Lora and Loren are doing more than their fair share for the Tablet PC communities.

Heh, I remember when people used to say stuff like this about Rush Limbaugh (now they are saying that webloggers don't have a chance when compared to Rush). I used to listen to Rush back when he was in Sacramento. Later he showed up on KGO radio in SF on Saturday nights (that's the slot they put people who don't have any listeners).

How do you get millions of readers? One at a time, baby, one at a time.

Jeff Sandquist: "Let your creative juices run wild."

SilverStr: "[Scoble] is REALLY good at his job. Which is why we are all talking about [the PDC]."

Well, to tell you the truth, my weblogging is for fun, and not part of my job responsibilities. Which is why I weblog from home at night.

I have a bunch of projects and if I don't get them done, my boss will not be happy. Not to mention my co-workers who are waiting on me for stuff.

SilverStr does bring up another common point "Cost justification about contacts are only sound if during the conference you can actually hook up with these people."

The team I'm a part of is working hard on this issue. We think we'll have some innovative (and some just plain fundamental and old school) ways to ensure every one of the 5000 attendees gets to discuss whatever they want, with the Microsoft employees who are actually making the decisions about the technologies you all will use from 2005 on.

I'd go even further than that. If you can't get your question asked, you come and find me. You know my cell phone number. You know my IM address. Believe me, you'll know where to find me. I'll figure out how to get your questions answered, and get Don Box to sign a T-shirt for you too.

Hey, if I can get Hillary Clinton to sign my Tablet, don't you think you'll be able to get to meet your favorite team member?

SilverStr also compares the PDC to the Apple Developer Conference. I think the PDC will compare very nicely once it's all said and done with. Yeah, I expect a video or two to leak out, but certainly not all the sessions (we have TONS of sessions this year. Steve Cellini, the guy doing the planning, tells me we have more sessions at this PDC than Microsoft has ever had at a PDC before).

I watched the Steve Jobs' video too. Did you see the swipe he took at Longhorn? I thought that was funny. (It's at minute 51, if I remember right).

But, to get it back to value, if you're thinking that getting some free software, or some free gadget, is gonna make spending $1700 worth it, then I say don't come. Instead, fly into Seattle, take me to dinner, and then I'll take you to the new Fry's Electronics. You'll probably still have a couple hundred bucks left, depending on where you're flying from, and the gadgets will be just as cool. When is that darn thing opening, anyway?

We can even go to the company store again (I took SilverStr there a few weeks back) and load you up with more monkeys. Heh.

Oh, heck, one more. Michael Gartenberg (Jupiter Media Analyst) tells the Office team to integrate ActiveWords into Outlook. Yes, that'd be awesome. I use Active Words all the time to find my contacts. It's one piece of technology that really does make you more productive, if you use it. As you use it.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. Maryam is yelling at me to help unbox things. See ya soon!

Heh, Keith Warren rocks. Look carefully at his "PDC Flair:" Where there's a will, there's a way!

Phil Scott: "Damn you peer pressure and job insecurities!"

Got another one Jeff for the weblogger party! (evil grin)

Check out Phil's PDC Flair:

Ahh, there are a few people who aren't going to the PDC. Here's one thread from Paschal. Another from Phil Scott. Another from David Stone (he found the "not going-PDC" logo that Stephane made). And yet another Brady Gester. The comments are good, and so is the back and forth. I'm trying to answer them the best I can. I AM sensitive to the fact that lots of people can't afford to go. I couldn't afford to go last week to Gnomedex. It's not lost on me.

One question that comes up frequently? Am I overhyping the PDC? How is such a thing possible when we're announcing a new OS, with thousands of new APIs, a new SQL Server (with a new programming model), and a new development tool (with hundreds, if not thousands, of new features).

Is it possible to overhype this PDC? I don't think so. It's the first time in history that Microsoft is holding one conference where you'll see so much new stuff.

Did I mention that Blogrolling.com rocks?

Here's the "attending PDC blogroll" so far:

I forgot to link to Sam Gentile last night and he's been bugging me ever since. Heh. Not really. But, here's some Google Link Love for Sam. Yes, Sam has rejoined the weblogger camp once again.

Join us for a weblogger dinner next Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. in Redmond, WA.

Just be warned, I might ask you to sign my Tablet PC, to prove to those naysayers that I actually do use the thing.

For those of you who don't believe I use a Tablet PC, I just had Hillary Clinton sign mine. Yes, that Hillary. She was just on campus, gave a speech to 1000 employees. I'd post more, but the movers came today, so got tons to unpack. Blogging will be light for the next week. Especially since I have some projects to finish.

OK, Maryam's not looking, so here's a quick recap. No, I didn't ask her if she's coming to the PDC (she's not a developer, so she shouldn't come anyway). No, I didn't get a chance to ask her if she was gonna be a weblogger. Drat.

But, I did get her to sign my Tablet PC (I took pics, too, and had her sign a journal document with her and Jeff Raikes).

I believe I've just witnessed a landmark event, too. Finally a democrat is talking fiscal conservatism. Wow.

You know, I totally underestimated Hillary. She's quite good. Is she presidential? I think so. But not for another four years.

I hope she gets a lot of the electronic advocacy (translation: weblogging) that the Dean folks are doing.

Her views were refreshing.

1) We're spending a huge amount on this war without much oversight. $4 billion a month in Iraq. $1 billion a month in Afghanistan. She says we're bankrupting our future because our spending has zoomed out of control while jobs have decreased (3 million jobs lost, she says). She says that the interest rate increases of more than 1% over the past six weeks are directly attributable to the Federal Government sucking up huge amounts of new debt, which increases demand on securities, which increases pricing.

She said every citizen should appreciate (and help further) what it is to be American by participating in the process, and also by building companies that build jobs. She's very worried about the future of the economy (as we all are, even those of us like me who work at Microsoft have laid off family members and friends).

She challenged us not to become political ideologs who only use our ideas to bring down others, but to find ways to fix the major problems that we're all facing.

You know, if hers is the face of the new Democratic party, I think she'll find a lot of people who are willing to listen to her. Yeah, she also is still pushing for a national healthcare initiative, but she's muted that message.

She spoke for an hour, and mostly answered questions. Most of the political speech I've heard before was scripted, cleansed, and practiced. This was off the top of her head kind of speaking, and I gotta say, she impresses.

And this is from a registered Republican, so there.

I wondered, am I getting more liberal? I don't think so (OK, a bit on social issues yes) but on fiscal issues I'm still hardcore conservative. The problem is, the Republicans are going liberal on fiscal issues and the democrats are going conservative. It'll be an interesting next four years in American politics, no matter which side of the aisle you're on.

Oh, one last thing before Maryam bashes my head in for not unpacking. Note that if I was a journalist I'd be kept from telling you my political biases by my bosses. Imagine a day where all journalists must talk about their biases in their weblogs, while they write a supposedly "objective" news story for their news organization. Wouldn't that be refreshing?