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It’s the Monday before the final Apple Keynote at MacWorld Expo, the first official day of the convention, but there’s still a sense that it really begins tomorrow, or maybe it ends.

Certainly Macworld Expo itself doesn’t feel that tomorrow is an ending, they’re already promoting the 2010 convention as “the start of a new era.” But while they’re trying to draw con goers in for next year, the exhibitors are hastily assembling their booths down in the convention center.  It’s sort of heartening to see Acura and EVE Online both rushing to finish their displays, perhaps lending an Allen wrench, and laughing at the guys from The Sharper Image.

But I digress.

But where you find exhibitors, you’ll find the press, especially if there’s free food and drinks. Making the rounds of the opening night events, we got a first look at some of the exciting products that will be shown at the Expo, as well as something even more exciting: mashed potatoes served in a Martini glass!

But it’s not all press releases and open bars. There’s also developer discontent in the form of a petition being passed around by Newber, a company that’s developed a phone forwarding app for the iPhone, but are frustrated with the lack of communication from Apple; so frustrated, in fact, they’ve put a clock on their website counting up the time (95 days as of this writing) with no response as to when their app will be available on the only legal outlet: the iTunes Store.

And so, after a long day of travel and buffet dining, we turn in and await the big announcements of tomorrow’s keynote. And in order to put you in the spirit of Macworld Expo (and in the spirit of full disclosure), I’ll be keeping a running total of the swag collected:

Day One: Laptop case from Brenthaven, and two USB Flash drives, one of which was supposed to contain a series of press releases, but which was conveniently pre-erased.