If you went to BrainShare 2010 and watched the Monday or Thursday keynotes,
they were preceded by two short behind-the-scenes videos. In each video a
domineering packet geekess prepares systems for the show while "Fred"
(likely the user from hell) sweats it out through last-minute stress.
Yup - the geekess was my voice and a toon of me (although my boobs are
smaller as I told the project coordinator, Russ Dastrup, after seeing the initial
animation images).
Russ asked me to prepare a script of some of the geeky things that I might say
- if you're an old-timer, you might have caught the reference to Compsurf
(remember those good old days?). There was also a reference to Wireshark in
there.
Chris Miller supplied the voice talent for Geeko and Fred - from what I heard at
the recording studio, Chris is a pretty famous voice talent (Geppetto in Shrek is
listed as one of his credits - cool!). Those voices were recorded before mine. I
meandered into Soundtek Studios here in Campbell, California for my voice-
overs. When I walked in I was spending more time looking at their recording
equipment (they are a Mac shop) than the instruments (although I did consider
playing a little tambourine).
It was ironic when they had network problems (an unplugged Ethernet cable)
before we started. The technician, Pat, was speaking another language most of
the time - "too hot" "too out there" "more eeeee". At one point he told me to be
"less orgasmic" when I was trying to add some energy to my voice (I'd been up
almost all night working book edits and I was in dire need of a triple espresso).
At the keynote a few people said "Hey! That's Laura!" and they were right. Ya just
never know where I'll show up.
Enjoy life... one bit at a time!
Laura
