Without a half-dozen purely promotional speeches to give the day some weight and heft, nobody knew what to do with themselves in Tampa today. I arrived at the media check-in around 10 am, got a swag bag that was remarkably lacking in attractive swag, and then was tossed into the convention with no goals or plans. The convention was under-attended today—most of the delegates seemed to be sticking it out in their hotel rooms, leaving only the important people, or the people who think they're important, to run around and make sure everything is ready for the real opening tomorrow. I hung around Google's media room, which had free outlets, free coffee, and other free things. (This probably comes as no surprise, but if you want the attention of journalists, give away free shit. Even bright, Google-colored buttons featuring the Google+ logo were hot commodities around the Google room among media people, which goes to show just how desperate reporters are for something free.)

I went to the convention floor to see where the muckety-mucks would be speaking. They weren't kidding when they said the podium would evoke Frank Lloyd Wright. The stage looks like one of his Pioneer homes, with extra, shameless flaggery in the background. Click to enlarge this photo for a decent look at it:

On the left of that photo is a swarm of journalists surrounding Chris Christie, who is having an "intimate" conversation with Joe Scarborough. You could tell this was the most excitement the TV journalists had had all day; they were circling Christie like they were starving seagulls and he was a smelly, oozing clam who had been out in the sun for a while. Christie, it must be said, moves like a rock star. He doesn't hesitate, he doesn't second-guess himself. He's got charisma—charisma for a politician, I mean; I don't expect him to out-charm George Clooney anytime soon—and he acts like he deserves all that attention. Which is ridiculous. The best picture I got of Christie is of his back side:

Aside from this brief flurry of ridiculous activity, the day mostly consisted of me getting to know the grounds for tomorrow's official opening and watching TV news crews set up their ridiculously elaborate lighting rigs for the anchors to make their ridiculous two-second man-on-the-scene reports. The next convention, I think, should maybe be entirely done via Skype. As today proved, you can lose an entire day's worth of activity and nobody will give a shit.