Hello Maria!

So this happened.

As we’re (predictably) huge nerds over here at ROFLCon HQ – we were absolutely ecstatic to get news over this past week that Maria Popova, founder and proprietor of the profoundly mind-expanding Brain Pickings, has been confirmed for ROFLCon III!

Beyond raising our collective perceived literary IQ more than a couple points, we also recommend sifting through her other writings scattered around the far spanning reaches of the Internets, if you haven’t already.

In any case, hello Maria! We’re glad to have you in the ROFLSphere.

Alexis Ohanian @ ROFLCon III

Our headquarters are all abuzz today with news that jetsetting international man of destiny Alexis Ohanian is locked and loaded for attending and speaking at ROFLCon III!

In any case, Alexis is a phenomenon. He’s the co-founder of this fun obscure little site on the internet called Reddit, swine defender over at Breadpig, helped to launch the cutest travel site of all time in the form of Hipmunk, is makin’ it rain over at the Institute for Higher Awesome Studies, is working on a new book about making the world suck less, and most recently was a happy warrior in the battle to protect the Internets on SOPA/PIPA.

Alexis was the fearless moderator on our LOLCats panel back in the day, and also MCed our ROFLThing-NYC event a few years back. We’re bringing him back (with a few other folks to be announced in the coming weeks) to be part of a session that collects a number of internet badasses to talk strategery on ways to scramble the United Internets security council and defend the internet the next time an attack comes around the corner.

BAM! More tomorrow, stay tuned.

(photo courtesy Laughing Squid)

Next Media Animation at ROFLCon III

If you’re like us over at ROFLCon HQ, you may have had the pleasure of catching Taiwan-based Next Media Animation’s bizzarely awesome short machinima reproductions of current events: the Tiger Woods car crash, the Zuck IPO, Steve Jobs, and so on. We generally are all agreed that pretty much all information on the internet should be presented this way.

And so, we’re thrilled today to announce that the overlords over at NMA are dispatching Chris Vespoli, the lead writer and mastermind behind much of this work, to represent at ROFLCon III!

And that’s not all! Happy to pair out the announcement with the additional twist that Next Media Animation itself is coming aboard as a sponsor on the event — I have to admit tangentially we’re sort of hoping to team up to produce a piece that features a polygon’d Tron Guy. Welcome aboard, folks!

Alright Chums, Let’s Do This

He’s back! Mr. Leeroy Jenkins (Ben Schulz) of World of Warcraft fame will be returning to Cambridge and running amok, so prepare yourselves for some action, homies

So much moar coming soon y’all, get ready for an excited week! For now, at least we have chicken.