Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada

One of the classic Internet meme images is the blocky stuffed monsters chasing a tiny cat. (The associated tagline is "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.") I didn't know the origins of the image, or who the monsters were, so at a low level I wondered about it—but not enough to look it up.

Then Tod asked, in frustration, "What IS this anyway?" Since I was already in bed with chemo side effects without the motivation to do much else, that got me rolling. It didn't take much to find out, and inevitably the best explanation was at Wikipedia:

Domo is the mascot of Japan's NHK television station, appearing in several 30 second stop-motion sketches shown as station identification during shows. [...]

[Domo-kun is] described as 'a strange creature that hatched from an egg.' Domo's favorite food is Japanese-style meat and potato stew, and he has a strong dislike for apples, due to an unexplained mystery in his DNA. Domo-kun is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or upset. [...]

The popularization of Domo as an internet meme and cliche outside of Japan is often attributed to a Fark thread from July 28th, 2001. The thread became popular on the then-young site, prompted in part by its serendipitous ID number of 31337. From there, Fark users began using the image and likeness of the character in various image contests and as additional, humorous banter in threads.

Alas, most images in the thread are now broken, so Google Images and Flickr to the rescue.

In other words, it's one of those semi-fluky Internet memes that no one could possibly have predicted. But the meme-launching "Domo-kuns chasing the kitten" photo has just the right combination of cute and "blurry '70s Sasquatch documentary" creepy for me that, in a way, it needs no explanation.

Labels: art, flickr, geekery, humour, meme, todmaffin, web

I know it's being marketed as the ultimate chick flick, so that no straight guy is ever supposed to want to see it, but since I liked the Sex and the City series, there was no reason not to check out the movie too. My wife invited me and our pal Tod to head down, and we all liked it.

The advertising somehow avoided it, but the film preserved the humour of the TV show, which was the most important thing for me. I think the filmmakers packed in a little too much into the movie, which seemed to put a whole TV season's worth of plot into two hours. Keep in mind too that in the world of Sex and the City, money works about as realistically as physics do in Iron Man or Transformers. And, unfortunately, I think the key moment of the central conflict of the film held back just slightly too much—it made many other things seem like an overreaction later on.

But if you liked the show, you'll like the movie. There you go.

Labels: movie, todmaffin

Earlier today, Leo Laporte, Amber MacArthur, and Tod Maffin held a discussion about the future of high-definition television (HDTV) at the big Future Shop on Broadway in Vancouver. I took some photos.

UPDATE: Dave has a good summary of the event.

Labels: ambermacarthur, geekery, hdtv, leolaporte, photography, television, todmaffin

Some of us had a blogger meetup in Yaletown tonight. Here are a few photos:

Those who joined in were Rachel Newton, Chuck LeDuc, Mark Blevis, Tatsuya Nakagawa, Andrei Iancu, Vern Baker, Tod Maffin, Jeremiah Owyang, and me.

UPDATE: Here are some more photos from Mark and Jeremiah, who has also posted some video from our table at Milestones:

Labels: geekery, meetup, photography, todmaffin, vancouver

Via Tod, I find out that you can now pay a yearly fee to buy more online storage for your Gmail account (and other Google services)—up to 250 GB. My free storage is currently at 2.8 GB, and is only about half full, so I'm fine, but it's good to have the option.

Labels: email, geekery, gmail, google, todmaffin

Speaking of seeking attention, I'll be making my third appearance on CBC Radio's On the Coast afternoon drivetime AM radio show tomorrow (Friday) afternoon after the 5 p.m. news.

If you happen to listen to it on the radio (AM 690 in Vancouver) or via the live online stream, available in high bandwidth (direct file link) or low bandwidth (direct file link) (Windows Media format), and if you get a chance to record it, I'd appreciate a copy. I'm on the air almost as much as Tod these days, although of course he gets paid for it.

My wife will also be joining me on the show for the first time. We'll be talking about my cancer and how the news has just kept getting worse, but I continue to blog about it. Listen in if you can.

Labels: cancer, cbc, ego, family, radio, todmaffin

Because I'm still recovering from all the radiation and chemotherapy and such, I can't attend the Podcasters Across Borders conference in Kingston, Ontario this weekend.

However, I was able to provide cross-country phone tech support to get Tod Maffin out of a bind when his Mac Finder kept repeatedly crashing right before his 8 p.m. (EDT) presentation. We even delved into some Unix permissions wizardry for good measure.

Good luck Tod!

And yes, I'm feeling better today, so I think it's okay if I gloat a little.

UPDATE: Here's a photo of the presentation Tod gave:

Labels: apple, cancer, chemotherapy, macbook, macosx, pab2007, podcast, radiation, techsupport, todmaffin

Tod Maffin has posted the premiere episode of TodBits.tv, his new online TV show. It runs live every Friday at 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern, and I managed to get on the air (voice only, no video) briefly. If you have an hour to spare, here is the recorded archive:

Nice job Tod, even if the first show was rough around the edges. Hey, so were the Police, and they had two other shows and a bunch of rehearsals beforehand!

Labels: friends, podcast, todmaffin, video

Tod Maffin has a new show called Todbits.tv starting this week, and he's created a little promo commercial for it, with my tune "Hotcake Syrup" as background:

And the ever-talented Kris Krug has photos of The Police's dress rehearsal for their tour, which starts tonight here in Vancouver:

Finally, I don't know this guy, but here is what it's like to climb the world's tallest tree, a giant redwood:

Labels: climbing, forest, friends, kriskrug, music, photography, podcast, police, todmaffin, tree, video

Last week I mentioned that I'm not using Facebook yet, and why. My wife does use it, and likes it. So CBC technology columnist Tod Maffin interviewed both of us about it. You can listen to his mini-documentary (MP3 file) as part of his Todbits podcast, or you might have heard it on CBC radio today.

I have to say that the peer pressure for me to get on Facebook is certainly an order of magnitude stronger than it has been for other social networking sites (except maybe, briefly, Twitter)—but I'm still holding out. I'm busy enough now as it is.

Labels: cbc, ego, facebook, radio, todmaffin