Maker Faire

[cjsmith]

I saw syren72 but did not see plymouth, and I heard someone (in a car?) call my name as I was heading toward the entrance but did not see who it was. xthread and crasch, I gots no clue. Never saw ya, and I couldn't possibly have heard my cell phone over the din.

Having skipped a year, I see a lot of contrast between this one and the first one. It's gone mainstream. There's cool stuff, don't get me wrong, but man oh MAN find parking before 10am.

I loved the cupcakes. Kids loved my scooter. I was sorely tempted by the marquetry club, but they meet exactly when I work. The hair on the enormous kneeling woman was fabulous, there was a rather spiffy Dance Dance Revolution-like SunSPOT demo, I entirely missed the battleship fight and the diet Coke and Mentos demo, and if I'd been by myself I might have spent way too much time in Swap-O-Rama-Rama. I was quite pleased to see EAA there; it didn't occur to me a couple years ago, but they're some of the world's ultimate makers. I wish I'd been willing to stay late enough to see some of the fire demos, but I have a houseguest coming.

I'm sure I'm forgetting TONS of stuff. It's hard to see everything when you're three and a half feet tall, two and a half feet wide, and can't go sideways or backwards. On the other hand, I'm not in pain, so there's the tradeoff.

Every year I see a few things that make me think "I could do that!" And every year I don't "do that". Am I busy, burned out, or just not much of a maker? I know I used to be more of one. I'm going to guess it's a little of all three.

Comments

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

I was there. I think I saw you in the Expo Hall, but I wasn't sure and you passed before I had a chance to look closer. You were in a chair or similar, right?

Lots and lots of cool stuff there. I discovered a new band, too.

http://www.abneypark.com/

Fun steampunk/dark cabaret/industrial/chamber-pop/kitchen-sink stuff.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the mainstreaming didn't bug me, per se. The traffic, on the other hand...

[brooksmoses]

Ooh, yeah; we stayed for their show, and that was definitely nifty. I hadn't heard them before, but andres_s_p_b was raving to them (at their booth earlier) about their old stuff when he discovered them on MP3.com.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the show, which is a shame. I think I would have really liked the performance. I did admire their instruments at the table, etc.

Hopefully they'll hit the Bay Area again. If not, I may have to use them as an excuse to take a road trip somewhere. :)

[mapache]

Yeah, I told the keyboardist who was manning the booth that I didn't have any of their new stuff, just everything they published while on MP3.com (which was shut down at the end of 2003). She was somewhat shocked, replying "Wow, you've just dated us. And you." Apparently, most of their fans are recent, but they get the occasional one of us from the MP3.com days. I took the opportunity to buy up the three CDs they've put out since then.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

wahhh, I miss mp3.com. As far as I can tell nothing has really sprung up to replace it. Or rather, nothing that works as well as it did and focuses as much on the random little local bands. I found so much great music there.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but the closest replacement out is MySpace. The music side of it is pretty extensive, and they cater to the local band.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah! Shantanu thought he saw you, but you were gone before he could point you out to me. Yes, I was in an electric scooter.

And yeah, the mainstreaming bugs me basically because it makes for enormous traffic. That was awful.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

Ah, I missed Shantanu too? Definitely unfortunate--it's been too long since I've seen y'all. Next big geeky thing, we'll have to coordinate or something.