Tuesday, July 17 on an Amtrak train from Williamsburg, Virginia to New York's Penn Station

The train extracts itself from the station at a speed just fast enough to make it difficult to focus, and with that jarring blur we're en route to a series of days in New York City. "Difficult to focus" might very well describe the events forthcoming. MacWorld Expo was always a realm of mystic madness, especially to the novice observer catching poorly cached glimpses of a keynote or even trying to make sense of the whirlwind of rumors and would-be's. Include the hundred or so press releases expunged in the first 48 hours and you have officially overwhelmed even the most ardent journalist. You become a fan, like it or not, because you simply have to decide what at the buffet of news you will consume.

The train jerks and moans through Richmond, Virginia and even pauses in Ashland, the home of my undergraduate years. Randolph-Macon College stares back at the train from the historic campus beside which the tracks are laid. It takes a bit of realistic suppression to not shout out the unopenable windows at a professor friend I see leaving a building nearby. Soon, the train is off again at a much faster pace, and from here on out the familiarity of the Virginia Peninsula's trees and older suburban locale are traded for the commuter-friendly stops of Northern Virginia, impressively tagged with graffiti and population.

New York, although closer now than hours before, still feels far away. It's size and girth dictating the morning news to millions that don't even reside a state away as reflected in the New York Times sold beside the Washington Post at a Union Station bookseller. The products of New York City's braintrust are considered nationwide (nay, world-wide) be it through the news, shows, attitude, baseball teams... there is a defining resonance suggesting that what happens in New York City is news to someone somewhere and it merely travels as far as it has to for its audience.

Of course, given that concentration of people, possibility, metal towers, money and talent, it's hard to argue that statistically news is bound to happen. When Mel Gussow writes that he lived across from playwright Edward Albee in Greenwich Village (in 1962) and subsequently ended up reviewing Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe? for Newsweek it's a casual relationship that boggles the mind of a small town reader of the magazine. (I'm picking this example from my reading of Edward Albee: A Singular Journey on the train.) The ripple of style and (sometimes) substance is felt for good or ill around the globe. The strangely sad thing is that while this may make good statistic sense, the lifestyle parity between the haves and have-nots is eerily tangible. But, the feeling that the priorities given to matters in NYC is felt globally bodes well for the attention paid to our MacWorld does it not? It might just mean a heightened sense of relevance in our dark computing times.

Suddenly, I'm very aware that I'm on a train for the majority of this day and Apple's earnings reports are due. And we're not to New York yet. And the Keynote is tomorrow. The forthcoming shockwave of those reports and MWNY, no matter how large or small, could determine our mood and focus in this blur of a summer Mac season. If it's a harsh disappointment on any front, it might shatter the Jacob Javits Center's crystal palace with a shrill and unavoidable reaction. And if it's an uncompromising success, then the palace will shine with the glare of happy Mac users, developers, exhibitors, media and creators for all of New York (and the world) to see. Chances are its neither, but the suspense is killing me and as the train picks up speed in the northern corridor of cities, the blur outside becomes far less clear.

Tuesday, July 17 train to hotel

A train is a great way to see America — every dirty, charming, gritty and beautiful piece of it. At least of the east coast. Whipping by at somesuch miles per hour in a metal can is about the only way you can lap it up without feeling guilty or attached to it, despite the fact that you'll begin and end in the same country. Limited responsibility and visibility — the American way.

We arrive, dragging and hauling luggage across Penn Stations bathroom-floor-like surface and up into the startling sunlight and silver columns awaiting us at the top of escalators. A short set of moments and we're at the nearby Hotel Pennsylvania (at least 70% chosen for its distance from the Javits Center and the train station). After an excruciatingly long line (some of the MacWorld reservations were botched by someone, somewhere and many people had many problems) we get into our very New York hotel room and immediately I'm getting ready for the night's press event with Toon Boom Studios.

As far as a first event goes, this kicked off my MacWorld experience with a light-hearted bang. The combination of toys and comic books (!) on the tables and an open bar was practically a Dean Browell's dream event. The software was impressive, even outside of the great decor of the Art Director's Club on W. 29th and obvious amount of planning by the host company. Toon Boom Studio has got to be one of the most attentive programs to a normally non-computerized profession I've ever seen. They have really translated exactly what an animator would want, would normally have, and would really like to take advantage of, and coupled it with a very slick OS X interface. I was encouraged enough even as a 2D graphic designer myself that I think I could really fool with a program like this and get some great results. It's designed so the great results practically come in the box. Apple's Tony Lee spoke to us about how "This wasn't supposed to happen" that a piece of software so fully and quickly comes to light in OS X's infancy. I was hoping this would be a good sign of a trend to spot in other companies.

So the event was nice, especially as my first contact with other Mac press people. The atmosphere, the extras and the nice software made me feel better about my awfully long day so far. Some drinks, some demos, some talk and some thoughts of exactly how early I should get up in the morning and I was out of there. I mean, after all... tomorrow was the big day. The keynote by Steve Jobs would kick off a massive day of appointments and deadlines and expectations and Expo visitors. I might be tired now, but what will I be like in 24 hours?

Wedensday, July 18, post-keynote, post-everything, pre-passing out.

The blur is back. Move fast here, move fast there. Digest on the run (be that information, stimuli, shoves or context). Media line up, media move, media line up again, media learn the line means nothing and dash like the half-naked women in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" towards Steve Jobs. A keynote splattered with camera flashes and applause. An enormous amount of media fed only by the coffee and water they were given, scribbling/typing/recording/watching at all speeds.

Some media guy who reminds me of the albino character in the movie Foul Play has a blue "X" on the back of his head and looks like a total moron (more than a few of us imagine adding the announced ".1" for him with a sharp object). There's a point when you might actually risk your media street cred for objectivity when you take advocacy to an NFL fanatic level.

Flanked by the brilliant white Apple logos that stood out like Temple Lions, the stage was set for Steve's presentation. Steve tosses some new features and configurations our way, then does so with a camera at a MacLackey. Spirits lift and fall. Lift and fall. Then, a blur again. Thousands shoved down a pipeline of two escalators like a real-world analogy to the "Megahertz Myth" we just saw onstage. A blur to the pressroom, through the booths, around an interview, alongside the computers, and in and out of bathrooms, consciousness and attentiveness. And like a flat palm against the face of the sky the day dragged into a cloudy afternoon mess and the slap of a full day catches up with a person. The walk back to the hotel was longer than the walk from it.

The city. Like the intermittent lights left on in closing offices, MacWorld's crowd dribbled and sputtered in the hallways and down nearby streets by 6pm. Having been ousted from the closing press room I had decided to forgo the shuttle back in traffic. The day had been a hectic one, but not as overwhelming as it could have been. The Yin to my young looks' Yang is my ability to stay a tad invisible in crowds like MacWorld's and just observe. It's a quality I see in people like my Grandpa who sits on shopping mall benches and just watches everyone. But stepping a bit outside of myself and not letting the stressful side of the Expo's bustle get to me, worked like a charm to enhance the day. The keynote was such a mixed bag that the real story was the reaction, not the content which is probably fustrating for all the employees and families we clapped for at the end. When the Keynote began, we were all holding our breath, and when it ended we were all holding our bladders. You were only let down if your suspension of plausibility was actually held very high for the pre-Expo rumors. It didn't help that Apple posted decent numbers for the quarter and still got thumped the same day. (Would we have been better off if we just laid off people because it's so trendy to do so?) But certain realities that Steve may or may not have actually mentioned were apparent at the massive Apple booth.

Up close, the highlights of the Keynote actually wowed more. 10.1 seemed even faster in practice than the Keynote demo. Playing with that latest build, it's easy to notice the obvious changes: New "Burn" toolbar button, little Finder menu indicators for battery, Airport, and resolution, speedy interface and launching, and the overwhelming feeling that the OSX Superman isn't plauged by Kryptonite anymore.

But the not so obvious changes are interesting too. The features of the dockling currently available for iTunes are now fully integrated into the single iTunes dock icon in 10.1 (so you don't have to run 2 iTunes-related Dock icons to get the features). This consolidating effort will hopefully mean more dynamic Dock icon abilities in the future, and mean some basic tasks can be set triggered for applications not in the foreground. The oddest unmentioned Keynote tidbit on 10.1 was the assertion I got from an Apple rep that confirmed the update would only be available through a mailed CD from Apple (for a pretty absurd $20 Shipping and Handling). It might be a blessing due to the update's size for users with low internet speeds, but 20 dollars seems steep, especially since many of us just did the 9.1 jump in the last year without having to shell out extra dough. Plus, as Remy from Utterer.com pointed out when I ran into him at the Freeverse booth, "...it'd be crazy if we couldn't download it...especially since Steve mentioned 10.1 right after talking about (OS X's) Software Update Panel." Let's just hope a Mac Magazine can make a deal and ship it with an issue for the shipping and handling challenged.

So, what Apple didn't say was just as important as what it did. As I gazed at the mind-numbing, barely redesigned G4 enclosure, the only new visual design in the whole line up, I realized that this Expo was just a meat and potato affair for Apple. Yes, we all had to sit through a 2 hour + keynote and didn't get the precious LCD iMacs we all had been daydreaming about (and on a related note, I did not see Spider-Man in New York, no matter how hard I daydreamed). Somewhere along the line the Blue Dalmatian ate the Flower Power and died of indigestion quietly behind the barn. And while the iMac line pretends that whole "looking like a Swatch threw up" concept never happened by going back to last years colors, the oohs and ahhs still tended to come not from the new G4s, but the iBooks and TiBooks. And its in the joy that my mother and wife saw in the slowly spinning iBook, shining from an underside-lit pedestal, that made me realize how much of Apple's magic they'd already spent in between Expos this year to more than make up for the perceived "ho-hum" the media chose to highlight.

So the day had been full from a media perspective of getting an article in and meeting with a handful of exhibitors. My wife and mom (who hilariously had the MacWorld registration people put "MOTHER OF PRESS" on her exhibits only badge) toured the booths and came away with a huge sample of freebies and presskits. My own conversations with exhibitors ranged from fantastic (Connectix) to so-so (Iomega) often depending on whether I was actually talking to a company rep or some separate PR agency suit. I lingered in the rather organized Apple game area and was really encouraged by the current and future things happening with our platform including: Macplay serving up Giants, and Baldur's Gate 2 soon, Freeverse on a full-speed-ahead track to provide even more addictive games, and Aspyr's Alice (Aspyr also deserves credit for Carbonizing The Sims, and I'd like to publicly challenge Blizzard to get on the horse and do the same with Diablo 2 so I have no reason to load into OS 9).

My first full-day impressions of MWNY were solid and special and luckily enjoyable, once I could step back some. The only weakness I felt was my youthful appearance, which often meant I was not taken seriously until an exhibitor saw my "Media" badge and suddenly took interest (unless I had an appointment or chance to speak, wherein I could luckily prove I was worth talking to). But even that aside, the day was incredible as a fan and media member. The night's sleep would be far more solid and less nervous than the pre-keynote one, and with that I turned in.

Friday, July 20, the train ride home

In a day far better paced for individual appointments, Thursday rocked and rolled between informative industry conversations and lugging my press-pack-laden satchel around.

Individual booths really do have a better chance to shine when you get to sit down with them. Of course, you have to wait to sit with them in the first place (I say that because of the booths that treated their Expo time like a 3am infommercial slot). At any rate, nearly all my meetings went well, and a handful were downright encouraging and fun in almost a coffee-shop chit-chat sort of way. I'd hand picked my appointments to begin with, and while I certainly realize that the flash and splash of booth-mania is the preferred mode of communication, I actually like talking to humans. And being talked to, rather than talked at, helps as well since my media pass affords me a certain amount of respect my looks and age do not.

Corel's spinoff handler of Painter 7 called Procreate started my day with a great chat with their PR spiritual leader, Meredith Dundas, who was especially happy to see I was already a Painter fan. One of the things we chatted about was the two giant lucky breaks Procreate got at this year's MacWorld: 1) Adobe was M.I.A. and allowed an incredible amount of well-deserved attention fall Procreate's way for a beautiful OS X build of Painter 7; and 2) Apple's giant "Pro create" banners flying the above the new G4, and that logo high above the exhibitors at the front entrance. It was apparently a blind coincidence since only 40 people in Corel knew about the Procreate spawning before it debuted Tuesday night at MWNY, and of course Apple had a tight lip on even their advertisements before the keynote. "We were shocked when those banners were unrolled after the keynote... I guess great minds think alike!" Meredith relayed.

Candid conversation aside, I got a sneak peak of the upcoming ultra-cool Corel Draw 10 for OS X and some other goodies (which have some incredible PDF features). Also, let this be the death knell to the infamous Painter paint can packaging... but the innards of the more tame Painter 7 box will be explored in an upcoming review I'll be crafting. My time at Procreate was indicative of much of my time at other booths (including Alias/Wavefront, IBM, Essential Reality, Proxim, Connectix, and Western Digital to name a few).

I won't relay everything here, but I will cut the crap and bite-size some of this into...

Dean's MacWorld New York Awards

Sheer Power Award: Maya by Alias/Wavefront. Hands down. More on this later, but this software is serious about giving your thoughts life. THE 3D brainstorming tool.

Best OS X Application: IBM's ViaVoice. In a put-up or shut-up move IBM gives us an OS X only app that is meaningfully tied to OS X's power and features; it's deep, versatile and beautiful. IBM's famous R&D quality really shines in ViaVoice's dictation power, but it's the beautiful interface that you might be surprised by first. (IBM is rarely accused of making a stylish product.)

Most Fun OS X Application: Toon Boom Studios simply kicked ass. Even if you can somehow overlook the intuitive, smart interface, or all of the features that directly cater to professional traditional animators, you are still left with a program that looks like it would be fun for anyone to use. And you might accidently make a cool cartoon in the process.

Coolest Booth: Procreate. (Can you tell I enjoyed this one?) They somehow got 4+ demo theaters/workshop tables, room for multiple tutorial sessions to run in tandem, an info station that doubled as a cafe and still had room for extra tables, cool lighting and raised platforms....*whew!*

Coolest Swag Handout: Cannon's new photo-card printer show-off where you got a copy of you and your friends mugging with a New York taxi cab scene.

Cool Swag Everyone Made Sure They Got: nVidia's various light up toys (buttons, balls, etc...).

Cool Swag Only A Few People Got: Toon Boom Studios cool versitile satchel/backpack (given out at the press event).

So, the day went well to say the least. My Connectix article went out that morning and the media hob-nobbing didn't stop until mid-evening. After a dinner at Hard Rock with the fam (a requisite habit started many years ago, even if a bit cheesy) it was party prep time for me. And this party was a very exclusive (but Applelust knew the password), very secretive, and one that deserved my presence probably as much as the U.N. would appreciate me stopping by. I knew no one going in, and a journey cross town by cab alone into a dark corner of the city didn't ease my mind any...

So what can I say about a party shrouded in such secrecy? Well it is a party formerly known as Mac the Knife, and often referred to as "The Knife is Dead" and such titles. To be honest my question isn't rhetorical. The questions rise from my awkward but accepted role as a writer in a land of Mac journalism... does that make me a Mac journalist? Depends on your definition, from what I hear (insert forum joke here). My laminated copy of the rules for this club never made it to my mail, and certainly the instructions for breaking into the social cliques didn't make it here either. To be safe, I'll be brief.

It was a pretty cool party. Great band, swag, etc... Again, I knew no one but that wasn't a horrible thing. My guess is few people there would even remember who I was if they read this (unless they remember the slides). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I also don't mind being on the outside. It gave me some glimpses into a new sub-culture, and a chance to feel like I both belonged and was still Gonzo enough to not really fit in.

One last note on the event: It dawned on me that those that are closest to the sphere of Apple-proper (developers, journalists, power users) are often unlike those that are considered typical Mac users and fans. Or, in a phrase I repeated to myself many times: "Trent Reznor wouldn't hang out here."

The next morning, my head a little achy from the generously provided spirits, my wife and I went to the Expo together just to walk without appointments casually as a couple. Other attendees of last night's party wore their t-shirts like I did and we exchanged knowing nods and glances- even if I didn't really meet them. It was like a weird but comforting cult a'la "Eyes Wide Shut." Er, maybe not. Anyway, it wasn't long before we were on the train back, two bags heavier for all the swag and kits and New York stuff collected by our 3 person touring crew.

The Mac World Expo experience was sealed as we pulled out from Penn Station on the southbound Acela regional train. I'm now left with my papers and contacts. At least the weekend is ahead to detox a bit from Mac fandom and being in the old hometown means I can catch up with an old friend or two and hang out with the 'rents (sharing my adventure with my Mac using father for sure). With the whole circus over so quickly, it's almost as hard to organize the thoughts I collected while at MacWorld as it was planning and anticipating them prior to it. With expectations still in limbo, my view of the Mac landscape is nothing if not encouraged by the Expo. But my place in it still remains a happy mystery for now, or, as is my view from the metal train car as it careens towards Virginia: A blur.

Dean Browell