Woke up this morning with body ache. I suspect it was caused by an overdose of Micro$oft. Yep, i went to a Micro$ost event yesterday -- Bill Gates Live! From Technology to Career. It was held at Suntec City Convention Hall and it was a huge event with more than six thousands people attending. My stupid-ass boss was supposed to go with me but due to other stupid-ass people in the company, he couldn't go and almost stopped me from going too. Anyway, that is another story that warrants a post of its own.
The event was supposed to start at 2pm but due to the huge number of attendance, the registration would start at 12pm and everyone was supposed to be seated by 1.45pm, after which no one will be allowed to enter the hall anymore. This event was a bit different from others IT seminars that i've attended before on how the registration worked. 
I reached Suntec City at around 1.10pm. The hall for the event was at 3rd floor so i just went up the escalator, but only to be stopped by one of the Micro$oft staff at the 2nd floor, instructing me to go back to the main lobby for registration. Ooookay, fine. So i went back down to the lobby for registration and then something surprising caught my eye -- i spotted an old man at the registration counter! Really, old man who looked like 60++ years old, wearing those clothes that our grandpa would wear (not those smart attire that grandpa wears to wedding dinner, but the type that he would wear to a park to play chess with other old folks). Hey, we are talking about a tech event here and how often do you actually see old man like this around such event? I was amazed at how tech-savvy the elderly people are now in Singapore.
After registration, i went straight towards the hall. At the entrance, i saw quite a few CISCO police standing by, and a thought suddenly struck me: what if a terrorist decides to bomb the hall? After all, what could be a bigger statement than killing the wealthiest man in America (and the world)? 
I almost wanted to leave because i wouldn't wanna die just for listening to a bunch of people whom i don't even know in real life. Of course, this silly thought was in my mind for less than a second and i just went into the hall, where it was already quite packed with people. Hmmm, what happened to the traditional Chinese culture of being late? I bet these people would be late for hours going to a wedding dinner and yet they are so early to get a good seat to be near Bill Gates. Wow, never knew he has such charm.
The seats were arranged in the way like our weekly assembly in school stadium, with chairs arranged row-by-row in a big hall. So i get myself a seat that was quite far from the stage because almost all seats in front were already taken. It was very cramp sitting in such arrangement. My shoulder was even touching the shoulders of the people beside me. I guess this was the only way for them to accommodate so many people into the hall; but after sitting there motionless for a few hours, i could feel the numbness at my neck, shoulder, and even legs. Thanks Micro$oft. You are so darn rich and you couldn't even get better chairs or make better seating arrangement? Thank you very much.
Everyone was indeed seated by 1.45pm but the event didn't start on the dot. It was late by 10 minutes or so, which was acceptable by Singapore's standard. So i waited for almost an hour in the hall, sitting in that chicken-spaced seat, relishing the shoulder-to-shoulder contact with the people beside me, doing my best not to fidget too much to avoid annoying them, and watching the promotional video clips that was shown on the big screen. The video clips were promoting the new MS Office and bashing Linux. Ya, no mistake here. There was this clip that showed some top executives from some famous companies talking about why they chose MS over Linux, how MS products were more cost-effective and better, bla bla bla... 
all those propaganda disguised in a marketing clip. The usual way of how crap like this works lah.
I wanted to take pictures of the audience and the speakers (the people, not the equipment) but photography and videography were prohibited. I saw about 4 or 5 cameras around aiming at the stage. I think these were professional crews either hired by Micro$oft or from the media. You see, so typical of Micro$oft. They can take the pictures and video of the event but you can't. Monopolizing everything again!
The whole event lasted till 5pm. There were in total three speakers (again, the people who gave speech and not the number of equipment). There were some very interesting things about their speech and i'll put it into another post. Until then, i'll be using my OSIM Pro Therapist massager for my aching body.
