On Tuesday night, attendees of the PDC were treated to a night at the Universal Studios Hollywood amusement park, which was closed off to everyone but us. Everything was free: rides, food and drinks, and the park was dressed up for Hallowe’en, complete with horror movie characters including Freddy Krueger, skeletons and chainsaw-wielding zombies.
I’ll post more photos in this blog later, but in the meantime, enjoy these photos featuring the new “Simpsons Ride”, which was very amusing. It’s one of those “ridefilms” or “simulator rides”, in which you’re placed in a ride car that seats 8 that gets jolted around in sync to an IMAX film. The basic plot:you’re trying out the new ride in “Krustyland” when suddenly, Sideshow Bob takes over the controls as an act of revenge, and hilarity ensues.
One of the best things about the ride is that they try to keep you entertained in line with…you guess it, Simpsons cartoons. These new cartoons were made specifically for the ride, feature a number of Simpsons characters and best of all, feature writing that’s a lot funnier and sharper than the show has been lately.
It’s a Silvetta 60-bass piano accordion, which is much smaller and lighter than my other ones. It’s perfect for schlepping to conferences, like the one I’m attending right now, as it’s easier to carry and fits very well within just about every plane’s overhead compartment:
Oh, the “Phileas Fogg” outfit is from Cory Doctorow’s wedding, which took place yesterday. It was a little bit magic show, a little bit Alice in Wonderland, a little bit steampunk and a whole lot of fun. Mazel tov, Alice and Cory!
Here’s a photo of Danny O’Brien and me flanking the happy groom:
I leave for L.A. at a reasonable time this morning and land at 11:00 Pacific, after which I shall check into my hotel and scurry down to the Los Angeles Convention Center to catch the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008. It won’t be all geeky stuff, and I’m bringin’ the new travel sized red accordion with me.
The geeky stuff will get posted on my tech blog, Global Nerdy, while the more slice-of-life stuff will get posted here on Accordion Guy.
I leave for Los Angeles tomorrow to attend Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (a.k.a. PDC2008). It’s typically the conference where Microsoft makes major tech announcements. I’ll be posting a slice-of-life travel diary here on the Accordion Guy blog, while the geekier stuff will end up in my tech blog, Global Nerdy, where they’re tagged PDC2008.
This song, which I’d forgotten about, just popped up on my speakers thanks to “random shuffle” and I thought I’d share it with you. It’s a cute little synthpop track from 1985 called Since Yesterday by Strawberry Switchblade, who had the “Gothic Lolita” look at least a full decade before the Japanese invented the subculture.
Back in high school, after reading Space-Time and Beyond for the umpteenth time and drinking one too many zombies with my friend Henry, we came up with a theory:
In the infinite set of universes, there had to exist a particular universe in which the events in our lives were being watched as a TV show.
We then made a solemn vow to live the kind of life that got high ratings.
