This is because we're about to start reminiscing about the good old days. If you like, you can wobble your newspaper or computer screen back and forth while you approximate a harp song with your mouth in order to denote the beginning of a flashback.

The reason for all this walking in the park and reminiscing is that we just read that Comdex is coming back.

For any youngster out there wondering why Defrag is so excited by the return of a lip balm, we'd just like to point out that you're thinking of Carmex. Comdex is the shortened name of the Computer Dealer's Exhibition.

Once, when Netscape Navigator ruled supreme and everyone was pretending that the Network PC would work, people would travel far and wide to attend the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas. Bill Gates would give the keynote address and anyone who was anyone was building an attention-getting booth.

Then in the early 2000s, the bursting internet bubble meant many of the big names such as IBM and Apple figured that instead of hiring show space just so that members of the public could gawk in a slack-jawed manner, they'd go to Vegas while the show was on, sidle up to potential customers and invite them back to their hotel room. After all, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

In 2004, the owner of Comdex, Key3Media Group, announced that year's show had been postponed. Six years later, it still hasn't rescheduled, but since the company went bankrupt, became Medialive International and then sold its event assets to United Business Media, Defrag guessed it was low on the to-do list.

However, UBM has announced that this November, Comdex is back. And this time, it's virtual.

The event, which will return to its original, narrower focus of companies that sell and distribute tech products, will feature keynote speakers, exhibit halls, conferences and demonstrations.

That's all well and good, but it seems to ignore the real reason people go to trade shows: to be permanently drunk or eating.

How can you recreate that from your desk? Easy, you ask Defrag. And no, we're not just going to say keep drinking. You should also be as sleep-deprived as possible to simulate the experience of being jetlagged and then going out for several nights.

Then you should stand in a queue. Your local post office is a good place to look for one. With some 200,000 people attending in Comdex's prime, if you weren't queuing for something, you were in the wrong spot.

Finally there's the entertainment. Go to You Tube and find performances you wouldn't normally watch by acts with little in common and you're getting close. Defrag once went to a Comdex chilli cook-off featuring armadillo racing, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Village People.

Finally, grab all your computer-related promotional items you have, dump them in a bag and look at them in five years and wonder why you still have them. Pause to think about the ones that have gone out of business. This is the exhibition floor experience distilled.

Now all that's left to do is wonder if you can persuade your boss to send you to Vegas so it feels more authentic. Otherwise, you'll have to source your own armadillo.