Our panel on Tuesday (at SxSW if you didn’t know already) is at 10am, and you should go. But, that’s not what I’m writing about now. Thanks to Upcoming, I found out that the Comedians of Comedy are playing Austin on the 14th!!! And, better yet, Flight of the Conchords is playing too, at the same place!!!! And it’s only \$15.50 to get in!!!!! Can you tell I’m excited? You know I’m going, right? You should totally come too!!\
No, really, you should. If you ask nice, I might even let you sit next to me.\
It’ll be a great way to celebrate what I’m sure will be a successful panel (it will be, it will be, it will be, it will be… really, it will).
Category: funny
Jonesing Nerds
Instead of providing its own network, the W3C decided this year to use the hotel’s network… which I don’t think was designed to handle a couple hundred nerds and their laptops all connecting at once. Connectivity has been spotty, and it’s been fun to watch a large group of people used to being connected all the time without that connectivity. I have a feeling that the waiting room at a methadone clinic looks about the same.\
Otherwise, my jet lag has been horrible, but the food is still lovely, and the weather is great. I’m looking forward to the next four days of meetings.
Driving In Foreign Countries
I’ve never driven in a foreign country. When we drove around Ireland, I made Porter do all the driving. Now, I’m going to France for the Plenary, and I’m renting a car. The only thing that’s making me less jittery about doing so is having a friend who lives there and is feeding me driving tips for driving on the Riviera like:
- Traffic coming from the right has right-of-way unless they have a solid white line or dashed white line.
- Always lock your doors while driving
- No turning on red
- France now has speed cameras, and they’re not friendly.\
Oh, and I have Doctor Who on my iPod. MoviesForMyiPod rules.
Translation Needed
Ok, all my Russian speakers, I need a translation. What does “ti horoshi” mean? Really. It might be Ukrainian. I don’t have the Cyrillic form, just the phonetic English pronunciation. Help!\
UPDATE: Do I have no readers who speak Russian? I got the translation, and it means “you’re good”. And it’s true. I am.
Quote Of The Day
I’m back semi-working. Pain and drugs are keeping me at less than 100%, but I got a great quote today:
- Someone: Yeah, now we’re at the center of the “cool universe” around here.
- Me: You mean the “cooliverse”?\
I crack me up… and this is probably only funny if you’re taking vicodin. Sorry.
Tips For The Couch-Bound
Stuck on the couch with a laptop? Tired of your trackpad? ‘\
I have a little Kensington optical mouse I bought for travelling. It’s tiny (and so cute!), but it works really well on the couch cushion! So, I’m no longer bound by my clumsy fat fingers. I have true computing mobility again!!\
It’s the little things… like mice.
I Guess It’s My Turn…
First Sheryl Swoopes, and now George Takai come out of the closet. It must be the week for it. Ok, my turn. I was in the closet this morning, and now I’m out. I was looking for a shirt, and with the crutches and the fact that my closet is upstairs? I don’t plan on going back in the closet anytime soon.
Writing About Myself Is Hard
You’d think that having a blog would have prepared me for this moment. For SxSW, I have to write a short and long bio… about me. You would think that someone who talks as much as I do would be able to come up with a paragraph describing myself. But, every time I start, I get self-conscious about writing about myself in the third person and it goes all Bob Goulet on me. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Kevin Lawver is a passionate lover of web standards (which his wife oddly doesn’t mind). He french kisses his CSS and makes sure all his tags are closed so the neighbors don’t gossip. Kevin (that’s me) loves writing valid semantic markup by candlelight, and desperately wishes that Barry White had written a love song about CSS3 Selectors. But, Kevin realizes that it’ll probably be country music that brings us our first song about CSS – and it will unfortunately probably be about adjacent siblings. Kevin longs for the day when all browsers hold hands in harmony and web developers, management and designers all understand and love standards and understand their benefits. Kevin would also really like a cookie.
What do you think? Too much?
Anansi Boys At The Halfway Point
I got Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman’s latest, in the mail last week, and am about halfway through it. I love it. I almost don’t want to finish it, because that means it’ll be over, it’s so much fun.\
Yes, this is only half a review. If you liked the humor in Good Omens, you’ll like this one. If you liked the mythology in American Gods, you’ll love this one. So far, it doesn’t really feel like a fantasy or sci-fi novel. It’s slowly building the fantasy piece, while showing us some truly funny and interesting characters. It’s a story about fathers, sons and brothers, and feels a little bit like Big Fish to me, except that Tim from the Office is the leading man this time (if that makes any sense at all).\
Go get it. You won’t be sorry. Even if you don’t normally read fantasy or sci-fi (which I don’t), you’ll love it. Honest.
New Laptops
Work just gave me a brand new Dell laptop to replace my ancient Windows machine. What’s the first thing I do – even before installing Firefox on it? Put my MY MACINTOSH RULES sticker on it. Gotta declare your allegiances, man.\
It’s funny, but I’ve been a full-time OS X user for about three years now, and I don’t miss Windows at all. I don’t live in a Start-button world anymore. I don’t think in Windows. I think in OS X first. I know it’s weird to say that, but it’s true. My instincts have been honed. This is true of web stuff too. I had someone ask me to troubleshoot a page that was build in quirks mode, and I couldn’t do it at first. I don’t think in quirks mode anymore. I think in standards mode. My box model’s been fixed.\
I apologize to my family and non-geeky friends for the above paragraph.