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Tuesday 11 October 2005

Ego Naming

EGO SURFING ROUND THE WEB this morning, it occurred to me I have been called some odd things by people. Now, I’ve worked at least two of them into bios, so the perpetuation of these oddities is in part my fault, but let’s take a look, shall we?

One of the Top 25 Most Influential Women of the Web

This one was bestowed to me by webgrrls back in some ungodly Web year like 1998 1997. What’s really depressing about this one is – quick – name the other 24.

Yeah.

One of the Greatest Digerati

What the &%^k does this mean? Really? I didn’t have much of a clue so I went (where else?) to Wikipedia and looked it up. Here I learned a few interesting things. The word is considered a portmanteau, which is a word formed with both the sound and meaning of two other words, in this case digital and literati. Oh, the other word for portmanteau is Frankenword, which just cracks me up. Reading the Wikipedia definition, I suppose I fit the bill. But it sounds so self masturbatory* that I think I’m going to drop it from my bio.

First Lady of the Web

Okay, this is the one that got me started on this entire train of thought in the first place. It seems to have appeared just last week after WE05. Ryan Short may have been the first perpetrator, but I’m going to forgive him because he wrote a disclaimer about the bestowed title. Somehow, the moniker quickly made it halfway across the world, and Colly used it too in a bit of saucy banter about cocks on sticks.

Really.

Then, Andrew Krespanis, who made me nearly break a rib with his hysterical Let there be w007 referred to me as The First Lady of Web Standards. Of course Andrew K. was still a young lad in short pants when we were doing stuff like that and thinking it was cool and not just a source of endless amusement for geeks.

Now here’s the thing. A First Lady is typically the wife of a president or governor, who may or may not attain fame in her own right. Since I’m unmarried, I can’t follow the logic here, unless the assumption is that I’m a). married to the Web or b). married to Web Standards.

I suppose the argument could be made for either, but in that case, where’s my pretty ring**?

*first to name the source and explain the context of that one gets a book

**first to make a quip with “web ring” involved gets hit with a book

Filed under:   humor, standards, we05
Posted by:   Molly | 03:46 | Comments (25)

Tuesday 4 October 2005

Back from Oz

WELL I’M BACK FROM AUSTRALIA and I must say I had an incredible time. WE05 was fantastic. A tremendous experience. Now, I’d known from my evolving friendships with Maxine and John and Russ that the experience was going to be a good one. Little did I know I was about to walk into a room and make 350 new best friends!

Can you say “Where the hell am I going to put my blogroll now?”

I want to spend some more time thinking about the conference, my fantastic hosts, my new pals, and Sydney, which I found to be a gorgeous, welcoming city. And I’ll do just that at some point, but for right now I have to keep this short because someone gave me their cold. I haven’t been sick in almost a year so I’m feeling particularly grouchy about it.

I’m going to leave you with a few links for now, and thoughts of love and gratitude to the WE05 team and the fantastic delegates.

Off to make tea. Then sleep for a day or two. I hated leaving Oz, but there truly is no place like home.

Filed under:   travel, we05, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 07:42 | Comments (24)

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