b5 Bodies

This week has been all about the bodies at b5. Director of Branded Content, Darren O, forgot his age for a brief intoxicated moment, and twisted his ankle in a football match on Friday night (see awesome photo).

In other news, in a recent Skype conversation about BWE, Gab said she could probably beat Darcie in an arm wrestling match. We’ll see….

Brian and Mark’s Trip

Well, Brian and Mark just left and we all cried a little. Their days were mostly filled with tech meetings, but their evenings were full of fun and games. Tuesday night, the whole team had dinner at Jack Astors. Some memorable moments include Darren O arm wrestling Darcie and almost losing (no one was surprised). Once the team was done creating a mess and scaring away the other customers, they moved on to Grace O’Maley’s down the street where they were kicked out of shortly after. There were several expletives used. A retaliation was had that Ed will benefit from, but cannot be mentionned here for fear that a certain new employee could be jailed.

After the Gracies carnage was done, whoever was still standing headed out for some kareoke. Franca took one for the team and flirted with the kareoke guy so that we could get our songs played. Well, that’s what she said anyway. We were the only people in the bar, so her flitation was pretty needless.

Needless to say, Wednesday was a little slow for all of us.

We finished Wednesday off by playing Rock Band for 3 hours. Fun times.

Thursday was another day of meetings and chinese for lunch. Salim was really mean to Darcie and just about made her cry. Other than that, it was a preety quiet day.

Bye MarkJaquith and Brian! Please come again!

Brian and Mark in Toronto

Brian Layman and Mark Jaquith are currently up in the Toronto office. Mark got here on time. Brian, well, not so much.

They are both still the same as they were when we all saw them at SXSW in March. Brian hasn’t shaved yet. Mark is still uber-cool. If I had to describe them in three adjectives, they would be:

Mark- Cool, tall, happy

Brian- Nice, tall, happy (even after his 215746331 hour flight here).

Salim’s Wife

You may have heard in passing the comments about Salim and his “wife” and I thought I would explain that a little further. We’ve met most of the b5 spouses…either when they stop in to bring a forgetful husband some lunch, or they join their spouses on an away trip to a conference. We’ve met some of the spouses that don’t even live in the same city as us. However, Salim’s “wife” never seems to materialize. We ask questions about her all the time…and Salim keeps promising she’ll come by “next week”. Salim has been with us since the end of October…and still no wife.

It has become a long-standing theory that she does not exist outside of Salim’s mind.

Occasionally, Salim will come in with his good blazer on and will eat lunch out of the office, or will need to take an hour long coffee break. We’ve come to realize that this is when he interviews women to act as his wife at the next company function. Just so he can bring someone so he doesn’t look like a liar.

He claims he had a baby in March. On one of his first days with b5, he said “By the way, sometime in March, I’m going to need to take a few weeks off cause my wife is having a baby.” We all believe that he carefully thought this out…he was planning a 2 week vacation in the Caribbean, but didn’t want to seem like a slacker in his first year with the company, so he invented a wife and children.

To make us think differently, he made Jon drive him home after a late meeting the other day. Jon’s fatal mistake was not waiting to see if Salim actually went into the house he claimed as his own. I wonder if Salim would be able to pick the same house out again if Jon drove him “home” or if he plans on “moving” by the time someone has to drive him home again.

Does Salim himself really exist? I’m beginning to wonder. It seems that usually when Jeremy is here, Salim is not. I think they are the same person trying to get two paychecks. I should call a meeting with both of them and see if they both show up.

Darren Rowse: Problogger, Zombie slayer

Darren is a man of many talents. We all know of his prowess as a pro blogger, but who would have guessed that he’s the buy to have on hand when zombies attack:

 

From: Kensington Victoria

Tags: how to kill zombies, problogger, zombies

Who’da thunk it, two b5-ers in the FriendFeed Top 250

FriendFeed is pretty hot right now. Might not be the Twitter-killer folks all claim it to be, but hey it’s still fun. Regardless skimming through FriendFeed this evening I came upon a post that no one in social media can pass up clicking on—User 21 » FriendFeed’s Top 250 Most Followed Users. Yeah we all want to know where we all sit.

Turns out there are a couple b5 folks on the list.  In fact not only are there two b5 folks on the list, they are in the top 100 (well 62).

Take a guess?

Yep It’s Darren Rowse and I at 59 and 62.

Who’da thunk it.

Tags: Darren Rowse, FriendFeed, social media, Tris Hussey

Pipe dream: movie “theatre”

I hate going to the movie theater.  It’s not the ticket prices.  And it’s not the price of the food and beverages – I rarely partake.  What I can’t take is the people.  For some reason it takes half the movie for people to open up their bag of candy.  Heaven forbid they use their teeth or try to perform their noisy actions during a period of the movie’s high audio volume.  And for some reason people think that repeating jokes back to the screens adds to the experience.  For some reason people think that trying to predict plot twists (20 minutes after anyone of intelligence has already seen it coming) is beneficial to the other moviegoers.  And don’t get me started on the people who let their mobile phone ring… and then answer it.  Or the people who keep up a running conversation with the person next to them.It’s more than I could take if I were watching the movie in my own house.  Forget paying $8 to $10 to put up with that nonsense.Here is my proposed solution: The Movie Theatre.  You read that correctly… “Theatre.”  The Movie Theatre consists of one or two screens at each cineplex.  It will be reserved for the one or two more popular movies out at the time.  Admission for The Movie Theatre will be around $14.  That is, a premium above regular ticket prices, but not completely unaffordable.  The price alone will act as a deterrent to noisy obnoxious people.  To further establish that this is a classy joint, a dress code will be established.  No shorts, no t-shirts, no sandals.  Next: no one under the age of 21, regardless of the movie rating.  In The Movie Theater, there will be a strict code of silence.  Audible talking, noise-making, or any mobile phone ringing or buzzing will be met with immediate dismissal from the theatre and a lifetime ban from The Movie Theatre.  These rules will be clearly broadcast before the beginning of the clip, and also when the ticket is sold.In short, I’d like to make going go the movies more like going to the opera.  And I’d be willing to pay a premium to get it.  By limiting this promotion to the most popular movie (or two), the theater operator can guarantee that the showings stay adequately attended.  Any additional staff that has to be hired to enforce the silence rules can be funded from the increase in ticket prices for these showings.With this, I’d start going to the movies again.  Until then, don’t spoil Wall*E or The Dark Knight for me — because I’m not going to see them until they’re available for home viewing. 

Tags: misanthropy, movie theater, movies, The Dark Night, Wall*E

Pardon the Dust

We’re just updating the design of our Team Blog. Mostly cause the last one was totally b0rked (you could comment, but nobody could see your comments). This new one is basically Revolution, hacked up a bit to do a bit more of what we want.

We’ll keep fixing bugs over the next few days, but feel free to comment with thoughts/comments/issues/etc!