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OSCON 2008 – Schwag Count

I had an idea to do a daily schwag count during OSCON. I came home with lots of goodies last year, and I thought it would be neat to see what I came home with — broken down by day on when I picked up the item. I’m not going to do a separate post for the schwag, except for today since there’s nothing else going on that I know of…

I am now signed in and have my badge and initial bag o’ schwag plus extras that I snagged from a table near the entrance. This means the schwag count for registration day is:

  • 3 O’Reilly Pens. (I only took 2 extras because I found last year that I came home with more than a dozen pens from various sources. I’m a pen-whore, but I’m not that hard up for a massive count of pens!) I’ll probably hand out the duplicates at work to co-workers along with any extra t-shirts I get my grubby little hands on.
  • 2 pin-on buttons (1 Ubuntu and 1 Firefox)
  • 1 rubber-band launched Nerf dark from White Oak Technologies
  • 1 blue stress toy shaped like a beaker from Port 25
  • 1 small sheet of Ubuntu stickers [three of which are now on my laptop.])
  • 1 install CD for Druid which appears to be a CentOS 5 derivative for VOIP and other communications.
  • 1 DVD set (4 DVDs total) from IBM with sample software for a variety of their software packages.
  • 1 ThinkGeek catalog.
  • 4 brochures for events, magazines, and online information sources.
  • 1 mini-notebook (3×5) from Google with a built-in ribbon bookmark, and an elastic band to keep it closed when not in use or to keep it open when in use.
  • 10 flyers for “Please visit us at booth #XYZ.”
  • 8 different sample magazines from a variety of related industry publications.
  • 1 OSCON 2008 Who’s Who. (Yes, I’m in it, which means I checked the box for listing me when I registered. I’m not that special.)
  • 1 flyer from Yahoo! announcing various sessions that they have going on. I’ll need to check my schedule to see if I should swap out a planned session for one of theirs if the Yahoo! sessions are interesting enough.
  • 1 Expo Hall Passport. You get stickers from certain Expo Hall booths, and if you get them all, you get entered into a contest. This year the prizes are:
  • 1 OSCON 2008 Program Guide.
  • 1 OSCON 2008 bag (for the schwag!) This year’s bag is far superior to last year’s. Last year’s was a simple shoulder bag with a throw-over flap that had a zipper for a small pouch in the flap. There was a small velcro patch to hold the flap closed, but you had to have the just right amount of stuff in the bag to make the velcro patch line up. Don’t get me wrong. I like the bag, and I still have it. However, this year’s bag is a Masarati compared to the Porsche of last year. This year’s bag has a webbed pouch on the side that is just right for a 20 oz. soda/water bottle. There is an outer pocket that velcros closed (correctly) and in this outer pocket are pouches for 2 pens, a portable (1.8″) hard drive with cable, and 4 different business card slots that will hold multiple cards. The main section zippers closed with a good zipper and can hold quite a bit of stuff. The handles are the perfect length (for my body) as they can be held in the hand without dragging the bag on the ground, or they can be slung over the shoulder for a comfortable carry.

Schwag of the Day: It’s a close call between the OSCON bag or the Google mini-notebook, but I’m going to have to go with the mini-notebook since I’ve been wanting something like this for quite some time. It will easily fit in a back pocket. I just need to find a flat pen to slide into the notebook. I know I’ve seen them around on the ‘net somewhere. Now to find them again.

PS: Is it “schwag” or “swag”? I always put pronounce is shh-WAG instead of s-WAG because it’s more fun to say it that way. I did some searching, and found:

  • schwag:
    1. Free stuff competitors get at an event.
    2. A type of low-grade marijuana.
  • swag:
    1. Hanging cloth like a curtain of sorts.
    2. Booty stolen by a thief, but not necessarily a pirate.

Hrmm…. Looks like schwag is the right connotation here even though I’m really not a competitor, but I am at an event. I’m going to stick with schwag, but it’s not the smokable kind!!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 7:48 PM by Beosig and is filed under OSCON 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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