Evidently, media professionals dig hard drives, especially free hard drives. NAB is about more than the education and exhibits. It’s about the parties. And the G-Tech party in the Hefner Suite at the Palms Hotel was a good one.
Entering the hotel you have to walk past the chiming slot machines (I think every vegas hotel makes you walk past the slot machines to go anywhere) to the back elevator and up to the top floor, which is the Hefner suite. I could only imagine how much fun it is when stocked full of Playboy bunnies.
Walking into the suite, we were greeted by a giant stacked pyramid of G-tech 120GB super cute mini-drive boxes. We were there pretty early. Slowly, people started to realize that the drives were free giveaways. Actually, I have no idea if they were supposed to be free swag, but since people were taking them we figured we shouldn’t be left out.
I took a drive and realized, to my disappointment, that, since I had no bag, I would have to carry the box around for the entire night. And knowing that if I put it down anywhere someone else would snatch it up like a crack fiend confronted with a stray dime bag, I got depressed just thinking about babysitting a box all night.
I noticed that people weren’t stopping at one hard drive either. Free swag is free swag. People were grabbing multiple boxes and, confronted with the same prospects I had of lugging a box around all night since they had no backpacks, getting creative about keeping their prize without losing it to the crack addicts.
Not wanting to be left out, I too grabbed multiple boxes. Streamlining my situation, I took the pocket size drives out of the boxes and started to squirrel them away all over the Hefner Suite – behind curtains, in bathroom droors, under a bed.
I even got creative and fashioned myself a G-Tech belt:
My pants kept sagging down but the prospect of having a bunch of easy-to-travel-with mini drives was too great to pass up.
Here’s Ted from Red after being pushed into the bunny pool.
Ted must have tried to pick someone’s G-Tech drive…
Having successfully squirreled my drives I had no problem drinking a tapas of mixed drinks. I was ready to leave at about 1:30, barely able to keep my eyes open. One by one I found all my drives and happily made my way back to our $59 per night room in the Stratosphere. I’m not sure how much the Hefner suite cost per night, but I doubt you can get it for $59 on Hotwire.
Drew told me that after I left the guy who went to the bathroom before him accidentally left a G-Tech box in the bathroom. When Drew walked in, the box was there with a prize inside. He deftly unloaded the box of its content and packed it back up, all while relieving himself, and calmly walked out of the bathroom with the drive in his back pocket.
On his way down the stairs he passed the guy running back up who must have realized that he left his dime bag unattended.
