I thought I’d already blogged it, but I hadn’t: my friend John Bristowe, developer evangelist for Microsoft and brother of Ashley Bristowe, whom I met fourteen years ago at Crazy Go Nuts University, interviewed me for his podcast, Developer Night in Canada. We talked about DemoCamp, BarCamp and the development of the Toronto tech scene, and you can catch the podcast on his blog.
John, my apologies for not blogging this sooner!
A slightly doctored image of John the Evangelist.
For the past three years, I’ve held the title of “Technical Community Development Coordinator”. It was meant to be an interim title for use while the job was being defined. While it does have some nifty features — it’s the longest title in the company and abbreviates to TC/DC, which I’ve milked for its resemblance to the band name AC/DC — it doesn’t quite adequately explain what I do.
The title “Technical Evangelist” is more suitable. It’s well-understood in our circles, since it’s had a long history (going back to the 1980s, which is ages ago in this industry) and a noble pedigree, having been started by Guy Kawasaki when he was at Apple, and continued by respected techie statesmen like Don Box and Robert Scoble. It even has a Wikipedia entry.
Yesterday, Boss Ken asked me if I wanted to switch titles, and after having given it some thought, I said yes. So henceforth my title shall be Technical Evangelist. Can ah have an Ay-men, bruthas and sistas?!
Here’s something I’d been meaning to blog for a while now: Tom Reynolds, a Blogware user whom I met through blogging, has got a book coming out titled Blood, Sweat and Tea. It’s based on his blog, Random Acts of Reality, which chronicles his experiences as an ambluance driver in the London Ambulance Service.
Tom’s a sweet guy — it comes through in his writing, and even more so when you meet him in person (he flew from London to Accordion City to attend my birthday/engagement party in November 2004). Do youself a favour and go check out his blog and buy his book!
Just for kicks, here’s the poster for the Ramoniacs’ gig last Saturday at the Middle East nightclub in Cambridge, Massachusetts (click it to see a larger version on Flickr). For more on this gig, see my entry, Bouncing with the Ramoniacs.
My brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac, the bassist for the Boston-based Ramones tribute band, the Ramoniacs, invited me to be the Pinhead for the song of the same name during last Saturday’s show downstairs at the Middle East club. They were opening for Bebe Buell (Liv Tyler’s mom and the person whom “Penny Lane”, Kate Hudson’s character in the movie Almost Famous, was modelled).
Pinhead, for those of you not familiar with it, is the song from which the Ramones’ catch-phrase “Gabba Gabba Hey” originates. In turn, the Ramones borrowed it from the 1932 movie Freaks, where the freaks in the movie chant “We accept you, one of us! Gobble Gobble!”.
The Pinhead dance involves a “pinhead” (someone with microcephaly, like Schlitzie the Pinhead from Freaks — usually a roadie in with a pinhead mask — who bounces about the stage during the song waving a sign with the words “Gabba Gabba Hey”. If you’re interested, you can rent the Roger Corman teen movie classic, Rock and Roll High School (a cult favourite that got a mark of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes) or see this video on YouTube.
Here’s the video [4.2MB QuickTime] that Wendy shot of Pinhead, featuring Yours Truly as the pinhead. In the audience, but not shown, were Wendy’s parents and aunt and uncle, all of whom are used to this sort of goofiness from me.
Click the image to see the video.
I had a blast. My thanks to Andy and the Ramoniacs for inviting me to be the pinhead!
As for the show itself — it was excellent. These guys play and sound just like the Ramones, from the non-stop energy to Andy’s perfect imitation of Dee Dee’s “One Two Three Four!” count-offs. Remember how I posted that “One does not simply ROCK into Mordor?” Well, the Ramoniacs could.
I’ll post more videos from the show later.
We had an even-crappier-than-usual experience flying to Boston on American Eagle, but I’m too busy to write it up right now. Luckily for me, Wendy’s written up her impressions of the whole thing.
Thanks to the articles about the Japanese bag of Doritos featuring the ‘Taits-Kun’ (“Tights Guys”) characters in some hot foot-on-nards action, this blog is now one of the top results for denki anma on both Google and MSN Search. As I found thanks to some commenters and a little Internet searching, “denki anma” literally translates from the Japanese as “electric massage” and refers to the act of holding a person’s ankles as they lie prone, stepping on that person’s crotch and shaking your foot from side to side.
If you really want to get creeped out, here’s a Japanese Google search for “denki anma”. Many of the links aren’t safe for work, and I remind you that you might come out a different person just by looking at them. There are days I’m certain that the Japanese make this sort of stuff up as part of a “who can freak out foreigners the most” contest.
Perhaps I should adopt “Denki Anma!” as a videogaming battle-cry, in the same sense as World of Warcraft players use “Leeeeeroy Jenkins!”. At the very least, I feel that I should post signs all over the office that read “Employees must wash hands after using the internet”.
In case you missed the articles about the Japanese Doritos, here’s the first one and here’s the follow-up.