Vocally, Douglas Coupland sounded almost exactly like Gray. One imagines, however, that Gray would be a much better public speaker. Mr. Coupland was very incoherent and hard to follow. And somewhat dull. And pretentious.

Mr. Coupland stood in front of a robot arm (an exhibit at the museum) which slowly moved around as he talked. Every so often, the robot would flail a bit and make distracting noises, and the speaker would turn and look at it.

After the third time it did this, Coupland looked at the robot, paused thoughtfully and said in his "Jeff Goldblum saunters up to Michael Keaton" voice, "It's just discovered... element 118."

His feeble attempt at humor drew no response from the audience. "It's a geek joke," he explained. I gazed around the room at the puzzled all-geek crowd and then turned to Marc and whispered, "Apparently not."

We got some free stuff, including a "Microserfs 1995 World Tour Official pre-moistened towelette" (attached).

Drew

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