Ian Williams: “It was like Mardi Gras without the boobs…”

This is an actual screenshot from the spell-checking in my Thunderbird email client:

I guess it’s not just Fox news readers that make the mistake.

To be fair, this is apparently coming from the en_ZW (Zimbabwe English) dictionary. A known bug.

The headlines on CNN.com have long been a source of morbid delight for me. Today is no exception:

• Student-teacher sex ruled OK … sometimes
• Obamas oozed love long before WH
• Goat starts fire; cat warns family
• Co-ed’s virginity selling for over $3.7M
• Lisa Marie Presley shows off her twins

I’ve seen a few sit-coms that could use writing like that.

There’s a “seven things” thing that’s been spreading around the web recently. You write seven things about yourself, and then ask seven others to do the same.

I’ve seen it crop up on plenty of weblogs that I read, and I smugly wondered what I would do if someone asked me to participate. I mean, these kind of things are so lame. Then I noticed myself skimming the lists of who was tagged and found myself secretly hoping someone would include me. Turns out, it’s me that’s lame.

My friend John Slater, Creative Director at Mozilla (and former Rock n’ Roll Jeopardy champ) tagged me, so:

1. When I was in the 7th grade, I wrote an email to billg@microsoft.com and asked him if he could buy me a computer. I figured it would be a small gesture for him and would be huge for me. If I ever meet him, I will apologize.

2. In my mid-teens, I subscribed to Windows Magazine and read it cover-to-cover every month. I can remember being genuinely excited by a two-page spread about the project code-named Chicago. It would eventually be released as Windows 95.


3. Speaking of Windows 95, prior to its release there was a “public preview” made available. In the US it was $19.95 (supposedly to cover the costs of the disks and packaging). Here in Canada, I paid $47.95 for a preview release of Windows 95. It arrived on 37 3-1/4″ floppy disks (seriously).

4. Perhaps as a form of penance for my first three Microsoft-related points, I helped to create the logo and brand of Mozilla Firefox. While my role was only a small part of the greater project, I do take pride in having brought together the team that created the Firefox (and Thunderbird) logos, and in having helped to create the original idea of the logo along with my co-workers Stephen DesRoches and Daniel Burka.

5. In 2002, I created an online petition to have the show Northern Exposure released on DVD. It received over 1,000 “signatures”. I was interviewed by a local radio show about it. While I still love the show, I find this completely embarrassing. No thanks to my petition, Northern Exposure has long since been released on DVD, but without much of the original music, which was critical to the show. I have not purchased it.

6. When I was 12, my older sister and brother asked my parents if they could take the car for a road trip to see a concert. “Sure,” my parents said, “but you have to take your little brother.” They must have really wanted to go, because they dragged me along to see (wait for it…) Milli Vanilli. That’s right. I saw Milli Vanilli live in concert. For bonus points, Young MC opened for them.


7. I used to be in a band. We weren’t very good, but we took ourselves very seriously and had a lot of fun. One winter, we took all of our cash and booked a recording studio for five evenings. Along with two good friends, I recorded an album. Again, we weren’t very good, but we had fun and created something that we’ll always have.

Now, to pass on the virus as it was passed to me, I’d like to learn seven things about these people:

• Peter Rukavina – fellow PRAM Zapper, office co-habitant, and friend.
• Ian Williams – another PRAM Zapper, Jart-activist, and writer.
• Carolyn & Adam – my sister and brother in law (counting as one person here, as they share a blog), who are on a simultaneously delightful and trying journey to adopt a child from Ethiopia.
• Stephen DesRoches – the guy at silverorange who has to sit closest to my desk at silverorange, also a great photographer.
• Daniel Burka – fellow founder of silverorange, now Creative Director at Digg, and anti-denim activist.
• Dan James – former President of the Internet.
• Dennis Arsenault – friend and co-worker who’s musical taste I adopt and claim as my own.

Last year, I posted about a friend that had been accosted in a coffee shop by one Tim Banks. I found it delightful, at the time, that a Google search for the name “Tim Banks” brought my friend’s account of the confrontation as the first result.

Since then, Banks has started his own blog and as a result of his consistent and authentic (though moderately insane) posting, he has taken back his identity online. Credit is due.

As seen in local free coffee-shop newsletter classifieds:

Wanted: First Nintendo boy. Call 555-5555.

Phone number changed to protect the confused parent.

My friend Stephen took an amazing photo of the ceiling in the Connecticut State Capital building.