Monday, May 19, 2008

Thoughts For Today, Conferences And Expos

The Puck Building Where the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MOCCA) Art Festival will be held.


Two books came in for me today, Steve Resnick Tem and Melanie Tem, The Man on the Ceiling. The Man on the Ceiling is a novel based on the World Fantasy Award winning Novella of the same title. I hope it is interesting. The other book that came in for me to read today is Jeffrey D. Sachs, Common Wealth, Economics For A Crowded Planet. It was on the bestseller list.

I saw two titles that seemed rather interesting to me that the library does not have. The first is The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. It is a series of novellas set in a Polish fantasyland. It was very popular in Poland. The novel is the basis for the computer roleplaying game, The Witcher. The story is about a person who hunts monsters. I am hoping this will be a little bit different than the run of the mill fantasy stories. My understanding is that it is not written for children, it is a fairly mature story.

The other title was Cash & Carry by Tim Broderick. It is a noire graphic novel. I think it is still advertised in my Project Wonderful adspace. He is getting a bargain 4 cents a day for an ad on a website.

I was fooling around with more social networking software and I came across a rather interesting social networking site called, Upcoming, http://www.upcoming.yahoo.com/ . It is a social networking site that functions as an event listing service. The events listed reminded me of the dot com boom. It was like the dotcommies were coming out of the word work. You sometimes wonder where they are hiding.

The listings seemed to be somewhat similar to the type of thing you might see on Bernardo's List http://www.bernardoslist.com/ . I find Bernardo's List to be quite entertaining and somewhat odd. It is fun to read even if you don't go to the events.

It seems that if I really wanted to I could go on a flashback trip to the dotcom boom with its weirdly titled companies and excessive venture capital. The first week of June in New York is Internet Week. I feel like I could stand around drink beer, and have nachos in the staff lounge while watching foosball at an odd little company. There is something seriously nostalgic about this series of events. http://www.internetweekny.com/schedule/list. I haven't decided whether I want to try any of them out yet.

I feel the call of tech howling in the wind. There are a few other events which I am in the shadow of. Next Week on May 30, 2008, they are holding Enterprise Search Engine Summit. I really do like search engines. But, it costs over a thousand dollars to attend this thing. I am not even sure where I would fit in with this crowd. It has that vague feeling of somehow being mildly attached to librarianship in an outre fashion.

There are so many fascinating and odd conferences floating around New York. If you haven't found out by now, I rather like conferences and expo. I find them to be quite entertaining. There is also the Linked Data Planet Expo at the Roosevelt Hotel on June 17 and 18th. In an odd way, again, I can claim this is vaguely related to librarianship, they are after all talking about metadata, searching for things, and linking data.

Finally, there is another conference that looks rather confusing but might be entertaining, The Media Bistro Circus. I am not sure how I could justify this to my boss. Look, I am going to the circus, it doesn't have any elephants but it has plenty of clowns. Chris Andersen, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine will be there. I think it looks like something I can somehow relate to librarianship. They are after all talking about how traditional media meets the new media. It is even at the Skylight Studio, tomorrow May 20 and May 21. http://www.mediabistrocircus.com/
The event costs $545 which is more than the price of a cup of coffee in New York.

New York is just a happening place, but all these things cost money and time which I don't have a whole lot of right now. Instead I am probably going to spend my $10 entrance fee and go to the MOCCA Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Art Festival in the Puck Building on June 7. Something which is affordable and just in my price range. Internet Week might also have something in the mish mash, it is also free. Maybe someone can get me a volunteer pass for the Media Bistro Circus or let me help out at a booth. But, I doubt it.

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