Monthly Archives: January 2007

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Goodbye, Papa Denny

I first heard Denny’s voice at Kes’ place. He had the Monday Monday album and a great stereo. I loved the voices, the harmonies, the melodies.

Of all the ’60’s music that I have hummed and sung throughout my life since then, The Mamas and the Papas’ were the songs that never grew stale or sounded old. For me, they are the only pop group that ever sounded like a choir. Listen to ‘Dedicated to the One I Love’ and you can hear a four person choir playing off each others’ voices.

My wife knew Denny, so I heard stories about him sleeping under her family’s Christmas tree and Cass and John and Mackenzie coming by to pick him up. She’s calling her relatives back in Nova Scotia now as I write this. The stories made me feel just one degree apart from him… and their magical music.

Thank you, Denny, for the music.

YukYuks

Thanks, Santa for my Trivial Pursuit – Web 2.0 Edition!

Dear Santa,

Thank you for new Trivial Pursuit – Web 2.0 Edition you dropped off the other day. It’s perfect for a guy who spends his commute listening to the latest tech podcasts. I particularly like the fact that in this edition there are several “right” answers to every question.

The Portable Consultant was thrilled by Trivial Pursuit – Web 2.0 Edition’s insightful trivia, such as:

  • “What does RSS stand for?”

ans.: “lots of things“

…and the ambiguous potential of questions like:

  • “Who is the Podfather?”

ans.: Depends whose podcast you listen to… Adam Curry (historical term), Ricky Gervais (The Pretender), or Leo Laporte (who favours Doug Kaye)

…and…

  • “What term is used to describe the distribution of audio content via RSS?”

ans.: “audio blog” (BC – Before Curry), “podcast”, “netcast” (if you’re a TWIT)

I love the educational value of such questions as:

  • “Name three patent holders who now effectively control the Internet?”

ans.: SCO (owns Linux), Apple (owns “podcasting” …except for Beatles golden hit shows), and Microsoft/Novell (owns Linux)

…and…

  • “When is open source not open source?”

ans.: When it’s Shared Source TM [Microsoft]”

Some questions certainly make you appreciate the value and spirit of our new online communities, such as:

  • “What did the founders of YouTube do for the video community that made them filthy rich (to the tune of 1.64B USD in Google stock)?”

ans.: They posted a short [1:36 min.] “thank you” video to the site.

Of course the publishers of the game get full marks for presentation, too! I love the O’Reilly animal pictures on the backs of the cards, the free 1000 page white paper on the definition of Web 2.0, and the one year free subscription to Wikipedia Online!

Thanks, Santa, for a great nerd’s eye review of 2006!
-pmh