I am not ashamed to say that your hero *wet his pants* today.   In fact, on seeing the below picture again, it seems I have wrecked yet another pair.  Oh well, it's not like I'm going anywhere tonight anyway!!!

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, Cookie Crisp is now available at Costcos nationwide.

In giant-sized boxes.

I do not know whether I need to give the Harper administration or the Obama administration credit for the biggest victory in US Canadian trade since yours truly nearly moved to Austin a couple of years back, but nonetheless I want to assure both politicians that because of this, you have my vote.  For life.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Seriously.

 

Thank you!

Signed,

-The Greatest Architect You Know*

* that would be yours truly

** and yes, I use TDD

Apparently the economy has forced some companies to take some bold and unorthodox steps in targeting new demographics.  I was walking home from the gym today and spotted this advertisement at one of the bus stops:

Doesn't look like anything too out of the ordinary, right?  Thank goodness you are reading a blog post written by a man with the eyes of a jungle cat.  

That's right, if you have the urge to get away from everything for a while, *and* you define "everything" as including your wife/husband and other family members, Sunquest understands!  Truly an exciting and disturbing new step in travel marketing!

Congratulations to the millions of you who simply reload this blog's home page over and over in your browsers for upwards of 8 hours a day, hoping to find some brief nugget of wisdom that will help you become as amazing as yours truly!   Here's your tip of the day:

If you are:

• 30 years of age or over
• using the term "EPIC FAIL", in any varying form of capitalization

you are embarrassing yourself.  Please, please, *please* stop.

Thank you,

-Justice

 

There are some reasons for the relative quiet of Gray's Matter over the last couple of days:

a) I was simply and courageously trying to survive the reckless act that nearly doomed us all over the last couple of days.  A word to the wise: when you are working in your office and *spontaneously start pouring sweat from every pore*, there's either a heat wave or you need to see a doctor.  Until this week, I had never punched out another human being for the right to purchase the last air conditioner in the city.  Don't worry - my hand is fine.   The hospital tells me the other guy will be okay as well, given time.  Something about "You'd be surprised how quickly 10 year olds recover from injuries like this...did you say he ran into a door?  And what's your name anyway?  Sir?  Where are you going?"  I couldn't stop to pay attention because I had an apartment to save.  *Courageously*. 

b) The "G" key on my Macbook Pro seems to be loose from the sheer speed and force of my typing.  It pops off pretty much every time I type a G (there it went again).  This makes typing entries a little harder than it looks.  Apparently as awesome as Apple is they have yet to build a keyboard meant for physical powerhouses.  

Most importantly,

c) I have been in the middle of top-secret negotiations.  So secret, in fact, that I still can't really talk about them.    However, I can tell you that August 7th 2009 will mark one of the most exciting announcements in Gray's Matter history.    This is big talk when you consider I previously promised people that their genitals would explode upon attending a user group meeting; however I can tell you with complete confidence this is bigger than even that.   In fact, just to be fair I will tell you that if you value your sex life at all, I wouldn't read this blog on August 7th.   I've been told I can reveal the news at that point.  So that I don't set you up for disappointment, here are some hints as to what this post *isn't*:

• I am not having a child
• I am not moving back to Edmonton
• I am not moving to Winnipeg
• I am not moving *anywhere*
• I am not changing jobs
• I am not leaving my wife to come and have a torrid fling with you (and it would be torrid, let me assure you, because I am a master seducer).

August 7th.  Courage happens here!!!

• This blog's underlying architecture and feed location*
• Correspondingly, your LIFE.
  

A short list of things that will need to be changed forever as of July 13, 2009:

• Your underwear

That is all!

* relax, I've got a 301 set up because I am an ACE HACKER

 

Apparently there are some WebForms lovers in the ASP.NET community who love the technology soooooo much that they were "not without a tinge of anger" when discussing the situation at PDC with Phil Haack, the program manager for the Microsoft MVC.  Can an online petition a la the oh-so-successful "Keep VB6 around because I'm tired of learning new stuff" be far behind? 

I had to laugh when reading the post, and not because of the image of a legion of "professional software developers" standing in front of Phil, looking down at their feet, hands in their pockets muttering, "If you don't stop progressing the industry, I'm going to burn my pocket protector".  No, I laughed because I know how Phil Haack *really* feels about WebForms development despite his public stance.  Let me share with you a heretofore-*confidential* exchange between myself and Phil:

From: Phil Haack (haack420_ForLife@Microsoft.com)
To: Justice Gray [E-mail censored because I get enough unsolicited offers for sexual favors]
Subject: I need your advice
So there was a homeless guy wandering outside the 7-11 tonight and what a sob story this guy had.  "Excuse me, sir...but I used to have a job doing ASP.NET WebForms development..."  I didn't even hear the rest of his sentence but when I heard the word "WebForms" I just snapped.  Kicked that dude in the nuts *17 times*, poured a can of gasoline on him and then SET HIM ON FIRE, yelling,
"Burn!!!!  Burn like the careers of everyone who still does WebForms development!!!" 

So do you think I went too far?*"

I had originally sent this E-mail to the local authorities but the Seattle police simply told me that they don't have the manpower to handle the sheer outbreak of people crying their eyes out on the streets about
a) how they do WebForms development
b) they feel "betrayed" by the very *existence* of the Microsoft MVC
c) they fear change.  I don't mean the change people throw at them while yelling "Get a *REAL* job" either.

There's not really much I can say to this reaction.  We talked about it briefly a couple of months back when "Mr. Drag and Drop" GridViewGuy dropped by Rob Conery's to say, "BOOOOO HOOOOO TESTING IS HARD STUFF, hold my hand so I can start doing competent work".  There's pretty much no way I can possibly relate.  What I can tell you however, is that if you like sleeping on a bed of money, you should learn the MVC.    If only you knew how much people like me make cleaning up WebForms projects gone wrong!!!  With every half-assed DotNetNuke implementation I save somebody from, it's another *10 billion dollars* in my pocket.  Hey, to all of you people soiling yourselves because WebForms is dying: maybe some of you suckers should spend less time doing this:

and more time doing this:

Some of the long-time readers of this blog may be familiar with my Charles Atlas on DIVs vs TABLEs post.  Apparently the fitness industry is using it to promote workout routines!!  Others have been using it for biographies of relatives.

Congratulations to the fitness industry for not only focusing on being ripped and oiled up, but also on web design standards!!

[this is not a joke, despite how it may read at first]

then you *need* to go see Scott Hanselman's presentation, "Microsoft .NET Framework: Overview and Applications for Babies" *tomorrow*, Monday the 27th of October, at 5:15 PM in room TL49.  You need to see it, and when it blows you away, make sure you provide good ratings and feedback for the presentation.  Hell - listen, if you're *not* at PDC, find some way to submit feedback anyway and make sure it is 10 out of 5 stars or whatever ratings scale Microsoft uses for these things.

Scott has given an overview of this presentation before, but in case you're too lazy to find it by clicking on the link, here it is again:

"Join Scott Hanselman for this lots-of-code-minimal slides talk that walks through the sheer joy of building out a .NET Framework application with Visual Studio using many of the new advances in the .NET Framework 3.5SP1 and 4.0. We have a data layer with Entity Framework, use REST web services with WCF and ADO.NET Data Services, write an ASP.NET site for reporting using Dynamic Data and MVC. All the data will come from a WPF client application and a Silverlight application that the audience will run live! All this, plus it's an application that babies and toddlers will love!"

So what makes this presentation great enough for me to interrupt my *own* self-promotion to highlight someone else? 

a) Scott's presentation is not yet another Northwind-based demo*
b) Scott's presentation is a highly original usage of the .NET libraries and thus stands a very good chance of being *memorable* and having a lasting impact on those in attendance
c) Scott is a Microsoft employee.  For those of you who read the first two points and thought, "Big deal, Justice, you did a presentation on MS MVC that explained the MVC pattern in terms of Steven Rockarts' drug addiction" I'm not an employee of MS, and thus not subject to Microsoft's cardinal rule against being interesting.
d) I know how Microsoft works with these things, and if Scott's presentation is the blowout highlight of the conference,there will be leverage for *more* original presentations, *better* presentations, and ones that actually can *teach* people via unforgettable impacts.  Who actually goes to a Northwind demo and actually *remembers* what they saw?

This is *your* chance to be an influence on Microsoft's future direction!  Previously, the only chances you've had to be part of a zeitgeist moment in the software development industry have been:

• shaking my hand
• seeing me wave at either you or someone behind you from a distance

Scott's presentation, believe it or not, may be an even larger moment than the above.  Please, I am begging you, if you have a chance to see this thing, *attend it with all of your might*.  It might be our only opportunity as a profession to free ourselves of Microsoft's Northwind-based demos and moving on to something meaningful!!

* Seriously, I legitimately dream of a day when the statement "This was the strangest Microsoft talk I could sneak past the bosses without them noticing" isn't something that needs to be said, even *half*-jokingly.  We've made some progress but we've still got a long way to go.

All right, let's have a chat. 

All great men spend some time in reflection and introspection.  I also do the same.  In these deeply meditative times I ask myself several questions:

• Is it still right for millions of software developers, hairstylists, and porn stars to pattern their entire lives after my example? 
• Are people still justified in publicly proclaiming that I am their sexual role model?
• Is the development industry still in a state where I want to grace it with my presence?
• Can I avoid having to come crawling back on my hands and knees to Chippendales?

Since I was 7 years old, the answer to these questions has always been an easy "Yes".

Then I see *THIS* on twitter:


My first reaction to this was outrage and shock.  After all, if anyone deserves to be known as the epitome of physical fitness in the .NET world, it should be the white Ginuwine, Justice Gray, and not some random IIS dude whose "name" sounds more like an alias for an adult film star. 

However, in the end I let this happen (the part where "Tobin" is hailed as a fitness guru, not the part where "Tobin" stars in X-rated films).  Earlier on this year I made a promise to you, your children, and more importantly your wives and girlfriends; a promise that only now I realize the consequences of not fulfilling.  As a result, there are really only two possible actions for me to taken.  However, plastering a giant animated banner proclaiming "Tobin Titus Stole My Studsmanship" on this blog is not only defeatist but a little bit visually jarring for the user experience of this site.  Therefore, I am choosing the alternative: publicly rededicating myself to my original goal of an awe-inspiring physique. 

I recognize that there needs to be something a little different than the last time I made this promise in order to make sure I follow through.  Sure, part of goal-setting is to make a public declaration, but we all know that the *very* best way to succeed is through fear and avoidance-based tactics.  It is with this is mind that I am now making you all what could be the costliest promise of my entire life.    And you can tell this is important because I am using bold font in every second sentence. 

I will be back in a 32" pant by the end of June 2009 - definitely - or the following 2 things will happen:

a) I will go shirtless for at least one full day at DevTeach Vancouver 2009, including any presentations I may be doing
b) Another public punishment to be determined by my good friend Donald Belcham

And after June, the possibilities are limitless.  After all, once I'm back to being ripped up, it is only a matter of time before I come to *your* user group to do presentations wearing nothing but baby oil and posing trunks!!  And once that happens my friends, everybody benefits.  Well, everybody except Tobin Titus, that is, who will have to be relegated to the #2 physique in software development.  But that's okay, you can't save everyone!! 

[Note: Kelly pointed out to me that DevTeach apparently is taking place at the beginning of June, and not the end as I was told.  I'll probably amend this to be 33" rather than 32" but for right now we'll leave it as is, because I am that inspiring]