Dr. Beth Coleman and her CMS.100 class have created a ChatRoulette Bingo game for ROFLcon participants and fans of emoticon-based games everywhere. The first session will take place from 11 to 1 AM on Friday in room 633 of E14, right next to where reg is going down. There will be a repeat session on Saturday from 1 – 2 PM during lunch in the Bartos lobby of E15. Beth reports that initial playtests saw “lots of laughs, participation, and full frontal nudity…” What’s not to love??

Additionally, many of our guests will also be selling their swag. These include the people behind Chad Vader, Wondermark, Chainsaw Suit, Keyboard Cat (they’re bringing the sweater!!), Stuff White People Like, Regretsy, FU Penguin, and I Can Has Cheezburger. Meanwhile, MemeFactory will be asking you to participate in some “meme iteration” exercises for their performance. So far what we know is that it involves dancing, photography, and worksheets. A+++.

Wow, it’s been awhile, Internet, what have you been up to? Sorry we’ve been taking so long to update on this here blog.

Rest assured, though, dear readers, that the folks over here @ ROFLHeadquarters have not been sitting around idly eating Funyuns and watching back episodes of Clone High like you might expect. If you’re in New York City on April 11th, we’ve been working with our friends over at The Barbarian Group to put together TITANS OF SMALL TOWN @ 303Grand in Brooklyn — a kickass one-night webcomics gallery event featuring work (and limited run, exclusive work only available at the event)  from:

* Ryan North, Dinosaur Comics

* Chris Hastings, Dr. McNinja

* Chris Onstad, Achewood

The artists (still working out the deets with Onstad) will be on site as well to do a Q&A about the work!

Tickets now on sale for $20. Due to the size of the gallery, supplies are extremely limited and we totally expect to sell out all the slots on this, so if you’re interested, definitely worth getting in ASAP.  More details to follow in the coming days! Drop a line at tim AT roflcon DOT org, if you’ve got any questions.

Well.

Quite a few members of the ROFLCon crew are planning to attend SXSW Interactive 2009, and we’d love to see you there! In fact, we’ve applied for a speaking spot on a topic we hope you’ll find interesting. The talk is called Behind the ROFLs: Next-Gen Conference Organizing While Broke, and in it we promise to share all of our secrets, tips, and lulz about how (and why) we put ROFLCon together without failing out of school (yet) or selling our souls to large corporations (yet). If this sounds appealing to you, please click here and vote positively for us! It’ll make us feel really special.

In fact, since SXSW’s panel picker is so incredibly crowded, here’s a quick guide to what our friends are up to at SXSW. If you were a guest at ROFLCon and you’re not on this list, email us and we’ll put you on!

• Tim Hwang (ROFLeader): The State of the Internet Memescape: 2008-10
• Tim Hwang (ROFLeader): Obsolete? A World After Email (Ed. note: This from the man who Twittered like 18 times about Gmail being down–should be good!)
• Alex Leavitt (ROFLfriend): Blackboards or Backchannels: the Techno-Induced Classroom of Tomorrow
• Alexis Ohanian (Reddit): Inside Y Combinator: The YC Startups Speak

We blogged about the wonderful “Where the Hell is Matt” 2008 video a while ago. We suspect you are now in one of two camps (it’s like a choose-your-own-adventure!):

1) You are lazy and haven’t watched it. Shame on you. Watch it! Go on, now! Once you watch it, you’ll probably be in…

2) You marveled at the greatness of our planet and the jiveness of Matt Harding. Now you are filled with warm fuzzies and also a slight twinge of jealousy and regret that you didn’t get to participate in such a wonderful project. Are there any cool projects like this now that I can participate in, you ask?

Well, does Team ROFLCon have the answer for you. Our friends at This American Summer have been roadtripping the country for almost a month now and documenting their wacky adventures online in the form of pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos, and even a constant update of what music they’re listening to in their van. Basically, they’re doing all the hard work so we can reap the benefits vicariously. Nice.

And now they’re taking it one step further. Check out this invite for a video flash mob they’re planning in NYC!

When: Monday June 30, 2008, 7 PM EDT
Where: Outside Grand Central Terminal on the southside (E 42nd St), across the street and under the pedestrian bridge
Why: It’s an interesting thing to do (and the footage should be cool).
Who: You!

Did you hear that? YOU! So if you’re in the area, grab a video recording device and join them! They’re a meme in the making, they were proud attendees of ROFLCon, and they’re wonderful people.

There’s a somewhat pervasive belief that the super tech-savvy, Web 2.0, internet aficinado, 21st century hipster types tend to congregate on the coasts of the country rather than concentrating at all in the middle. We, however, don’t believe this is true. For that reason, we’re hoping to throw a fiesta of some kind in the third largest city in the country, Chicago, the home of the best damn pizza in the country and two of the best baseball teams in the league.

We’re enlisting the fine soldiers of the middle for help and advice, whether you’re a company who might consider sponsorship, an internet celebrity who missed out on the Boston extravaganza this April and wants to jump on the fun train now, or just a fan of the tubes. So, troops: what kinds of things would you like to see come to a theater near you? Any thoughts on where you might like to see something happen? Do you just want to help in some way? Hit me up at carrie AT roflcon dot org with your ideas, thoughts, and love.

as a side note: I realize I may annoy the south Chi-town crowd by posting a picture of Wrigley Field rather than the Cell. In honor of year 100 for the Cubbies, I felt I had to. Sorry.

Some of you who attended the conference might remember this handsome dude (Alexis Ohanian) walking around ROFLCon and getting the celebs to sign his snazzy XO laptop — pictured here on the left. The end result ended up being pretty ridiculous: internet superstars from Randall Munroe of xkcd to Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like and Kyle from One Red Paperclip ended up scrawling all over its plastic surface.

In any case, news coming out over the interwaves that Alexis’ uncorporation Breadpig has announced that they will be auctioning this epic laptop on ebay for charity, with 100% of proceeds going to the One Laptop Per Child Organization. You can check out the sweet trailer for the project that Alexis put together here.

Time to get a’bidding!

(photo courtesy Scott Beale, CC BY SA NC)

WEBJAM ‘08 is the first film festival dedicated to internet animation. You are invited to join Happy Tree Friends, JibJab, 30 Second Bunny Theater, Odd Todd, Joe Cartoon, Xeth, Low Morale, Its JerryTime! and many more of your favorite animated webtoons, all together on the big screen for the very first time. You can see LOLs, ROFLs, OMGs and even some WTFs. The first show is at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline MA, Thursday May 22-24.
Join us at this world premiere, star-studded event and see some of the breakout work being created in new media on the big screen. Hosted by Jerry & Orrin Zucker, co-creators of Its Jerrytime!

Space is limited so get your tickets early.

Event Details:

When: 7pm May 22, and Midnight Shows on May 23 & 24th, 2008
Where: Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St. Brookline, MA

Its Jerry Time!: Brothers Orrin and Jerry Zucker co-produce really amazing animations. They sent in a sweet little animation to premiere at ROFLCon!

JibJab: Andy Ochiltree (a ROFLCon guest) let me know that he’ll be premiering some brand new JibJab material!

breadpig: Breadpig bassist Alexis Ohanian (a ROFLCon guest) will be debuting a brand new BP vid.

Gunther: Respectably French’s Gunther (who sang tra-la-la) was in town the other day, but wasn’t able to stay for ROFLCon. We do have a little tidbit from his visit.

Be sure to RSVP! Attendance is likely limited due to awesome Cambridge venue restrictions.  Totally so much going on Friday night, it’s not even funny.

Directions are forthcoming, but mark this down now–this is going to be a party not to be missed!

Sorry about the delay on posting, kids — a big chunk of the ROFLCon team (after a grueling 3-hour long meeting) — decided that it’d be a good idea to check out Blue Ribbon BBQ, a little ways away from the Harvard campus. This kind of led to a ridiculous several hour food debauchery of pulled pork, ribs, and ice cream. I was going to post yesterday, but honestly, we’ve been in kind of a food coma since yesterday afternoon.

In any case, cool news that “Second Skin,” Pure West’s documentary about culture/life in virtual worlds, will be showing at same time as ROFLCon for the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Haven’t seen it myself — but from what I hear and the trailer, it looks pretty badass.

Even better is the fact that it’ll be on Thursday, April 24th @ 9:30 (for all you getting to Cambridge early), and Friday, April 25th @ 6:45 (for all of you who aren’t too into the music show). It’s at the Somerville Theater, a short ~15 min subway ride from the conference area to the Red Line “Davis” stop. Keep an eye out here for tickets. We’ve been talking with some of the people involved with the film, and we’ll keep you posted on the deets as they come up.

[Update: The Second Skin folks also just shouted us out -- check it out]

More details on the screening room, after the jump.

The ROFLCon Screening Room

And a Disclaimer: Dean Jansen, part of the ROFLCon team, works for the Participatory Culture Foundation

So Scott Beale, honcho of tech/culture blog and experts in general badassery Laughing Squid, recently let me know that they’ll be hosting a pre-conference Drinkup event for attendees, guests, and other friends of ROFLCon from 7-11 PM on April 24th, the night before all the conference activities start. It’ll be at the Asgard, a slick little bar near MIT.

So, needless to say, if you’re getting into town early and don’t want to be twiddling your thumbs, you should totally check it out and join us for some food and drinks.

Capacity is limited, so definitely be sure to RSVP on Upcoming.