Category: It Happened to Me

Yesterday,

we held the first “Ask Tucows” chat on IRC. This is the first of four

online chat sessions scheduled this year in which people can chat

directly with various people from Tucows to ask questions, make

comments and suggestions and get to know us a little better. About a

dozen people from Tucows participated, as did somewhere between two to

three dozen people from “the community”: customers, investors and a

couple of curious onlookers.

The chat seems to have gone over

well. The conversation was quite lively and many opinions and ideas

were voiced. It also went on longer than expected: we had the channel

open in the morning for testing purposes, and some people joined in the

conversation quite early. Although it was scheduled to run from 1:00

p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern (GMT-5), the actual chat effectively started

shortly after 11:30 a.m. and ran through to just after 3:00 p.m.. We

don’t mind this; we’d rather have the chat run overtime than close it

down early from lack of interest.

There are three more chats scheduled for this year:

• Tuesday, May 2
• Tuesday, August 1
• Tuesday, November 7

They’re

tentatively scheduled to take place between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Eastern (GMT-5), but given the way this first chat went, I’m going to

consider expanding the official hours and starting the chat a little

earlier to accommodate our European customers and investors.

Click here to read the transcript

The

Regulars is a weird site. From first

appearances, it seems to be a

photoblog featuring photos of a guy in a gas

mask posing as different

sorts of people, such as “The Hipster”, “The Tourist”, “The International

Traveller” and “The Bass

Player”.

The “About”

page doesn’t

offer much of a clue as to what the site’s about; it merely describes

the gas mask (“A replica Russian gas mask purchased from an army

surplus store. Also sold as an East German or an American gas

mask…Very difficult to breathe in, ironically”) and how the photos

were taken (“Typical setup with remote shutter, tripod, gas mask and

necktie”).

For a while, the site had a form you could fill out to receive one of

a

limited set of gifts. I signed up for one, and it arrived at the

office

this morning. You’ll have to forgive the poor quality of the images;

the only camera I’ve got at the moment is the cheap webcam hooked up

to

my office machine.

The whole package came in an orange envelope…

…containing a photo of an old 35mm film camera with “WE

MISS THE SIMPLICITY” written on it in magic marker…

…two stickers with the Regulars’ “R” monogram:

…and this puzzle:

The webcam didn’t capture the puzzle very clearly, so I’m repeating it

below:

Other people who signed up for the packages have posted photos of their

free loot:

• blog.critical
• vinterheim
• intensify.org
• Twinkling

  Radiance

• illegalcommand.org
• DesignSneak

The question remains: What is The Regulars? An art project? A Griffin and

Sabine-esque puzzle? An eccentric part of the

internet gift

economy? A prankster with a gas mask?

In anticipation of the number of podcasts I’m supposed to produce this year (such as the one I did last week), Ross had the company purchase The Art of the Interview

for me. The Amazon reviews seem to indicate that it’s more of a memoir

than a how-to book, but there’s a fair bit of information that I’ve

been able to glean from it nonetheless. Watch out, Larry King!

This

Saturday, Wendy

and I went to the Book City warehouse sale and made out

like bandits, netting about a dozen books for less than CDN$100. I

snagged:

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s

  Court by Mark Twain (a great story, whose

  premise got borrowed and mangled by a number of tv shows and

  movies)

• The Confusion by

  Neal Stephenson (continuing the Baroque Cycle, which started with Quicksilver,

  which I

  got for free)

• Pattern

  Recognition by William Gibson (Never got around

  to reading it, no idea why)

• What Should I Do With My

  Life? by Po Bronson (I enjoyed his earlier

  book,

  The Nudist on the Late

  Shift, and hey, now’s as good a time as any for

  a little self-check)

  …and finally…

• The Klingon

  Dictionary by Marc Okrand.

George

gave me The Klingon

Dictionary

back during our days at Crazy Go

Nuts University. A few months later,

Rob

MacDougall,

who needed a copy for his linguistics class (remember,

the Klingon language is a real language designed by a linguist),

borrowed it from me and never returned it. I am pleased to have this

masterpiece again and look forward to peppering my conversation with

gems such as:

• Ross, DuSaQ vumghzchwIj Sopta;

  targwIj

  Ross, the targ ate my weekly report.

• veQDuj’oH

  Dujllj’e’

  Your ship is a garbage scow.

• choSuvchugh ‘oy’lIj

  Daghur neH

  Struggling only makes it hurt more.

Here’s a little tip: Klingon sentences sound even better

when punctuated with a hearty “beeeyotch!”

When we paid for the books, the cashier, who was sporting the classic

nerd grrrl uniform, took one look at the book and said

“Sweet! I was

jumping for joy when I found out we had this book in stock. Enjoy

it!”

I shall. Qapla’!

Ross was the sound engineer for the Tucows podcast (mentioned here), so he was able to shoot this photo with his phone:

That’s me on the left, and Alain Chesnais, VP of Product Development, on the right.

…and even managed to get some video as well [435K, MPEG-4 file].