Bailie.com

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Penn Masala and Facebook

Somehow, I’ve never really gotten into the whole MySpace or Facebook thing. It’s one thing to have a blog; it’s another to fill out forms that require me to disclose personal information in a central place that could be used as a clearing house for identity theft. But a friend who keeps changing his email address invited me to be a Facebook contact, and reluctantly, I filled in the absolute minimum to sign up. And then another friend invited me, and another ... So now I am a reluctant community member, and find myself requesting my forgotten password on a regular basis to be able to link in. But I don’t want to “share” and “poke” (I know that as a euphemism for sex, so find it a rather smarmy phrase) and “write on walls”. It’s not that I’m technophobic - I’m in the technology business, after all - but it just doesn’t suit me. (I already find it annoying having to block provocative invitations from younger men in far-off countries who find me through skype - do I need to fend off more credit card theft types trying to convince me to become his fiancee for purposes of fencing stolen goods? I think not.)

Anyhow, I started doing some research on Facebook, and came up with a YouTube video (below) from a Hindi acapella group called Penn Masala. Aside from being an extremely witty video (and perceptively insightful, given the reported behaviour by the stalker/killer on the West Virginia campus) , the group’s regular music is great. It combines English and Hindi lyrics, and North American and Indian sounds, and it all comes together beautifully. I’ve always been an acapella fan, from a guy group popular in the 80s and 90s, whose name escapes me at the moment, to the Flirtations, to Sweet Honey in the Rock and the Canadian Four the Moment, and Bobby McFerrin when he does his voice-pure performances. Penn Masala is a wonderful addition to my admittedly eclectic musical collection. What a wonderful side-effect to my facebook experience!

San Francisco: good and bad

Last week, we were in San Francisco for a conference. We got to use our timeshare for the first time, and I said that if the staff were as friendly and helpful at all the locations as here, I was really going to like this timeshare thing. Four blocks from the conference hotel - a nice morning walk - and we were able to have breakfast in the room. E. found imported Greek yogurt, a treat she hadn’t had in almost a decade, so she was able to indulge each morning. Evidently due to trade restrictions (high duties), Fage yogurt isn’t available in Canada.

As always, the conference consumed us; between the presentations, volunteering at our professional association booth, the summit, the chatting with people I only see at conferences, the after-hours chatting with people I’ve connected with at the conference, hookin up with people after the conference to see software demos, there was barely time to take a cable car, even though we stayed an extra day so we could have at least a little down time. So we compromised by taking a cable car to the hotel of a software vendor so we could get a demo. Actually, that was the one negative of my trip - an extreme rude cable car operator who was insulting me and others as we boarded.

We had just enough time to catch a coffee at the Bagdad Cafe in the Castro, and then race off the airport. Well, that was it for San Fran until next year’s conference, I guess.