A quick note to advertise my eager participation in next week’s NMC online Symposium on Mashups. The NMC knows how to do an online event up right, and my own interest in the topic is well-established. Looking forward to lots of learning and more than a few laughs. If you haven’t registered, I hope you will. Alan Levine has already blogged a bit about the sessions, and speaking for myself I can’t wait to see what Jim Groom and Tom Woodward have cooked up, and I’m certain that Cole Camplese will have heaps of insightful ideas for me to apply here at UBC.

As for what I have planned… at this point it’s shaping up as perhaps the most full-on immersive descent into madness that I have ever dared attempt. I’m not saying that this will be the craziest presentation I’ve ever done… I’m saying it might be the craziest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve dabbled with pretending to be a DJ for sessions in the past, but the special affordances of Second Life open up some new and tantalizing possibilities for wish fulfillment. I’m a total n00b when it comes to SL, but I laid out a set of outlandish requests to Alan and Rachel Smith that would make my virtual dreams come true, and damned if they haven’t already provided me with most of what I requested. The image at the top of this post is a screenshot of today’s run-through… Does the presence of the beat-up school bus and the old television sets offer you any hints for my planned finale?