Category: It Happened to Me

I’ve been working on some Blogrolling.com-related projects that should see the light of day soon. Can’t talk about them yet, but will be able to soon

Boss Ross took a number of photos for his moblog, including this one of the signs I made up:

By the way, that little foam rubber cow in the upper right-hand corner of the pic is Tucows‘ most-coveted piece of swag: The Squishy Cow! We handed some out after the meeting last night.

Amber MacArthur moblogged some photos too, including Ross playing the part of “Tattoo”:

“The markup language! The markup language!”

…while I was the suave and tanned “Mr. Roarke”:

“Smiles, everyone! Smiles!”

(If the above pop culture references mean nothing to you, you’re either too damned young or I’m too damned old.)

• Last night’s OPML Meeting, in almost an outline format
• Downstairs boardroom at Tucows HQ, located in lovely Liberty Village, Accordion City.
• Attendance:
• Well attended — about 20 people showed up. Not bad for such short notice! My thanks to all of you for coming over!
• Put together by Ray “iPodderX” Slakinski and Ross “Boss Ross” Rader, with some logistical details handled by Yours Truly.
• This was presenter Dave Winer’s first visit to Accordion City. Hope you enjoyed your visit, Dave!
• Randy Charles Morin managed to make it, despite having to navigate around the traffic snarl resulting from last night’s Air France crash.
• Amber MacArthur (from Call For Help and command-N), came with a video camera and camera operator, who videoed most of the proceedings.
• Tom from CIBC wins the Scoble Award for bringing in and taking notes with a tablet PC. At dinner, he shed the light on Interac Online, which essentially lets you use your debit card over the ‘Net. (I bought my new Powerbook from my coworker James “Master of His Domains” Woods this way — rather than give him a cheque, I gave him the money via Interac Online.)
• Calvin, who has the coolest non-intentionally assigned licence plate that Ross and I have ever seen.
• Albert Lai was also there. I know him from my days at

  Mackerel Interactive Multimedia and from that crazy time when we both

  lived in San Francisco riding the P2P wave and surfing that bubble. You

  may remember him from the deal in which three guys under 20 sold a network of computer-oriented web sites to Internet.com.

• Tara Hunt, a friend whom I know from non-tech circles, showed up. I met her through Kickass Karaoke and the Naked News launch party back in February 2003. In addition to being one of the savviest online marketing gurus I know, she also organized Accordion City’s best disco parties!
• I know I’m missing some people — send me your names (and links to your sites) and I’ll add them to this list!
• Discussed
• The Air France crash
• OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)
• Dave’s OPML editor
• Blogging using the OPML editor
• Creating an outline using the provinces of Canada (including Florida as a province)
• Collaborative outling (a.k.a. intsant outlining)
• I recorded most of the meetup — I’ll post it once I’ve had a chance to convert it into MP3.
• Post-Meeting
• Closing song on accordion: Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time.

  (Those of you who know me well will probably say “What, again?”. I’m

  working on expanding the repertoire, folks.) This was a mostly new

  audience, so they haven’t heard me do it a million jillion times yet.

• Post-gathering dinner
• At the Liberty Street Cafe.
• My thanks to them — the kitchen typically closes at 9:15

  on Tuesday, but I phoned ahead and explained; they kept the kitchen

  open later just for us. Kudos!

• Appetizers: warm brie-and-raspberries platter and fried

  calamari with a nice spicy sauce. My dinner: the salmon with lobster

  mashed potatoes. Tasty stuff!

• Another accordion-powered incident: the waitress,

  Genevieve, is trying to start a cabaret and is looking high and low for

  an accordionist (“Are you a professional accordionist?” she asked, to

  which I replied, “No, I’m an amateur.) I’ll audition anyway.