#Like I keep bringing up covid zombies like it's a joke

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

I do understand the temptation of the conspiracy theory that corona virus was designed in a lab for maximum damage. It really does seem like it doesn't it?

All the things in your body it takes advantage of, all the long term impacts, the way it triggers and reactivates other diseases, disabilities and viruses, the mechanisms it uses to evade and manipulate the immune system, it having mechanisms of action similar to other known greats [other deadly infections like Ebola and HIV], and even down to the fact that it spreads so easily, is so air-born, the way it mutates so quickly, has such a low infectious dose and quacks like nothing worse than the common cold during initial infection...

Like I do not buy into conspiracy theory thinking at all, but I see why it's tempting in this case. If I was playing a video-game and trying to design a virus to cause the most damage possible, and spread and infect as many as possible before anyone bothered getting too upset about it, and have as many unforeseen and devastating impacts as possible... If I wanted to wipe out or weaken a whole planet [or a set population provided I also developed a secret cure]... I would design this virus exactly.

And now we are seeing that it can go latent in the body and reactivate, so once you have it, you have it, much like herpes or chicken pox, and unlike other viruses and colds which are gone once your body clears the infection and can't reactivate.

Like we know that viruses like chicken pox can reactivate later and become shingles, we know what HIV does, and we know some of the initial symptoms and early long term symptoms can be disabling and even fatal to many as it is, but for all we know this virus causes everyone's hearts or brains to stop outright ten years or so after infection, or completely clogs your arteries, or outright shuts down your body's ability to make a vital protein, or just triggers mass cell death [during even my initial infection the body-wide tissue damage was so bad it nearly shut down my liver and kidneys like I had crush syndrome, I very much almost died]. It's already having impacts like this in the short term for some people.

We are not going to know the true impact of this and the longer term symptoms until it is already too late.

Please get vaccinated, wear fucking masks, and try to reduce spreading.

[watercolourferns]

I'm sick of being tired all the time and getting no rest AT ALL.

I'm naturally nocturnal, but since I got COVID and started on this "is this CFS/MS or is it just me getting old?? I'm too poor to find out out tho" journey I've found that by 11:30 pm I'm too tired to do anything, or even think and I'm in pain constantly too due to my scoliosis so that doesn't help... I toss and turn a lot so getting rest is kind of a problem, and I wake up groggy, with more brain fog than before, headaches galore, my meniere's acts up, it's awful... It exacerbates every symptom, both mental and physical and new and old, I have and I can't function for the day.

But I've found that if I go to sleep at the same hour and wake up at the same hour every day it helps a lot in bringing down does symptoms. So I need to set a schedule for myself to at least try and get some rest. But my brain keeps fighting it, as I said I'm naturally nocturnal.

My brain keeps saying "Go back to bed, it's too damn early!!!" and no amount of me juggling with alarms helps, my brain's just too stubborn and I don't know what to do anymore.

I wake up zombie-like and in so much pain I can't even stretch.

I think it's the weather, it's been flipflopping between cold and warm all month, which I know it's happening, but doesn't make it any easier to handle.

I guess my hops for finding a temperate place to live are gone due to climate change, but at least I'd love to know WHY did my body start to break down like this... Surely nothing I did as a teen except my ED would drive me to this. I did stay up late and things, but I always made sure I got plenty of rest the next day, I was an athlete most of my elementaryand middle school and in highschool and uni I swam out of pleasure because I ADORE swimming, so I kept active and as healthy as someone with OSFED and being a picky eater can be... now?

And I think it was the COVID, I think it was the three times I got it, none of which were my fault, which is even more frustrating. The first time I had it I was out helping mum with groceries, people weren't respecting the masking policy and the elderly schedules, they were out and about as if nothing was happening, taking off their masks to cough and sneeze (a woman at the clinic did that and when we all called her out she tried to cough in our direction, jokes on her we were ALL sick already, the bitch...). We were ironically out to get masks... The second was because our then bff was bunking with us and she refused to stop going out and quarantine and wear masks. She put me, with a weak immune system already, my fiancée, and my elderly parents in danger, and I got sick. We called her out and she dismissed it. I dunno why we thought it was a good idea to all three live together out of my parents' house after that... I think it was desperation. Third time was because my fiancée got sick. She had the CanSino and then the Pfizer and started to show symptoms, people were being very irresponsible at her workplace so we think she already had the virus and vaccine just accelerated it. Can that happen? Anyway, we both got it because I was taking care of her, but we were already vaccinated by then so it wasn't as bad.

I'm so sick of feeling sick all the time, it's like we're back at our early childhood... It stupid and painful and we miss out on a shit ton of stuff going around us... And we can't sleep well...

I don't want to continue breaking down, I'm sick of all of this...

[dalekofchaos]

AEW needs to fix their women’s division

AEW’s women’s division desperately needs help and needs more screen time. 

AEW have done more to set women's professional wrestling back than bring it forward. From forcing Brandi into programs to their deliberate non-efforts in actually building any of the Japanese women with promos or video packages or any angles of note until they lost them all to Covid travel restrictions. Only in the past four or so months did they let Hikaru Shida even speak. That's straight up bigoted, culturally elitist, racist shit.

Hikaru Shida is badass, a very likable champion in and outside of the ring.  But she is rarely given the time of day on Dynamite and barely enough time to build storylines or feuds. AEW NEEDS to do better by Shida. 

The problem is only two people in AEW who they actually allow screen time. Britt Baker and Brandi Rhodes. 

As far as I'm concerned with, Britt Baker is the closest thing they will have to a star. She's great on the mic, talented, her role model/dentist gimmick is awesome and Britt just feels like she should be champion.

Now the problem isn’t Britt. The problem is Brandi. Brandi has to be everywhere. She always has to be in the spotlight. To the nightmare collective to tagging with Allie(when she was already in a stable to begin with??) to always being there with Cody. Even when she doesn’t need to be there or when it’s not even in the women’s division, Brandi is always there. Brandi Rhodes camera hogging and attention whoring has been a detriment to their women’s division. I joke about Brandi being a discount Stephanie, but she really seems like she wants to be Stephanie complete with always being a presence and even having her job title. The only difference is Stephanie has more charisma and grit and is just that one person you can’t help but love to hate. Brandi is just annoying. 

AEW spent more time on the nobody-fucking-gives-a-shit camera hog Brandi Runnells and Britt Baker than the rest of their entire women's roster. Hell, even the women dancers in Kenny Omega and Cody’s entrances get more screen time than their entire division

There is a complete lack of development for anyone NOT named Brandi Rhodes or Britt Baker. 

Sorry/not sorry. AEW are even trailing WWE's atrocious main roster booking of women, hell it’s almost as bad as WWE’s Divas era complete with a bad belt design and they show no signs of helping to develop that division in any way. Oh, and all of the bookers are men. Brandi doesn't count because she knows fuck all about booking (and branding). Men who book shit are doing their shittiest at booking one of the worst women's divisions going at the moment. None of the talent grow and zero effort is being made to make that happen. Zero. Hey, pay $50 bucks though and AEW will pretend to care with their "Heels" online ponzi scheme program. I mean, how fucking condescending is that? Naming some hokum ponzi scheme "online safe space" for female fans that requires $50 to talk about a  promotion who has done fuck all beyond virtue signaling for their women's division. Let's play on the name of women's fucking shoes because it goes with the biz lingo for the tough, bad guys (fuck you very much, Brandi Rhodes).

Then Nyla Rose. Goddamn I love the native beast. She was awesome since her debut and I always thought she should’ve been the first AEW Women’s Champion and held onto it until Shida dethrones her, giving Nyla plenty of time to squash the entire division and building up her character. Giving her Vickie Guerrero as a manager was a smart move. But why did they wait so long for a rematch? Her statistics is higher than anyone on the roster. Even higher than Riho. Yet they gave the match to Big Swole? Glad she’s getting a rematch at Full Gear, but it feels a little too late.

Abadon. I love my zombie queen. She is a beautiful work of art. Still green, but she’ll get there. She certainly deserves to be featured more frequently on Dynamite. Seriously, stop keeping her on Dark and let her thrive and scare the shit out of everyone on dynamite. She has an awesome character and has perfected her look. No one knows much about her outside of the ring which adds to it. She can definitely help build the women’s division which desperately needs talent. I just see Abadon as AEW’s Undertaker. A character so mystique and compelling, that she doesn’t need the title, at least not yet.

Thunder Rosa. Her match with Shida gave their women’s division the attention it very well deserves. It was the best match at All Out and just shows how much potential their division has.

As of right now, the only ones who I feel can elevate their division are Britt Baker and Anna Jay or unless they sign Thunder Rosa. The more they focus on the NWA women, the less screen time the ladies of AEW can have a chance to shine and improve themselves. Yes, Serena Deeb is signed with AEW. But she's the NWA Women's Champion, not the AEW Woman's Champion. That's the problem, they focus on the wrong championship. It says a lot of how little faith they have in their own champion, plus the small size of the actual title in question is symbolic of how little the powers that be actually cares about their own women's division.

It would be one thing if the brain trust could just admit their booking of the women is bad, but they won't. Considering that even Cody admitted there isn't a problem, there doesn't seem like any sign of change.

It says a lot when NXT, what your EVP refers to as a “developmental brand” is doing so much better for their women’s division than yours, is just really telling.

Sign Thunder Rosa. She is the solution. 

It may not fix everything, but it gives you your needed star power and honestly fuck Ivelisse’s unprofessionalism. Tony Khan should be begging on his hands and knees to sign Thunder Rosa in 2021 after her time with the NWA is up, his women’s division is getting their asses kicked by what Kenny refers to as a “developmental brand” and if WWE signs Thunder Rosa, then AEW’s women’s division might be fucked.

There’s still some time to do what’s right for your women’s division, but the only thing that remains to be seen, does the powers that be of AEW even care?

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

New Year’s Resolutions (Oh Yes, It’s That Time Again)

TRIGGER WARNING: COVID, Cannibalism, Jeffrey Dahmer and Great Big Shiny Cutlasses!

So, it’s probably rather late for my traditional ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ blog, but fuck it: it’s not like any sane, rational person would attempt my suggested resolutions anyway. With that in mind, let’s dive in. It’s still early January, so it’s still justified as far as yer humble narrator here is concerned. Without further ado, here are some of the things you could resolve to do to make life slightly better (or worse) here in 2021.

Become a Superspreader! With the UK forced to introduce Lockdown 3: The Enlockening, and many countries around the world still desperately trying to get on top of the terrifying, start-of-a-zombie-movie-esque global pandemic, there’s never been a better time to be a deadly pathogen, and never been a worse time to be a human. Well, you know what they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Instead of cowering from the spindly, conker-headed clutches of the Coronavirus (seriously, have you seen the closeups of its morphology? It really does look like a fucking conker- that graffiti I saw was right!), why not embrace it? See how many people you can infect and help bring about the end of human civilisation before we perpetrate another fucking Pitch Perfect sequel. NB: Don’t actually do this. You will be arrested and, to quote the Kentucky Fried Movie, “it would be wrong”. I shouldn’t have to flag up that these entries are bleak, despairing jokes, but I know my audience and I actually do.

Learn a New Skill! When most New Years Resolution Suggestion Blogs say you should learn a new skill, they mean something twee and charming like origami or making the perfect cup of coffee. I, however, can see the direction Planet Earth is heading in, and feel like now might be a good time to cultivate some skills that will actually help you survive after the world has fallen into ruins, when our cities stand silent and deserted and COVID-spreading raptors stalk the streets, breathing on anyone they can’t eat. But what type of skills will help in such a landscape? Can I suggest starting with something simple, like learning how to turn a human skull into an ashtray? After that, you can graduate to more complex survival skills, like how to trade fellatio for bullets and cans of soup.

Complete ‘The Device’! Yeah, yeah, I say it every year, but just in case COVID doesn’t kill us all, we really should be making a back-up plan. Preferably a colourful, supervillainous back-up plan that relies on a complicated machine of planetary domination and destruction and which can be conducted while cackling wildly.

Get Back into Piracy! Seriously, when was the last time you took to the high seas to murder and pillage with a funny Cornish accent? Oh, we all keep saying that we mean to go back to piracy, but let’s be honest, it’s been a long time since 1726 and we’re all a bit out of practice (except those dudes from Somalia, who are frankly making the rest of us look bad). But don’t let fear of looking foolish stop you: make 2021 the year you stop making excuses, pick up a cutlass and start roaming the Pacific trade routes, looking for unsuspecting landlubbers to prey on.

Wear More Offensive Shirts! It’s really, really easy to offend people by accident nowadays, on account of the fact that people actually like to be offended. It gives them a lovely feeling of validation when they can do it as a group- the kind of feeling real people used to get by joining a club or going to an orgy. Whenever I feel a spark of hope for the human race, I remember that one time an astrophysicist who’d just landed a probe on a comet FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY got pilloried by arseholes because he happened to make the announcement in a shirt with a stylised picture naked lady on it. A shirt a female friend had apparently given him and which he wore, not to be sexist, but because, er, he liked it. Since it’s so blindingly obvious that people like being offended by stupid shit (and that large swathes of the human race deserve extinction), why not help them by giving them something to be really offended about. Again, in the form of shirts. At the moment, I’m keeping it pretty low-key with a gloriously eye-gouging pink and grey Hawaiian-style leaf-patterned shirt, which I insist on wearing with a neon pink tie that my hot girlfriend got me. However, as the year goes on, I intend to kick things up a notch by donning a shirt depicting the act of physical love (with labels) and having another made up with the faces of my favourite serial killers printed on the back in order of preference. Let’s see what the fucking Twitterati make of that.

Read a Fucking Book! This is the only real, serious suggestion on this list, and yes, I do count audiobooks and being read to as ‘reading a fucking book’. Seriously, the world’s a shit place, expand your horizons with something as informative and enriching as it is entertaining. Also, some of y’all are illiterate motherfuckers and could really use this.

Try Cannibalism! Look, it’s no grosser than eating a fucking cow, which is basically a large, hairy rectangle that shits everywhere, and people do that all the time. Besides, can you really say you’ve tried all life has to offer until you’ve tasted human flesh? This suggestion, incidentally, was sponsored by the Jeffrey Dahmer Foundation for the Promotion of Fucking Eating People. Yeah, because if you thought you were getting through this blog with only serial killer joke: fuck you.

Send Secret-Diary All Your Money! Liberate yourself from the shackles of worldly possessions! Go on, you know you want to.

Right that about does it for this New Year. Happy fucking 2021, ye scabrous bell-ends. I’ll expect yer cheques in the post.

[quicktimedan]

Moral Orel was a stop motion animation comedy TV show that ran for 3 seasons on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in the mid 2000’s It was created by Dino Stamatopoulos, a seasons comedy writer for conan obrain, dana carvy, and other adult swim stuff such as the under rated and forgotten Tom Goes to the Major. The show lampoons the Religious Right and conservatives, but sense I’m not religious and much more of a libertarian than anything, I can appreciate the humor and with out getting triggered. The premise of the show is that Orel, our hero of the story, is a deeply religious boy living in a very religious town. Most episodes involve him going to church, misunderstanding the sermon and then getting into trouble as he attempts to act like a good Christian. I love this series and want to share that love like its Covid-19. So like a lazy shit, instead of doing a season or series over view, I going to re-watch the show making a video about each episode. And I encourage everyone to do the same. Not make a video. I’m doing that ya limp dick fucks, But the series is on HBO Max and pirate bay. The First episode is called The Lord’s Greatest Gift. In church,  Reverend Putty recounts the story of Lazarus and his resurrection by Jesus, concluding life is the greatest gift God has given us. After Church, Orel’s walk through a cemetery with his best friend Doughy, that gets him thinking. Well ol’ Orel gets it in his head that dead people, including Doughy’s Grandpa, are bad Christians wasting the gift of life. The boys head to the library, stealing a tome entitled, Necronomicon AKA the book of the dead. After reading the book, digging up Doughy’s gramps and removing this clothes, Orel recites some spell and brings the old timer back to life, and imminently kills and eat as placing police officer. Orel and Doughy have no choice but to revive Officer O Chunky and remove his blood clothes.  Off Screen, this must have happened dozens of times more, because Moralton is now over run with naked zombies. Orel’s father, Clay, encounters the boys undressing another victim, prompting his to utter what will become a reoccurring catch phrase of his: I want you to meet me… In my study.  After a “talk”, Orel explains that he was just trying to keep dead people from spiting in God’s face by being dead. Clay understands but it’s not so much the fact that Orel used black magic to create brain eating zombies, it that they are naked. So with help from his mom, Orel clothes on the poor naked zombies and saves the day… from nudity. This is probably my favorite episode of moral orel. The premise is pretty ridiculous, but it sets up the formula that many episodes of the series will follow while establishing characters that will play larger parts later on. We have Reverend Putty who’s sermon, while strange in context of the first episode, makes a lot more sense as the series continues. But I’ll cover that in a future video when it’s more relevant. Of course there’s also Doughy, who’s Orel reluctant sidekick in these weird situations. Next is the Librarian Miss Censordoll. Now this chick is a huge can of worms. But I’ll we really get from her here is that she loves to burn books. We also get a quick exchange between Clay and Coach Stopframe. A couple things I’d like to point out is that Orel’s parents seem to get along here, at least a lot better than later on. We also get the first of the lost commandments, which becomes a recurring joke. Alright I’m don’t talking. Come back next time when I go over episode 2, God’s Chef. I would like to thank you for watching and I would like to leave ya with a little wisdom from Clay.

[nolifenicole96]

I hate funerals.

They are just so sad. Everyone piles in one house, watches a slideshow of pictures over and over again of their lost loved one, cooks/eats too much food, and constantly talks about death and dying.

Today was the funeral for my Pop (grandfather) and it was all of those things I just described. But I think I’m broken. I have hardly cried since I found out he passed.

He was older, around 83, and had been on dialiaysis for about 6 years. He also had AFIB, low blood pressure, covid and pneumonia just to top it off. And no, covid was not the cause of his death but let’s face it, it defiantly made things more complicated and horrifying.

I felt as though I had to prepare myself for the inevitable but now I’m afraid I prepared myself too much and I just don’t feel anything.

When I found out he died my first thought was “How is my grandmother doing!” And ever since I think about what he meant to my sister, or my cousin Bryan, or all the things he did for my cousin Danielle and how they all feel. And yet I just feel like a waste as I sit there with nothing. No tears. Just staring at nothing in the silences when no one looks and hopes someone/anyone notices. And that if they do, they are perceptive enough to know that I’m lying when I say I’m fine.

But they never notice. And if they do they take my word at face value.

I love my grandfather and I’m devastated he is gone. I am relieved however that he no longer suffering, that he went peaceful, and that he had my grandmother to love him. He was the most hard working, honest, loving, toughest, tannest, open minded men I’ve ever ment and I’m so lucky that I had him in my life for 25 years.

You know my mother keeps turning to me and saying that it’s a “different hurt when you lose a parent” and that “you just feel empty.” But I think what she has failed to realized that us grandkids didn’t lose a typical grandfather. We lost a father figure. With my dad only being home for 2 weekends a months for 18 years of my life and my cousins parents begin divorced and their dad not really being around a ton he was more a father than a grandfather.

Hell he picked my up from school when I had gotten my period and bled through my pants in middle school! Without question too.

And it didn’t matter what it was he was there and he would do his best to either do it or motivate us to do it.

I miss him everyday. I dream about him in my sleep about how he was really joking and that he will be home soon. I hear his voice in my head before I go to do anything. A part of thinks that if I cry I will feel better. Anything has to be better than feeling like a zombie. But instead I just stare off while my hands shake and I just wish he knows that I appreciate everything he did for not only me but for Ellie, Danielle, Bryan, Ryan, and Christoper too. And in some ways I feel like I appreciate the things he did for them more than what he did for me but I’m not really sure why.

It just brings me solace knowing that they always had that person. They always knew they had at least one person in their corner no matter what. And I type this my heart brakes knowing that now none of us will never have that comforting thought again.

[josephlrushing]

IFA 2020 Is Happening: Will It Be a Model for Other Events in the Foreseeable Future?

I had figured that IFA 2020 would be yet another cancellation due to the global pandemic, but today we have word that it will still happen, albeit with major changes. For at least this year’s convention, IFA will be an invite-only event, spanning three days, with no more than 1,000 people attending daily; it looks like I’ll be one of them.

There are a handful of major tech conventions held around the world each year that I consider must-attend events including CES (Consumer Electronics Show), MWC (Mobile World Congress), and IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin). There are other worthwhile conferences and conventions that occur throughout the year, some of which I also attend, but these are the three that I would never intentionally miss. However, COVID-19 has made me wonder if these huge mega-conferences might soon completely die out due to the pandemic not going away anytime soon and the very real safety concerns raised when trying to handle a hundred thousand or more attendees (and support staff) in a huge convention center.

Allow me to digress for a moment.

CES is held in Las Vegas, and it occurs in early January. Just to give you some perspective, in 2019 it had a total attendance of 175,212. Once you’ve attended CES for a couple of years, you’ll quickly learn that there is a good reason for the half-joking/half-serious expectation that after attending you’ll probably come home with what is commonly called the CES Flu – a term that encompasses a series of ailments including coughing, sore throat, runny nose, body aches, and possibly fever — any of these symptoms or a combination of them will always, always be compounded by exhaustion. Considering how many people attend CES, and how the question has since been raised of whether CES attendance could have contributed to or may have been a major factor in the virus’s spread, I’m amazed that not one of our attending group of five got sick this year. Because this year has not been like any other.

I remember first really paying attention to COVID-19 around the second week of February because one after another, companies that we were supposed to meet with at MWC started dropping out due to virus concerns. This was a first for me in the 21 years I have been covering tech, and it took me aback.

MWC is held in Barcelona, and it occurs in the last week of February; in 2019 it had an attendance of 109,674. By February 12th, COVID-19 concerns on top of the withdrawal of too many major companies from the show had shut down MWC 2020. There were quite a few members of the media who at that point were still considering going to Barcelona and having some version of a shadow convention. After all, many of us had non-refundable flights booked along with a week’s stay in non-refundable Airbnb apartments; we had companies reaching out to us offering smaller meet-and-greets with social distancing if we made the trip to Barcelona, and as of February 12, only one person in Spain had even been diagnosed with the virus, and it was a German tourist who’d been visiting the Canary Islands — so not even a local. After a few day’s consideration, however, we opted not to travel to Barcelona. I felt disappointed at the time; now I am thankful that we didn’t go, as Spain would quickly become a hotspot.

In the days leading up to the first week of March, scheduled trips for the Huawei Mate 40 launch (in late March) and the IFA GPC (in early April) had just been canceled. The day before I traveled to NYC (March 1st), it came out that a woman who had recently traveled from Iran back to NYC had the virus, but her symptoms were reported as mild. This was when we still thought the virus didn’t affect children or young people as severely as it would those who were older. At that point, we thought “older” meant 65+. Yeah, that would prove to be wrong.

I don’t think anyone in NYC was really too concerned about COVID-19 yet, but we were all aware of it by this point in a general sense. I remember that I had stocked up on antibacterial wipes and Purell before making my flight because my best friend had warned me that shortages on those items were already being experienced in Manhattan; that was about the extent of any panicking. The day I arrived in NYC (March 2), we heard about a midtown Manhattan lawyer who had fallen ill via community spread. That was scary. Over the next few days, we would hear about how the neighbor who had driven the lawyer to the hospital was also sick, as were the lawyer’s wife, son, and daughter, as well as a friend of the lawyer’s and his entire family. I think that’s when it first sunk in for me how contagious this virus was and how serious it could be; I was starting to get a little freaked out. I traveled home on March 8th as scheduled, and I don’t remember feeling anxious about traveling at all, but I do remember being very glad to be back home in Texas.

On March 9th, I picked up our granddaughters to keep for spring break. On March 11th, the WHO Director-General declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. On March 12, one of the NY friends that I’d spent a lot of time with the previous week got sick. She couldn’t get tested, but she was sent home to self-quarantine and basically told to assume that she had COVID-19. A few days after that, my best friend got sick, but she wasn’t sick enough to warrant a test. She too was told to assume she had the virus and to self-quarantine. After spending a week worrying about my friends in NYC, being scared that I might be asymptomatic and that I might have exposed everyone I cared about in Texas to the virus, we finally sorted out that my friend had been exposed at her work, on the day after I went home, to an employee who was later found to be sick with COVID-19. She had then given it to my best friend. We would later learn that the employee who had exposed my friend to the virus was dead within a week.

On March 15th, the United States was told to start socially distancing for two weeks; it is only now — over two months later — that non-essential workers are starting to go back to work. Even as fatalities and infected numbers are still rising in some parts of the US, states are starting to reopen.

The fact that so many people have become ill or lost their jobs, or died — and that people are still dying in large numbers every day from this pandemic — makes the cancellation of MWC just a tiny tragedy in the grand scheme of things. Even so, MWC’s absence (along with the cancelation of other major events including Google IO and Facebook 8) has had a negative impact on the tech industry that may not be fully realized for some time. Companies count on these conventions and events for in-person exposure to finance their inventions or as a place to introduce their latest products to the press, buyers, and the public; those opportunities were lost, and many companies have been scrambling to figure out what to do ever since. Of course, the trade-off was well made, as canceling these events kept hundreds of thousands of people from becoming possibly getting infected and then passing the virus on once home.

Kev and I live in a rural Texas area; even so, since March 9th we have been self-quarantining like there’s a zombie apocalypse going on and everyone outside of our home is a possible carrier. Since we started self-isolating, we haven’t been closer than 6 or 7′ to any other people — including family members who don’t live in our house with us — without first having a mask on and/or being outside. If we leave home to go to the grocery store, the recycling center, or the post office we wear a mask, and we sanitize our hands constantly. Neither of us has actually been in a grocery store (or any other store, really) since this started; we’ve been using curbside pickup for groceries and ordering almost everything else we need online. Keeping ourselves safe and healthy has become our new mindset. While I know that self-isolating and physically distancing ourselves from others is the right thing to do right now, I miss my family, I miss my best friend, and I miss traveling. I miss not worrying about whether Kev or I might get sick. I wonder what our new normal will be and at what point we’ll start to realize that whatever we are doing to protect ourselves is the new normal. These have been a weird couple of months … am I right?

As part of this pandemic experience, I’ve developed a new way of thinking that is a lot more cautious. And let me clarify, I am not fearful, but I am cautious. I’m pretty sure that large spaces crammed full of people who aren’t wearing masks or who aren’t trying to physically distance themselves from each other are going to get a huge NOPE from me, possibly for another year or maybe longer. In fact, I am positive that I will never look at another person who is wearing a mask in public and think they are being an alarmist — I’ll think they are being smart and silently thank them.

My best friend (who also happens to be my main travel buddy) and I have been going back and forth on when we think it might be safe to start traveling regularly for work and pleasure again. Just a day or two ago, we were talking about how we might feel safe to travel around the time that IFA is usually held. See, we had already had it in our mind that even by September, IFA as we knew it wouldn’t be happening. Berlin’s ban on all events over 5,000 made the conference seem even less likely.

#IFA20: Set for an innovative concept designed for unprecedented times.

IFA Berlin is set to go ahead in 2020, but with an innovative new concept, following the decision by the Berlin government to ban all events with more than 5,000 participants until 24 October 2020. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/MLDvamLXzf

— IFA Berlin (@IFA_Berlin) April 21, 2020

I was thinking IFA might make the conference an all-virtual event like others have done. It turns out, I was wrong.

And that brings us to the latest news.

IFA is held in Berlin, and it generally runs for 5 days in early September. Billed as the largest consumer electronics trade show in the world, IFA had 245,000 attendees in 2019. 245,000! Part of the reason that the numbers are so huge is that unlike CES and MWC, IFA generally opens its doors to the public after the first couple of days.

Would I be willing to attend a conference with 245,000 others attending anywhere today— or even in the next 6 months? Absolutely not. Would you?

I haven’t even been inside a restaurant since March 9th; I can’t imagine being in the typical convention hall with thousands and thousands of people right now. It absolutely gives me the heebie-jeebies. :-/

Would I consider attending an invitation-only IFA event in early September that is closed to the public and that caps max attendance at just 1,000 people per day for three days? Yes, I think my collection of face masks and I could make that work. Even if the mere idea of eating in a restaurant seems so foreign right now.

They’re calling it the IFA 2020 Special Edition, and the conference will consist of four stand-alone events that will include the IFA Global Press Conference that members of the international press usually attend in April; it will include a Keynote by Cristiano Amon, the President of Qualcomm, as well as keynotes and presentations from other companies on its “two or three keynote stages curated by IFA.” The second event will be a combination of IFA NEXT and IFA SHIFT Mobility which will focus on bringing technology start-ups and companies in the connected mobility sector together, “to help them get the much-needed lifeblood of publicity and industry connections. For innovators, disruptors, tech journalists, and digital influencers interested in the cutting edge of technology, this will be the year’s most important event to attend.” IFA Global Markets is Europe’s largest sourcing show for OEMs and ODMsThis is IFA’s answer to the Industry’s need for a sourcing show “to repair and restructure its supply chains hit by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.” It looks like attendees will still have plenty of networking opportunities with the IFA Business, Retail & Meeting Lounges I’m not sure how they measure it, but IFA said that in 2019, “brands and retailers struck deals worth more than 4.7 billion euro during the event in Berlin. While the pandemic will make it impossible to replicate this level of deal-making and networking, IFA Berlin will curate the IFA Business, Retail & Meeting Lounges to give brands and manufacturers the much-needed opportunity to meet retailers in a safe and efficient manner ahead of the year’s all-important shopping season.”

Of course, with such a relatively small show, everyone who wants to won’t be able to attend; there will likely be plenty who don’t want to or can’t travel. That’s why there will also be a Virtual IFA Experience which will allow everyone who can’t be present the opportunity to still be part of the IFA Berlin experience.

Will IFA 2020 Special Edition be what we are used to? No. But it will likely be the first actual tech event many of us have attended in person since the pandemic began. Carly and I were talking about the likelihood of CES being canceled the other day, and in its present form, we can’t see how it won’t be. But what if CES and other huge conventions took a page from IFA — at least until this pandemic is under control (or we have a vaccine) — and they held smaller, more intimate gatherings with an option to videostream from anywhere? What if MWC  did the same? That might be the smartest way forward, at least until we figure out what our new normal when it comes to trade shows will be.

What do you think? What would it take to make you feel comfortable attending your usual trade shows and conferences, or do you think that a different way of doing things is the only way forward? If you see a different way forward, do you think it will involve smaller events, live streaming, virtual reality, or something no one has even tried yet?

IFA Berlin will be open to invited participants from 3 to 5 September 2020. You can learn more here.

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/05/20/ifa-2020-is-happening-will-it-be-a-model-for-other-events-in-the-foreseeable-future/