It ain't just me

In A free style guideline, Matt Deatherage writes:

Expert Macintosh users who see "MacWorld" in an article know you don't know what you're talking about, just as most technology-literate readers would laugh at "MicroSoft," "QualComm," or "LexMark."

This is the time of year when I start breaking out in hives every time I see a capital "W". I was thinking about getting one of those anti-Bush buttons with the capped W and red circle & slash over it, but no one would get the joke.

Mostly, I just wanted to enjoy the moment when I could say, "See, it's not just me!" (although I would have also included "PhotoShop" in my list).

Macworld Plans

Macworld's coming up next week, so I figured I'd put up a list of our (current) public events:

• 9 am: SteveNote. I haven't missed one in years, and this isn't going to be time I start.
• 2 pm: Kevin Smith. I don't know why he's speaking at Macworld, but I don't care so long as there's a chance I can get him to autograph my copy of Chasing Dogma.

• Noon: Tom and I are speaking in the User Group Lounge, Room 250 South Hall.
• 6 pm: Web Designer/Developers BoF. I'm running this Birds-Of-a-Feather get-together for anyone, not just Macworld attendees, so if you're a Web designer or Web developer who will be in the SF area, you're invited.

• Noon: Tom is doing an author demonstration (PDF) at the Peachpit booth (#S1001). The schedule says he's talking about JavaScript, but you'll have to show up to find out what it's really about.
• 1 pm: Blogging Under the Hood. John Welch, Andy Ihnatko, Chuck Goolsbee, and me. That's great company to be in, and I'm looking forward to it just to hear what they have to say.
• 7 pm: EFF's Sweet 16 Party. I'm not sure we'll actually make this, but I'm putting it here to remind myself that it's happening so close to Moscone.

• Nothing scheduled, and that's the way we like it. This is when we catch up on those last few booths we've missed, see friends we haven't had a chance to catch earlier in the show, shop for last-minute bargains, and hopefully leave town before it gets too late.

That's our current schedule; as always, there's much much more at the Hess Memorial Macworld Expo SF 2007 Events List, aka Ilene's party page.

Want to attend Macworld but don't want to pay for a pass? I don't blame you. You can get a free pass from Other World Computing from this page.

Want to see us? Got something cool to show us, or you're just a fan of the blog/books? Contact me or Tom asap.

And I didn't even have to die or anything

I just found out over at Making Light that I have a monument. How cool!

Here's their description:

Fig. 1: The Dori Smith Monument in the Fluorosphere Picnic Grounds
The bronze plaque with her portrait plus the full text of her code fixes is on the other side of the pyramid, facing the picnic area. The photo was taken from this side to avoid having to include the freeway overpass and various billboards that are two fields away in the other direction.

More background and details can be found here.

The Morning After

My competition:

Happy New Year from Backup Brain!

We've got this one bottle to share amongst six people for our New Year's celebration. We'll be raising a glass to the New Year, and making a toast to all of you folks, too. Thanks for another fun year of your comments, and thanks for reading Backup Brain!

Tom Negrino and Dori Smith

Update:Well, it was a pretty decent bottle of wine. It was (still is, actually; we have some left that we'll have to drink tonight) a 3 liter bottle of 1995 Hawley Wine Merlot. Hawley is a local Healdsburg winemaker, and I think this is one of his first vintages under his own name. Previously, he was the winemaker at Clos du Bois and Kendall-Jackson, but his current operation is small, usually under 500 cases of a particular varietal. We bought the bottle in April 2000, shortly after we moved here; as I recall, the vintage had just been released. A friend and colleague, Charles Seiter, had fallen ill, and there was a benefit for him at a local restaurant. The bottle was part of the silent auction. The winemaker (you can see his signature on the bottle) told us that it would be good to drink in about five years, so we put it away.

After six years of indifferent storage (lying down in our non-temperature controlled pantry), we weren't sure if it would still even be wine. The cork was wet and saturated about halfway, and disintegrated as it was removed. But the wine was good.