Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

Link Stream April 29, 2006

Stuff I’ve read, or added to my inbox to read:

Seth Godin on being done –
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/done.html

AlphaMale on KitKat’s success in Japan –
http://alphamale.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/how_kitkat_beca.html

Guy Kawasaki on Engineers and their lies –
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_top_ten_lie.html

The Slacker Manager on office politics –
http://slackermanager.com/2006/04/how-to-avoid-office-politics.html

Pittsburgh’s Future reports on shaky air quality ratings standards –
http://pittsburghfuture.blogspot.com/2006/04/misleading-rankings-on-air-pollution.html

Silk Screen to kick off with Amu on Opening Night

PosterA few days ago I mentioned that I was helping out on a great new event in Pittsburgh, the Silk Screen Film Festival. Well we’ve finally got a list of movies that are planned for the festival, and they look pretty impressive. Opening up is a film called Amu. The story-line is one of a young adopted woman who returns to her native India to find her past, and stumbles into the dark secrets of her childhood. She was a young child who was orphaned during the anti-Sikh riots that convulsed across India soon after Indira Gandhi was assassinated (1984). It was a particularly dark time in Modern Indian history, one that still sparks powerful emotions, especially amongst the Sikh diaspora. I’m looking forward to the screening of Amu and the rest of the excellent selection of films that the festival committee has gathered for Silk Screen.

Silk Screen Movie Festival preperations in full swing!

Silk ScreenSo, the last few months I’ve been volunteering some of my time to help launch a brand new film festival in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has a fairly large Asian population, one that is active in many community activities, but until recently the disparate Asian groups haven’t had a unifying event to call their own. With the inaguration of the Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival, that will soon change. The brainchild of several motivated, and creative, Asians, Silk Screen is beginning to take a life of its own. The festival plans to become an annual event, eventually expanding to a range of arts beyond film. As a volunteer in this effort, and casual observer on the dynamics of putting together this huge effort on a shoe-string budget, I’ve been very impressed by creativity of the sponsors and patrons of the festival. Take, for example, the team over at Wall-to-Wall Studios, they have put together an amazing website , and associated collateral material.  They just released a film trailer that will run at all of the festival venues. Check it out here.  Pretty cool stuff, right?

Scobleized in the ‘Burgh

Photo_011806_006Robert Scoble is in town for a few days, and I had a chance to meet up with him at the Pittsburgh Bloggers gathering last night.  Since it was his birthday the group had a cake and very special gift for him (see the picture).

It was nice to finally meet the man behind the blog.  True to geek form, the moment I mentioned that I was a Tablet PC user, he produced the tablet enabled OQO from his jacket!  I gave it a whirl for a few minutes; pretty nice product.  Scoble and I both agreed, however, that it was out of our price range to purchase.

This was also the first meeting I attended that was put together by the Pittsburgh Bloggers group.  A small community, but they all seemed pretty energized about blogging.  I met bunch of new folks there, and will probably add their group onto my growing list of affiliations.

The best part of this event, however, was the post that Robert made about his Pittsburgh experience.  He pretty much nailed the challenge this town has, and the legacy it must not betray.