Funny shorts in Barcelona

While traveling through Europe last year, we stopped for a few days in Barcelona to check out the capital city of Catalonia. The hostel we were staying in gave us a flyer of interesting things to do over the next few days.

One particular entry caught our eye.

“¡Una nit de curts còmic!”

It’s written in Catalan and basically translates to “a night of funny shorts!”

That was pretty amusing to us, especially because we all agreed that Sanjin had just bought some ridiculous and funny shorts right before we left on our trip.

Sanjin surfing a cannon

So we made plans that evening to set out for the bar / lounge (called the Mau Mau Underground) that was hosting “funny shorts night.” Sanjin decided to pack the shorts in his messenger bag and change into them when we got there, just in case the night ended up being a bust.

When we arrived, we noticed a distinct lack of activity in front of the bar. We paid a small cover and went inside, only to find the place fairly dead. A few people sitting on couches and either drinking beer or smoking.

Mauma Lounge

We decided to make the best of our time there and plopped down on a couch and ordered a few beers. After a few minutes, they started playing some ridiculous and hilarious movie. It was over within a few minutes. Another one immediately started, and it was also over within a few minutes.

One of us turned to the rest and asked, “what’s with all these funny short movies…”

Their voice trailed off and instantly, we all knew what funny shorts actually meant! We shared quite a bit of laughter over our pretty obvious mixup. We sat down, content to enjoy the rest of the evening, watching funny shorts and having some tasty Spanish beers.

Mary, Sanjin and Dave enjoying beer in a lounge

As an aside, one of the short films we saw that evening particularly stuck with me. It was an amazing stop-motion film focused on photography. Which is why I think it made such an impression on me. Ten Thousand Pictures of You.

“¡Una nit de curts còmic!”

Funny shorts night. It’s a phrase that will always bring a smile to my face.

Muni’s new augmented reality app

I’m releasing a new augmented reality application for San Francisco’s Muni system soon. How does it work? Basically, you just point it at your stop to see the latest arrival times. Here is a preview screenshot!

SF Muni's New Augmented Reality App

Seriously though, everyone is getting on the bandwagon with augmented reality applications lately! A local developer just released a new augmented reality application for the iPhone, called acrossair.

(N Judah fail image courtesy of N-Judah Chronicles)

Working in retail: Holiday shoppers

Apple's Campus

Now that the holiday shopping season is underway, I was recently reminded of an experience I had while working in Apple’s retail division during the holidays a number of years ago.

A customer came in and wanted demanded an iPod nano in a specific color and capacity that we didn’t offer. I told him that this product didn’t exist, and helpfully pointed him to the area where our iPods were on display.

He became rather irritated, and then yelled at me.

“You guys are nothing but a bunch of fucktards!”1

And he stormed out.

Happy holidays to you, sir!

Addendum: The guy was in his early fourties.

1 According to the Urban Dictionary, a fucktard is a contraction of “fucking retard.”

An awkward voicemail

Oh man! Earlier today, I received a phone call from a blocked number. I didn’t have time to answer the phone, so I let it go to voicemail.

Boy, was I in for a surprise when I listened to it later!

Wow. Just, wow.

(For privacy sake, I’ve stripped out the name of the doctor, the hospital, and her phone number)

[audio:awesome_wrong_number_voicemail.mp3]

The 7 Degrees of Retweeting

Earlier this evening, Sony announced (via Twitter) that they would be at the gdgt event this week and show off a demo of a new game.

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Sweet! From there, it kept being retweeted by members of team gdgt, just to see how far we could push it.

Two degrees:

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Three degrees:

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Four degrees:

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Five degrees:

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Six degrees (what?!):

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Seven degrees (now we’re just getting ridiculous!):

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It’s like a good old fashioned game of telephone.