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Las Vegas Travel Diary, Part 1

the gun store

I’m in Vegas for the MIX Conference until very late Thursday night (or possibly Friday morning – I may change my flight home). Expect the usual accordion and what-happens-in-Vegas-ends-up-on-this-blog sort of hijinks.

With me are my coworkers John Bristowe, Jaime Sorgente and Frederic Harper, none of whom have ever been to Vegas before. Fred’s a special case – this is only his second trip to the U.S. (his first one was to Seattle in February), and now he’s experiencing Extreme America, which must be doubly weird for a French Canadian. This should be interesting.

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How the Times Have Changed!

zuckerberg on mad magazine cover

Even just five years ago, you might not have predicted that a computer programmer would have a movie made about him or that he and his software would be on the cover of MAD Magazine.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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Presentation Title of the Day

No joke, this is an actual title of a presentation taking place today at the Enterprise Data World conference:

session title of the day

You’ve got to hand it to presenter Jim Goetsch: there’s no doubt as to what his session is all about.

Karen “DataChick” Lopez took a photo at the session and threw in a Ken doll for surreal good measure:

ken phb

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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South by Southwest Travel Diary, Entry 7: Accordion Duet

grossman joey 1

Here’s what Dan Deluca of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about one of his experiences at South by Southwest:

I still didn’t feel I had really arrived until I sat myself down at a picnic table outside the Austin Convention Center with my schedule in hand and heard a pair of duelling accordions tooting away on the Clash’s "Should I Stay Or Should I Go." Turns out it was a pair of squeeze box squeezers named Joey DeVilla and Jon Grossman, who had only met moments before.

grossman joey 2

Grossman plays in the band Uncle Lucius, and he just moved here from Kentucky four months ago. "Once you’re here, you don’t want to leave," he said. DeVilla is a self-described "developer evangelist" for Microsoft in town for the winding down Interactive conference who uses his accordion as a social networking ice breaker. It’s working. After "Should I Stay," they stuck around, and Grossman sang Stephen Foster’s "My Old Kentucky Home."

grossman joey 3

John’s a great accordion player and a really nice guy to boot! Go check out his band, Uncle Lucius, and their tasty southern-fried rock at their site.

joey checked out

“Dude, check out the hipster checking me out.”

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R.I.P. Ryland Sanders

ryland-RIP

rylandI never met Ryland Sanders in person, just online. Still, I feel that his passing should be noted because a) he often made me laugh, and b) he often made the internet laugh with his site, Says-It, and the many sign/sticker/seal generators he created for that site, including the ever-popular Church Sign Generator.

He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for some time, and as a result died this weekend – twice. Once in the ambulance, and after being revived, for the second and final time in hospice. True to Ryland form, his last words were written in a note to his family: “WTF?” He was the same age as me: 43.

In his honour, here’s a “Church Sign War” purportedly between a Catholic church and a Presbyterian one. It was created with his Church Sign Generator, got forwarded like mad in a zillion emails and caused such controversy that Snopes had to step in and debunk it:

church sign war

Requiescat in pace, Ryland.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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Site of the Day: Charcuteroulette

charcuteroulette

Charcuteroulette is a site that displays random charcuterie. What’s not to like?

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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Unfortunate Headline of the Day

bishops agree sex abuse rules

But even with the error, the headline still tells the truth.