The Biggest Dot Com Pho To Date With a Side of Bic Promo Pens

This past weekend, we witnessed yet another milestone in Dot Com Pho history. Although the week before, we attracted over 16 people, this week, the total body count was 25! As a result, the whole center of Pho Lan in Richmond was overrun by local bloggers. Dot Com Pho regulars Ed Lau, Michael Kwan, Leo Chiang, and of course, John Chow, were all on the scene. Dot Com Pho part timers, Greg Morgan and Gary Ng were also in attendance.

Tejpal Singh of 1234Pens decided to shower us with pens from his new venture, BicPromoPens. Though over half of them didn’t work, you have to admit, it was a good marketing ploy because we talked about them a lot. I mean, no one talks about a pen that works anyway. Even though we had some pen malfunctions, I’ve never known Tejpal not to take care of his customers so I wouldn’t worry.

This was John’s last Dot Com Pho for a while as he fears for his life and takes off to Shanghai where Mr. Lan won’t find him. Apparently, when John told him that we’d have over 20 people this week, his staff needed to hold him back from strangling him. We’ll see him again when we have our Dot Com Pho: Taipei Edition, when Ed Lau, Michael Kwan and I arrive for the COMPUTEX Computer Show. I’m thinking it will probably be Taiwan Noodle rather than Pho.

This week’s Dot Com Pho will be brought to you by Ed Lau and me so who knows what the turn out will be. If you have any ideas or topics for this week’s Dot Com Pho Episode, please let me know and we’ll consider it for our “Wicked Awesome John Chow Free” edition. Who knows, we might even give Leo Chiang a speaking part. Just make sure you let me or Ed know that you are coming and we’ll reserve a spot for you. See you on Saturday!

The Lab With Leo - CANCELLED!

A little while ago, I told you guys that I was invited to interview for a position on The Lab With Leo Show. Things seemed to be going good on that side, until I met one of the replacement hosts on the elevator on our way up to the Microsoft Zune Canadian Preview. I guess they found someone, and that someone wasn’t me. Oh well!

However, it looked like it ended up being a blessing in disguise. It looks like just over a week later, Leo himself twittered that the show was cancelled and it was all ROGERS fault. I guess that new guy won’t be seeing much air time afterall as Sean Carruthers also showed up for the Zune preview earlier that day. Morten from Pink and Yellow, who told me about this development, said that TV is pretty volatile and our back and forth on Facebook about the direction of the show agreed that it was way too “MAC Centric”. If only they hired me up sooner. I’d be able to win those PC Users back by building a PC in under 11 minutes. After checking the Lab With Leo Show site, it appears that the show had been cancelled since February 7, 2008.

In a lot of respects, the MAC focus wasn’t a bad thing as the MAC installed base is growing quicker than the rate of PC users, mainly because the PC market is pretty saturated. However, to ignore the largest portion of the computer market doesn’t get you the ratings that you need to stay on the air. Even when the show did PC segments, the equipment used was still all MAC. In a sense, you could say that the show was just a little ahead of its time. Hopefully one day, when the MAC uptake is a little higher, a show like this would make more sense.

I wish Leo and the whole Lab With Leo Crew luck in whatever endeavours they pursue. In the meantime, I think they should replace the show with either episodes of Dot Com Pho or Dot Com Kitchen with Stephen Fung

Stephen Fung Makes the Jump to TV?

During CES, I got a note that the producers of “The Lab With Leo” wanted to talk to me. I thought it was about having me on the show to do a “Party 101″ since I know how to throw a great party. After having a few challenges with their last party, I know I could give them a few great pointers to make the 200th episode party kick some serious ass. More likely though, they probably wanted to talk to me about my work with Futurelooks. Well, I found out that it wasn’t about throwing a party…

 

Apparently, Sean Carruthers, one of the show’s long time members is moving on. Sean has a PodCast Site called LabRats and it looks like it’s getting to the point where he can make it a full time gig. I met Sean at the Charity PC Race and he handed me one of this LabRats business cards, which should have given me a clue. Sean is leaving some big shoes to fill as one of Leo’s most active sidekicks. I was actually quite honoured to be considered for the role and sat down yesterday with the producers, Craig and Marc, for some first contact and to talk about what the role would entail.

We talked a lot about my background in tech, what subjects I would be good at, and how keen I was to make the break into TV. We even bonded by geeking out on RockBand and the coming availability of a Smoke and Light Show Kit and a USB Cymbal Kit. Overall, I thought the interview went well even though I’m horribly out of practice. Earlier today I got an email from Craig inviting me to stop by again next week to meet with the star, Leo Laporte, and check out a recording of the show for their upcoming season. I’m assuming that this next meeting is to see if Leo and me would get along and to get his blessing on having me around. Well, I won’t pick the green jelly beans out of his bowl, but I will run around the set in a chicken suit if they want me to.

Since I’ve never been on a real TV show, and I doubt small town public access TV and Band concerts count, I think they also want to see how well I’d react to the environment. I’m definitely not as experienced as the other Leo, even though he doesn’t get any speaking lines. I’ve definitely got a lot to learn about staying in frame and reading from the teleprompter without looking like I’m…umm…reading from a teleprompter.

Whether I get this role or not, it will definitely be a great experience to see the process from both sides of the camera. Does anyone have any advice for a TV n00b?

Kicking Off CES 2008 In Style!

Sorry about the lack of updates. I’ve been keeping pretty busy in Las Vegas. There has been lots to do including parties, drinking, and poker into the wee hours of the night.

 

This year at CES 2008, Futurelooks once again stepped up to sponsor the CES 2008 Kick Off Party (formerly known as the “Night Before CES Party”). Last year, the party was at the swank MGM Skylofts inside the MGM Grand Hotel. Unfortunately, we got kicked out of the MGM Grand so this year we had to find a new home at the Caesars Palace inside one of their uber cool Absolut Vodka Suites.

 

Along with John Chow from TTZ , Bob Buskirk from ThinkComputers and our sponsors FlickIM, NZXT and TAGAN, we threw one seriously bad ass party. In fact, we were told that we stole thunder from a few other parties that were happening the same night including the one thrown by ASUS. Whoops! ASUS actually stole our previous party name (”The Night Before CES”) and tried to capitalize on our success, but failed as people turned around and headed straight here. We’re obviously much cooler.

I’ve posted a CES 2008 Photogallery at Futurelooks with over 147 pictures from our event. I’d like once again thank all the sponsors and the staff that made this party the huge success that it will continue to be. The casual nature and fun crowd that shows up really sets us apart from the other events at CES. Enjoy the pictures!

Stephen Fung’s Scene Stealing Cameos…

Yes, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

This past Saturday at Dot Com Pho, Ed “Customer Service is My Priority” Lau and Michael “The Russian Rocket” Kwan announced the winner of their random draw for a 4 GB iPod nano. The draw was to help them gather enough domain name ideas to launch a brand new hockey blog later this Fall. After they decide which name to go with out of all the entries, they will be announcing the winner of the 8 GB iPod nano.

In order to make the draw for this great prize official and somewhat legitimate, they decided to film the draw. Please note that it was totally unscripted and the jaw dropping stupidity that you are about to see was for effect only. We’re actually much worse in person.

If you fast forwarded through it for the winner, you missed all the crazy antics. Take a chill pill, remove your hand from the mouse, and relax and enjoy the few minutes that you’ll never get back again and watch it till the end. Just so you know, John Chow was not acting. The Root of All Evil is really like that in real life…but we asked him to scale it back for the video because we didn’t want to have to slap a NC-17 on it for gratuitous Panda Slaying. I’m surprised they put me in as many times as they did in the video. Makes me totally look like a scene stealer. Love it!

Can you guys guess who and what I was mocking and impersonating in my clips? The first person to get it all right will win a FiringSquad T-Shirt just like the one I’m wearing in the video.

In order to rack up the Comment Whoring Count, I will also do a draw for an AMD Tech Tour 2007 T-Shirt on Friday for the Top Comment Whore as of Friday Night. Goodluck!