of 80s-style teacher trying to impress the cool kids with your hip "I'm really down to earth" wardrobe.

Another thing to keep in mind, Albert, is that when you book a customer, like Verizon, to speak as second keynote, they're not necessarily going to say anything about your products. Such was the case with Shaygan, CIO of Verizon, who spent an hour showing off the cool new things his company was doing with fibre to the curb. Not once during his entire presentation did Shaygan mention BEA or its products. Not even a "and we're able to do all this cool stuff because of BEA's JizmLogic...."

And those posters with the colored liquid? OK, sure, not so dirty, but the videos that show filled clips of said liquid being poured into water are just obscene. They look like graphic depictions of muppet semen being released into a pool.

Overall, a middling showing of a conference. What's with all the beverage cozies being handed out on the show floor? At least five of the 20-odd companies with booths here are hawking logo-emblazed beer cozies. Must be some sort of weird "Please, buy our company" tactic the Fonz was unaware of. Mental note, invest in novelty beer cozy companies.

LinuxWorld, like a long impacted colon, is about to pass. Your bombastic ConFonz has seen many LinuxWorlds come and go, and none have had that breathy fresh air feeling that accompanies a clean colon. Until this year.

Picture the far corner of the show floor. The Slashdot lounge is filled with net-hungry crotch warriors, desperate for the only hardwired connections in the building. The airwaves here benefit only from Socialtext, the oh-my-god-they're-still-around company behind the first Bar Camp's venue. But thanks to the dozens of other networks, combined with the Nokia 770s and a handful of Ethereal enthusiasts, the wireless was unusable.

Let's do the math, here. (12 channels - 3 notused)/35 networks = Shitz!Bonerz!

Is the ConFonz off base in his rememberance of 802.11 arithmetic? To quote the Conference Fonzie's favorite show:

I fear the signals from the satelites may be crossing and interfering, canceling each other out. I would like to buy another cell phone.

And, a further nugget of wireless truth: Any access point labeled "Free Public Wireless" is a trap, sure to own yer Linux-box.

Despite the terror on the airwaves, the calm undertones of a confident floor-population was palpable. These people know they're on the winning team. They're confident. They're cocksure. But they're not brainwashed like Mac dorks.

These zealots have stopped saying that Linux will beat Windows. They've stopped envisioning a world of only penguins. Or at least, that's what they say. Ask a punk if he's really a punk and he'll blush. Ask a poseur if he's a punk and he'll shout "DAMN STRAIGHT!"

And these decidedly sweatier, uglier punks are looking for some hot press girl lovin'.

Picture that red dress and the high platform shoes. That sexy-as-hell stomping authority of the fresh-meat young pressling, pushing through the crowd, tottering against the weight of a half-her-size laptop bag. Krad koder kidz kome kqwik. She's the nerd-enthusiast. Smiling at the geeky kids and kissing the alpha-nerds behind the gym.

The cool kids (read: Mormons) are here, of course, hawking Geckos and light-up blue Moto keychains. But the once A/V/chess/computer geeks are the prime draw, and the main audience. They salivate over the new nerd girls, and they congregate in the corner by the Slashdot Lounge.

Deep within this tangled web of donated booth-space and overstuffed Slashdot/SourceForge beanbag chairs was the meaty nutpulp-center of the show: The Great Wooly Debianoid. Their time is spent almost exclusively in the service of the Gnu Debian Gnu Linux Gnu operating system. Not to be confused with the equally fearsome Speckled Gentootoo Beast, the Great Wooly Debianoid is readily identifiable by his oblique fatness and inscrutible sassy nature.

Fortunately for the female nerd-enthusiasts (not to be confused with the female-nerd-enthusiast) manning the EFF booth, they were protected from direct sight of the Great Wooly Debianei (note the plural) for most of the show by CmdrTaco and an army of t-shirt and headphone seekers answering trivia questions.

Here is the real LinuxWorld. These are the people that have come here to see and learn. Everyone else is here for work, and that work isn't really accomplishing much. Are they trying to sell things to these bearded goobers? Are they hoping to introduce Linux to these dottering old fools and little old ladies? Are they trying to show off the size of their kernels in the bathrooom?

And what are all these old people doing here, anyway? There's one or two in every aisle, looking around, completely mystified. Are these the conference lampreys of days gone-by? A visage of the ConFonz in his winter years? The species does exist in New York, but it's far more manipulative and calculated there: Old women register ahead of time as press, then arrive just in time for food and drinks.

But here in San Francisco, LinuxWorld is free to anyone who had the wherewithall to register before Sunday. And since old people have nothing to do, the ConFonzie feels that the species is on this coast as well. It's simply a more docile breed.

And docile is a great way to categorize this year's conference. Does this show even need to exist anymore? The kernel contributors wouldn't be caught dead here. This is the 50th LinuxWorld of the year, afterall. The companies that want server equipment aren't coming here to find out about the latest developments in processor boards. Folks looking for network equipment aren't here to see nifty new switches, either. Wide-eyed homeless children without the money for a copy of Windows to install on their third-hand Compaq laptops couldn't register ahead of time, and were thus deprived of Ubuntu CD's. And anyone coming here to see the newest handheld devices and phones would have left feeling like a raped little orphan.

So why pay any money for a fucking booth? Maybe it's the small businesses. Maybe it's the prospect of hiring smart young programmers who've not yet felt the bitter sting of a cubicle's cold steel. Or maybe it was to laugh out loud at Rapleaf.com's job postings in the bathroom stalls.

Do note that the Conference Fonzerelli is eternally grateful to the aforementioned Rapleaf. Without that flyer (pledging a $5000 bounty for anyone who can sucker a friend into applying for an 80-hour-a-week job) your humble narrator would have suffered a most unfortunate, coffee-induced fecal nightmare at the hands of a complicated and empty TP dispenser. Lo, in the heat of the moment, it looked very much like a flyer for something called Rapeleaf.com.

And lo, the Fonzie does wash his hands when he's done.

Photo from Tux Humor [Acota.de]

Penguins, penguins everywhere. LinuxWorld is here, and if you're press and have a fake ID, you too can steal a Nokia 770 tablet. Not that you'd really want one. They're cheap, they're slow, and they're sure as fuck not stable. But Nokia's insisting on lending these out to the press, and the press is still trying to convince Nokia to let them keep the devices.

Even the Slashdot crew has the little tablets stuffed into their bulging pockets. Though, frankly, CmdrTaco is neither witty nor humble, much like the little device he carries.

Of all the exhibits on the show floor, none is as polarizing as Dice.com. This booth, clad in aging hotties and a tap of Bud Light, has been torturing attendees by demanding they search for better employment, right in front of their bosses. Plus, the poor bastard stuck in the big fuzzy dice costume is making an ass of him or her self just outside the entryway to the floor. But, hey, free beer!

The schwag is certainly intriguing, though SAP did trot out the same flotation devices they gave out last year. Rather than spend any money, they just piggy-backed on IBM's booth this year. Don't these two compete?

Meanwhile, Red Hat is just too cool for the show floor. Instead, they've set themselves up at the St. Regis across the street, where even the janitors have secret-service style earpieces. Tonight is their big party, as is everyone else's. Fortunately for the ConFonz, the W Hotel is playing host to all of this year's parties, a sure-fire way to disappoint folks that are used to the swanky Los Angeles and New York versions of this hip hotel. What will they all think when they discover that the SF version smells like vomit and employs scum-bag waiters too ignorant to understand when they're being bribed for faster service?

Photo: Drunk Penguin Shotglass [Hacker Stickers]

The city of Las Vegas pops up out of the desert with a bitch of a perspective. That disorienting distant din is doubled by descent from above of a vicious time distortion. Then, the oxygen enrichment machines kick in when yer wandering, dumbfounded, through Caesar's Palace. The shiny things, the constant randomly generated tones of slot machines, and the flashing neon then pound your senses. Fuck drugs, the ConFonz was far more intoxicated by the input overload.

The confusion only serves to wrench the money from your pockets with such speed and ferocity that it is unrivaled anywhere else on Earth. The Las Vegans (who actually eat meat!) have already forgotten far more about human behavior than most other people on Earth know. They have to. Those other people attend the city in order to unleash their guarded inner lizard.

But this week, the hackers took up residence. They checked into totally gay suites in Caesar's, cut rate leftover rooms at the Excalibur, and any available 4 foot by 6 foot by 4 foot block of floor space at the Riviera.

Blackhat was absolutely terrifying. The things some folks can do with virtual machines is not conducive to confidence, especially when the hardware itself is the weak link in the chain. Joanna is the sultry seductress of pills, both red (white) and blue (black). H to tha D TO THA MUTHA FUCKIN Moore is still a god. And the feds are actually very nice and friendly.

Though some would say that Microsoft was wooing Mr. Moore, there were, in fact, 200 other talented people at their Sands party on Thursday night. The Wednesday night party was courtesy of Caesar's Palace, thanks to the casino's 40th anniversary. David got a new toga for the event, but you could totally see all his junk.

And then... Oh, and then. Moving down the strip with great velocity and an intensely destructive streak, the script kiddies attacked the Riviera. Here they found soul mates in the national dart tournament, courtesy of Budwiser. Captain Crunch was on hand bright and early to search for virgin teenaged manchildren, and the Cult of the Dead Cow press relations team was prettied up and looking for reporters to woo. Time was, the Death Vegetable would have been the first to respond to a media inquiry with his ample form. Now, the PR has business cards that don't even say CDC on them.

The bar for talks is so low at DefCon, that even the lamest of talks was rendered mediocre by those around it. And a two-hour hold up on day 1 ensured a frustrated day for most everyone involved. Come on, Slashdot, the war rocketing talk could have been done in 5 minutes. And how many possible times can you see someone explain how to use Ethereal in one weekend? Six, evidently.

Mrs. Hargett's rant on agile and tdd may have influenced some hacker cliques into more productive cycles, though most will likely continue to beat off into a jar. Valsmith and Chamuco are fucking 31337 to the nth degree, and offensivecomputing.net will conquer the malware world. Maybe they'll finally put the last nail in the antivirus softwares bloated and vomit filled skull. The ConFonz can only hope.

And speaking of Hope, that conference suffers from the same problem DefCon does: too many scene whores, not enough coders. There were plenty of talented folks around, esspecially on the capture the flag floor and in the Metasploit suite. But most of the chatter revolved around how many people had made the walk across the street to Circus Circus to reenact Fear and Loathing: the Movie. Unfortunately, that particular casino is far more terrifying in person than anyone could have imagined.

-Your Local ConFonz

Oh, what? This isn't a conference about the most underused piece of punctuation in the western language paradigm? Well; that would explain all of these silicon wafers and robot arms. SemiCon; eh? That's what this badge says.

The old Fonzie is bleary-eyed and tired, and his old glazzies are having trouble reading these damn press releases. Oh; here's an interesting one with some sort of rubber tube taped to the inside of the binder!

And what's this? No after parties? No official after parties anyway. There's nothing listed inside of the schedule, so it looks like the old Fonz will have to head over to Dave's afterwards and....

Wait a minute. What's that; over there behind the sleek white Korean wafer mover. Why,it's a bar! And look, over there! Taps! Sweet Jebus, there's another! And a wine bar over there too! Well then, things are looking up!

This massive show floor has a high suit content, but it sure does dish up the free booze, and at 10 AM, no less! Finally, a conference that lives up to the Fonzie's expectations; Ayyyyyyyyyyye!

Classic ConFonz: ConFonz at the IEEE Microwave Thingie at the Moscone [Valleywag]

MI6. Marketing Games Initiative. Who knows what the 6 stands for. Some would say it's a reference to 2006, but more likely, it's an obvious node to the number of pulsating [CENSORED]s that can be stuffed into a single puckered media outlet's [CENSORED]. The games marketing people were all over Moscone earlier this week, and the food vendors and tranny hookers of Soma are still recovering. The event was designed to show off the work of all those hardcore marketing weasels that place ads like the famous "dead blond in a bathtub of blood" Hitman ad of recent months.

Of course, these people could all care less whether the games they're promoting are any good, much the same way that a pimp doesn't really care if his [CENSORED]s are tickling [CENSORED]sacks with aplomb. The event was punctuated with an award ceremony that gave top honors to the Madagascar game's TV campaign. Yikes. The awards were even broken down into categories like "Best Text for a Print Ad," and "Best Endcap Display."

Who the [CENSORED] knew these people got awards? This is akin to giving out prizes for the best [CENSORED]al rapist on the cell block, with a special nod to Pedophile Steve in B23 for coming up with the idea to replace the salad tossing jelly [CENSORED?] with Maple Syrup. Sticky [CENSORED]s all up and down the coast shout "Thanks Steve!" [CENSORED]s the [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED].

Incidentally, no one with any actual talent won any awards at this event. The overall winner was the XBox 360 campaign people, which really just goes to prove that the only factor in winning these awards was the size of your budget [UNCENSORED], not the quality of your drivel.

There are few things that can shake the resolve of the Conference Fonzie. This venerable vindicator of virtuosity and coolness has never found a conference that he couldn't lick. But despite his exhaustive exuberance, the Fonzie has his weaknesses. One of those is being late.

Horror of horrors, but the ConFonz missed lunch. The press room was devoid of the stuff anyway, but there was food present for the media, and by the time the Fonz went "ayeeeee," the trays were gone.

However, inside the show itself, the ConFonz was carrying more schwag than he could manage. From tiny transistors to company name printed out on sheets of copper alongside transmitter wafers and vibrating donkey detectior, the gods of the schwag were shining down upon these attendees.

Which was a good thing because it seems as though few of these IEEE folks actually get outside in the sunlight. Folks here looked a lot like they probably did in the 90's. And in the 80's. And every day since high school. Even the women all had that "Nerdy girl with the heart of gold wins the captain of the football team by dressing up for a change and actually wearing makeup" glitter about them. But sadly, nobody here could throw a football.

They sure could watch football though. The only booth on the floor with any buzz around it was the packed red cloister in which some enterprising wireless chip manufacturer had placed a TV showing today's games. You could barely get around the crowd.

Sadly, those in attendance were weary and lost thanks to toothless temps and a registration system that was obviously designed by an electric engineer (Please select the option of your choice below the line next to this line and choose the place to which you would like to register for your IEE 263 WMN-T si# receipt). The conference organizers obviously wasted all their dough on the Moscone Center and the food, so the temps, badges, and amenities suffered.

The SID conference was a bit like walking into Asian gangbang night at the Golden Lotus. The honkies were far outnumbered here, and the giant plasma screens on every aisle of the show floor were hued with a distinctly yellow tint. even the press room was empty, and the attendees signed in on the media list were few and far between. At least the Wall Street Journal sent someone over.

Anyway, the conference itself showed off some amazing new technology in the area of preventing sperm from staining monitors. Many of the companies at the show were allowing patrons to bash their screens with hammers, spill water on them, and wag their cocks at the PR women, just to prove that they could take all the abuse.

Of course, that show ended at 2, and the ConFonz was forced to hide out in various Market Street bars until the freebies started flowing at the House of Shields. But once those liberal libations began flowing, the evening took a decidedly different turn.

O RLY ConFonz? After the jump, the Fonz proves he's a picky liquor drinker.

For starters, there's something deeply disturbing about watching that young ValleyWag editor be treated like a king. Women were throwing themselves at his zipper, men were handing him beverages, and everyone was waiting for this wee Willy Wonka to take charge of the festivities. For Christ's sake, people, a year ago he couldn't even get into this place because they card!

Not to look the free booze in its mouth, but the bartenders at the House of Shields were obviously suffering from some sort of degenerative brain diseases. Their drinks tasted like horse piss all night long. Your humble Conference Fonzie has trouble keeping his eyes open this morning, thanks to the strong taste of paint thinner in his swollen mouth.

And what happened to all those planned events, and doings, and presentations. As it stands, SloshCon did not meet the ConFonz's lofty standards for what does make a conference. This, instead, was sponsored drinking. An admirable event, nevertheless, it was nothing like an Expo. Unless you were trying to find out more information about how many people can fit into a joint with a 49-person-limit sign by the bar.

Next time there's a SloshCon, it needs to be A: in a larger place (Craig Newmark felt up some serious ConFonz groin... Or... was that Craig? If not, then who was groping the Fonz's little Chotchie?) B: In a bar with decent booze and booze slingers, and C: on a Friday night instead of Thursday.

Right now, half of the startups in Sillicon Valley aren't getting any work done because their management is all puking in the women's room. Of course, since there are no women at these startups, no one will ever be the wiser.

A: Moscone sandwiches and Aroma Blend coffee from the nice silver. Eaten in space that felt a bit like dining in an empty blimp hanger.

B: Palace Hotel "free itemn onry!" (Sorry, racism doesn't come across well in type). Three items: Kobe beef sliders, three-pieces-of-lettuce-in-a-cardboard-bucket-with-some-parmaisan-cheese-and-a-cup-of-dressing, mint fruit salad, worms in a chinese bucket, and rice crispy treats. The best part here is watching guys in suits eat Snap Crackle and Pop.

C: Harry Denton's Starlight martini followed by ten minutes of vomiting in the lovely bathroom facilities of room 1602, which the cleaning lady has run screaming from only moments before.

Answers after the jump — RSS readers, shield your eyes!

A: Informatica World

B: Salesforce.com's 5 hour sales pitch

C: JP Morgan Technology Conference

It takes more than a roomful of beanbag chairs to impress the ConFonz. Valleywag's favorite conference correspondent comes away from Sun's JavaOne conference with an upset stomach, a full bladder, and a case of the shakes.

Have you ever wondered how to put 5000 programmers, analysts, journalists, and Sun employees to sleep? Well, just ask Mr. Gage, Sun's chief researcher, and he'll explain that the best way to do this is to open your conference with an 8:30 AM keynote that starts out with a lengthy explanation of the myriad misprints, mix-ups, and overbookings. Gage spent 20 minutes speaking in a monotone about why conference attendees shouldn't be shy, why they have to register ahead of time for every session they want to attend, and why the documentaiton handed out at the beginning of the show was mostly incorrect.

The ConFonz is no stranger to boredom. After decades of attending conferences filled with dull developers, plodding programmers, and fizzling flaks, the ConFonz has gained the ability to sleep with his eyes open and in the seated position. But Tuesday morning's keynote pushed even the ConFonz's minimal patience to its utmost limits. After Gage came Schwartz, who's unscripted discussions of the future gave the press lots to write about, but little to actually say. Rather than tell developers that Sun would now be giving away Niagra servers for free, Schwartz decided to wave one of the things around over his head beneath a banner that read "Free Kits," then to replace the thing under a desk and move on without mentioning it again. Sun didn't even issue a press release on this.

And then, Jackson and Green took over the show, boring the audience to absolute tears. Between Jackson's lame Monty Python jokes (Jesus, dude, there are so many other Python things to quote than the Holy Grail) and Green's "I'm new here, don't ask me to be interesting" approach the entire attending public was ready to slit its own throats just to stop the cavalcade of bad public speaking.

As if all this weren't enough, the rest of the conference was in complete dissaray. Sessions were crowded, lines for food, speeches, and shwag were exceptionally long, and the actual attenance numbers look very low from down here in the reeds. With Sun spiralling downwards, out of control, and the entire organization in complete chaos, this year's JavaOne isn't even about Java. It's about AJAX.

Time was, years ago, that Sun took care of its developers in a manner similar to Microsoft. The incandescant company used to hold all night parties and coding sessions, fueled by free coffee, soda, and schwag. Now, the company makes its developers jump through hoops, chase from booth to booth, and generally dance like monkeys for all those goodies.

Sure, they fed the press, offered free coffee in the media room, and the show floor had some remarkably good schwag, but in general, this year's JavaOne is the most underwhelming developers conference in recent memory. Sorry, Sun, you had a good run, but these days yer just not any fun!

Photo by Pat McGovern [Paul Boutin on Flickr]

After much wandering in the scrublands between the valley and the sprawl of all the smog-covered walls of Los Angeles, the ConFonz found himself, finally, within the warm embrace of sobriety. While not completely certain as to his location once the booze, pot, and 4-Acetoxy-DiPT wore off, he was certain that the events of the past week were far beyond the comprehension of even his massively capable and verbose mind.

And those events began to slowly trickle back into the consciousness of your humble conference Fonzie. Memories like those of hurridly running from the press room to vomit. Memories such as those of being turned away from the House of Blues, despite being assured of list-worthiness on multiple seperate occasions from the PR firm behind the Best buy Access E3 party. Memories such as watching former Oddworld Inhabitants employees spoking a joint outside the Staples Center, and being told that Lorne Lanning encouraged all employees to imbibe in the wacky weed whilst working.

After the jump, ConFonz says why Sony's kaput.

Intimate details of the week's activities also included multiple instances of drunken shmoozing with pointless PR tools who jumped up and down with excitement over the Playstation 3. Of course, jumping up and down on top of the actual unit itself is likely to be the only way Sony can get the wonkin' circuit board and excess wires into the box they've created. From low Cell processor yields, to a case that's too small for the circuitry, to wired controllers on the budget version of the console, to SOE working on three Everquest clones at once, it's certainly looking like Sony is fucked. Did I mention that Sony is utterly hosed? By the way, Sony is doomed.

But the ConFonz also saw other delightful sights at the show. Despite his inherently bitter nature, the ConFonz is delighted to see the future of games unfold before his blood-shot eyes. The future looks bright for the games industry, and despite massive globalization, the heart of the games world is still in San Francisco and the valley itself. Enjoy basking in the warm glow of this industry's giant budgets, for when the gaming bubble bursts, we'll all be doomed to playing pong with pings.

Earlier: ConFonz at E3: Wal-Mart robs gamers of their booth babes [Valleywag]
And: ConFonz at E3: "Uneven grounf" [Valleywag]

Well, 2 days have passed, and the ex is on the fuck-it path. Everyone is either happy or depressed beyond belief. This includes Macrovision. The nefarious ConFonz spent all night shmoozing with yogourt in tow. The most exciting part of the evening? The Brits hate Edge because it's so up it's own asshole. Funny, though, they couldn't name any better mag!

So, how do you piss off Macrovision? Ask about playing DVD'S under Linux. Boy, it was a great discussion until Linus' ubiquitous operating sysytem was mentioned. Then it was all, " have you talked to our PR
people? Have fun, and good night."

So, Turner has deep pockets. GameTap will prevail, despite what Carless and Scheffield say. Give it one year and one Xbox contract later, and the service will be right behind WoW s the most popular subscription-based service.

CMP lost China. Ouch. China is now competing on uneven grounf.

Sony is still a 3-year-old girl in a small box purchased by a multi-millionaire ass-rapist. Goodbye. We shall not cross pathes again.

IBM thought that it was endrunning around Intel with its console plays, but in the end, it's all gonna come crashing down. DVD is enough. Cry cry cry me a fucking river, third parties.

You'll all be on your knees at the alter of Nintendo soon enough.

Here is the ConFonz's first E3 post, live from the Wired party at 1201 5th St. Robin Williams munches on his own mouth like an old man who's lost his dentures.

So E3 has started up once again. Outside, the Army stands watch, handing out CDs of its recruitment game via robotic mine-defusing/machinegunning-but-now-armed-only-with-an-arm. Funny,
though, the armymen onhand at the show were wearing significantly more bodyarmor than their counterparts over in Iraq. (Hmmmmmm. Confonz waxesWonkette.)

After the jump, vital booth babe news.

So, the show, the first for the Confonz since 2001, has utterly solidified the notion that Sony is completely fucked. In the ass. Nintendo had to fend off people with a stick. Microsoft was its standard oblivious, so wildly flush with cash that it could care less who anyone in its booth was, save for the reps from Wal-Mart. But Sony was friendly, accomodating, positivly desperate for good press.

So, elsewhere on the floor, it's getting hard to differentiate between the really cool, the amazing, and the groundbreaking. Bioshock, Hellgate, Spore, Darkness, Alone In the Dark, Gears of War, Jesus
fucking Christ! Which one to spunk over? Tough choice!

So, the booth babes were not gone. They were toned down a bit. Why? Wal-Mart. They demanded it, and they got it.

New phrase! Proceedural mating! Thanks Will, sorry we called you out for not washing yer hands.

They infested the Moscone center this week. Scuttling in sideways like lobsters, these cretins of sling were firing advertising schlock back and forth across the carpeted blue aisles. They are the all-consuming bottom feeders of the Internet. They are the advertising networks. And they blow whole fields of goats, yet leave them all strangely unsatisfied (Stolen).

The show floor was open until six, but by noon everyone was already hammered. These people are recovering from last night, and today they're just trying to forget what gauge buttplug their new best friend from DoubleClick can take. By 5, it was ugly. Boothes were being pulled down, a frenzy took place at booth 6166, where boxing tickets were being given out. None were left, and the knuckle-dragging BM's (Bachelors of Marketing) were punching each other's cocks over the final pair.

Oh dear god. It gets worse — textually NSFW, hide-it-from-the-boss worse — after the jump.

Brace yourself. This will sting a lot, and it'll leave you feeling full.

Because, everyone needs a date to the fist fest. And they were all looking to get laid tonight. If you can't find a wet hole after three days of monetizing blogs and exchanging PGP keys, you're obviously a n00b. Thursday, however, was the day of rest. The final day of drunkenness, with a smattering of parties in the alleyways.

And, finally, for anyone who couldn't get a wet hole all those other days of the show, the orgy at 111 Minna was the last chance. Admission was membership to the Ask advertising network, and the doorway was blocked off by 1000 pounds of suited, sweaty executives. Inside, it was all butter and crumpets and "How's your penis?" and "Would you like to snort coke off of my asscheeks?" The wine pourers were bare-assed naked and pissing in everyone's faces, while the VP's of marketing were shouting "I know a great bathroom stall!"

The wine wasn't bad, the schwag was shitty to non-existent (Fuck you too, Google), and the conference was iced with this overheard bit:

"I've never seen it this big before!" said the redhead as she peered inside the doorway of 111 Minna, obviously referring to the naked, fat mass of ad monkeys writhing in cooking oil.

"It was, BACK IN THE DAY BACK IN THE DAY!!!!" came the shouted response chorus from two white guys in suits, who got all black with it. These two later sucked each others cocks outside of the Thirsty Bear. Some pervert paid them $15 bucks to watch, but you could see it all for free from across the street.

The San Francisco Bay Area is the worst possible place to hold the Maker Faire. O'Reilly's newest conference showcases people who build cool stuff and hack their toys, but when you get right down to it, there's only a small percentage of people in the area that actually do this stuff. Perhaps that's why the ConFonz saw so many familiar faces bouncing around the San Mateo Fairgrounds. The same goatees, nasal piercings and tattoos were all over the place, mixed in with some new ones from out of town.

But when you get right down to it, the most fundamental part of any Make schematic is people actually showing up. And, to be fair, attendance was quite good overall. But the cool kids just couldn't be bothered. Those San Francisco types that refuse to leave their houses, much less their city, couldn't even be bothered. Perhaps it was the lack of sex appeal. Perhaps it was the Foo Camp haters. Perhaps it was the shitty food.

But whatever the reason, Maker Faire 1.0 was a semi-exclusive event open only to those who actually had the gumption to get out of the fucking house on a weekend. And in the world's most stoner-slacker ridden area, that means quite a large number of people were excluded.

One highlight was watching Jake Applebaum wander out at 6 on Saturday. The ConFonz was absolutely astonished that the master of social engineering couldn't procure an invite to the after party.

Photo: Thimbletron [Laughing Squid on Flickr]

The Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose was pretty cool, in that hardware geekery kind of way. The shwag sucked, the lunch was terrible, and the coffee was only available for free in between sessions. Aside from that, it was kinda fun out there. But, can someone please explain what exactly DSO is? Wind River had a huge, expensive booth touting DSO as the life changing technology of the future, but I still don't know what the fuck it is! I don't really know that anyone else at the show did either. Enea gave a presentation in Wind River's booth about databases, and their talk actually began with an in-depth discussion of what a database is. Seriously, they were explaining how a database is a collection of data stored outside of the program itself. No shit?! Lemme get a pad of paper and write this stuff down.

But who knows, maybe these hardware guys don't know what databases are. They certainly don't know what shwag is, as my empty show-bag attests. Two pens and a squishy Earth do not a conference make, people!

But 10,000 companies announcing IP stacks for microwaves, toaster ovens, and testicular implants do a conference make. Beware people, Web 3.0 has already been tagged as being the integration of real-world devices with the Web. No, not yer cell phone, fucker. That's Web 2.5. Web 3.0 is cameras, temperature sensors, wind velocity monitors, sunlight measurers, spedometers, and vaginal temperature gauges all hooked into the Web for greater effect.

No real gossip to report, as everyone here was too busy talking about soldering and building robots out of spare parts. But who was the poor fucker in the frog suit? The poor bastard musta been sweating his ass off, and no one at this event was drawn to a booth by someone in a fucking furry suit. Save those for the consumer shows, folks.

He liked it! ConFonz liked it! The jet-setting conference vet comes back refreshed from Software 2006. Here's his report, with some editorial ads to cut down on the defamation lawsuits.

Software 2006, Sand Hill's C-level conference for the decision makers in the Valley and around the world, was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center Tuesday and Wednesday. The event was a class act all the way around the block. The expo floor was more like a slick dance hall than a convention hall exhibit floor, and with all the free coffee, food, and schwag available, I sure hope I get invited to more C-level events like this!

[Alleged!] wife abuser Arjun Grupta was here to give a speech that was seemingly attended by either ass-kissing startups looking for VC, or morbidly curious Valleywag readers looking to see the man, the myth, the [alleged!] wife-punching fist. [Allegedly!] surprisingly, he didn't hit anyone during his speech.

Around the corner from Arjun's speech, the Open source panel on Tuesday threw down the gauntlet: "I believe all software companies who went into open source did it with their eyes open. Well, except for Sun." Ouch.

For the most part, the talks at the show were of the sort that any self respecting Wagger already knew about. "Leveraging Blogs, Web 2.0, and AJAX for business success?" Soooooo October 2005. But then, this stuff is probably all news to the C-levels, who spend more time slamming each other's dicks in bathroom stall doors than actually learning about their industries.

The real indication of just how well the software world is doing this year is the sheer volume of foreigners here to discuss outsourcing. Even the Indians where here to learn about how they can outsource their outsourced work to China. Soon, the Africans will be tackling the Q/A jobs even the Indians won't touch, like phone game testing.

Earlier ConFonz: ConFonz at EclipseCON: Where the wild things are [Valleywag]

Monday
Google in space — and in Houston: Google plans a Houston office. No moon base yet.
(Another) Valleywag writer wanted: One Valleywagger means a boom, two means a bubble.
Guest story: Netscape fallout laid out: The post that made Jeremy Liew a hero.

Tuesday
Caption this: Michael Arrington and Bill Gates, sweater buddies: Hands to yourself, Bill.
Liveblogging Tom Cruise: Arms were wrestled. Couches were trod upon.

Wednesday
Google Finance doesn't care about black people: Screen-scraping never get old!
The Junglee man's back with Webaroo: I just like how the words sound.

Thursday
MSN Meltdown: Kevin Johnson shuffles PSD, round one: Buh-bye, David Cole.
The new Microsoft hegemony: Kevin Johnson's reorg rundown: I, for one, welcome our new Live overlords.
Larry and Sergey — a bond that can't be broken: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Friday
Bill Gates's fighting technique is unstoppable: You think that's badass, you should see Steve Ballmer in a cage match.
ConFonz at GDC: Will Wright's sloppy like Poppy: Employees must wash hands before playing Halo.
Gavin Newsom is friends with the Google guys! Honest!: No seriously guys, they send me e-mails!

Silicon Valley is actually not the place to find hackers. Hackers aren't usually wealthy enough to live here, unless they've sold out. And if they have sold out, are they really hackers any more? Or are they crusty old punk detritus, washed up on the shores of integrity, their pirate banners wrapped around their unwashed groins like a loincloth of shame?

In truth, the seedy and often maligned hacker seen in movies and comics is not the real deal. Just because you break into systems uninvited does not alone give one the mantle of "hacker." Hackers are coders, they're the guys who stay up all night making a piece of software do something that it wasn't meant to. They're the folks who can whip up a visual demonstration in 48k of code, or can slap support for a new language into an IDE in 8 coffee-fueled hours.

And this is why I think EclipseCON is the biggest hacker convention we've yet seen in the Bay Area. DefCon, HOPE, CCC, HAL; they're all amateurs. EclipseCON is where the real innovation is taking place, and the folks behind that innovation aren't cool fashion gods, nor are they pierced-up striped-tights-wearing grrrrrrrrrrrrrls. They're the same unshaven, bushy-tailed coders that exist in almost every organization around the world. And they're building the coolest shit imaginable in this open source tools platform.

After the jump, let them eat carrot cake.

Take NASA, for example. They used Eclipse to build the controls for the Mars Spirit rover. They took a tools platform built by IBM for enterprise-type application construction and turned it into a glorified remote control for a robot that takes 8 minutes to respond to commands. Their only limitation is the speed of light. And if that's not hacking, I don't know what is.

The convention was overbooked, no one could get in without pre-registering, the coffee was great, and the lunch was a standard affair. One oddity: dessert was served in the exhibit hall, and the carrot cake tended to arrive a half hour before noon, making it appear as though the convention's controllers were trying to pass off the cake as the whole meal itself. And if there is one thing this crowd did not need, it was more cake.

Photo — hey look, there're women!: EclipseCon 2006 [EclipseCon]

The business of building games was never more corporate than this year. When IBM and Versant have booths on your show floor, you know that there's big bucks to be had. And you know that it means someone's been playing grab-ass in the closet with the consultants.

Last year, GDC was in San Francisco, and so shall it be next year. This was probably the last time that the event will ever occur down in San Jose. It's a slightly sad thing to see it move on up the penninsula, but mainly it'll be a boon for the after-hours crowd, all of whom end up drunkenly slurring their words at the bar in the Fairmont Hotel. It's a sad fact that there is fuck-all to do in downtown San Jose when yer drunk and have a corporate AmEx card. Of course, in SF, the Gold Club is only a block away from the Moscone, allowing game execs and PR weenies to have stinking stripper snatch rubbed all over their filthy mugs before lunch is over.

After the jump, be careful shaking Will Wright's hand (pictured, with his other hand and his face).

No free coffee, rad on-site game from GameLabs (Throw those Virgins in the volcano, go Green!), and a ton of confused executives staring blankly at the booths of Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.

You see, it's a transition year, and no one has a clue who's going to win the great console wars of 2007. In fact, no one even has a clue how to program the damn things. Game developers, as a rule, don't touch the hardware. They're purely routines and AI guys. The thought of optimizing code to run faster on multi-core processors is completely foreign to them. This is why IBM is here. This is why the bearded grognards of assembly code are now being recruited back into the folds, after having been fired in 1995. This is why Trip Hawkins is now peddling cell phone games.

Unfortunately, the whole affair left the ConFonz with a sour taste in his mouth, and why there's so little actual gossip in here. The ConFonz did find out two juicy bits of gaming-god info, though. First, Steve Jackson is looking for a publisher. He's got an old 4X game he wants to publish online, and it's all written in Perl(!#^@@##&)43d)-../. Second, Will Wright doesn't wash his hands after he pees in the little kid urinal.

So, 2K Games hosted an event to celebrate Sid Meier [pictured]'s Railroad. Sid's wife and son were at the event to help celebrate the announcement, and the Marylanders enjoyed the W Hotel's hospitality thanks to the ingenuity of the ConFonz.

The ConFonz is highly offended at the purports of Valleywag posters that Nick is somehow behind this glorious prose. Far be it from the ConFonz ro masqurade the affairs of the valley as anyone else's. You see, the ConFonz is far drunker, and far more awake than Nick could ever achieve!

End result: Railroad is a blllance and asset driven game, and Sid Meirer's son is a WoW addict just like everone else. He's gonna major in CS, and learned C++ as a first language. Can you imagine!? Sid programmed the prototype of Railroads in C, and his son has learned a more advanced, object oriented language as his first! Rest assured, Sid's kid is a total nerd. He lives aross the street from the mall too. Indescribable dichotomy!

The Santa Clara Convention Center has always been the third-rate expo venue in the Bay area, tagging closely behind the SJ Convention Center, and a distant third behind the titanic Moscone in SF. Perhaps this is why the shows that take place here are typically the sort that can drive a registered press offender to seek out sneaky places to curl up and catch a nap (and some wireless packets). SD West is not really any different.

The show has always been the type that attracts the fat, the old, and the unshaven. But this year, it is particularly old, and particularly unshaven. The fellows meandering around inside the SC Convention center are all but geriatric, and they're big on discussing the good old days, when they hand-cranked their computers and cleared registers with static shocks.

It gets even better, after the jump.

Serving as the conference's perfect foil is the San Jose Mercury News' high-tech job fair going on in the SC Center today. Pimply-faced teens have been wandering in and out all day, many with looks of excitement going in, and utter disgust as they leave. You see, kids aren't all that dim. They can very easily see that the jobs they're hearing about in Hall A are the same jobs that made everyone in Hall B fat, wrinkled, bitter, and impotent. Hall A is the "before" picture, Hall B the "after."

Yes, it's pretty quiet here at SD West, CMP Media's annual software development show. The real buzz this year is not the fact that the show has yet again shrunken since the previous year, nor is it the hot new tools from Buildforge. No, the real news this year is that CMP will be crushing Software Development Magazine. It seems as though this venerable publication will be going the way of the dodo this summer, and Dr. Dobbs Journal will take up the slack by integrating some of the leftovers.

Earlier ConFonz: ConFonz at the I-Play part [Valleywag]

"Cheat maniac," formerly of Ziff Davis, now of IGN, is a notorious shtupper. Yes, he's married, and yes, he still diddled at least three separate salesladies at the Ziff Games Group. And yes, he was married at the time.

Send your guesses to tips@valleywag.com, or drop 'em in the comments.

Earlier: ConFonz at the Game Marketing Conference: gamers vs. little old ladies [Valleywag]

It came time to head across the street to the Khonke-hosted I-Play party at the Mars Bar.

The party was supposed to celebrate the launch of 24, the cell phone game, but it ended up being a forum for the leftovers of the Marketing conference to get drunk on Khonke's dollar.

And therein the gossip flowed. The bullet points:

nVidia spends a shitload of cash on charities. Investors, remember this as you quickly remove your dough from the company.

Future Network USA, formerly Imagine, was nowhere to be seen at the event. Not a huge defeat, since this was the first time for this event, but unsettling none-the-less. Look for Future Network to be a platinum sponsor next year if for no other reason than to piss off Ziff and the 1up gang.

EA almost bought I-Play, before Digital Bridges got ahold of them. We'll see who's laughing and who's crying in a year.

There were some new terms created for the show. One is the "paid-by-schwag" employee. This term is used to designate gamers who have been bribed with labeled goodies as an incentive to go out and post hype in forums.

Earlier: ConFonz at the Game Marketing Conference: gamers vs. little old ladies [Valleywag]

Remember, these are the same people that told you John Romero is going to make you his bitch.

The Game Marketing Conference took place behind Sega's San Francisco offices on Wednesday and Thursday. It's strange being here because a double digit percentage of the folks here have fired me (There's yer only clue!)

One highlight, however, was watching the faces on the various media sales people's faces when Doug Scott, EA's director of entertainment marketing, said that he felt 50% of EA"s marketing budget should be spent on non-traditional (read non-print/non-banner) marketing. The room chuckled a bit, then shifted uncomfortably, as the Ziff Davis and IGN people collectively shit themselves.

The highlights of the event were twofold: first, as soon as the 600 Townsend-hosted event was over at 5 PM, the little old lady's auxiliary showed up to host an art opening for the Norwegian design exhibit in the lobby. They carted in cases of 2-buck-chuck and hassled the conference attendees, demanding that they remove themselves from the premises immediately. Sean, VP of Kohnke Communications, was threatening to beat the living shit out of the old bags, but relented when it came time to head across the street to the Khonke-hosted I-Play party at the Mars Bar.

In Part II, ConFonz drops the party gossip.

Game Marketing Conference [The Game Initiative]