Tag Archives: nv08

nothern voice live blogging

Posted in the others by

08:02: I’ve been mistaken for a trumpet-playing sea bus pirate. I am beyond disappointed that I am not that person instead of just me.

09:00: They’re withholding the coffee until 10:15am. This doesn’t bother me too much, but I can see an entire lecture hall full of sleepy, hungover hipsters.

09:15: There’s another EEE PC here, but I’m fairly confident that mine is cooler (glitter stickers go a long way in making you stand out as a secret 8-year-old girl).

09:20: Someone in this hall smells reeeeally good.

09:23: Note to self: when you panic later because you can’t find your cell phone, remember that you put it in your bra. If someone calls me, my left boob is going to get a thrill it won’t soon forget.

09:25: Sponsor love, but I’d also like to give some love to Corinna – she couldn’t make the event, so I’m here in her place. Thank you, Corinna!

09:30: Matt Mullenweg is the keynote speaker, which is cool since I’m actually using WordPress as we (he) speak(s). :O !!

09:36: I appear to be sitting directly in front of Statler and Waldorf.

09:39: America’s Favourite Stains? Oh P&G, how far you’ve .. uh .. *cough*

09:44: Matt says we need to remove friction. :( I *like* friction.

09:53: Anything that takes our attention away is spam. This is excellent – I don’t have a short attention span, I am just being spammed 24/7 :E

09:53: Josh, this’ll make you happy – apparently I *AM* the only person in the world who uses Yahoo.

09:58: I am amused that Procter and Gamble – a NV sponsor – is being picked on. This is completely because they laid me off in 2001 (yes, everything is about me). Take note, employers of me! I will eventually get you in the end!

10:02: There’s a screen full of YouTube comments on the big screen, and it’s making my head hurt – illiterate internetters should be shot segregated on a monster-filled island taught how to write a coherent sentence

10:16: I need to pee.

10:20: Matt claims WordPress users are smarter and more attractive than other internet software users, and I so agree. Damn, I’m brilliant and sexy!

10:23: One of the main reasons I moved to WordPress from Ali’s homebrew was because of the spam – Akismet is absolutely fantastic for stopping 99% of the comment and trackback spam I get, and for this reason alone I want to hug the keynote speaker and maybe pinch his butt.

10:29: I am live blogging while I pee. No exaggeration at all; this sentence is being typed atop a UBC toilet. I am a very classy girl.

10:48: Attending Is advertising killing blogging?

10:52: Interactive questioning – do you have ads on your blog? I spoke up – I do not have blogs on my website because it is a 100% personal site with no value to anyone else on the internet but me. I still get pressure from people to put ads on my site; people who think I *should* be making money for what I do. It’s a nice thought, but a) I don’t want to force even more internet ads on people, and b) I write for my own pleasure and honestly don’t think I’m “good” enough to earn money for what I produce.

11:00: Man, imagine the ads that would appear if I DID use Google Ads or AdSense – it would make my website even less safe for work than I already tend to be.

11:01: VAGINAS ARE AWESOME!!! I also like wangs!

11:01.5: See?

11:16: University is dangerous. So far I’ve fallen down a step while sitting in my chair, and just now I knocked my cup off my desk (which was kindly returned by the speaker). Maybe it is a good thing I am not a university student.

11:30: Attending From Book to Blog or Blog to Book

11:34: The internet here is very spotty – my signal is strong but I can’t get out. Booooo!

11:38: I am jealous of published bloggers. One day I will learn to write many pages on one subject that more or less follows a chronological order and makes sense and stuff.

11:42: Every once in a while someone will say something that makes me remember that people – people who aren’t me or Ed – will read stuff that I put on the internet. I’ve been doing this for almost 7 years now, and I still get a huge jolt of “oh shit” when I realize that this stuff is NOT private – but then I feel very cozy inside when I remember that I don’t *want* the privacy, and I really like doing this.

11:48: “A blog is a great container for all the things I do” – Pete McCormack. Hell yes!

11:51: “unsemicolonic” is my new favourite word

12:10: Meg Tilly really, really likes blogging. It’s cute!

12:12: I want someone to follow me around all day with a boom mike. That would be really cool. Reilly wants a video crew, but I’m afraid of video – I sound and write a lot better than I look (or so the gaming communities have rather unkindly drilled into my head)

12:16: There are rumours of Mexican food being served soon. I love Northern Voice – meet some bloggers, get a free taco!

13:07: I poked the wood and it hurt my finger :(

13:14: Raincity Studios is giving out some t-shirts, and I ended up with the Space Invader shirt – how incredibly appropriate :D

13:27: I remove the quotes from the title of this post – I really kind of actually am live blogging for real, not for fakes.

13:28: . . then I fixed it, because “live logging” is something entirely different (although equally Canadian)

13:30: Attending 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story (because clearly I need more ways to say more things)

13:47: The idea of telling a story in different media types is kind of neat, but the big thing I’m getting here is having the ability to tell a media-rich (do I get bonus points for using buzz words?) story in 60 or so seconds. This, I cannot do – I currently use one medium to tell a story (this site) and it takes me a VERY LONG TIME to get any sort of point across to my audience. A perfect example: that last sentence. I dearly love words and frequently use a variety of euphemisms or adjectives to say in 28 words what I could cover in one. I wonder if I’d be any good at another type of blog – photo, video, audio.

14:06: I have the post-lunch sleepies :(

14:21: Attending The Other Side of Two Dimensions

14:38: Alex Waterhouse-Hayward is giving an awesome talk on photography and dimension (which makes me want to go out and learn how to take pictures that don’t suck), and it’s super cool that Miranda and Reilly got some heavy-duty love for their work – they are the future!

15:20: Coffee (pee) break time! I think I’ve made the decision to skip the 3:30 session – all the discussions are really fascinating, but I’ve been in (very) close quarters with strangers for many hours now and I desperately need some elbow room. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the foyer that is cool to eavesdrop in on, and the questions and love for the SqueePC are easier to answers out here. Really, though, I just want to wiggle my elbows around without fear of giving someone a black eye *flail*

15:30: I found another EEE PC being used to record video and webcam stuff – yay! (mine is still cooler)

15:44: Another note to self – Oscar has an appointment for a desperately needed tune-up at 5pm on Tuesday. Even when I am slacking off, I am productive.

16:21: Attending Apparatus For the Future

16:22: My energy is definitely waning – I’m feeling the effects of my extremely early (for a Saturday) morning

16:52: My very first Northern Voice is wrapping up in the next 20 minutes .. it’s been a blast; I’ll have an overview of what I thought (as opposed to a play-by-play of how many times I had to pee) soon!

things overheard at northern voice

Posted in adventure, everyday kimli by

People said this stuff at last night’s Northern Voice party:

  • I’m really disappointed that there’s no asiago cheese; smoked gouda just doesn’t do it for me
  • My husband keeps asking when I’m going to sleep with you
  • I had to take the bus here and I’m a little traumatized
  • I’m Chris, with a CH
  • I cant believe it – she’s not on Facebook
  • She couldn’t believe it was my 182nd birthday!
  • How does it open? Do you spread it?
  • People DIE! That’s the next big industry!
  • *OH*, *YES*
  • Say something normal!
  • STDs: DAMN!
  • What was the name of that movie? Is it on Itunes?
  • I have a US credit card, so I’m good
  • and then I stared at her chest
  • If my girlfriend ever had an affair with someone who wrote a sentence that boring, I’d shit twice and die
  • He had a picture of his balls on his Facebook profile! I was like, I KNOW THOSE BALLS!

Other things:

My EEE PC (that is a pain in the ass to type and say; from here on out it shall be known as the SqueePC) was a total hit – I had many people coming up to me and asking about my tiny, tiny laptop. I already carry it everywhere, but now I’m going to come up with reasons to always have it out and in use – I’m far too shy to ever go up to someone and say hi; the SqueePC seems to have the power to bring people to ME and force me to talk to them so this is good.

I had a really good time, and it solidified my resolve to somehow get into Saturday’s conference NO MATTER WHAT (dun dun dun). Luckily, my resolve needn’t been as ominous as the power chords sound – I was told by an organizer to give him a call when I arrive and he’ll get me in; or if I wanted to go the honest route, I might be able to take the place of someone who decided not to go.

True to my nature as an introverted extrovert, I spent the first couple hours last night hiding in the corner. However (and this was some savvy planning on someone’s part, I’m sure), it is very difficult to hide in a corner in a circular room. Once again, I found myself slowly coming out of my Shell o’ Fear and actually making conversation with people around me. By the time I had to leave, I had signed up to read aloud one of my posts to the gathered masses – un/fortunately, Ed came by to pick me up before my turn came up so my words remain in my head. It’s just too bad I couldn’t have arranged to talk about video games while wearing a corset – they would have had to drag me off the stage then. It’s a constant source of disgust for me that I am only ever really comfortable with other people when a) I can talk about video games, or b) my boobs are trussed up and on display.

The dinner was quite good – there were four types of meat served (why this is of import to me I will never know – you should have heard me squealing when Reilly once ordered a burger that came with THREE KINDS OF MEAT). I discovered that as much as I truly love bacon and the lifestyle that it implies, I really do not like the rest of the pig so much – a spit-roasted pig was served (thankfully pre-chopped; I don’t think I could have handled seeing an actual pig rotating on a stick) and it was not to my taste at all. Bacon (and sausage) is super; you can have the rest of it.

Also, I seem to have wrangled myself an invitation to a hedonistic sex resort. Sweet!

The pasta sauce was labeled as spicy, but I really found it more musty.

Meeting people is still terrifying, but look at me do it anyway!