fun

November 21, 2016 fun

Viking Me

Viking Me

Today, I was asked about the story behind my viking avatar: The avatar is years and years old. Peter Stern, a graphic designer friend of mine, put together a set of avatars for me for something (I forget what) and the viking is the one that resonated with me the most because of my Norwegian heritage, my physical stature and my general demeanor (those of you who know me have never asked why I choose a Viking avatar : ).

May 6, 2016 fun

Solitaire Redux

Solitaire Redux

I’ve done a bunch of stuff related to Solitaire on my blog for some reason. I guess I’m a fan, although mostly these days I focusing my listening in boring meetings with 2048 or Border Siege (the real reason I have an Android phone).

August 26, 2010 fun

The Downside Of Working At Home

I’ve been working at home off and (mostly) on for 16 years…

May 7, 2010 fun

Working Hard: WhirlyBall

What my team does on an average Wednesday afternoon:

June 3, 2009 fun

Helping to set up fireworks for the 4th of July?

Last year right after the 4th of July, one of my kind readers offered to let the me and the boys help set up and set off this year’s 4th of July show in or around Portland. However, I can’t find who offered. If that kind reader is still out there, can you drop me a line? I’m sure my 60-year-old father would like to help, too. Thanks!
May 26, 2009 fun

Flinging My 60-year-old Mother High Into The Air

My mom came to visit to celebrate my 40th birthday and her 60th birthday. She and the Sells Brothers and I spent yesterday afternoon wandering along the waterfront, checking out exotic animals, ditching lame cowboy comedians and eating elephant ears. And then, to put a point on the day, we launched ourselves 100 feet into the air on a giant bungle cord machine.

February 19, 2009 fun

I love Microsoft’s terrible automated voice attendant

Long-time readers may recall when I got an angry caller from a Vista user that had trouble configuring it the way they wanted it. They got to me because they were looking for sales” using the automated voice attendant that matched my last name instead (“Sells”) and forwarded him to me in the middle of a 1:1 in my office. Not wanting to let a customer go away angry, I stopped what I was doing and did my best to try to help.

It happened again today, except for an angry middle-aged guy, I got a call from the sweetest 12-year-old girl you’d ever want to talk to. Her Word CD had gotten scratched and she needed a replacement so she could write a big paper due next week. I considered telling her that I wasn’t in sales or support or getting her number and calling her back (I was IM’ing with four other people at the time and I was late for a meeting), but she was so earnest that I just couldn’t turn her away.

January 18, 2009 fun

There once was a man from Duluth

nearly 40 years old; past his youth!
But tonight with a smile,
he swam non-stop for a mile.
First time in his life - that’s the truth!

I swam a mile when I was 17 and again last summer, but never non-stop before. I know it doesn’t compare to real swimmers (it took me 45 minutes), but I’ve been swimming for less than a year. Plus i found two meaningful rhymes for Duluth.” I rock. : )

December 16, 2008 fun

The Poker Brat

You may or may not know it, but I’m a big poker fan. For a while, I thought about quitting my job and being a Texas Holdem poker player. I’ve studied a stack of poker books and every once in a while, I get to be at a table when there’s a moment” — somebody gets cocky and gets beat in just the way they deserve. I’ve been the cocky guy and I’ve been the guy that does the beating. Here’s an example with poker brat Phil Hellmuth of what I’m talking about:

August 18, 2008 fun

DVDFab + My Own DVDs = Couch Convenience

I don’t know if it’s legal or not, but if you use DVDFab with the Mobile option set to XVID video + MP3 audio (both supported by the XBOX 360 if you have the latest updates installed), you can rip the movie from your DVD (no menus, extras, etc) onto a network share (I use my Windows Home Server box), scroll through them on my XBOX 360 and play them back with a/v quality high enough that I can’t tell the difference (and I don’t have the quality cranked as high as it goes by any means).

Each movie takes roughly 1GB, so I can get all of my DVDs stored for the cost of two weeks’ worth of lattes (although I’m really just using the spare space on my 1.4TB of WHS storage). Plus, since I’m still in the 30-day trial period of DVDFab, if I hurry, I could rip them all for free (although for the $40, DVDFab Gold is definitely worth the price). It generally takes about 45 minutes per movie, so I’ll be flipping a lot of DVDs during the next 30 days and I haven’t bothered to figure out how to get DVD metadata, e.g. cover art, etc, but other than that, the experience is a wonderful one. In fact, since I hate going through all the previews and menus, just picking the movie from a list and having it playing immediately is a better experience that a DVD in many ways.

February 1, 2008 fun

I woke up today and decided to win the lottery

And so I did the only thing I could to do increase my odds — I actually played the lottery. (I blame my inability to apply this strategy for my lottery losings in the past.)

I did a little research and then went to two local Plaid Pantries to purchase the Oregon Lottery Trio.”

January 30, 2008 fun

Poetry Proclivities

I’m not a big poetry fan in general, but notable exceptions are Poe’s The Raven (especially the Simpson’s version), Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein.

However, I have to admit a certain fondness for the lowly limerick. I’ve done some composing, but the subject matter is often not something I’d want to post on my blog (“Hi, Mom!“), so when I ran into the rare clean one, I had to share:

December 27, 2007 fun

Fingerling Potato Baby Jesus

This is what happens when my relatives get together and the wine flows freely… : )
December 11, 2007 fun

Here Comes Another Bubble sttto some Billy Joel song…

December 10, 2007 fun

Win a Trip to NYC + WPF Dream Machine with Your WPF Application Stylings!

The nice folks at Lab 49 are throwing a contest for WPF programmers.

The goal: take the financial data they provide and build a kick-ass WPF app around it.

December 3, 2007 fun

StayAtHomeServer.com!

From Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?:

When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, the daddy wants to give the mommy a special gift.

So he buys a stay-at-home’ server.”

November 24, 2007 fun

Amazon Kindle Real-Life Review

I’ve posted about ebooks before (e.g. I Hate Books). It sounds like the Amazon Kindle has some real potential. All we need is a product with enough critical mass to create a market and then we can have real competition ala the music player market.

Has anyone used an ebook reader before? I have some friends with the Sony version and they love it. Are we there yet? Does anyone have a Kindle?

November 14, 2007 fun

Free copies of “Programming WPF” for YOU!

I just got a box full of free copies of Programming WPF from ORA.

If you want one, post a comment on this post with a) a reason why you deserve one and b) contact info so I can follow up for snail mail addresses.

October 3, 2007 fun

Yahtzee Croshaw — You’re My Hero!

First it was the Halo 3 review (which I can’t agree or disagree with yet because I’m still stuck on level one) which a Wii zealot forwarded to me because he likes to send me links to negative portrayals of anything MS-related (like that’s a challenge to find : ), then it was the BioShock review (a game I never figured out the cool part of), then his POV on the console wars (I’m proudly a member of the frat-boy demographic!) and finally it was the Tomb Raider Anniversary review (a game I haven’t played since v1 and preferred the Apple ][+ equivalent) which had me laughing out loud.

Agree with him or not, you gotta appreciate Yahtzee’s style.

September 9, 2007 fun

I’m an “Uber Cool High Nerd”

June 5, 2007 fun

What’s your programmer personality type?

June 4, 2007 fun

A really bad optimization

I always knew that the scientists would optimize away sending the matter when all they need is to send the state:

A team of physicists has teleported data over a distance of 89 miles from the Canary Island of La Palma to the neighbouring island of Tenerife, which is 10 times further than the previous attempt at teleportation through free space. The scientists did it by exploiting the spooky” and virtually unfathomable field of quantum entanglement - when the state of matter rather than matter itself is sent from one place to another.” [ed: emphasis mine]

May 30, 2007 fun

Microsoft Surface

I sent the boys to the Microsoft Surface web site last night while I was in another room. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that many
April 27, 2007 fun

Shooting the Sh*t with Scott (part 1 of 2)

Scott came over to my house and we made up a topic (“Software: The Last Fifteen Years and the Next Fifteen Years” in two parts), but it’s really just an excuse to talk to each other and have a good ol’ time. Have a listen.

P.S. Sorry about coughing they weren’t able to edit out. Alergies…

March 21, 2007 fun

Name Sara Williams’s Baby Girl

Today, Sara Williams, ex-Developer Relations Group (the folks at MS that were allowed to speak to developers before we had blogs), ex-MSDN head and ex-Microsoftie has given birth this morning to a 5 lb. 4 oz baby girl. Both mother and daughter are doing well (and father is resting fitfully, having lost a month of sleep with the arrival of his daughter a bit earlier than planned).

However, their daughter does not yet have a name and, on the suggestion of Mr. Box, I am soliciting suggestions. If your suggestion is picked, you will be awarded a signed book of your choice (regardless of whether I wrote it or not). Have at it!

February 8, 2007 fun

Slide your vote in for ScottH’s Podcast

I only listen to one podcast, so casting my vote for Hanselminutes on podcast alley’s list of top podcasts was a no-brainer.

Plus, when I voted, they had a free sample for K-Y Brand Intrigue, which is apparently the longest lasting premium personal lubricant. The opportunity for jokes here is boundless, so let’s start w/ some obvious ones and I’ll send a free copy of Programming WPF to the best one in the comments:

February 3, 2007 fun

Stange But Real Facts

I don’t know how many of these are actually real (my left-handed son was very disappointed to hear that he’d be dying 9 years before his right-handed brother), but they were very fun to read with the kids.

P.S. Can you lick your elbow? Tom claims to have a friend that can lick his. He’s going to be very popular when he grows up…

December 31, 2006 fun

On good days, I’m Iron Man…

On good days, I’m Iron Man…
My superhero results:
December 26, 2006 fun

Special Holiday Episode IV: DBox and ChrisAn

″?Keeping up with their tradition, Don and Chris sing an inspired song for the holidays.”

Merry & Happy!

December 21, 2006 fun

Somebody Diggs Me…

Somebody Diggs Me…

I don’t know why the MS interview page is suddenly digg-worthy after all these years, but it’s nice to be dugg:

December 14, 2006 fun

Rory, Distilled

Lord knows, I love Rory, but easily my favorite thing are his comics. However, he doesn’t do enough of them, so if you’re looking for a Rory-alternative between comics, check out xkcd. This is the one that made me realize just how Rory xkcd is:

November 11, 2006 fun

Pies & Marketing Guys

Pies & Marketing Guys

It all started with a bet that my new marketing guy could meet his promised numbers by a certain date. Figure 1 shows me reading his results report at VSLive 2003. Figure 2 shows the audience deciding if that was good enough. Figure 3 shows him taking a pie in the face as revenge by engineers for the missed promises of marketing guys everywhere.

Figure 1: Reading the marketing results report to the audience

October 28, 2006 fun

Project Life Cycle

Project Life Cycle

This one’s been around a while and just feels so true…
Sat, 10/28/2006 10:24am

October 18, 2006 fun

Imitation, Flattery, Nudity

Imitation, Flattery, Nudity

From JJ5′s web site.
Wed, 10/18/2006 11:08am (what a thing to see so early in the morning…)

October 11, 2006 fun

The Positronic Man

The Positronic Man

From left to right, Ted Neward, Rocky Lhotka, Chris Sells’s cardboard cutout and his electronic image projected to building 33 in Redmond, WA from Lake Oswego, Oregon, Patrick Cauldwell and Scott Hanselman.

October 6, 2006 fun

I don’t know what this has to do with Vista…

but I like it.
October 2, 2006 fun

Teaching Kids To Do Cool Computer Stuff?

My youngest son’s teacher found out I work at MS, so now he expects me to come into his class to teach them cool stuff. I’m happy to do that, but now I’m worried about putting together a cool 1-4 hours of stuff to do, e.g.

  • Cool PowerPoint stuff (wowing their classmates)
  • Cool Excel stuff (doing their math homework)
  • Cool Web stuff (building their own web site)
  • Cool Programming stuff (writing their own PC/XBox 360 games)
  • Cool Hardware stuff (programming a robot)
October 1, 2006 fun

Null Pointers Don’t Have To Be Dull Pointers

Null Pointers Don’t Have To Be Dull Pointers

Posted without permission after reading it in today’s paper
Sun 10/01/2006 3:01pm

August 30, 2006 fun

USB MP3 Player + SD Card = Gadget-o-licious

The sound quality ain’t that great, but don’t criticize the dog for being off key…

August 30, 2006 fun

Develop Games For Your Xbox 360

The Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express (Beta) is available for download:

XNA Game Studio Express enables individuals and small teams to more easily create video games using new, optimized cross-platform gaming libraries for Windows and Xbox 360. This beta release targets the development of games for Windows. The final version of XNA Game Studio Express will be available this holiday season and will enable development of games which target Windows and upon purchase of a XNA Creators Club subscription, the Xbox 360 as well.”

August 28, 2006 fun

Wikipedia has an open enrollment day…

Right there next to Don Box, Jeffrey Richter
August 27, 2006 fun

Fun Presentation

In massive writing avoidance mode, I found my way to Seth Godin (who I don’t know from Adam) doing a great presentation on stuff that’s broken at Gel 2006 (I conference I’ve never heard of) as a way to promote his site
August 23, 2006 fun

I listen to one podcast: HanselMinutes

Scott created his podcast with the idea of not wasting his listeners’ time and he’s done it. HanselMinutes is the only podcast I listen to. In fact, I prepared for a long car drive by filling my phone w/ episodes I hadn’t hear yet and listened all the way (except when I called Scott to complain about one of them : ).

Not only does Scott have a fabulous list of topics for the Windows developer, but the way he explains them is wonderful, too. I don’t know where the guy finds the time to do all the stuff he talks about; I’m jealous!

August 15, 2006 fun

Vista Song Parody from Ted + Carl!

I’m a big Ted Pattison fan in general (you have *got* to hear the story where the cowboy shows up at the door in buttless leather chaps), but he’s at his best when he’s singing (or holding Don’s hand). Of course, Carl Franklin’s no slouch at singing either (I don’t know how he his at holding hands or whether his chaps have a butt or not), so you’ll want to hear them singing Why Did Shipping Vista Turn Out to be so Hard” sttto
July 14, 2006 fun

I’m on MySpace now

I’m on MySpace. Now what?
July 5, 2006 fun

Superman Returns: Boring

Superman Returns has some cool scenes and Kevin Spacey does a great Lex Luthor, but overall there were far too many soulful looks between Superman and Lois Lane for my taste. It’s a matinee at best.
June 24, 2006 fun

Oh La La — Qtek 8500!

I got my Qtek 8500 today. The bad news was that I got the French version of the manual, but that wasn’t so bad, since I wasn’t going to read the manual anyway. However, the worse news was that all of the phone menus where in French, too. The nice folks at expansys.com were quick to send me the set of menus to turn English back on, but the instructions they sent where themselves in English, which required me to do a little babelfish work to translate into French menu text, but I managed.

June 22, 2006 fun

Free Portland Code Camp, 7/22-23

I’ve just registered for the Portland Code Camp 2.0, July 22-23. It’s a free conference that includes 26 developer sessions (so far), food, a party and the potential to win an XBox 360. And did I mention it was free? I’m not sure about the name (it’s being held at the Washington State University in Vancouver, WA), but other than that, what’s not to love about a local, free, developer conference?!?

And if you’re coming from out of town and need a place to crash, I’ve got a spare room. Come one, come all! Tell a friend! Register today! It’s free!

June 22, 2006 fun

My Qtek 8500 should be in my hands tomorrow!

The reviews have been largely positive (but not completely), and I’m very much looking forward to my new QTEK 8500 (aka the Star Trek [STRTrk?]). Apparently I’ll be one of the first folks on the west coast to have it, which will probably destroy my book-writing productively over the weekend (I’m supposed to be working on the Avalon RTM book).

Being first with hardware is not generally something I like to do. In general, I purchase laptops and cell phones and not many of either (usually one every 18 months of either). Frankly, I’m a late adopter on hardware cuz I like to handle someone else’s first (no snide comments, please… : ). However, the experience with my Audiovox 5600 has been so positive and the features of the QTEK 8500 are so overwhelming (on paper) that I just had to get it ASAP. It’s really the first Windows Mobile 5 phone I’ve found compelling.

May 30, 2006 fun

I wish I had time for this

Alternate Reality Gaming sounds like fun, but I just don’t know where people find the time…
May 12, 2006 fun

Code Monkey: The Song

Check out the Code Monkey mp3!

May 7, 2006 fun

There’s a Windows “Brat Pack?!?”

Not only does Amazon.com have a traffic ranking for sellsbrothers.com (80,616 — this number sounds too high to be good : ), but there’s a web site review claiming that I’m one of the Windows Brat Pack.” I have to associate with Anthony Michael Hall or Rob Lowe from this bunch (they seem the most geeky), but them who’s Don and who’s Tim? Definitely, Ted Pattison is Judd Nelson…

March 15, 2006 fun

Ninja’s Need Love

I love the internet. Where else would you see a video of a ninja answering letters about love?
March 10, 2006 fun

Zombie MMORPG

Here.

I love this idea!

March 9, 2006 fun

I’m *loving* the new live.com images search

Live.com has a new image search which does progressive showing of images, scaling of the group and individual photos in very cool ways, but the killer feature is when you surf to the page from whence the image comes, the image is shown in full size hovering above the page. Very slick. My only complaint is that there seems to be no way to do an image search w/o first doing a normal search and then pressing the Images” button. Still, I’ve switched from a9.com and google.com image search.

March 3, 2006 fun

Fabulous Half-Life 2 Comic

Here’s a tip — if you’ve got a deadline, don’t wander over to the Half-Life 2 comic Concerned.” I’m a *huge* Half-Life and Half-Life 2 fan, so when I heard about it, I went right over and now that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back (but were oh so pleasantly spent) reading all 120 comic strips front to back. Since I’ve been spending my evenings and weekends playing Half-Life 2 again (why oh why aren’t there any more good games?!?), all of the stuff in these comics is fresh in my mind. Plus, I don’t mean comic inspired by Half-Life 2;” the guy actually posing characters and objects from the game using a Half-Life 2 mod and builds his comics out of the screen shots, adding hilarious prose. It’s like if Rory built his comics from Stick Figure World 3D (coming soon to XBox 360). Very highly recommended.

January 29, 2006 fun

IT Crowd: Yesterday’s Jam

Why is British comedy so much funnier than ours? Check out Yesterday’s Jam.
January 19, 2006 fun

Looking for an Xbox 360

I got my first hands on Xbox 360 demo today and I want one! Unfortunately, MS employees aren’t treated specially, i.e. there isn’t a big warehouse full of 360s for us at the MS Store. However, there is an internal mailing list filled with rapid pre and post-360 purchasers that showed me several resources to use to find 360s:

  • 360 Tracker, a WinForms app to find stores in my area with 360s in stock. Will alert me via email and my cell phone as well as on my computer screen. It’s running now.
  • NotifyWire.com, a web site that will filter for online sales in my price range and notify me via email and SMS. I’ve created my account.
  • xbox360tracker.com, a web site that shows online sales and their in-stock status. Available as an RSS feed, so that’s a reason to run one again! : )
January 16, 2006 fun

My Son’s First Computer Program

Wonderful things happen when I tell me kids to stop playing video games and to stop watching TV (I try to limit them to an hour of each/day). I mean, aweful things happen at first — you’d think I stuck a sharp stick in their eye. But, after the hollowing stops (and the pull the stick out), the imagination kicks in and they think of stuff to do. Today (they were home from school on MLK Day) John asked if he could write a program.

Now, as you may or may not recall (or as you may or may not care), I just moved a few months ago and I haven’t built enough shelves to hold all my books yet, so my copy of Microsoft C# Programming for the Absolute Beginner, by Andy Harris (which I’d purchased in case this day every came) was buried who knows where. I scoured every book box stacked in the closet in my office and every book box I could get to in the garage before risking an antique painting and crawling behind four matteress to dig through the one box I just couldn’t reach to find it (why is it that whatever you’re looking for is always in the last place you look?!?).

January 10, 2006 fun

The “Famous” Book Fight

So, I read Rory’s latest comic and laughed. A lot. However, I haven’t posted it because I figured anyone who’d be amused would’ve already seen it.

And then I got a ping from a marketing friend of mine who’d seen it and wondered what I thought. Granted, he’s a marketing guy in the IT field, but still — he’s a *marketing* guy. I mean, I don’t read their bait & switch blogs, so what’s he doing reading our geek-out blogs?!?

January 1, 2006 fun

A Quote With Which To Kick Off The Year

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.“
–Redd Foxx

Happy New Year!

December 29, 2005 fun

George Carlin’s Incomplete List of Impolite Words

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, this completely violates George Carlin’s copyright, but I purchased the $80 CD box set and it wasn’t on there, so I feel like I’m owed. Also, the audio is in RealMedia (.rm) audio format, whose player may have been the world’s most aggressive piece of mainstream software before spyware became a plague to rival locusts and frogs falling from the sky, but a quick batch processing pass with GoldWave on the one computer in my network with a RealMedia audio codec installed and I’ve got the MP3 version. Finally, this is completely work unsafe and you shouldn’t even think of looking at this web page at work, let alone listening to the file in question.

I can’t believe that after all these years, I still find George Carlin’s Incomplete List of Impolite Words amusing. It makes Tom Green’s Pet Names for Genitalia seem like a poem you’d write on a mother’s day card. For your grandmother. On a dialysis machine.

November 26, 2005 fun

Wasting the Prince of Darkness

80% of the email I get about my Microsoft interview question site (which, 2.5 years into my MS career, nobody has yet forced me to take down) isn’t very fun, e.g. asking for the answers (which I don’t give) or fairly pedestrian stories (“I got asked some regular questions but didn’t get hired.“).

This one, though, is definitely worth posting. Enjoy!

November 13, 2005 fun

Dilbert on Trial Redundancy

As an engineer, I appreciate the efficiency of combining the criminal and civil trials into one. Plus, if it weren’t for
November 11, 2005 fun

Best Exam Answer Ever

Best Exam Answer Ever
November 11, 2005 fun

Best Exam Answer Ever

Best Exam 
Answer Ever

Private email forwarded by Adam Denning

November 11, 2005 fun

Wahoo2!

Because Michael Weinhardt has ported it to Windows Forms 2.0 and ClickOnce, now Wahoo2! is available on your Start menu whether you’re connected to the internet or not. Enjoy!

October 26, 2005 fun

I’m all ready for 9th grade

You Passed 8th Grade Math
Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!
October 22, 2005 fun

Samwise Gamgee was the ultimate Program Manager

That is all.
October 21, 2005 fun

@ MS, We Share Your Pain

Check out the new feature in Vista that allows MS developers to feel your pain when a crash occurs in a very real way.
October 20, 2005 fun

I’m the “with” @ the Redmond P&P Summit

Sure, sure, Alan Cooper and Anders Hejlsberg are keynoting, but I’m the with” at this year’s Redmond, WA Patterns & Practices Summit 12/13 - 12/15. I don’t yet know what that means, but maybe if I’m enough with it” in Redmond, it’ll lead to with-ness” in Sydney or Oslo (hint, hint… : ).

October 20, 2005 fun

Top 10 List of Top 10 Lists

I decided to go a little meta for this year’s XML DevCon:

10. Top 10 List of Top 10 List of Top 10 List Ideas (a little too meta)

October 18, 2005 fun

Retaking the holy land

I just found the most awesome site: http://grouphug.us. So far, this is my favorite
October 14, 2005 fun

Quote of the day

More and more people I know know more and more people I know.” –Melissa Sells

October 13, 2005 fun

His Outsourced Life

Here.

An Esquire magazine author hires not one but two Indian assistants and outsources practically everything but watching TV to them. By the end of the article, he’s outsourced writing the article. I don’t know if it’s true, but it is funny (and scary).

October 10, 2005 fun

It’s a Windows Life

A story about how the world would be if MS never existed.

I come from a world where I had a Mac at home and a Unix box at work, giving me the best of both worlds in the late 80s. After that, I got a job at Intel programming Windows 3.1 and wondered why the hell this piece o’ crap ran most of the world. 15 years later, I’m a happy Windows user and programmer. Did I change or did Windows?

October 10, 2005 fun

Shepherd Book Wasn’t Always A Shepherd

Aha! I finally figured out where I know Shepherd Book from and I now understand the references to the fact that he wasn’t always a Shepherd. At one point, when he was much younger, Book was Det. Ron Harris from the 12th precinct in Los Angeles! I believe the low point in his career was in episode 135 and 136 (a rare two-parter) where Harris turns a low-budget pornography investigation into a major motion picture
September 30, 2005 fun

Looking forward to “Serenity”

IMDB: 8.4/10”

Oregonian: A-”

September 29, 2005 fun

Light Sabers You Can Actually Battle With?

These light sabers look very cool. It’d be nice to give my boys something that they could fight with that didn’t break in 5 minutes (of course, I might need one, too, just as a backup…).
September 15, 2005 fun

Double Wow

The new Nintendo control looks *very* cool…
August 29, 2005 fun

MS Interns Out of Sync (Video)

You have to love a bunch of geeks willing to publish a video of themselves doing a parody of an N’Sync song, including the dance moves. Nice!

[via Mr. Anderson]

August 26, 2005 fun

Avalon + Indigo = Magic @ the PDC

Doug and I will be giving the following talk at the PDC this year:

Are you tired of lackluster user interfaces and bit-dropping communication infrastructures that don’t work together? If so, then you’ll want to see the magic that Doug Purdy and Chris Sells can wield when they build a couple of smart client applications using Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation. In this talk, you’ll be astounded and amazed by the power and simplicity of Doug and Chris, plus they might show you some WinFX, if you ask nicely.”

August 24, 2005 fun

PND For You And Me

Between the new job, the new house and the book, I haven’t had nearly enough contact with my local nerd friends. I’m starting to experience nerd withdrawal symptoms! Come to the PND next Tuesday and ask me about MDD, my PDC talk or how Jeff Richter and I were recently blamed for IDisposable.

August 5, 2005 fun

Fight Club Rules 9-16

If you love Fight Club (who doesn’t?!?), then you’ll love the rest of the Fight Club rules
August 5, 2005 fun

I Love Arguing with Ian

Here.

Ian and I submitted the final manuscript for Programming Avalon, Beta Edition, on July 13th (right on time, I’ll point out). Since then, the O’Reilly folks have been working overtime to fix my prose (I’m not a big fan of editorial guidelines or templates). As part of that process, they sent Ian and me a 400+ page PDF file for us to check. In the process, I submit changes to the manuscript, Ian argues about the ones with which he disagrees and then I argue with his arguments. It’s great fun.

July 20, 2005 fun

Have Sex With Prostitutes at the PDC

At least that’s the message I’m getting from the 2nd episode of the Channel 9 guy’s trip across country to the PDC (I’m not saying that’s a bad message — it sure beats the whole
July 17, 2005 fun

I don’t know who has time for this stuff @ work…

but it’s fun anyway…

[Scoble]

July 6, 2005 fun

Old Man’s War

I read Old Man’s War today (no better way to avoid writing than to read). I enjoyed it very much. I’m off to check out the author’s web site
July 5, 2005 fun

Taking a break from writing on Saturday to see FF

Rich is tired of me blowing off the local nerd events, so he set up something he knows I can’t stay away from: an afternoon showing of Fantastic Four. I’m an FF fan from way back (every time Don signs his emails nuf said I get a little tingle of nostalgia). I’m been loving the Ultimate Fantastic Four trade paperbacks (that’s what adults call comic books that have been collected into a bigger, more expensive book).

I don’t have much hope that this movie will be any good, but the Brothers Sells and I can’t not go. Feel free to join us! Rich has picked the 12:25pm showing on Saturday, July 9th, at the new Century 16 Cedar Hill Crossing theater that I love, just to make sure there would be no way I could say no.” Plus, I’ll be deep in the throes of finalizing the Avalon book chapters that day (along with every other day this week — what a way to burn vacation days), so any excuse to avoid the writing will be good. Come one, come all!

June 27, 2005 fun

The scientists never survive this kind of thing…

I can’t believe nobody* blogged about this today! Isn’t this the beginning of most sci-fi horror movies?!? By the end of the movie, all of the scientists die and only one good-looking male/female pair are left, having barely averted the Apocalypse (no one every expects the Apocalypse…). Since I identify with the scientists and barely know anyone good looking enough to survive, I’m not so sure reincarnating dogs into zombies is such a good idea…

*by nobody” I mean nobody” I read, of course — I sure it was all the news amongst the dear diary” set : )

June 21, 2005 fun

On the road to the PDC via Twin Peaks

June 16, 2005 fun

The logicial conclusion of spam

This one made me laugh out loud:

June 13, 2005 fun

Me and the Star Wars Gang

Me and the Star Wars Gang

The boys and I went to ROTS on the 2nd night and our local theater had some auspicious guests that I made stand around while my son took the picture (neither of them asked to be in a similar picture, btw : ).

June 7, 2005 fun

Q: What is “funding the clubbing of baby seals?”

A: The reason I gave for wanting to cancel an extra credit card.

I bet they don’t have that reason in their script! : )

June 3, 2005 fun

IanG Interview on ServerSide.NET

See IanG, my Avalon book co-author in crime, talk with Ted Neward about WinForms, Avalon and .NET. Nicely done.

May 28, 2005 fun

Darth Vader vs. Yoda?

I just realized: Lucas took us through the entire 6 film series and we never got to see Yoda fight with Darth Vader! What’s with that?!?

P.S. I like that Vader” is in my spelling dictionary. Lucas changed the world.

May 27, 2005 fun

Studs from Microsoft

I have no idea where the Studs from Microsoft” video came from or how old it is and I had to download it first before playing it, but it was totally worth it to see Bill Nye as a softie and to watch those women run for their lives instead of facing the possibility of dating any of us. : )

[via jj5 (would doesn’t like people to know he exists, let alone link to him…)]

May 26, 2005 fun

I am a Gauntlet Adventurer

What Video Game Character Are You? I am a Gauntlet Adventurer.I am a Gauntlet Adventurer.

I strive to improve my living conditions by hoarding gold, food, and sometimes keys and potions. I love adventure, fighting, and particularly winning - especially when there’s a prize at stake. I occasionally get lost inside buildings and can’t find the exit. I need food badly. What Video Game Character Are You?

 

May 25, 2005 fun

XBox 360 Game Videos

I’m sure you’ve heard the news and read the specs and you might even have seen the celebrity-ridden MTV special. Now, see what it’ll really be about
May 24, 2005 fun

Cat Swimmer

I was searching with the boys this morning and found this:

May 23, 2005 fun

Episode III: ROTS doesn’t suck and other opinions

My sons and I (and my 11-year old boy’s date!!!“) all enjoyed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I know it didn’t have much in the way of decent dialog or acting, but when compared to the other 5 in the series (especially episodes I and II), it rocked. I’ve only seen it once, but right now it’s tied for first in my mind with A New Hope (I know some snobs like The Empire Strikes Back best, but I still love the feel of the first one).

Also, I liked Unleashed a great deal. Not only did I enjoy the fighting, but I really enjoyed the relationship between Danny and his new family.

May 2, 2005 fun

Only Annual Time Traveler’s Convention

Here.

May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)

East Campus Courtyard, MIT

42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W

(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)

April 26, 2005 fun

Anyone Want To Join Us For Hitchhiker on Friday?

The brothers Sells and I will be attending the 7:35pm showing of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Friday at the Evergreen theater at highway 26 at the 185th exit in Hillsboro. I plan on being at the theater around 7pm.

Everyone’s welcome to join us. I’ll buy the popcorn!

April 13, 2005 fun

Rory + Scott’s TechEd Video #4

It starts slow, but the ending is totally worth it!
April 13, 2005 fun

Worth giving up the Omega Speedmaster for…

Here.

OK, the Omega Speedster is cool (very cool), but it doesn’t compare to this masterpiece:

April 10, 2005 fun

Hitchhiker’s Guide Is Likely to Suck

It may be that this review, saying how terrible the Hitchhiker’s Guide move is, is actually funnier than the movie itself. He starts here:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won’t believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that’s just peanuts to the Hitchhiker’s movie. Listen.”

April 2, 2005 fun

Making XML More Aerodynamic

In case you missed it yesterday, Don Box and Andrew Layman, two of Microsoft’s top thinkers, proposed a means of increasing XML performance by looking into areas of technology outside the core domain of XML
April 1, 2005 fun

Visual Studio 2005 Linux Edition

I first heard about it at a Seattle area Starbucks. I mean, I was just like sitting there drinking my Venti no-whip triple shot soy latte and I looked over at this dude sitting next to me who was working on a laptop and I saw something on his screen. So I said Dude is that the new version of Eclipse?” and he said No, it’s Visual Studio 2005 Linux Edition″. Then he typed a few lines of code and created an Indigo service that runs on the Apache web server. I was like Dude!” and almost spilled my latte.”
–Anonymous Seattle Youth

We still believe that Java is a strong language for development. However, we will no longer continue to build on that technology preferring instead to move developers to .NET.”
–Anonymous Sun Representative

April 1, 2005 fun

Viva la IDL!

I’m sure you’ve heard the uproar about saving VB6 by now. Since I’m not a member of the VB programmer community, I don’t feel qualified to judge them, their tools or their plight.

However, I am a charter member of the COM community, so when I hear about Microsoft’s plans to halt the support for IDL, I get burning mad! Save IDL! Sign the petition! Viva la IDL!

March 30, 2005 fun

Another Laugh Out Loud TechEd Video

March 29, 2005 fun

Betsy’s Got Them GotDotNet Blues

Betsy Aoki, the matriarch of GotDotNet, sings a song of GDN Blues. And not only did she write and sing the song (with a surprisingly good voice for a geek), she also had a hard time getting it published across all GDN servers, further illustrating the point. Recommended!

March 18, 2005 fun

Who knew the Brits were so randy?

Between
March 16, 2005 fun

Laugh Out Loud Funny: TechEd Video #2

OK, the first TechEd video from Scott & Rory (”A love story
March 15, 2005 fun

Lego Star Wars Video Game: Hilarious Fun

Lego Star Wars Video Game: Hilarious Fun
Here.
March 2, 2005 fun

Super Friends + Office Space == Hilarity

March 1, 2005 fun

Tom’s a Big Thinktecture Fan

Tom’s a Big Thinktecture Fan
Here.

March 1, 2005 fun

Tom’s a Big Thinktecture Fan

Tom’s a Big Thinktecture Fan

My #2 son, Tom, is apparently on the road to independent consulting… Mama’s, don’t let your babies grow up to be computer boys…

February 11, 2005 fun

Project Manager Leavers Suicide PPT Presentation

Here.

Scott Hanselman IM’d me this Onion piece and I just had to share it. I don’t want to spoil it with quotes; just read it and tell me if you don’t die laughing.

February 8, 2005 fun

Trying To Be As Cool As Star Trek

Trying To Be As Cool As Star Trek
Here.
February 8, 2005 fun

Trying To Be As Cool As Star Trek

Trying To Be As Cool As Star Trek

On the left, you see Lt. Uhura with her wireless Bluetooth headset (although I’m not sure of the made and model). On the right, you see me with mine (the Nextlink Bluespoon AX). I’ve waited all my life to be as cool as the folks on Star Trek and now it’s finally happened! I’m ready for my replicator, transporter, tricorder and Holodeck now…

February 5, 2005 fun

Chris Sells Is Merely an Alter-Ego

Chris Sells Is Merely an Alter-Ego
Here.
February 5, 2005 fun

Chris Sells Is Merely an Alter-Ego

Chris Sells Is Merely an Alter-Ego

To avoid intimidating people, I generally don’t wear the tight shirts in public, but Dax Pandhi captures my hidden muscles perfectly! : )

January 27, 2005 fun

SolFX: Much Improved Performance

I’m updated SolFX to use DrawingBrushes instead of Canvases and to use a much simpler card back, so performance is much improved. In fact, it’s so much improved that I’m starting to think about other things that it needs…
January 27, 2005 fun

Schools Ban Camera Phones Amid ‘Happy Slapping’ Craze

I can’t really improve on this:
January 23, 2005 fun

Jason Olson’s Microsoft Interview Advice

Jason Olson recently interviewed for an SDE/T position (Software Development Engineer in Test) at Microsoft and although he didn’t get it, he provides some words of advice for folks about to interview for the first time.
January 6, 2005 fun

Welcome to SolFx

If you’ve got .NET 2.0 and the Nov. 04 Avalon CTP, click here to play my scaling, vector-based, WinFX version of Solitaire. Features include lovely scaling of the cards as the window resizes, real-time drag n’ drop of the cards, sol-like card stacking, ClickOnce deployment and the source. The performance in this version is much improved because I’m re-using DrawingBrushes and a simplified card back. Enjoy!

December 19, 2004 fun

A Limerick in Rory’s Honor

In honor of Rory Blyths birthday, Jim Blizzard has posted a Haiku. I’m not so cultured as Jim, as I could only manage a limerick:

There once was a lad named Rory,
who told many a bawdy story.
He came right out,
like an orgasmic shout,
spreading mirth in drum-beating glory.

December 3, 2004 fun

Pleasantly Undetectable Advertising

I don’t know what Amazon is doing — except possibly trying to stimulate blog entries — because I could detect no advertising in there most recent home page movie short, Tooth Fairy,” but I did enjoy it.
November 2, 2004 fun

There Are No Words…

Here.

This is what Don Box’s 12-year old son thought a good last minute costume would be when trick-or-treating the Indigo halls of Microsoft suddenly seemed an imperative. I guess this is the consequence of having a life-sized cardboard cutout readily available…

November 2, 2004 fun

There Are No Words…

There Are No 
Words…

This is what Don Box’s 12-year old son thought a good last minute costume would be when trick-or-treating the Indigo halls of Microsoft suddenly seemed an imperative. I guess this is the consequence of having a life-sized cardboard cutout readily available…

October 25, 2004 fun

The Downside of Smart Children

It started off innocently enough. I corrected Tom when he tried to put down words like pils,” Rome” and trool,” even giving him a letter or two to help him make his words (he’s only 9, after all, and this was his first game of Scrabble). Then, I ran out of ideas and we needed long words to get into the empty spaces, so I put down with faxer” (someone who faxes). After that, it was all down hill into roddy” (someone with a lot of rods), naped” (the flip of hair across your forehead), soapic” (very soapy) and, my personal favorite, oifbath” (good for sores on your skin), all the time fighting to keep a straight face.

However, when I busted Tom for putting down zin” (“double” in Tom language”), he started pointing the finger at trux” (Latin for multiple vehicles), looked it up in our unabridged Webster’s (I’ve got to get rid of that thing…), called his mother to double-check and the whole thing came falling down around my ears. My visions of Tom in his 30s calling me from a party complaining that glev” wasn’t actually a kind of rock have been dashed.

October 9, 2004 fun

Vermin King With Mutant Arm

October 4, 2004 fun

Brian Kernighan on Debugging

I saw this in an email from John Mason in PSS today:

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.  Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”
–Brian Kernighan

September 30, 2004 fun

The GLAT: I couldn’t resist

I’m not going to move, but I couldn’t help printing out the test
September 25, 2004 fun

Clean Sweep @ Casa de Sells

Selling the books and comics you’ll never read again: $1479
Conducting *2* garage sales and selling the play structure the boys don’t frequent anymore: $2552
Finding your wife’s 6-month old pay check in a pile of papers: $1640
Regaining the use of more than the front 2″ of every drawer and cabinet in the house: priceless

Today at Casa de Sells we completed a 9-month long whole-house Clean Sweep, literally touching everything we own and deciding whether to keep it, sell it or trash it. We didn’t actually remodel anything while our stuff was on the lawn, but the whole place seems much bigger since emptying the things we no longer used out of the house and completely filling a 2-car garage before hauling the stuff off to Powell’s book store (they buy as well as sell) and conducting not one but two giant garage sales in two separate neighborhoods. The $5671 we earned along the way was just found money (especially Melissa’s paycheck… : ).

September 23, 2004 fun

Your distinct personality: The Black Knight

According to this survey, my personality type is The Black Knight: Your distinct personality, The Black Knight, might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. Your overriding goal is to win. You approach each task or situation as a contest to be won strategically and efficiently. Because you can control your feelings, it is not unusual for you to charm, as well as successfully delegate tasks and responsibilities to the more emotional types. You are often concerned with what’s in it for you. You seldom involve yourself in activities where you can not foresee a reward for your investment or effort. On the positive side, you can be analytically empathic and logically persuasive. On the negative side, you may be unemotionally manipulative as well as impulsive. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today’s corporate kingdoms.”

The title is certainly cooler than Scullery Maid,” but the text makes me sound like kind of an asshole… (not that I’m arguing, mind you, I’m just surprised that a computer program can pick it up so readily : )

September 18, 2004 fun

Go See Shaun Of The Dead

I don’t care who or what you are, male or female, rich or poor, heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual or Rory, you should go and see Shaun of the Dead. I went to a sneak preview tonight and it’s the best movie I’ve see all year. Absolutely hil-laugh-your-ass-off-larious.
September 12, 2004 fun

Chris and Melissa Go To Burning Man

Chris and Melissa Go To Burning Man
Here.

September 12, 2004 fun

Chris and Melissa Go To Burning Man

Chris and Melissa Go To Burning Man

August 30, 2004 fun

The One With The Man That Burns

I’m in-the-middle-desert unavailable this week @ Burning Man. Wish this open-minded but sheltered Midwestern boy luck. : )
August 25, 2004 fun

Enjoyed Listening to Charles Petzold on .NET Rocks

I really enjoyed listening to Charles Petzold on the most recent episode of .NET Rocks. It was wonderful to hear about an entire part of Windows history when I didn’t even know that it existed (I never heard of Windows til version 3.1). I was also surprised and honored to hear that Charles was familiar with my book (or the sales numbers at least : ).

BTW, I’m a huge Richard the Toy Boy fan. He’s got such a radio voice and entertaining manner that he should do the radio thing professionally (hopefully I’m not embarrassing myself because he’s already a professional and I don’t know it : ).

August 24, 2004 fun

Here’s A Side Of The Olympic I Hadn’t Heard Before

At the Albertville winter Olympics, condom machines in the athletes’ village had to be refilled every two hours. And in Sydney the organisers’ original order of 70,000 condoms went so fast that they had to order 20,000 more. Even with the replenishment, the supply was exhausted three days before the end of the competition schedule. (For the record, athletes who were in Sydney report that the Cuban delegation was the first to use up its allocation.) Salt Lake City in 2002 went even bigger: 250,000 condoms were handed out, despite the objections of the city’s Mormon leadership.”

There’s a lot of sex going on. You get a lot of people who are in shape, and, you know, testosterone’s up and everybody’s attracted to everybody,” says Breaux Greer, a shaggy-blond Californian who competed in the javelin at the Sydney Games.”

August 21, 2004 fun

“You will have gold pieces by the bushel.”

That’s quite a nice fortune. My lucky numbers were 7, 12, 15, 36, 39 and 21. With the
August 20, 2004 fun

Some of the MS Interview Process Filmed

Channel9 did what I was unable to ever get done: filmed some of the interview process. It’s not an actual interview, but Gretchen Ledgard and Zoe Goldring, both Central Sourcing Consultants at HR
August 20, 2004 fun

Wife Objects To Midget Above The Fridge

Here.

This is what happens when night shifts happen to good nurses.

August 20, 2004 fun

Wife Objects To Midget Above The Fridge

I’ve spent the last 8 months driving me wife to get rid of a ton of her stuff so that we could use more than the front 2 inches of every drawer, cupboard and closet in the house (of course, it’s her stuff that I find to be extraneous : ). Yesterday, while she was on her 2nd night of working 3 12-hour night shifts in a row, I sent her the following email (yes, that’s just the kind of nerd that I am):

From: Chris Sells [mailto:csells@sellsbrothers.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:51 AM
To: Melissa Sells’
Subject: Moving the shiny stuff above the frig?

Melissa, can I move the stuff above the frig that we never use into the attic?

August 19, 2004 fun

Hog Pile on Rory

Rory has posted his MSDN speaking schedule. I’m already signed up for the Portland, OR talk on August 26. I can’t wait to hear Rory regale us with a demo-packed afternoon” where I will gain valuable insight into .NET development.” Plus, we get a sneak peek at what’s coming in ASP.NET 2.0!” What could be better? Come one, come all!

August 12, 2004 fun

I’m With David: Doom 3 Ain’t All That

I can’t tell you how much I loved Doom. I’ve probably played all of the Doom games back-to-back all the way through a half a dozen times over the last decade. And I was so excited about Doom 3, but David’s right
August 9, 2004 fun

It’s Best To Ignore Rory on IM

It’s Best To Ignore Rory on IM

If you ignore Rory on IM, you get fun stuff like this:

Rory [Shut up] says:

July 28, 2004 fun

OSCON Geeks @ the Portand Nerd Dinner Tonight

I’m hanging out at the O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention today (downtown Portland) and I’m planning on bringing as many fun out of town open source geeks as I can to the Portland Nerd Dinner tonight
July 27, 2004 fun

Crappy Carl’s Crappy Contest

Here.

Crappy Carl is giving away a crappy top-of-the-line Tablet PC to anyone that crappy fills in his crappy survey (and they don’t even have to listen to his crappy show to crappy win!).

July 26, 2004 fun

Bringing “the letter” to Wednesday’s PND

I’ll be bringing
July 24, 2004 fun

What Kinds of Cars Do Microsofties Drive?

Brad Smith writes:

I just found your site. I love it!!! It is now a regular read for me.

I read The Human Side of Microsoft post on your site and had an idea… What about getting a bunch of people to list what car they drive (or what they used for transport if it is not a car). Aussies tend to be a bit car crazy and you can tell a lot about a person by how they get around!! :-)

Just an idea…. Take it easy mate.

Brad Smith
Canberra, Australia”

July 22, 2004 fun

Microsoft runs out of things to buy

Microsoft stunned investors yesterday with the announcement that they were distributing 75 billion in cash because they had run out of things to buy. According to Microsoft CFO John Connors With the acquisition of Lookout, we’ve crossed every single item off our shopping list. Frankly, there’s just nothing left to buy.”

(more)

July 22, 2004 fun

DM Karma

Ah, the bittersweet memories:

Maybe you have heard some of the stories about the [DevelopMentor] Brains? Brian Randell delivered a VSLive conference talk in a bath robe. Don Box delivered a conference talk in Amsterdam naked from the waist down. Chris Sells, not to be outdone, agreed to pose completely nude for an advertisement in a technical magazine whose readership is 95% male.”
July 20, 2004 fun

Microsoft Interview Questions for Testers

July 19, 2004 fun

Channel9 Tours MSR H/W and Social S/W Labs

I got a sneak preview of this last week and absolutely loved the Channel9 tour of the Microsoft Research hardware and social software labs. The bit with the inventor of the laser printer, who works for MS
July 9, 2004 fun

Matt Pietrek, My Hero, Starts A Blog

When I was but a wee Windows lad, my heroes were Charles Petzold and Matt Pietrek. I learned Windows 3.1 programming from Petzold (along with everyone else) and learned to love what was going on underneath from Matt. Plus, not only did Matt write Windows Internals (the title and style of which would inspire my own Internals book), but he also wrote a monthly column for the Microsoft Systems Journal, which I would lovingly read cover-to-cover every month.

So, when I went to speak at my first conference and Matt wanted to talk to me about something, I was on cloud 9 (not to be confused with Channel9). I wondered what obscure technology that I’d most recently written about on the DCOM mailing list that had caught Matt’s eye. What deep COM or ATL issue did he want to take up with me? I had arrived!

June 30, 2004 fun

“If I Could Thunk Once A Day, I’d Be Happy”

Carl Franklin posts a fun segment from Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know? radio program where 32-bit to 16-bit thunking is discussed.
June 27, 2004 fun

Feature Leaked From VS05 Beta 1

Apparently someone has an early copy of Visual Studio 2005 and has stumbled onto the big feature we’ve been saving for an important keynote.
June 26, 2004 fun

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, A Librarian!

Here.

The one where I write two computer programs, neither of which do as well as the two librarians they’re up against (damn librarians…).

June 26, 2004 fun

The Right Level Of Community Involvement

Earlier this week, BradA asked the community for feedback on the guys that work for him (it’s review season again at Microsoft). Adam had this to say in response:

I’m waiting for the first blogger to suggest that we should let the development community choose when we go to the bathroom. Is there no internal process that doesn’t benefit from community involvement’?”

June 24, 2004 fun

Swag for the June 29 Portland Nerd Dinner

I was doing my periodic t-shirt down-sizing and have gathered a couple dozen t-shirts that I thought I’d donate to my local geeks instead of to my local Good Will (who just don’t seem to appreciate them). The pile includes a bunch of DevelopMentor t-shirts, including some of the vintage COM Is Love t-shirts (although I’m keeping Essential Marketing and I’m With CAFEBABE). I’ll bring the t-shirts to the June 29th Portland Nerd Dinner.

And if you’re attending the PND, don’t forget to ask me for the letter I wrote to the CEOs of AOL and CompUSA. It made Rory repeatedly gasp in amazement.

June 17, 2004 fun

Whoa. I’m A Banner Ad.

If you hit the Microsoft-Watch web site often enough (it’s been on 3 of my last 4 visits), you’ll see my smiling face as a giant banner ad. Hell, I don’t even put my picture up on my own site (well, except this one
June 15, 2004 fun

“he isn’t null terminated!” Bwa ha ha ha!

I’m still laughing about this one
June 14, 2004 fun

Geek Milkshake

Here. I can’t get the video possibilities
June 14, 2004 fun

Geek Milkshake

sttto Milkshake by Kelis

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

I know you want it;
the thing that makes me,
what the geeks go crazy for.
They lose their minds..
the way I whine.
I think it’s time:

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

I can see you’re on it.
You want me to teach thee,
techniques that freaks these boys.
It can’t be bought;
it’s just my marketing wrought.
(Track-back if you’re smart)

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

Oh once you get involved,
everyone will look this way, so,
you must maintain your charm;
same time maintain your click-through,
just get the perfect link.
Feed what you have within;
RSS is cheaper than ink.
The geeks pick up your scent.

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I’m like: mine’s better than yours”.
Damn right, it’s better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!

June 5, 2004 fun

I Knew I Had “Circus Freak” In My Blood!

Sellsville…

The old Sells Mansion…

June 3, 2004 fun

This Is The Problem With Fame In The IT Industry

The problem with fame in the IT industry is that when someone dreams about me, it’s a dude
June 1, 2004 fun

Finally, A Use For Orkut!

Here. So far, it’s provided the information required for two of my Orkut friends to wish me a happy birthday. Other than that, I haven’t found a use for the site, however…
May 28, 2004 fun

Apparently .NET Is About Developer Love

Don Box always used to say that COM Is Love, although I’m pretty sure he’d agreed that we’ve long since given up COM
May 27, 2004 fun

Can The Movie Be As Good As This Trailer?

I get to read all of Eric Sink’s pieces before we publish them, so I got to follow the link to the trailer for Commedian before you guys did (although the movie’s been out for 2 years, so you had a bit
May 18, 2004 fun

6x The MSDN Fun at Tonight’s Portland Nerd Dinner

I just talked to the 2 cars filled with 5 members of the MSDN Content Strategy team on a road trip down to the Portland Nerd Dinner
May 18, 2004 fun

Google’s #1 Sells

May 15, 2004 fun

Lies, Hypocrisy and the ‘Friends’ Theme Song

As much as I love the Friends show for it’s portrayal of unconditional love (as a geek, people loving me no matter what I do is appealing), I have to admit that it works best on a backdrop of few money worries (Monica’s apartment is worth $6000/month?!? No wonder I don’t live in NYC…). NPRs Mike Pesca opens up my eyes to the lies and hypocrisies (hyprocrisi? [see? geek!]) in the Friends theme song and is hilarious about it.

May 5, 2004 fun

Sells Brothers T-Shirts confer special powers

I got this email from Brian Jepson, one of my favorite DevCon speakers (he ran his PowerPoint slides by clicking on his cell phone!), and I just had to share it:

My stepson got a 99 on his driving test today–I think the blue Sells Brothers t-shirt that he’s so fond of (the one I got at the XML SellsCon that he immediately swiped from me) gave him that extra boost of skillz and confidence…”
May 3, 2004 fun

“Just think Chris Sells on my TV set!”

I think David meant this as a good thing, but it sounded scary to me… : )
April 29, 2004 fun

Rory Sells His Ex’s Wedding Dress

Here. At least, if this isn’t Rory, it sure reads like Rory
April 19, 2004 fun

I Shall Wear My Grammar Godhood With Humility

Grammar God!
You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!
brought to you by Quizilla

[ed: I took out all the links in this post because apparently there are links on this site that dump adware on your machine and some of my readers have been bitten. My apologies. If you must go to the site, here’s the link, but on your head be it: http://quizilla.com/users/BaalObsidian/quizzes/How%20grammatically%20sound%20are%20you?/]

April 18, 2004 fun

Chris’s Friends on the Web

Chris’s Friends on the Web

If you’re looking for my wife, Melissa, her email address is msells@sellsbrothers.com. Her email is pretty reliable now, so send her some! It makes her so happy…

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Joel and Beth Howie are online again. Drop them a line.

March 19, 2004 fun

Today I Met A Lady Named “Friend”

Tracey Friend is an MS recruiter and she called to talk to me about some stuff I’m working on that could attract some fresh meat (and she also told me some stuff that sent shivers up my spine, but that’s another story : ).

Tracey was very friendly, just like all of the MS recruiters that I’ve met. In fact, MS recruiters are getting so friendly, that now HR is blogging. What’s next? Giving away the source? : )

March 7, 2004 fun

I Agree: This *Is* Brilliant

I’m constantly amazed at man’s (and woman’s) ability to solve problems. Truly.
March 5, 2004 fun

Introducing Chris “Flash” Sells

Introducing Chris “Flash” Sells

Don XML worked a little PhotoShop magic on a poster for a movie that I loved growing up (it was one of two record albums I had and I listened to it over and over and over):

February 26, 2004 fun

A Redundant Chris Sells

When I’m having fun with the Sells brothers, I like to tell them that I don’t have two boys, but rather one boy and one redundant backup in case one of them needs erasing.” I have never told which of them is which, however, cuz I like to tortune them (hey! I paid for em!)

I would if Chris J. Sells in Beaverton, OR or Chris D. Sells in Dallas, TX is the redundant one…

February 23, 2004 fun

50% Evil is Still 50% Good

According to the The Gematriculator, sellsbrothers.com is 50% evil. Nothing about genius” is mentioned…

[via Ryan Farley]

November 25, 2003 fun

Oh Lord, I’ve Been ASSified…

Here. Rory does it again. : )
October 22, 2003 fun

The Cow Puncher Punchline

Here. I did remember the rest of the cow branding story from last night’s Portland Nerd Dinner: -I’m embarrassed to admit that it was I who paid the cowboy $2 to eat the newly harvested cow testicle -A few months later, Cal sent me a copy of the Klamath Falls Herald and News featuring a visit from
October 19, 2003 fun

Black Cube for “Chris Sells (Likeness)”

Here. This caused me to laugh
October 10, 2003 fun

Guerrilla Usability Group Strikes!

Here. I *love* the idea that militant usability experts are scraping terribly designed web sites to present the information in a more pleasant way. Can’t you just see Alan Cooper in a beret? : )
August 22, 2003 fun

A clickable button

Here. As much as I love the site, I’ve only made two contributions to CodeProject.com. Reading the comments about one (”.NET
July 15, 2003 fun

The Original ”.NET Redneck”

The 
Original ”.NET Redneck”

Eric Sink claims to be the .NET Redneck,” complete with cardboard cutout:

July 13, 2003 fun

Fly Daddy Al

Alan Cooper’s 14-year old son rapping about his Dad.

Marty Cooper [marty @ cooper.name]
Stolen on 7/13/2003 from Alan’s USB hard drive when he mistakenly put it into my computer

July 10, 2003 fun

Top 10 XML Specifications Rejected by the W3C

10. WS-IrishSpring: for scented, more pleasing SOAP packets

9. WS-UPS: for sending SOAP packets in real envelopes

April 22, 2003 fun

“Software Legend” Silliness

“Software Legend” Silliness

Brad Abrams make Jeffrey Richter and me stand in front our of software legend” stand-up cut outs yesterday so that he could take a picture. I’ve already gotten crap from my new team at MS for being one of these guys. I assume it’s the shock and awe… : )

April 12, 2003 fun

The SellsBrothers Little League Team

The SellsBrothers Little League Team

Here’s the SellsBrothers Beaverton Area Little League team looking very serious. Notice the SellsBrothers logo on the hats. Having your own company definitely has it’s perks. : )

March 4, 2003 fun

Grandpa’s Scalloped Corn

This is a recipe that I sent in for the O’Reilly title Gastronomy for Geeks”. It was handed down to me by my grandfather at our cabin on the lake. He was into manly food that sticks to your rips and left the more delicate dishes to my grandmother.

Ingredients

February 13, 2003 fun

What is Meant by “Marketing”?

People often ask what is meant by Marketing. Perhaps the following analogies will help clear it up:

  • You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say, I’m fantastic in bed.” That’s Direct Marketing.
  • You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, He’s fantastic in bed.” That’s Advertising.
  • You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say,” Hi, I’m fantastic in bed.” that’s Telemarketing.
  • You’re at a party and see a handsome man. You get up and straighten your dress. You walk up to him and pour him a drink. You say, May I,” And reach up to straighten his tie brushing your breast lightly against his arm, and then say, By the way, I’m fantastic in bed.” That’s Public Relations.
  • You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says, I hear you’re fantastic in bed.” That’s Brand Recognition.
  • You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You talk her into going home with your friend. That’s a Sales Rep.
  • Your friend can’t satisfy her so he calls you. That’s Technical Service.
  • You’re on your way to a party when you realize that there could be gorgeous women in all the houses you’re passing. So you climb onto the roof of one situated in the middle and shout at the top of your voice, I’m fantastic in bed!”. That’s Spam.
  • You hear about women like this but never meet one. That’s False Advertising.

Created by unknown
Contributed by Asaf Shelly
Thu 2/13/2003 6:50 AM

January 15, 2003 fun

What OS is Chris?

What OS is Chris?
Chris took the quiz and was pretty darn happy with the results, because at at least he’s not Windows ME

Which OS are You?
Which OS are You?

November 15, 2002 fun

Shtoo

Stu Halloway, conference speaker, respected author of Component Development for the Java Platform as well as many 5-day short courses and CTO of DevelopMentor, pronounces his name like this (I found it hard to believe myself…)

October 25, 2002 fun

Doonesbury on Blogs

October 10, 2002 fun

Top 10 Reasons You Know Youve Been Hacking Too Many Web Services…

  1. You start using URIs to address real envelopes while paying the bills
  2. You use XPath to refer to family members
  3. You can’t understand why nobody thinks that SOAP is simple” anymore
  4. You try to determine what portTypes your spouse exposes
  5. You don’t have any trouble expanding BPL4WS
  6. You prefer to write code to find something on Google
  7. You ask for vanilla instead of doc/lit
  8. You purchase the Infoset” license plate for your car
  9. You challenge people to say UDDIs UUIDs” 10 times fast
  10. You no longer see the angle brackets, just blond, brunette, redhead”

Reasons from Aaron Skonnard, Tim Ewald and Chris Sells
Presented at the Web Services DevCon East
Thu 10/10/2002, 8:55am

September 15, 2002 fun

“Spend A Day With .NET” Winning Entries

“Spend A Day With .NET” Winning Entries

Sorry it took so long to judge the entries, but I was overwhelmed. That’ll teach me to host an international, pan-galactic, cross-universe coding contest. : )

Grand Prize Winner and Best Developer Tool: Stoyan Damov

September 15, 2002 fun

“Spend A Day With .NET” Winning Entries

“Spend A Day With .NET” Winning Entries

Sorry it took so long to judge the entries, but I was overwhelmed. That’ll teach me to host an international, pan-galactic, cross-universe coding contest. : )

Grand Prize Winner and Best Developer Tool: Stoyan Damov

August 25, 2002 fun

“Spend A Day With .NET” Coding Contest (with prizes and everything!)

Midnight to Midnight, August 30th, 2002

Brad Abrams, Lead Program Manager on the Microsoft .NET Framework team, said something that inspired me the other day. He was being broadcast along with Chris Andersen (another lead PM) on The .NET Show on the topic of Understanding the Framework. Brad and Scott spent almost the entire show talking about how the various benefits of .NET, e.g. productivity, reliability, security, backwards compatibility with Win32 and COM, being able to recompile your C++ code in managed mode to use and expose .NET components without changing any of the code or losing noticeable efficiency (apparently they didn’t ship until they could do this with Word), the consistency and universality of the Framework Class Libraries, and on and on, all without mentioning web services.” He did say that .NET was hands down the best platform for doing web services, but even if you’re not doing web services, .NET enhances your programming experience across the board for the existing kinds of applications and components that you’re developing now. Normally I’m not into this kind of hyperbole, but in this case, I absolutely agree with Brad and wish that Microsoft would push these features for things you’re doing right now as well as web services for the future. Microsoft, in their interminable marketing wisdom, has completely undersold the rest of .NET, at the expense of developers the world over, still stuck in the old unmanaged world.

July 30, 2002 fun

My Chris Sells Is A Centerfold!

sttto Centerfold by J. Geils Band (http://www.80smusiclyrics.com/artists/jgeilsband.htm)

Yes, he walks, yes, he talks!
He’ll be your Code Complete!
That ATL instructor
Sure could put em in the seats.

He could teach like no one else
No one could ever stain
The memory of that DM guy
Could never cause me pain

Years go by, I’m lookin’ through a codin’ magazine
And there’s my DM buddy on the pages in between!

CHORUS:
My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
Instructor is the centerfold,
Chris Sells is the centerfold
(Repeat)

Shipped me code bout ActiveX,
While I was thinkin’ about GenX
IUnknown, IDispatch,
He could teach em all

I was shakin’ in my shoes
Whenever he flashed those baby-blues
Something had a hold on me
Whenever Chris passed by

That book and cool code samples
Too magical to touch
To see him in that photograph,
Is really just too much!

CHORUS

It’s okay I understand
This ain’t no never never land
I hope that when this issue’s gone
This memory will TOO be gone

Take your car, yes we will
We’ll take your car and drive it
We’ll take it to a motel room
And leave you there, in private!

A part of me has just been ripped
The pages from my mind are stripped
Oh no, I can’t deny it
Oh yea, guess I gotta try it!

CHORUS

Copyright (c) 2002 Anonymous. :-)

Ted Neward [tneward@JAVAGEEKS.COM]
private mailing list
Tue 7/30/2002 2:06 AM

July 11, 2002 fun

The Last Advertising Frontier

The Last Advertising Frontier

My friend and fellow DevelopMentor instructor, Craig Andera, is not only enormously dedicated, but is very interested in pushing the envelope on post-dot-bomb advertising space. When he heard that he could make money on each hit,” Craig started spending a lot of time in bars and other seedy areas around town.

Craig Andera [candera@ALUM.MIT.EDU]
Thu 7/11/2002 7:53 AM
internal mailing list

May 22, 2002 fun

Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Computer Boy

sttto Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” by Willie Nelson

Chorus:
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be computer boys
Don’t let them keyboard and drink at Starbucks
Make em be doctors and lawyers and such
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be computer boys
They’ll always stay home and they’re always alone
Hackin’ is all that they’ll love

Computer boys ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to hold
And they’d rather give you some code than diamonds or gold
Star Trek communicators and pocket protectors
And each night begins a new day
And if you don’t understand him and he don’t ignore you
He’ll be addicted to porn

Chorus

A computer boy loves shiny new gadgets and four-donut mornings
High-speed connections and trackballs and NeverWinter Nights
Them that don’t know him won’t like him and them that do
Sometimes won’t know how to take him
He’s not wrong he’s just different and his brain won’t let him
Do things to make you think he’s right

Chorus

Chris Sells [csells@sellsbrothers.com]
win_tech_off_topic@yahoogroups.com
Wed 5/22/2002 10:55 AM

May 18, 2002 fun

Waka Waka Poem

First, the poem itself (there are many versions, this is just one):

<> ! * ′ ′ #
^ ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * <> ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , system halted

In English, this reads:

May 10, 2002 fun

C# vs. Java

C# vs. Java

Chandu Thota
Fri 5/10/2002 10:31 AM

February 8, 2002 fun

I Like Clocks

Ron Neely sends his favorites:

February 2, 2002 fun

A Little Slice of Time

A Little Slice of Time

Chris Sells
Feb 2, 2002 8:02pm

January 15, 2002 fun

Welcome to Wahoo!

Welcome to Wahoo!

This page is dedicated to the game of Wahoo! – a .NET application meant to be invoked from a .NET client across the internet.

If you’d like the ClickOnce version (for .NET 2.0), click here and (after clicking a few more times), an application that looks like the picture on the right will appear.

January 15, 2002 fun

The Game of Wahoo!

If you like Tetris and you’ve got .NET installed, check out Wahoo.

December 31, 2001 fun

My Family Heritage

My Family Heritage

Grandma says that all US Sells are related from the original Sells that came across on the boat after the May Flower.

My father pointed out that my boys are not, in fact, the original Sells Brothers (and that we must be related, as the originals have his haircut).

December 29, 2001 fun

Elvish in the New Age

TimT said:

od oy dp,ryjomh ;olr yjodz
[d. dpttu. gomhrtd pm yjr etpmh lrud
//yo,

December 19, 2001 fun

1970s “wocka-wocka” porno guitar

Sung to Shaft” by Isaac Hayes <http://www.shaft-themovie.com/soundtrack/track01.mp3>

Who’s the man with tongue-in-cheek
that’s a code machine to all the geeks?

(Box!)

November 27, 2001 fun

I am not making this up…

A friend of mine stumbled over this in the Microsoft source code:

//  Function:   RunCommandEx
//  Synopsis:   runs the given command in the current session, more robust
//				than RunCommand
//  Arguments:  none
//  Returns:    S_OK if success
//  History:    October 3, 2000 - created [name withheld to protect the guilty]
HRESULT RunCommandEx(LPCWSTR szCmdLine) {
	DWORD dwTry = 0;
	HRESULT hResult = S_OK;

	// try run command 3 times at most
	while (dwTry<4) {
		hResult = RunCommand(szCmdLine);
		if (hResult!=E_FAIL) {
			// we succeeded
			break;
		}
		dwTry++;
	}
	if (dwTry==4) {
		ATLTRACE(L"COuld start the command even we tried 4 times\n");
		ASSERT(FALSE);
	}
	return hResult;
}
November 27, 2001 fun

.NET edition of Truckin’ (Grateful Dead)

Steal this song right off my page.” You can find it at http://www.ferncrk.com/jittin.html. Use only in well ventilated area. Do not expose to open flame.

Stuart Celarier
Tue 11/27/2001 3:41 PM

October 15, 2001 fun

The F-Key Diet

Made you look!

(if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check here)

October 7, 2001 fun

Bill’s Money

In a recent interview with Barbara Walters, Bill Gates was asked how he felt about Ted Turner’s one billion dollar donation to the United Nation. This is what he had to say:

Certainly, my giving will be in the same league as Ted’s, and beyond. … During my lifetime, you know, the money will be given away.”

August 15, 2001 fun

Centerfold

WARNING: Do not follow this link if you don’t want to see me naked!

August 15, 2001 fun

Don Gives a SOAP Talk

Don Gives a SOAP Talk

TechEd Barcellona, Spain 8/15/2001


August 15, 2001 fun

This Picture Needs a Caption

This Picture Needs a Caption

Chris riding The Incredible Hulk roller coaster in FLA in 2000. Notice the COM is Love” t-shirt. I really wanted to say something funny or ironic in the title of this picture, but words failed me. Got one?

August 15, 2001 fun

Conference.NET Song Lyrics

King of the Code

Sung to King of the Road”

Platform for sale or rent
who cares where all the others went
no more pointer, pushes, pops or peaks
I ain’t got no memory leaks
I wrote ten lines of C# today
I was more productive than yesterday
I’m a programmer of mean by no means
I’m a king of the code

I feel sorry for those guys at Sun
DOTNET has got them on the run
But when I hear Scott McNeally whine
I say stick your VM where the Sun don’t shine
Most folks agree VB DOT NET
Is the best version of Java that we’ve seen yet
I’m a programmer of mean by no means
I’m a king of the code

You C guys think all this stuff is new
A friendly runtime that hides the goo
I’m a VB guy, better watch out for me
cause I’ve been writing managed code since 93
Database code’s busted — no time to cry
Patch it all to the newest API
I’m a programmer of mean by no means
I’m a king of the code

New waves they come and go so fast
COM was love, but love don’t last
If COM was love than what’s DOTNET
It’s love without the cigarette
DOTNET will be here till we all get bored
Then we’ll throw it away and invent DOT-ORG
I’m a programmer of mean by no means
I’m a king of the code

Wild Side

Bill G came from Seattle WA
Spread .NET across the USA
Plucked out pointers on the way
Shaved ref counting - started sporting GC
He said Hey babe take a walk on the wild side
Hey babe take a walk on the wild side

Chris Sells never once threw one away
In the end, he had to pay and pay
An object here, and object there
Memory is the place where they say
Hey Chrissie, take a walk on the wild side
I say hey babe, let’s going back home and finalize

And the .NET girls go
Do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do do do do do do
doooooooooooooooo ah
 
The musical stylings of Francesco Balena

Jon Flanders came from out of the heartland
With ASP he’s was everybody’s darling
But he never lost his head
Even when they told him COM was dead
I said hey Jon, take a walk on the wild side
I believe they call it Interop-O-cide

Brian Randell came and hit the streets
Hoping .NET would bring inter-language peace
He hates it when those bigots say
C#’s for work, VBs for play
I say hey Brian, take a walk on the wild side
It’s curly braces that make your code bonafide

My friend Don Box, he’s just coding away
Though he was James Joyce for a day
Yeah I guess Don’s pretty smart
But he mistakes his code for art
I say Hey Don, take a walk on the wild side
You’re just a liquor salesman, it can’t be denied

And the .NET girls go ….

And the .NET girls go
Do do do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do do do do do

August 15, 2001 fun

Mr. June, 2000

Mr. June, 2000
Nothing comes between me and my technology…


All pictures courtesy of Jason Whittington’s most excellent PhotoShop skills.

See the parody by Ted Neward inspired by this picture.

August 5, 2001 fun

Some MORE signs that you may be taking COM too seriously…

  • Your weekly beach volley ball matches are between teams named Proxies’ and ‘Stubs’.
  • You read ATL Internals’ while waiting in line for the next ride at Universal studios
  • You are locked outside your house without your keys and the sticky note at the door reads CoLockObjectExternal’ when your wife gets back.
  • You ask your bank if they can send your monthly balance statements in XML format.
  • You return your neighbor’s telephone call saying it was an interapartment callback.
  • You ask your cable television company if they support Channel Hooks.
  • You decide to do some detective work by night and call yourself the IMallocSpy.
  • Your kid asks you what a female Ox is called and you reply OXID.

Aravind Corera
Originally written for IDevResource
Private Email

July 15, 2001 fun

Can I still be evil?

Can I still be evil?

June 18, 2001 fun

Limerick

A programmer who coded in C
decided he hated GC.
It’s bogus” he said,
I keep track in my head -
and always remember to free!”

Jason Whittington [jasonw@develop.com]
Private Email

June 14, 2001 fun

The .NET

A parody of Eddy Poe’s The Raven”

Once upon a platform tired, while my code was stranded, mired in a pool of leaky pointers running up the mem’ry load, while I started to debug it, suddenly I screamed Oh f*** it!”, and decided to just chuck it in the hallway guest commode.
Then discovered: managed code.

June 1, 2001 fun

Why I Will Never Offer Don Box A Ride Again…

Read all about it…

Rohit Khare
Posted There: Fri, Aug 2, 1996 20:27:42 -0400

April 15, 2001 fun

College Fun

I spoke at a college last week for a friend of mine who’s an adjunct professor (Cal Caldwell). During the talk, one of the male attendees bolted , but on his way out, trusted sources say that, when sighting a young coed whom our our bolter was clearly interested in engaging with in some way, he said, Hey! Do you know who’s in there? Chris Sells!” Clearly this young man was misguided in his attempt, but I’m glad to hear that someone thinks that using my name will help in attracting members of the opposite sex. It’s never worked for me… : )

February 28, 2001 fun

College Fun

In Japan, it is said, the impersonal and sometimes unhelpful Microsoft error messages have been replaced with Japanese haiku poetry. Maybe in the next upgrade to our Windows…

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

November 21, 2000 fun

a poem

Dear MFC::CString
You were such a beautiful thing
I miss you so much
CComBSTR is painful to touch
WTL may restore my churning (out string manipulating code).

Phil Beck
ATL Mailing List

August 25, 2000 fun

These Days its only COM COM COM (Am I Crying)

There is no vacation when I am doing COM.
Some go through very well, but stuck are some.

I don’t go to parties, so I feel I am IUnknown.
People talking to me, those days are gone.

Brother has a complaint, that I don’t callback.
Which kind of apartment he has, I don’t check

August 8, 2000 fun

DM in the Wall Street Journal

DM in the Wall Street Journal

Portland, OR, August 8, 2000 According to an article appearing in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, DevelopMentor has developed a new technology for creating software applications. Attached is a photo of this technology in beta test at DevelopMentor’s Portland Satellite office. DevelopMentor’s device is attached to a user and using the latest LFM technology it auto-generates complete software applications. Evil Genius, Chris Sells, DevelopMentor’s Senior Programmer, co-invented the technology with their Security Guru, the Prince of Darkness Keith Brown. Says Sells; [our] new technology holds great promise for future generations of code warriors.”

Cal Caldwell
Private Email

March 13, 2000 fun

Signs that you may be taking COM too seriously…

  • The family pet dies. The best explanation you can give the children is Fluffy’s reference count finally reached zero.”
  • You’ve mailed more than three written petitions to the city council of Enumclaw, Washington requesting that the town prefix its name with an I’.
  • Your wife has a rather irritating habit of QI’ing you for IMowsTheLawn, despite the fact that for years you’ve been returning everything from E_NOINTERFACE to RPC_S_SERVER_TOO_BUSY.
  • The best thing about the new generation of wireless internet devices is that you will be able to receive the DCOM and ATL mailing lists from almost anywhere.
  • Part of your IPO research strategy involves calling the company’s engineering manager on the phone and demanding a detailed explanation of apartments and threading.
  • The party you threw to celebrate the introduction of asynchronous RPC calls in Windows 2000 was significantly more expensive than your wedding reception.
  • Last Summer’s family vacation to Redmond, Washington.
  • All those emails you’ve sent to Chris Sells trying to convince him that ATL Internals” would make a really great movie.
  • Although it is humorous, there are a couple of items in the Signs you’ve hired the wrong COM developer…” list that you can’t help but view as personally insulting.
  • On your laptop there exists a half-completed manuscript entitled The Tao of COM.
  • You refer to your Social Security Number as your GUID.

Tony Toivonen
DCOM Mailing List

February 10, 2000 fun

ATL Borg

ATL Borg

Jeff Smith
Thu 2/10/2000 12:07 AM
Private Mail

January 20, 2000 fun

In defense of the VB Programmer

> ––-Original Message––-
> From: Russ Huffman [mailto:russ@DEVAUTHORITY.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2000 8:39 AM
> To: ATL@DISCUSS.MICROSOFT.COM
>
> Don’t we already have a bunch of programmers who have no
> idea about how the underlying systems work”? I think they
> are called VB programmers… ;)

I hate to break this to you, but I’ve met a lot of VB programmers trapped in the body of a C++ programmer. Unfortunately, many development shops place a lot of peer pressure on people to reject their yearnings to stop using semicolons and memory allocators. It’s sad, but VB programmers today are where US Blacks were in the 30′s and gays were in the 50′s. We have yet to see the Rosa Parks” or Stonewall Riots” for VB programmers.

BTW, I have been preparing a keynote address in case I am ever asked to keynote a VB-friendly conference. If you want to look at a draft, go to http://www.develop.com/dbox/dream.htm [ed: MLKs I have a dream” set to VB music]

…I have been to VB7. I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you…

DB

PS: Last time I checked, all programmers have selective ignorance. I know nothing about 3D graphics. I know a lot about COM. VB gets under people’s skin because one can be ignorant of computer architecture and ASM and still
get a lot done.

December 1, 1999 fun

Abort, Retry, Ignore

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must now adopt one:
Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore.

With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key — 
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

October 25, 1999 fun

Still_Life_with_Aggregate

Still_Life_with_Aggregate

Still Life with Aggregate

Built using online Lite-Brite.

Jason Whittington
Private DevelopMentor Mailing List

July 30, 1999 fun

Computer synthesized song to liven up your day…

I just like the idea of a computer singing… If you’ve seen 2001, you’ll recognize the tune.

April 19, 1999 fun

Real Programmers…

Real Programmers…

Contributed by Liliya Yakupova:

Real programmers code in binary.
April 16, 1999 fun

Signs that you have hired the wrong COM developer…

Signs that you have hired the wrong COM developer…
  • Keeps referring to interfaces as Thingies”.
  • Insists that migrating to NT5.0 is a bad idea because the going rate for a rental-threaded apartment is $640.00 a month plus utilities.
  • Comes into work one morning dressed as a cowboy and claiming to be The new marshaller in town”.
  • Wants to know how to tune his TV to the RPC Channel”.
  • Stands up in design meetings, grabs his crotch, and proclaims Yo! Marshall this! Am I right?”.
  • Names one of his interfaces IKnown” and claims that any object that doesn’t implement it is doomed to eventually fall victim to a COM Identity Crisis”.
  • Spends 2 hours in front of a whiteboard trying to prove that by taking the integral of the GUID generating function, one can discern the total surface area of the application’s UI in pixels.
  • Pronounces GUID as gooeey dee”.

P.S.

Here’s a picture of the t-shirt that Microsoft produced for their 1999 Dallas TechEd that leverages Tony’s idea without giving him credit, asking him permission or even notifying him. You lawyers should be able to support you in your retirement with this one, Tony!

April 15, 1999 fun

The Official Guide to COM Culture

If the things on this page haven’t been enough for you, check out Mr. Bunny’s Guide to ActiveX.