Arrived back from FiTC 2005 early this morning, after an overnight flight and im rather tired, only managed to catch a good hours sleep on the plane after a rocky, turbulent journey. Slept all day and i feel like death warmed up.
My photos are now online at flickr. I didnt have my camera with me most of the time, so unfortuneatley i only have about 50 snaps.
Anyways, i guess now would be a good time to fill people in on my thoughts about this years conference, while everything is still reasonably fresh in memory…
The Sessions
There was a great line-up this year, and i managed to attend a handful of inspiring sessions that i wanted to see.
There was a general concensus between the people i hung out with that there arent usually that many, if any, sessions that they want to attend at other conferences and instead they choose to hang out, however FiTC changed all that and most of the people i hung out with attended various sessions, which speaks heaps about the show.
I managed to crawl out of bed at 9am for the keynote on day one, people who know me, know that 9am is not something i see very often. Mike Chambers showed off some cool Maelstrom examples and Mike Downey showed the audience around the 8ball IDE a little, revealing some cool new features.
Chafic Kazoun did a cool new session that showed off some of the stuff he has been working on in his day to day job, its always good to see Flash put to good use in the real world as opposed to seeing floating sea creatures and such like, the medical testing application he has been working on is very interesting and inspiring, if you werent there, you missed out!
Robert Hodgin’s session was my favourite of the conference, i was blown away by some of the cool stuff he has been doing with processing, but the best one had to be a video he showed of his experiment with 100 powermate lights, layed out in a grid of chipboard and controlled via processing.
Joshua Davis put on a good show as always, but this time around it was more of an art related session and he didnt show that much Flash stuff, however, he did show off a cool 3D illusion that was inspired by a certain level in the game - Paper Mario.
Yugo Nakamura, the last session of the conference, was a big hit (to be expected), translator aside, the main room was packed to the brim to see his jaw-dropping work. He showed off some of stuff featured on his website and also showed a few new things that he has been working on such as a Video Mosaic experiment which was rather cool. The internet connection dropped out on him a few times but his humour kept the crowd interested. His session finished with a standing ovation, and lots of whistles from the crowd.
The People
As usual, i had a blast! It was great to hang out with the usual bunch, old friends and to meet new faces. Anybody and everybody was there, i would go as far as saying that there were too many cool people to hang out with, it was hard trying to manage my time effectively.
Alcoholic Encounters
Each night a crowd of Flash geeks would head over to the arranged venues, chat and drink until the early hours.
The first night a bunch of us headed over to the Cache lounge and i got us all fired up with a fair few rounds of Apple Sourz (My Favourite Shot), we sat in the VIP booth, draped with curtain and roses and drank cocktails/beer until late.
The Second Night i caught up on sleep, then headed over to Mike Chambers room for a tournament of Halo 2, beer and snacks. The TV was crappy and so we avoided maps that had alot of dark areas as it was an unfair advantage to anybody with a shotgun (point, fire, die).
Myself & Mike Downey took on Mike Chambers & LordAlex at slayer in our first game of the tournament, it started off steady and we were pretty equal until Mike C got ahold of both the Energy Sword & Shotgun, from then on it was a Massacre, so we tried to avoid him at all costs and instead attack LordAlex 
We lost!
Mike C and LordAlex then went on to lose to Sam Robbins & Danny Dura. Sam is way too good at Halo 2 for my likings!
The following night we played pool in the sportsbar across from the conference (we spent way too much time in this place). It was my night when it came to pool, luck was on my side and i beat people away from the table, except i dare not face the wrath of Peter Hall’s pool skills. Later on, we headed over to the awards show on a bus provided by the conference, we missed the first half but got there in time to see Hoss Gifford reveal the winner of the wrong award (planned? im not too sure). Hoss is one of those people who cant stop talking but unfortuneatley this year he had laringitis and couldnt speak at all during the conference, he cancelled his session because he had no voice, but did a good job (although a little croacky) at hosting the awards show.
After the awards show everybody headed over to Craig Swann’s party at Flux an amazing venue that only just recently opened, plasmas a plenty, smoke machine and some serious strobe lighting. It was very hi-tech, the perfect settings for a bunch of alcoholic geeks 
As the night went on, i caught up with loads of people, was nice to hang out with the Mediatemple guy’s for a little while and ended up dancing the night away with Chafic and Hoss, we were busting-some-serious-moves down on the dance floor while everybody else watched (tee hee..)
The party finished and everything from here on in is a little hazy, all i remember is everybody returning to the hotel in the early hours , there was a film shoot happening in the main lobby, there was a limousine pulled up outside as part of the shoot, me and Chafic managed to get into the limo somehow, i found some mascara, we were physcially removed and kept away from the shoot by security guards assigned to the task, we didnt make it easy for them. Hoss meanwhile managed to get himself in the film as an extra. I was then offering everybody mascara for their eyes for some unnapparent reason. We all ended up in Hugh Elliott’s room drinking Jack Daniels and playing poker, i now know that i suck at poker and i lost my stake rather easily.
The final night was spent in the sportsbar playing pool again, Grant managed to keep beating me at pool but i still beat Hugh Elliott over and over, we all then headed over to the roof top bar at the Drake Hotel were we strangely discussed tea-bags for hours and hours on end. Later on we headed out to somewhere else and drank the night away, we ended up in Chris McGregors room eating pizza at 5am.
Finale
The last day, me, Grant & Tink risked the wind and headed up the CN Tower and looked upon the city of Toronto from above. It was too high for my likings, especially when looking down through the glass floor, but a great experience, lots of photos and im glad we went up it.
The organisers put on a great show, alot of people left the show feeling inspired, myself included. The line-up was top notch and there were lots of cool people to learn from and hang out with.
Everything seemed to run like clock-work and the venue for the awards show was alot bigger to cater for all the attendees. The weather was kind to us to and to our suprise it was it was rather warm each day.
Im glad i decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and head over the Atlantic for the conference, Shawn was really cool about the whole previous blog post thing, i would have seriously missed out if i hadnt gone. I will definetley be there next year and i recommend that anybody that couldnt make it this year, for whatever reason, try harder next year to attend. All in all, 10/10 for the conference.
Random Observations
Alot happened at the conference and im sure ive missed something, but this was just a quick run down of my experience.
Here are some random observational tid-bits that summarise my time:
- Grant Skinner is the “Best Canadian Flash Developer”
- Sam Robbins is way too good at Halo 2 for my likings
- My buddy, Tink is the only person i know that can drink as much as we did and still wake up fresh at 9am the next morning.
- Tea-bags have a hidden, less commercially viable meaning.
- Never have all your laundry done at a hotel, to my utter astonishment it cost me $200 for mine.
- High Elliott cannot beat me at pool
- I cannot beat Grant Skinner at pool
- Beau Amber is a smooooth criminal when it comes to the ladies
- Dont wait for Peter Hall to leave the bar, go on without him
- If you ever play Halo 2 with Mike Chambers, dont let him near the energy sword or shotgun, otherwise its curtains
- Hoss Gifford can dance, badly
- Chafic can also dance
- I suck at poker
- Its easy to persuade Veronique to stay for more drinks
- Stay away from film sets, it can get nasty
- Aral Balkan is the king of ‘Petit Pantalon’
- Ted patrick doesnt wear cords, nor does he have a beard
- Craig Swann throws good parties
- Simon also throws good parties
- There is more to a powermate light than meets the eye
- Danny Dura cant beat me at Halo 2
- Josh Dura isnt taller than me anymore
Amen.