Grabbing Free Stuff At The AMD Microsoft Tech Tour

Yesterday was the Vancouver leg of the AMD Microsoft Tech Tour. I missed the tour last year because I was in Taipei during the time they swung through Vancouver.

For whatever reason, the tour was smaller than two years ago – the event no longer takes up the entire ballroom. The presentation format has changed as well. Instead of the interview/talk show style, the tour now features more boring one-sided presentations. There was a break during the “Are you smarter than a fifth grader” session but overall, the event was damn boring and lasted way too long.

Joining Sarah and I at the tour was Stephen Fung, Paul Mudhar and Michael Kwan. We try to make the best of a boring situation but pulling some stunts. We ate dinner on the stage because there was a table there. We had almost finished when an AMD guy took us to get off. I also took over the Visiontek booth because no one was there. I opened up their box and gave away all their T-shirts. Here are some photos.

The Show Floor

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The show floor had about dozen companies showing off their stuff. Every vendor had people manning their booth except for VisionTek. I guess they missed their flight.

Taking Over The VisionTek Booth

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Since VisionTek was a no-show, I decided to take over their booth. See that box behind me? It contained 100 T-shirts and a bunch of VisionTek LED lights. I guess I could have taken the entire box for myself but I ended up giving most of the T-shirts away.

Andy The Host

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The host of the AMD Tech Tour is Andy. He has hosted this event for as long as I can remember. However, this is the first time I’ve seen him use a T-shirt gun.

Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

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This was the only entertaining part of the tour. I can understand why attendance has gone down in recent years. They need to bring back the old interview format.

The Free Stuff

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It wouldn’t be an AMD event if they didn’t give away any free stuff. There was a bunch of stuff given away in a lucky draw. Stephen won a MSI motherboard. I didn’t win anything but I made off with my share of free stuff, including thirteen T-shirts. I guess if I kept the VisionTek shirts, I would have over 100.

Of course, I’m going to give away most of this stuff because I don’t really have any use for it. I think I’ll start by giving away a couple of VisionTek T-shirts. Just reply to this post and you’re entered. I’ll draw two names on Friday and those two will have a nice T to wear this summer.

Good luck.