She's Geeky

She’s Geeky, a technology unconference for women organized by Kaliya Hamlin, takes place January 29-31 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

She’s Geeky is an unConference where the agenda is created by all participants live the day the event happens. This format supports peer to peer learning, dialogue about the issues that are top of mind and networking. In this women’s only environment attendees have the opportunity to see their contribution to their field in a new light and gain confidence to step forward in their lives and careers.

filed under Events, Technology

Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale

Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale takes place December 19th and 20th at the Fort Mason Center Herbst Pavilion in San Francisco, featuring over 150 artists.

Those looking to shop handmade and support small business this holiday season will surely find something for everyone at this large-scale, free-to-attend art, craft and design extravaganza!

filed under Crafts, Events, San Francisco

epic-misney

“Epic Misney”, an awesome Marvel/Disney Mashup by T Campbell & John Waltrip.

via Boing Boing

filed under Art, Comics

Empire State Building

photo by Scott Beale

In 2010 Laughing Squid will be expanding to the East Coast. My wife Lori Dorn and I have decided to live in New York City for a while, to take on new challenges and adventures. Lori is originally from NYC and I’ve always thought about living there at some point. Of course San Francisco still remain a big part of Laughing Squid and I plan on traveling back fairly often.

I’m sure some of you have questions, here area a few answers:
 

  1. How will this affect Laughing Squid Web Hosting?
     
    Nothing at all will change with our web hosting services. We’ve always been a virtual company and will continue operate as we always have, providing reliable hosting and top notch customer support.
  2.  

  3. How will this affect The Squid List?
     
    The Squid List will remain unchanged. Simone Davalos has been maintaining it for a while now and will continue to do so. It’s been in very good hands with her.
  4.  

  5. How will this affect the blog?
     
    The Laughing Squid blog will continue on as it always has, the only difference is that you may see a few more posts related to NYC and the East Cost as I explore the other side of the country. Of course our San Francisco guest bloggers will continue to posting great stuff and I’ll probably add a few more East Coast guest bloggers to the mix over time.
  6.  

  7. What about the Laughing Squid Drinkups in San Francisco?
     
    The Laughing Squid Drinkups will still take place when I come back to visit, in fact they will be a perfect way to catch up with people while I’m in town.

Overall not much will really change, aside from our physical location. In fact both our customer base and blog readership has been national, even international for a long time now.

filed under Laughing Squid, New York City

filed under Links

Guerrilla Handbell Strikeforce, the latest mission by Improv Everywhere where a 13 member handbell choir joined in with a Salvation Army bell ringer in Manhattan.

filed under Holiday, Pranks

Zendesk Danish Christmas Lunch

photo by Scott Beale

Last Friday our friends at Zendesk hosted a Christmas Lunch at their office, a holiday tradition from their home country of Denmark. Staring early in the day, it featured a wonderful sit down mean accompanied by constant flow of Carlsberg and Akvavit.

Photo Gallery: Danish Christmas Lunch at Zendesk

filed under Events, Holiday

It Might Be Christmas

Musical comedy duo Paul and Storm present “It Might Be Christmas”, where every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until Christmas they will be releasing an original holiday song created in the style of They Might Be Giants. This is a follow-up to last year’s project “The 25 Days of Randy Newman”. Here’s what they recorded so far.

Back in October Paul and Storm joined forces with Jonathan Coulton to perform the 1990 They Might Be Giants album “Flood” in its entirety at a live show in Chicago.

filed under Holiday, Humor, Music

MaxFunCon 2010

The 2nd annual MaximumFunCon takes place May 7-9 at a mountain resort in Lake Arrohead, CA. Organized and hosted by Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America, MaximumFunCon is a weekend long mini conference focusing on comedy, creativity and general geekiness, featuring an awesome line up presenters. The postcast will give you a better idea of what the event is like and here’s info on how to register.

Last year’s event was a blast. Here are my photos from MaxFunCon 2009.

filed under Events, Humor

photo by Scott Beale

Mitch Aidelbaum has posted a fantastic series of photos from San Francisco Santacon 2009. Check out the Santacon San Francisco 2009 Flickr group for more photos.

filed under Photography, San Francisco, Santarchy

filed under Links

“Meow” tells the gory story of the coming zombie kitten apocalypse, featuring animation and music by Cyriak Harris, with illustration by Sarah Brown.

filed under Animation

Ron English Mandala Grin Jigsaw Puzzle

Ron English will be in San Francisco this Saturday, December 12th for a release party and signing at Medicine Agency for his new “Mandala Grin” jigsaw puzzle produced by Tools of the Trade.

Ron English Mandala Grin Jigsaw Puzzle

For years Ron English has been making highly sought after collectable vinyl toys, mini-sculptures, books and prints so anybody can own and cherish a piece his art without having to be a wealthy art collector. Now, for the first time ever, his paintings will be available as a 24 x24″ 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles by Tools of the Trade. Ron’s connection to this new product runs deep, citing childhood memories of completing puzzles with his family. Ron said about puzzles in the film we just released, “everybody is working together for a goal and at the end of the process, very much like making art, you have this beautiful image.”

filed under Art, Events

filed under Links

The Muppets present “Ringing of the Bells”.

via /Film

filed under Children, Holiday

Noah Flangian made a really cool stop motion animation of a Suzuki GSX-R motorcycle assembling itself inside of a garage.

via Wired Autopia

filed under Animation, Transportation

TeuxDeux

swissmiss and Fictive Kin have just launched TeuxDeux, a beautifully designed, easy to use, free web based to-do service. I’ve added checking out TeuxDeux to my to do list.

TeuxDeux is a simple, designy, browser-based to-do app and the first collaboration between studio-mates swissmiss and Fictive Kin. The idea was to build a bare-bones, but visually compelling and highly usable to-do app based on swissmiss’ personal ideal work-flow.

filed under Internet

The Long And Winding Days on Echo Station 3-T-8.

Stormtroopers' Perpetual Winter

The Inconvenient Flaw of the Y-Wing.

Briefing on Hoth

Avanaut created a wonderful series of snow scenes featuring Star Wars legos on Hoth. Here’s a behind the scenes look at how the snowshots were created.

via Chris Glass

filed under Star Wars, Toys

Our friend and awesome photographer James Duncan Davidson recently joined forces with industrial designer Greg Koenig to form Luma Labs which produces the Luma Loop, a new approach to the camera strap. Check out their FAQ for more info.

It’s an evolved camera sling that provides the flexibility and comfort needed to keep a photographer in their environment and focused on what’s important: Making photographs.

Duncan has posted a intro video showing how the Luma Loop works.

Luma Loop

Luma Loop

photos via Luma Labs

filed under Gear, Photography

Our friends at Art of Bleeding have just released “Dog Bite”, the second episode of their new Gory Details series, featuring recreations of real-life medical emergency stories.

Abram the Safety Ape, RT the Robot Teacher, and the wise old hand-puppet Dr. Moody discuss what happens when a game of fetch goes too far. This true-life story is recreated in all its grisly splendor with the assistance of the alluring nurses of the Magic Ambulance and a pinch of Magic Safety Dust.

filed under Health