We went to the wonderful ROFLCon! Yeah! It's a conference of people who make stupid stuff on the internet, basically, at MIT, and it was TOTALLY AWESOME! Here is the story of our adventure!
On Thursday we went to get on our plane to Boston from Heathrow. The Heathrow Express had been on fire, so Ed was a bit late, but it was OK. Me and Ed both got singled out for extra security checks before we got on the plane which was a bit odd but they didn't do full cavity searches so it could have been worse.
Half way out over the Atlantic, we noticed the plane was doing a major banking turn, which seemed a bit odd. Then we noticed the crowd of people around a seat on our row. I could see what looked like an oxygen bottle through the crowd so assumed someone had had a heart attack or something. “Oh dear” I thought. “Oh dear oh dear.” Then I realised that it wasn't an oxygen cylinder- it was a fire extinguisher. The plane was on fire!
A steward was there, with his professional and very badly strained grin still plastered to his orange face, emptying fire extinguishers in the chair. We took off our headphones at this point to pay attention. The captain came on the tannoy - “We have had a seat fire. We are diverting to Shannon. There is no need to panic.” I reckon they should use the phrase “no need to be concerned” in these situations. When the captain says your plane's on fire and you shouldn't panic, it definitely sounds like he might be lying about the need to panic.
Just mentioning panic is a bad plan when you're on fire 10 miles above the Atlantic Ocean.
Also, no-one is reassured by the steward with the fire extinguishers asking “what film were you watching that was so good your seat caught fire?” - that is just not convincing.
I looked out the window and saw a 747, lit gold by the setting sun, whoosh past in the opposite direction at really impressive speed. It didn't look very far away.
Anyway we flew to Shannon where we sat in the plane on the runway for a couple of hours or so. Firemen came on board to check whether we were still on fire or not – I got this photo:
As you can see from this photo we were more excited about being on fire than frightened. This is because we are not really very clever.
After some considerable time we took off for Boston again. No power in the back so no films or music and no light to read by. Sounds bad but it enforced sleep so was actually OK.
We arrived in the early hours, checked in to the Cambridge Marriott and got some kip before the conference in the morning.
First thing, we went and had a massive breakfast with Matt and Ed from the Viral Factory. YEAH! Then registration, which was basically the internet distilled in to a single room. Loads of amazing people there! Met up with Jason Steele and Chris Alex from FilmCow. Jason is the creator of Charlie The Unicorn – one of the greatest achievements of Western culture.
Also Dan Walsh, the lovely dude who does Garfield minus Garfield and the guys from Sleeveface.
Anyway I was on the very first panel after the introduction keynote. It was The Longview Panel, which I was on with the amazing and multi-talented Neil Cicierega, who I've known of for many years originally for his animutations but who is now more well known for The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny and the Potter Puppet Pals:
And the truly lovely Rob Cockerham of http://cockeyed.com/ who makes great things in the real world and plays pranks and stuff.
Basically we've all been making things for 10 years or so which in internet years makes us like a BILLION YEARS OLD so we were talking about how things have changed, that kind of thing. It was great.
That evening we decamped to the pub where I met a dude who turned out to be LEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS
I also met Charlie Schmidt, the legendary man who owned and performed with Keyboard Cat! Here we are looking lovely!
Charlie is an amazing man and should be proclaimed King of the Internet. When he is in charge, the world will be a better place.
http://charlieschmidt.com/keyboardcat.asp
On Saturday I saw Jason Steele's brilliant panel with Nick Prueher from the Found Footage Festival
As well as Dan Walsh talking with Chad Vader and the Juggernaut Bitch guys. l also watched the autotune the news brothers do a panel with the Fake AP Stylebook people and I was really pleased to see Big David and Little David from David After The Dentist talking on the same panel as Charlie- they were very lovely. Also I will be in the background dancing on the next video from Matt Harding from http://www.wherethehellismatt.com
Then the very interesting end panel with Greg Rutter from youshouldhaveseenthis.com, the guys from Know Your Meme, Ben Huh from I Can Haz Cheezburger and failblog, and moot from 4chan.
On from there to a lovely VIP party, then to the official ROFLParty at Machine in Boston, which was a gay club and hence only had one toilet, though I never heard any complaints from the ladies about having to walk past lots of guys at the urinals.
After that we ended up in the hotel room of the guy who made Obama Girl, drinking with Charlie Schmidt, the guys from Sleeveface and Dan Walsh.
The next day, nursing hangovers, we headed back to Blighty without catching fire at all in any way.
All in all it was a truly truly wonderful time with truly truly wonderful people! Hoorays for ROFLCon! Hoorays for The Internet!
