Author: James McNally

The Origin of “Consolation Champs”

Michael has encouraged us to tell the “backstory” of how we named our weblogs, so here is the tale of how Consolation Champs came to be:

My web presence began in 1997 after I took a course in multimedia development. The course was 16 weeks long. 15 weeks on Macromedia Director and a week tacked on the end about “web page design”. After fiddling with hosted services like Rogers (my ISP), Tripod, and even Manila (remember editthispage.com?), I finally registered a domain in 2000. It wasn’t hard to come up with a name.

For years, my friends and I would sit around and come up with crazy band names. Some of my favourites were stuff like Carcinogenic Houseboat, Bonfire of Baby Heads, The Y-Fronts, Robot Pope, Black Jello. Silly stuff like that. But I had one name that I really wanted to use. I had played drums poorly in a semi-band called The Gitch Band when I was a teenager, but it was doubtful that I’d ever be in a real band. So I used the name for my new web site.

I’ve always been fascinated by non-winners. Silver medallists, nominees, also-rans, runners-up and has-beens are all close to my heart and so that’s where Consolation Champs was born.

A year ago, I began a related weblog called Runner-Up where I try to find and tell some of those non-winner stories (and I’m looking for co-contributors!).

Here are some other stories.

Sleep-Deprived and Smiling

I got home yesterday afternoon around 3:30, sleep-deprived and smiling. I wish there were time to post a full post-SXSW report but after catching up on my sleep, becoming reacquainted with my wife, and returning to a flurry of work, it may have to wait. I am writing a piece for Digital Web about the conference, which should appear in the next few weeks, so that may have to suffice.

I’ve also started posting some photos to Flickr. Try searching for the tag “sxsw05” or looking for the name “jmcnally“. I’ll put some more up as I have time.

To everyone I met or re-met at this year’s conference, a big shout-out! Thank you for making me laugh and making me think, in almost equal measure.

Off to Austin Again

Well, I’m off again to South by Southwest Interactive. This is my fifth year going, which seems hard to believe. It’s also the fifth year that I’ve put together a music compilation. This year’s is called “Let The Distance Keep Us Together” and is named for the leadoff track, by Spoon‘s Britt Daniel. If you are coming, and want a copy of the CD, I’ve got a limited supply so make sure you track me down and ask me for one. I’m staying at the Hampton Inn again this year, and sharing with SXSW noob Neil Lee. My AIM handle is “JamesSeamus” if you want to chat while at the conference.

If you’re looking for my always-clever liner notes, here they are.

By the way, David Nunez has just posted a fantastic thing called “the unofficial geek guide to getting over yourself at sxsw 2005 interactive.” Bravo, David. I’ll be looking for you. Though I’m an old hand now, I remember feeling very awkward my first time. There have been a few “first day of high school” moments each year, but thankfully, I know now how to get out of my own way. David’s got a great idea for doing just that.

And just for fun, my impressions of past SXSWs:

Ax Attacks!

Though I haven’t commented yet, I was very happy with our Prime Minister‘s recent decision that Canada not participate in the American Ballistic Missile Defense (Defence) plan. And don’t think we haven’t been getting a lot of flak about that up here. W won’t return Paul Martin’s calls, our beef can’t cross the border, Condi has been criticizing us.

But leave it to Lloyd Axworthy, one of my favourite “Red” Liberals and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs to lob one back at the Yanks. Lloyd also happens to serve on the international board of directors for Human Rights Watch. I’m baffled as to why he never made a run for the PM‘s job himself. We could have done a lot worse (and often have).

Full-Time Blogging?

So Jason Kottke has quit his job to pursue blogging full-time. And he wants us to pay him to do it. This is a head-scratcher for me. I love Jason’s site, but he surely can’t be serious? I see this as more of an “experiment” and I expect he’ll quietly begin looking for work again in about three months. (By the way, can you collect unemployment insurance if you’re blogging for a living?)