My New Year didn’t begin until I went on my second pilgrimage to the MacWorld Expo 2007 in San Francisco. One of the few places I don’t feel weird for having a chest-length beard without the mustache. I’m often told that I look Amish—or an Islamic terrorist. (When people ask if I’m planning to blow something up, I always say no but they would be the first to find out and sometimes they run away screaming.) I’ve never been mistaken for a graybeard geek. Not yet, anyway.

With the keynote in Moscone West Hall, the expo got spread out over the North and South Halls. While there was more stuff to look at, the expo was smaller in comparison to last year. This was noticeable at the book tables of O’Reilly, Peachpit Press, and Wiley, where the selection was very limited. The gaming area barely existed with three vendors, including EA showing off some iPod games. Perhaps I lost some of that wide-eyed excitement from last year before I got a Mac mini and a MacBook. There wasn’t anything exciting to look forward to.

The highlights for the day was seeing the new iPhone with the killer user interface f0r a smart phone, my friend getting books signed by Andy Hertzfield (Mac designer) and Bob Weir (Grateful Dead guitarist), and the Berkelee College of Music demonstrating how to assemble a Journey soundtrack on the Mac. I picked up a MacAlley Bluetooth wireless mouse with a recharging dock for my MacBook. It’s weird having a tailless mouse, but it’s a very sweet tailless mouse.