Receiving the Red Carpet Treatment at COMPUTEX

Companies compete fiercely to get the attention of the press at COMPUTEX. Most companies book their parties on the same nights which means that as media, it is always a gamble when selecting a party to end up at for the evening. Though technically I could have party hopped, the disadvantage is that all that prizes are given away at the end of the night, so if you get drawn and you aren’t there, you’re out of luck. This year, we had to choose between three parties: Thermaltake, MSI and Coolermaster.

The plan was originally to party hop between the three events, but when we saw that Thermaltake rolled out the red carpet for us, our egos decided that we would be staying. As we found out later, our decision to make this our party choice of the evening would pay off.

For starters, unlimited beer as well as a great spread of food was provided to us to nibble on. Jason from Techwarelabs demonstrates the operation of the self serve beer dispenser. I’m not sure what kind of beer that was, but it was one great tasting pilsner.

No party would be complete without the presence of the EVIL John Chow. Here, John heckles Jason about the size of his beer glass. Just look at that evil face of his!

Kenny, the singing CEO of Thermaltake had a lot to sing about at the party. Not only did he get to sing for us all night long, but we found out that his company is also about to IPO in Taiwan. They are just a few steps away from securing all the financing they needed to make it so. Kenny was so happy that he even brought his underwriter along to meet all his customers and sing him a song.

Remember when I said that this party was worth it? Well, it certainly was! I cashed in by winning a 2 GB Apple iPod nano and a case. John, however, won nothing despite what he blogged about. This has to be a first because he always wins something. Instead, his wife Sarah won the other 2 GB iPod nano. She isn’t sharing it with him but I’m sure he’ll take off with it anyway!

The message from Thermaltake this evening was called the Key 3 Spirit. Well, here’s our interpretation. Jason, John and I decided that the high score on the basketball game not only needed to be broken, but it would need to stand till we came back next year. So we summoned up our Key 3 spirit and blew the previous 268 Score by besting it with a 275 Score. Key 3 spirit actually means three components: Case, Cooling, Power Supply. We interpreted it as one person throwing baskets in regularly while another person stood at the top feeding in extra baskets while yet another person fed the balls up to him from the side. 3 people in the Key! This video taken by John demonstrates it…

The effort took absolutely everything we had and we were totally sweating after. I think a record of 275 baskets in 2 minutes will hold for quite some time. I’m sure people will be thinking WTF? How the heck did they do it for a long time.

Special thanks to my Thermaltake rep, Ramsom for hooking us up at this great event. More party adventures tomorrow night!