There was a lot about NextFest 2005 that I didn't get to address in my write-up, or even in the image gallery! Time to finish this drawn-out ordeal, so I can finally shelve the mountains of promotional paperwork thrust into my hands.

One of my absolute favorite parts of the show was one of the promotional documents handed out concerning the cloned cat. Well .. here. I can't do it justice in plaintext.

The scribbling in the upper righthand corner of the screen? Some poor PR flunky (or worse, maybe the co-founder) was 'autographing' the names of the cats on these press photos of the cats. Accompanying the names was a heart and a paw print. All executed with the finesse of a Sharpie!

And don't forget about that tagline! That alone was worth my $10 entrance fee to NextFest (press pass? Hah!). The cloned cat, while cute, was mildly creepy but that tagline ... nothing's creepier than 'A clone says you'd do it all again'! Except for maybe those De Beers ads.

Sadly, the robots that I was so looking forward to were all either broken, or completely swarmed by other attendees. Mostly it was just the Philip K. Dick android (who looked amazing when I was peeping through his house's window) that was horribly popular, but also the stage performances the robots had set up was absolutely packed, to the point where there was really no point to standing around trying to see. Unless of course, you're one of those folks who enjoy jumping up and down to get a tiny glimpse of a robot projected on a very large screen. Nuts to that - we went to go get some free coffee instead.

The other robots though ... they had problems. Hubo, or another robot like Hubo was broken, allegedly by some snotnosed kids. Chroino (perhaps the real-life realization of Evila), his batteries were dead. Sure, the robot djs worked however, I assure you that their mixing talents need some work. There were plenty of Roombas though!

The king of tease at NextFest? The Segway. There were two people riding them around, showing them off and taking questions but do you think we plebeians were allowed to take them for a test drive? Hah!

Regardless of my sour disposition and reaction to much of the fare at the ..fair, it certainly sucked up time. All in all, we spent at least twice as long as we thought we would there, around four or so hours, and probably could have stayed for another hour if they weren't threatening to throw us out. Of course, a good deal of this time consisted of trying to walk to the conference hall NextFest was housed in, and approximately another third was simply trying to break through the throngs of masses huddled around specific exhibits and you have a big old ball of frustration. If only the exhibits had been laid out in a sensible manner!

Ah, my innate disposition is showing again. NextFest was a fun event overall, despite my grousing. While the individual parts may have contained a sour aftertaste, the sum of said parts was definitely greater than the whole. And while the festival never came close to evoking the sense of awe I'm sure spectators at Chicago World's Fairs felt, it's nice to have someone attempting to reignite the populace's interest in future technology. And, by the looks of the attendees faces, it appears that they fulfilled that goal.