So there I was at 360|Flex giving my presentation. I guess when you call your session “Cool Shit” you’re just asking for people to fuck with you 🙂 So I’m going through some example applications and I’m near the end of the session and I get to the grand finale. The demo I was about to show was an augmented reality demo, combined with some head tracking stuff too. And I figured since it’s called “augmented” reality I’d do a demo that really captures that word, so while standing there in front of a packed room of developers I take off my shirt to reveal an augmented reality marker on my chest. When I step in front of the webcam the video detects the marker and shows a big muscular chest instead of my wimpy geek body. As I was doing body builder poses and taking silly pictures, suddenly *whack* – I get hit in the face with a flying object. Not quite sure what the fuck just happened, so I keep going on with the presentation like normal (for some reason the fact that someone threw something that hit me in my face didn’t seem all that abnormal). Then suddenly there’s a massive barrage of projectiles raining down on me. It takes me a while to figure out what’s going on, and then finally I understand: the audience is pelting me with little bouncy balls. What the fuck?
This video of part of my session has been floating around a bit, and if you don’t know this back story you probably have no idea what the hell is going on. But check out the video, and when you see me posing with my muscles and then suddenly recoiling in pain, and then you hear everyone laugh, that’s when I start getting hit with a shitload of bouncy balls.
So it turns out that some devious developers (I believe led by Nate Beck) were out drinking at some place where you play games and get tickets that you can redeem for prizes (aren’t you boys a bit old to be at Chuck E Cheese?). So they get a bunch of tickets and what do they decide to cash in for? Bouncy balls. All bouncy balls. Then the next day they come in to my session, and I have no idea how they pulled this off without me noticing, but they hand out these little bouncy balls to everyone in the first few rows of the room. Apparently the instructions were: when Doug takes off his shirt, let the balls fly. Awesome. I guess word had gotten out enough that I was doing something that involved getting partially naked (either from my tweet or just from me spilling some details when I was out drinking). And you gotta admire the guy who threw the first one (and hit me right in the face no less), that takes balls (pun obviously intended).
So that’s the story behind that video for anyone who saw that and had no idea what the hell was going on. Nate, I admire your creativity, you got me good. But you better watch your back, I’m going to be sure to be in the front row of any presentation you might be doing 🙂
P.S. I’m working on posting all my slides and code from my session, hopefully I’ll get all that up tomorrow.
Bravo!
I was wondering about the balls thing. I suspected Clinkinbeard.
Maybe it was a hit put out on you by the other presenters in the same time slot. LOL
hahaha, it was freakin’ hilarious, and Doug with boobies was classic! Awesome presentation Doug!
LOL, that was the most hilarious and awesome presentation I’ve seen since Josh Davis back in ’03. Augmented reality, Flash, and boobies. What more could a geek ask for?
From the back row I thought it was coloured popcorn. Good thing they weren’t paintballs!
That would have been interesting to see on Adobe TV.
The extra muscles was a pretty awesome (and gutsy) demo. However you really could have done without the offensive part of the demo.
@Daniel – apologies if you attended the session and were offended. It was certainly not my intention to offend anyone either through my language, demos, or anything else. I tried to directly address this enough during the session by being upfront about the kind of language I use and the kind of sense of humor that I have. I’m sure there were some people who were offended by any number of things I did in the session (just the title alone was enough to offend some I’m sure) and everyone is entitled to their own sense of decency (which more often than not will be different from my own). The spirit of the session was all about having fun and I hope that message came through more powerfully than anything that someone might have been offended by.
Daniel, please remove the stick from your butt. Have some balls and don’t take offense at virtual reality boobies that were obviously used for a laugh (and they WERE funny), not to mention tying back into the sexting app Doug showed earlier in the presentation.
Doug, great presentation! And thanks for the explanation about the bouncing rubber balls. That part kinda confused me, especially when you got hit in the face.
Made me glad I brought my Mino to record that. Nothing else there was really worth recording. All the sessions I went to were great, but certainly not worth recording.
Funny stuff man! Funny stuff.
Ha! Your session was very entertaining, by the way. I loved it. I believe the balls were actually won by Derek Bumpas and Nate Beck. It was a tag team sort of thing. We were bouncing these off of the second floor of the crown plaza the night before when this idea came up to pelt you once you took your shirt off. I’m glad no one was hurt and you enjoyed the surprise (welll… mostly enjoyed it).
I’m not going to say anything… but there may have been a man with a name starting with “M” and ending in “att Chotin” who was involved with the purchase of said balls. However, none of us could have anticipated the malice intent Mr. Beck had.
And, yes, as already well mentioned, your presentation was awesome – definitely cool shit. I hope we’ll be able to get you into the office at some point, although we were terrible offended by your “Fuck Flex” slide. 🙂 Only kidding! Thanks again.
What a shit show.
Doug, can you also post all the videos that you presented ? Including your’s and the ones that you collected on the augmented reality.
No no. No! You have it all wrong. Doug, when you show up to a Flex conference where one of your first slides is and I quote “Fuck Flex”, what did you think would happen? I think it was the build up of tension that broke finally when you took your shirt off that caused people to, in amazing coincidental fashion, reach into their back pack or man purse, pull out a rubber bouncy ball, and throw it at you. I took one home and gave it to my daughter. I didn’t throw one at you for the record. (two).
The other side to this glorious story can be found here:
http://blog.natebeck.net/2009/06/punking-doug-mccune/
Throwing bouncing balls? I don’t get it – hold old are these people? That’s why people don’t like nerds, cause they have the social skills of retarded children.
I was pissed off for you man.
HOT!
ROFL…. thats a great presentation.. !! hats off.. no ones gonna forget that.. 😛
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