Today, there was a tech expo at the Empire State Plaza here in Albany, NY. I wanted to go to it because in general, these kinds of events have lots of cool swag. Swag is loot you get from the various vendor tables.
I scored three pens, a pencil, a non-Frizbee® brand flying Frizbee®-like thingy, a lightbulb-shaped foam stress-squeezy-thingy (which I will put over my head at work when I feel an idea coming on) and this dart-thingy you can throw against smooth surfaces and have it stick.
While I'm grateful for the free stuff, I don't think it was a terrific haul overall. I've seen better. There were no flashlights or tee-shirts or many other larger swag items. I wonder if the economy is just too down right now for primo-swag. I don't know.
Maybe I'll go back tomorrow and get more free swag. I wouldn't mind having a full set of those darts for work.
The Empire State Plaza is gi-normous. I'm talking beyond scale. I'm walking along the thing and there is this arena-like facility called "The Egg" (because, alas, it's shaped like an egg). I'm looking at it and it looks small.
In the plaza area, there are four separate sky-scrapers, and they're big things. They don't really look big when you're there because the scale is all skewed. I walked along the side of one building that had to go on for close to half a mile if not longer. You know how it is with buildings, you walk and the building is behind you and you're at the next building. Not this building, it went on and on and on and on.
The underground part of the Plaza area is likewise gi-normous. We're talking talking bowling-alley sized empty areas along the main pathway on each side. I couldn't believe the available space.
Up topside, though, where the there were no buildings, there was a lot of open space. Know what I noticed? There were no pidgeons.
Apparently, and I have this from a very reliable source -- my Capital District Transit Authority (CDTA) bus driver -- and he gets this from his sister direct -- there is a secret government conspiracy to kill pidgeons.
I know you're reeling in your computer chair right now, having read my revelation. I can't believe it either, but according to the following web-site, it's true. (And you KNOW everything on the Internet is true, right?):
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0908-05.htm
Anyway, next time you're out and about, look around you. You'll see I'm right. The pidgeons are almost all gone.
Until next time...
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