Greetings from San Jose! I wrote this piece at NAMM 2010! Or, more accurately, from a rocking party at NAMM. I was taking a break from the shenanigans at the show (did you see that picture of me partying with Gene Simmons) to bring you cats up to speed with my beardly goings-on. Also, Face of Dalrymple was passed out from one too many shots. The big news two weeks ago was the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and the Beard was there, sort of. Actually, I ditched those nerds and losers to go hang out down the road at the Adult Video News awards. All those “business lunches” I expensed? Lies Dalrymple, all lies! Truth be told, I wasn’t the only corespondent who played hooky from CES to go ogle the ladies at AVN. I’m fairly certain I saw Rob Enderle trying to score an autograph from Jenna Haze, but something, probably the fact that he kept mumbling “Windows 7, Windows 7, ZUNE,” made her shy away.

But back to CES. The big news, of course, was the confirmation of “Prince McLean’s” prediction that Apple would attend CES. No, wait, that’s not what happened at all. Here’s a bit of free advice for you “Prince,” leave the prognostication to a crack-addled baboon with a Magic 8 Ball. He’d be more accurate.

The actual big news from CES was Steve (Uncle Fester) Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft taking a few minutes out of his interminable keynote speech to try to one-up Apple. Balmer announced some sort of Hewlett Packard tablet device running Windows 7. He dubbed the category of products “slate computing.” Hmmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that term before? Oh, that’s right, “iSlate” was the name that the rumor-mongers were bandying about as a possible name for Apple’s offering a few weeks prior. Seriously baldy, if you’re going to re-introduce a nine year old device in some feeble attempt to beat Apple, you should at least think up an original name. You’re lucky that the rumors didn’t call it an iPlaque. “Plaque computing from Microsoft: 4 out of 5 dentists agree, “It’s crap.”

The other big news out of CES relating to Apple was the demo of the iPhone controlled AR.Drone. I don’t know about this one. That thing looks way to much like an ambulatory beard trimmer for my liking. You meat-sacks may be afraid of Skynet, I’m afraid of Wahl-net.

Anyhoo, I must run. Geddy Lee just bought a round of shots. After this, we’re going to reclaim Canada’s honor by giving that dork Chad Kroeger a beating.