MSDN Event

Last Tuesday afternoon there was an "MSDN Event" that our office attended. Microsoft was showing off new versions of several of their programming tools. If the words "Nerd Conference" just went through your head, then you're not far off.

As a lifelong nerd, obviously I thought it was great. :) Here's a few of the amusing bits that happened along the way.

We had lunch at Fuddruckers before the event started. My order was called out by a heavily-accented guy who christened me, "Yeff".

SWoaN mentioned that her toddler son (who I've met) thinks my name is Fred. I told her, "Well, it beats 'Yeff'."

They were out of 1/2 pound burgers, but offered to give me a 2/3 pounder for the same price. Gee, twist my arm guys. I figured I'd leave some of it behind since even a 1/2 pounder is a bit big for me. Then I ate the whole thing anyway. It was 2 hours into the conference before I could comfortably bend at the waist.

Of course, I'm a scrawny overeater and I have several large friends. This always leads to comments about my metabolism. I said, "I've still got the metabolism of a stress-addicted over-caffeinated 18-year old." I thought there was enough exaggeration in that statement to get a laugh. There wasn't. Everybody just nodded in agreement. Big Dawg got the laughs when he added, "... on speed."

As with most MSDN events, there was some free swag at the front door. I got a free shirt and a pen. But the best freebie was this mug from P-Ziddy. He said he saw it and knew that I needed it. Random gift from da 'Zid! Whoo-hoo! I love this mug!

Some gems from the presentation itself:

"Code tends to go bad"... When the presenter said this, I thought about how a car loses 30% of its value once you drive it off the lot. I'm like a used-code salesman. Makes me feel good about my career choice.

The presenter was talking about test procedures, and said that he thinks of his testers as "Bug Hunters". I leaned over to P-Ziddy and Metacow and said, "Are you hearing this in a Steve Irwin accent right now?" They both laughed and said yes.

The presenter also mentioned, "I met the guy who tests Notepad. It's one guy." Whoa! I want that job!

One of his slides mentioned something called "Baked-In Best Practices". As far as I could tell, he never actually explained what that meant. It gave me a vague notion of potatoes.

He also hit us with a modified Full Metal Jacket quip. "This is our app... there are others like it, but this one is ours." OoRah took offense when the presenter said the quote came from a movie. "But... they got it from us!"

The presentation concluded with him showing us a new Windows Phone... Microsoft's iPhone competitor that comes out (I think) later this year. He told us, "I've been using it for two weeks now, and I really like it."

OoRah leaned over to me. "He gets paid to like it."

True. I make my living as a Microsoft guy, but it was hard not to notice how most of the crowd spent their breaks comparing iPhone apps.