WWDC Post Mortem - New York vs. San Francisco

Now that the WWDC is over, I decided to jot down some of my thoughts on the differences between New York City and San Francisco: (note, some of this is exaggerated for humorous effect, please don't get offended)

    •    San Francisco has much better chinese food
    •    The streets in SF smell much better than Manhattan
    •    San Francisco (at least the area of town near Moscone) is actually MORE expensive than Manhattan!
    •    The crazy people are far more interactive in SF than they are in NYC. Most of the crazy folks in NYC just kind of talk to themselves and generally mind their own business. Their San Francisco counterparts actually step in front of you and attempt to engage you in conversation about the end of the world, or, I actually saw a parade of people that belong to the "society of the ancients", people who believe that aliens built the pyramids. This is a crapload more entertaining than the guy outside Penn Station who just swears at you!
    •    San Francisco is quite possibly the only place on the planet where you can take a two mile round trip and have the ENTIRE TRIP be UPHILL. Holy crap those hills KILLED my thighs! It didn't help that I walked 4 miles carrying 20 pounds of electronics on my back. I'm sure that the entire city was planned by M.C. Escher, with hills that go up, and then when you think you're going downhill, you're still going up... again... the locals must know about this, since I didn't see any locals foolish enough to walk around in the hilly areas.
    •    The Metreon is like a big, giant, flashing, neon, glowing, beeping geek beacon. A huge building that has movie theaters, a sony style store, and about as much electronic gadgety as a single human can handle. But then again, we have a big-ass glass-enclosed Apple store on 5th avenue...so I think we're even there.
    •    Cable Cars == Death Traps. Why would any human dangle themselves off the side of these things without wearing full protective gear? Plus, there's no wi-fi on them! WTF.
    •    I think WWDC attendees must be inherently thinner than PDC attendees. While at PDC, they loaded us up with snacks like ding dongs, ho hos, twinkies, chocolate bars, peanut butter cups and really grease-laden hot catered meals... At the WWDC I saw boxed lunches (sandwiches or salads) and odwalla juices, apples, and the "worst" snack I saw were the rice krispies treats, which actually aren't all that bad for you, unless you're diabetic.
    •    Did I mention that San Francisco has much better chinese food?
    •    People in San Francisco are too laid back. I felt like I was walking around Honolulu where people just moved SO.... DAMN... SLOW.... It drove me nuts.
    •    Did I mention that its all uphill no matter where you're going? Because it is. Really. Honest.

And not really related to comparing SF and NYC, but the number one difference I noticed between WWDC and PDC was:

- People were more interested in learning at WWDC than they were about getting free stuff. The reverse seemed true at PDC :)

tags: sf  sanfran  newyork  wwdc  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit