Second Entry

From: Darrin Mossor - Eagle Tools Group - Synopsys
To: lm_eagle@lmc.com
Subject: DAC Update - Chapter 2: The Madness Continues
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:44:50 -0700 (PDT)

Well, another update from your intrepid boy reporter here at DAC. In this exciting episode:

The last day has been pretty exciting so I thought I send an update and let you all know how things are going.

The other day, before going over to DAC, Robo and I were coming back from his hotel room when we passed the "Imperial Room" in his hotel. The door was cracked open. So, what would you do? Probably avoid getting caught, much as we did when we went in to see what it was like.

Next time I'm in SF, I'm going to see if I can get Geoff to expense this puppy for me! It was spectacular! We're talking black marble floors, spiral staircase going up to the bedrooms and the private garden, complete with trees. Off the entry, there was a sitting room with a baby grand piano in it. This was a really impressive example of how to live decadently. 'Course, when you have the whole city before you, why would you spend any time in your room? But for this room, you might make and exception (and for what I'm guessing they charge, you'd probably feel guilty leaving the room). Well, we didn't get caught, but neither did we tarry long. Too much to do!

Robo and I had demos early yesterday, so it was up at six fifteen for this boy. Much to my surprise, it turns out to be light at 6:15. Who knew? We had breakfast and headed over to DAC. The suite demos where pretty uneventful by this time as Robo and I were becoming old hands at demo giving. Larry Carner heard some feedback that we were hitting the customers with far too much information, but what the heck...

The only suite excitement was the 10am slot where Dave Hardman decided to drop by and see a Robo demo. So far, other than VCS dying a couple times between demo portions and the Live Target board rebooting itself spontaneously, things had gone fairly HW problem free. Mr. Hardman wanders in and the offal hit the recirculatory device. In the middle of the demo the LiveTarget board lost it's marbles and the last 20% of the demo became undeliverable. There were some protestations of "Trust me, it works!", but it was too late. Thank goodness Mr. Hardman has not gifted me with his presence yet...

Because of some snafu with cables the infocus viewer we were given has a bum PC input cable, leading Dave Park to contort the cable in interesting ways to maintain the connection. When that doesn't work, we go lo-tech with slides. Unanimated, but serviceable.

Afterward we grabbed the free Synopsys exhibitors lunch at the Marriot. Free was a bit more than I would have paid, but it did the job. Dessert included some interesting confections apparently constructed of kindegarden glue rolled in cocoanut and filled with spicy bean paste. Nummy! I had several fortune cookies instead.

About 2pm, Robo and I met Bart and headed over to MOMA, which I believe stands for: My Oh My (that's) Art? Since it's modern art, I have no clue how to critique over half the stuff. I mean, how do you critique an empty plexiglass box with a light shining on it? Or a giant blue tarp with some black brush strokes? Or, my favorite, "The Dylan Painting", a monochromatic gray expanse of canvas with no distinguishing characteristics. Or so I thought. According to the critique to the side, what it really was was a representation of Bob Dylan, with the play of light on the surface representing Bob's personality or possibly the struggle of man against man. Or something. IT WAS A BIG GRAY SQUARE for criminy's sake. I'm thinking the artist left this thing in his studio, planning that day to paint a battleship or something and some critic snuck in and put it on a wall. It's the only explanation that makes sense.

There was also a couple of rooms with signs outside them indicating that the contents were not suitable for all audiences. Robo and I tried to see who could get there fastest. The first unsuitable display involved a reinterpretation of the friezes on the walls as Pompeii. Now, unless the Pompeiiens were far different than I imagined, the reinterpretation included the introduction of naughty-bit severing aliens in very bright colors. But maybe I'm wrong...

We also saw a display of Keith Harring's work. Clearly this guys needs to be sued as he has apparently stolen Robo's dancing dog for his own and made alot of money from it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask Robo to see his lunch sacks, which usually have some dancing dogs doing fun things.

Well, M. Harring also had a room that was not suitable for all audiences. Now, to set the stage, Mr. Harring was very big in the mid to late 80s in the NY art scene. You may have seen a Christmas album cover using his dancing stick figures, looking festive and happy He eventually contracted AIDS and died in 1992, I believe. (Which, on second thought, will make more difficult Robo's suing him). So, we go in to see his stuff only to discover a wide variety of activities involving dancing dogs and people. And dogs and dogs. And people and other people. And aliens. And dogs and people. Turns out the dancing dogs are about the only overlap I could see between Robo's style and this guys. Yikes.

Later that evening, we all met at Chevy's near the Moscone Center for dinner. Large buckets of alcoholic drinks involving, in many cases, strawberries or some other cases salt on the rims, appeared in front of many of us. Mr. Hoffman was able to join us, which was a pleasant surprise. Dinner was prompt and the chips lentifult (unlike the TGIFriday's fiasco). Afterwards, several of us decided to check out a jazz club and have a nightcap. Well, how do you top a nice little jazz quartet playing some pleasant music? Apparently it involves some lady falling off her barstool, thumping her head on the floor and becoming unconscious. An ambulance arrived and she'll be just fine, but she hadn't even been drinking! It was a bit scary.

Thinking that that pretty much had to do it for the evening, we began walking back to the hotel. As we approached a corner, with Ellie and I at the tail, I heard this nasty crunch as we stepped towards the curb. I looked down to see what I had hit and noticed what I thought were lots of little brown leaves blowing around Ellie and my feet. Unfortunately for us, they were not leaves, rather cockroaches and they were *fast*! I pointed out to Ellie, while trying to maintain my manly calm that she probably wanted to get moving since she was standing on the actual manhole cover the little hellspawn were coming from. Ellie squealed, saving me the trouble, and we high-tailed it out of there. And then called it a night. Whew!

Robo and I are on for suite demos at 1pm today. If all goes well, we may try and hit the Exploratorium afterwards, which is open till 9:30pm tonight. Meantime, we had breakfast this morning with Mr. Park (who was kind enough to pick up the tab - and expense it, I'm sure) and he informed us he managed to see and entire Seamless floor demo including their shared memory. Be sure to congratulate him and get the skinny when he returns.

That's all I have for now. I'll write a couple more times with more news from DAC when I get the chance. See you all on Friday!

-Darrin at DAC


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Darrin Mossor
Last modified: Mon Jul 13 08:56:36 1998