I’m back in the frozen north, wishing I stole Dr. Kiki’s USB powered heated mittens while I was down in SF, because it is shockingly cold in Vancouver right now. I’ve just begun to unpack my huge bag o’loot whilst watching S4 of Lost. SPOILER: I really wasn’t expecting that crazy ending with Marty McFly and the hoverboard battle. What a shocker!

I was a busy beaver during my first Macworld. I practically interviewed half the exhibitors on the Expo floor… which amounted to about 10 in the end (ooh low blow). Let’s just say the turn out wasn’t as great as it was in past years. It seemed that a few exhibitors didn’t even bother showing up, or pulled out after the first day.

I spent many hours trying to find booths that had magically disappeared. Maybe they just got engulfed in a sea of iPhone cases. I mean 3G iPhone cases. Those people with 1st Gen iPhones weren’t feeling the same love from case developers. On a positive note, the people I did get to talk with seemed optimistic and enthusiastic about the new products they were launching this year, despite the economic “issues” we are all groaning about.

Lisa & Justine do a little MacBreaking.

Here is one of the many interviews I did for MacBreak with Speck Products about their new iPhone CandyShell cases.

As I say in the video, a huge pet peeve of mine is people that don’t protect their gear and then drop it. Even if a spectacularly shattered iPhone screen makes a cool photo for your flickr feed, it’s just so wasteful. Maybe it’s just because I waited over a year to get my iPhone, or maybe it’s because I signed a ridiculous 3-year rate agreement, or maybe it’s just because I love my gear, but the first thing I did when I bought a new iPhone was buy it protective armour. I’ll take the extra bulk for safety. I know you iPhone purists won’t budge, but if you don’t have a disposable income, protect your iPhone, cuz it’s a slippery sucker. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Photo by Scott Bourne.

Right after the keynote, I buzzed right over to the live MacBreak Weekly 122: Macworld Expo Podcast. I said during this interview that my first Macworld was bitter sweet. In retrospect, I feel like the keynote itself was the bitter sweet part. With Steve officially taking medical leave from Apple until June, all apple lovers, especially the fan boys & girls are feeling pretty bummed right now. Of course it was lame not seeing a Jobs’ keynote with John Mayer’s sweet sweet guitar licks and interfaith cakes (huh?). But, it was still exciting being there after watching it for so many years. The rest of the conference it self was bit lackluster, but I made amazing contacts and it was well worth me making the trip.

On Day 4, I headed to the Pixel Corps studios to record TWiP (This Week in Photography) Episode 64 with the entire TWiP team in studio. It was a hoot, especially when I brought up a fine Aussie tourist gift: The Kangaroo Scrotum Purse. Ahh, the things I say with 3 hours of sleep and a copious amount of cold medication. Nevertheless, it made for a pretty fun episode. I’m almost certain that Alex threw in a JarJar impression at one point, which is rare because he never ever does that. :P

I rounded off my SF experience with a trip to the TWiT cottage to visit Leo. I ate an In-and-Out burger on air, wore a gorilla pod on my head, made Ewoks noises, sounded incredibly knowledgeable talking about Plasma screens with Ryan Block, confused John C. Dvorak with my J.J. Abrams flashback trivia & was called a “Canadian hottie” by LeVar Burton. Borg. You can check out all this and more here: TWiT 177: There’s A Little Shatner In All Of Us.