This past weekend, the internet descended on Cambridge for ROFLCon II, a celebration of web culture and celebrity. This event blew all previous events out of the park. The conference featured a cavalcade of guests, including Mahir “I Kiss You” Cagri, David “David After Dentist” Devore, the owner of Keyboard Cat, and the guy who designed Clippy the Office 97 Assistant.

Barbarian Group, as is traditional, did a super classy post-ROFL VIP party with all of our guests, which packs the normal surrealness of having all the guests there into the compacted space of TBG Boston. Which, despite the uncovering of our secret company mission, was a seriously excellent time.

Here’s Ben Huh and Jason Scott:

And another from the party, Rob Cockerham and Johannes Grenzfurthner:

_audience photo CC BY courtesy Dillweed

_party photos CC BY NC ND courtesy Laughing Squid

Wow. Amidst all of the hubbub, we’ve forgotten to let you know that with the new year, our Boston office has moved to a new, improved location! Near a major commuter stop! No rats! No smelly perm chemicals! A proper server room!

The new address is 129 South Street, second floor. Above Les Zygomates.

We’re super excited. Here are some photos of the new digs

“The Red Sox seemed impenetrable to me then – a locals club that I had not earned the right to be a part of. Having grown up a Mets fan, I possessed the required disdain of the Yankees, but other than that, I was an outsider. A tourist. And those who know me know there’s nothing I hate more than being a tourist.”

Last Friday, Pfeffer and I engaged in a back office battle in order to decide who was entitled to the shanty in the back room. The first part of our battle involved shotgunning a beer, a ritual I had never participated in before and one that Pfeffer claimed to be a touch too messy for his liking.

The next Monday, as I was unpacking my belongings in the shanty and watching Pfeffer sulk while he drank his coffee, we chatted about the previous Friday’s shotgunning event. We decided it was nice way to end a hard week at work. A great stress reliever if you will.

So we decided to make it a tradition and this Friday celebrated the end of the week on the roof. We were joined by our lovely Mayor of The Barbarian Group, Nick Bonadies. Nick had extended an invitation to all offices to join us in celebrating Shotgun Friday but after opening up the video conference line all we found was one Anthony Dines asleep on the couch in SF. Oh well, to the roof we went and Sabih joined us and captured the event on video.

Times are tough. Things are expensive. Consumers want to save and businesses want business.

Enter GROUPON. They offer up a deal-a-day email on various city-specific buys/eats/activities/events. The only catch is that enough people have to commit to the offer before it can be distributed. Groupon is an awesome way for individuals to get group discounts.

Today was the 3rd Annual Kettle Chips party at TBG Boston, in conjunction with our weekly Grill Friday^TM. Kettle is one of my favorite brands and are definitely my favorite chips. Each year they have a People’s Choice promotion which includes a sampling of chip flavors that fans vote on to decide which one becomes a mainstay. Since we are huge fans of lunch type foods here in Boston, I always buy a pack for the office so that we can have our own chip party.

Well this year Kettle changed it up a bit and left the flavor creation in the hands of their fans. Rather then sending us 5 potential new flavors they sent us small packs of unflavored chips plus an assortment of flavor packs. It was our job to mix the flavors together in order to concoct our dream chip. Barbarians love hands on activites so we all gathered round the lunch table as Grill Friday was being grilled. Here are the delightful creations and pictures of the fun that was had:

After a little more than a week into the president’s term, the administration feels the need to hit the restart button. An official do-over is in order based on the lackluster performance as shown in the following graphical representation:

The strategy following the restart is to keep hydrated on a daily basis. Perhaps starting the administration over a long weekend was a bad idea. We will keep everyone informed of the progress.

In this, our second installment of Questionnaire Extraordinaire, we interview the newly inaugurated Barbarian Mayor, Nick Bonadies! Not only is Nick the reigning mayor of The Barbarian Group but he is also our IT Hero in the Boston office. For those of you who missed the first installment, let me refresh, I am conducting a Proust-like interview with as many Barbarians as I can get my hands on. The rules are: no NDA breaking, no boring stuff, and if things too vulgar I have to censor it. Also, it is perfectly legitimate for me to edit the interview so I may come across more intelligent and thoughtful than in the original interview. Deal with it. Now, let’s learn some new and exciting things about Nick Bonadies, IT hero.

For clarification, my questions and comments are bold and italic.