The Adventures of Schnubbs

Howdy Geeks.

I’ve getting very excited about my trip over to Seattle this Saturday. That’s right, as I alluded to earlier this week, I’m heading over to attend the Microsoft MVP Summit.

As part of the fun, my MVT (Most Valuable Tiger) lead has given us all some goodies. The aim is that all the MVPs and MVTs from Down Under can recognise each other via our cool beanies and glow sticks.

I’m looking forward to meeting some new friends – if you spot me please come over, chat about .NET and get a photo taken with me.

Here’s me modelling the MVP beanie.

I was tagged by my new friend Catherine the other day. This means that I have to tell you 8 things about me and then tag 8 other people. It’s a kind of chain mail meme that goes around every so often.

Here’s my 8:

I’m 6 years old

Yeah, I know, it sounds young – but in tiger years, that’s actually pretty old. I’m what other tigers refer to as wise and mature.

I was born in Sydney

This will be news to many people, because most people know me as ‘that stunt tiger working in LA’. But, although I spend much of my time in LA, my home – and heart – is here in Sydney.

I ran the City to Surf in under an hour

Yeah, I beat everyone, but was not acknowledged. That’s fair enough, because we tigers are generally very fast, and it just ain’t fair to people to compare us on speed. And the silly thing is I could have run it faster, because I stopped to chat with fans along the way.

Writing is hard for me

One of the main frustrations of being a tiger is that I have no opposable thumbs. You’d be surprised at how much of a hindrance this is. Writing of course is hard, but so is just about anything – for example, I was trying to give my flat mate a massage the other day, but I could only apply deep paw pressure – I wasn’t able to get into the muscle and relieve the strain.

I’ve broken just about every bone in my body

Over the last few years I’ve been in some big action films. And whilst they take every safety precaution imaginable, it is inevitable that you are going to get hurt along the way. That’s part of the job. I’ve broken legs, paws, cheek bones, my jaw, and my tail has often got caught in machinery and even burnt.

But hey, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love my stunt tiger job, and the odd mishap here and there is nothing compared to the thrill of pulling off an impressive death-defying sequence.

That said, I have enough TiQ (Tiger Intelligence Quotient) to realise I won’t be doing stunt work all my tiger life. That’s why I’ve been getting into programming and technology of late. It’s still a secret at this stage (so don’t tell) but I’m planning to release an online web mail service specially for Tigers – it’ll be called TMail, and should be available later this year.

I’ve met lots of celebrities

If you read the gossip mags you’d be forgiven for thinking that many of the actors, musicians and celebrities are awful, ego-filled people. But that’s not the case. Most of them are kind-hearted, loving, friendly people who are just doing their part in this world. Every so often they get caught after a long, hard, exhausting day by a flurry of paparazzi and they just crack up. This is sad, because I know how much pressure they are under. And I hate to see how hurtful the media can be at times.

I’m just thankful I don’t come under that kind of scrutiny, even though I’m getting recognised a lot more often these days.

I’ve studied most of the martial arts

Many of the movies have famous martial artists and choreographers on board to help with the action scenes. This is pure gold for a stunt tiger like me. And fortunately I’ve been able to learn from the best of them. Some of the work I did on the latest Rambo film (it was edited out in the final cut, sadly) was based on techniques I learned from Jackie Chan.

I’m quite shy

Yes, on screen I’m all action and bravery, but in real life I’m quiet, shy and unassuming. I’m happily single, but looking forward to meeting the lady tiger of my dreams one day. That’s going to be difficult of course, because I generally don’t get out much (being shy and all), but lately I’ve been plucking up the courage to venture out of my comfort zone. Just last week I made it along to a new group. The people were very kind.

I can’t count very well

Everyone has their little issues. For some it is bad sense of direction, for others it is poor personal hygiene. For me, it is difficulty counting. But I’m working on it. Anyway, that’s my 8 things.

I hope you liked learning about my adventures a bit more. Please leave a comment if you’d like any more details.

And now to tag 8 other people… I’m not sure who to tag. Would you like me to tag you? If so, please leave a comment and I’ll put you on my list.

By the way, here’s one of my favourite songs:

It’s getting a little chilly in Sydney these days.

And when that happens it is important to keep myself warm. One way of staying warm but looking cool is to wear a beanie.

Here’s me wearing my ripper beanie:

But there’s more…

If you look closely you’ll notice I’m wearing a special beanie. It’s special because it notes where I’m heading off to later this week:

Yes, that’s right – I’m off to Seattle on Saturday. Why? More on that in later post…

I’m on Twitter now. It’s only early days, and I’m not sure if this whole micro-blogging things really suits my personality, but I’m giving it a go:

You can follow my tweets here.

I only have a few followers so far, please follow me if you are interested in my adventures.

You probably know that I like Buffy. In fact I was fortunate enough to meet her in person (I did some stunt work in a few episodes of Series 4).

But I particularly like the theme song. Here’s me getting all tigerlicious to the Buffy theme:

Not many people know that I’m a Microsoft MVT.

MVT stands for Most Valuable Tiger and is a similar program to their MVP program.

As such, I’ll likely be over at the MVP Summit in April (I haven’t quite decided yet). And on my must-do list is catch up with all my friends as we Party with Palermo.

Leave a comment if you’ll be there and want to catch up – I’d love to have a good Aussie chin wag with you all.

Happy Easter to everyone. As we all know, Easter is less about any particular historical event, and more about chocolate.

But, being the clever tiger I am, I don’t get caught up in that chocolate egg hogwash. No, I just get myself a stack of yummy chocolate bars. Here’s me with part of my haul this year.

Hope you have a relaxing weekend.

Hugs and kisses from Schnubbs.

If you have lots of important files on your tigerputer it is imperative that you keep proper backups.

I take a number of backups. Some I keep in storage, and others in my office.

But for maximum safety, I also personally take my backups with me everywhere. I keep my most important files on a memory stick that hangs around my neck.

Hope this tip can help you too.

I had a great time at the Microsoft 2008 Wave Launch last week.

I got to see lots of cool things and meet amazing people. I was also lucky enough to get my own ‘Channel 9 Guy’.

Here’s me with C9G.

Technology wise I like to stay up to date.

Today I kicked off the Vista SP1 upgrade on my tiger-puter.

It went pretty smoothly. I’m not sure how long it took, because I went off to make some more pancakes whilst it was upgrading. When I had finished eating, the upgrade was all complete.