“Since when?!” I normally don't talk to my computer screen, but
this morning was a special exception. Lori was the lucky recipient
of an early morning phone call. “Hey Lori,” I says. “Lori, since
when were we giving away a Pentium 4 2.53GHz with a 533MHz FSB and
512MB 266MHz DDR SDRAM at Gnomedex?!”
She tells me that someone contacted her out of the blue. “Yeah, well…
I don't think people will come to a conference just for the chance to win
this
computer. Were you aware that it also comes with Two 80GB
Ultra ATA 100 (7200 rpm) hard drives?!” Yes, she says. “And a
DVD-RW / CD-RW combo drive?” Yes, she says. “And the nVidia GeForce4
Ti 4200 graphics card?” Yes, she says. We argued for the better
part of an hour and she was finally able to convince me that
giving away this system at Gnomedex was something you'd
appreciate. Everybody, please thank Best Buy's Meredith Jurek for
providing the vpr Matrix box. You'll have the chance to thank her
in person – and possibly take it home with you – in a couple of
weeks. At least, if you're in Des Moines, Iowa for our little ol'
tech convention. It's not too late for you to pre-register, ya
know. And I wouldn't put it off until “next year” if I were you…