NAB 06

Year of the mergers

(following paragraph is pure techno babble)

Just prior to NAB several “Glom and devour” acquisitions (CISCO buys SA, Tandberg buys SkyStream, Avid Buys Sundance etc) MPEG 4 (H.264) HD STB are (almost) ready for deployment (I have emails promising me H.264 STB’s over a year ago, at least there were units on display that had real circuit boards and drives – but none were actually in use) more players looking at triple play (video, voice & data on one pipe)

This year the housing deity was kind and I was ‘upgraded’ to a (moderately) high roller (the next to the top floor) in one of the larger, older, off strip, behemoth hotels – spent an hour and a half Tuesday morning getting my internet connection working and they have the gall to charge me 10 bucks a day for maybe a one Mbps connection.

I guess I don’t fit the high roller profile, all I want is a bed free of other occupants, in room coffee, internet and a TV that gets PBS, Discovery and History,
instead I get:
– A room with an entrance hall for no apparent reason other than to have one
– The main room was larger than some apartments I’ve had
– A early faux 3:4 HDTV – with a crappy analog cable feed
– a bathroom has three rooms!
o why do I need a separate room for a toilet?
o why would I want to talk on the phone when so occupied?
o Why do I want to watch TV in the dressing room – but not the throne?
o And why does the bathroom TV get a ‘normal’ channel lineup and the big one gets only the filtered hotel-o-vision (actually, I know the answer to that one but it ain’t nice)
-

other than it seems like every restaurant that isn’t a all you can eat buffet has delusions of grandeur at least as far as prices, but I had a few meals where the per head tab was well into the three figures (heck one place, if you had a starter, main with a side and a desert you could hit 3 significant figures and with few wines under $100…)

one the road once again, Houston then Billings