ShadowRAM: Dude, where’s my shirt?

COMMENTARY: Rumours, truth and innuendo

Dude, where’s my shirt?
It’s not often one gets to buy the same shirt twice, but Frank Arrigo, one of Microsoft’s most popular and well-known local techo ‘evangelists’, has done it. Or so The Shadow has been led to believe.

It was just two years ago at Microsoft Tech.Ed 2003 when Arrigo (yes, dear reader, Rita is his sister) decided to take his commitment to the vendor literally and give a fellow conference attendee the shirt off his back.

It was quite a special shirt, too, as it happens. A Mambo collector’s item: a gloriously yellow ‘Hawaiian’ with enormous red roses on it. Arrigo had been religiously wearing it to Tech.Ed, which he attends nearly every year. "It is so rare, I can’t even find a photo of it online."

That year, at a Tech.Ed party at Brisbane’s Family nightclub, an attendee asked Arrigo if he could wear his shirt. "Foolishly I let him wear it. Next thing I know this dude has run away and I am missing a shirt," Arrigo says. "I have no idea who he was, and I haven’t seen him since."

Just before Tech.Ed this year, Arrigo posted on his blog: "I’m still looking for the dude who took my shirt. Since Tech.Ed is back in Queensland, I am hopeful that my shirt may attend Tech.Ed and come back to me."

A few days later -- almost two years to that fateful day at Tech.Ed 2003 when it had originally gone walkabout -- Arrigo found a very familiar-looking shirt being auctioned off on eBay.

Now, we all have our sentimental weaknesses, but not many of us would buy the same item twice, even if we thought we were merely bidding for a replacement. However, Frankie got excited and put in a bid -- only, of course, to be outbid quick smart.

On Friday, 26 August, Arrigo posted on his blog: "My worst nightmare is coming true -- I gotta get this shirt."

Onwards and upwards, the bids flew. He had the bit between his teeth, his blood was up, he took the bull by the horns, and it wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. He won, paying $150 – several times the original price.

So after all that, Arrigo’s shirt reappeared at Tech.Ed after a year-long hiatus and -- despite drunken threats of kidnapping and vandalism from journalists and other assorted scum -- he managed to hold on to it.

Surely it couldn’t be the same shirt. Could it? "You wouldn’t think so. But ..." he said, "my shirt had a little rip on the pocket ..." He turned to show The Shadow the damning evidence. The new shirt has an identical rip on the pocket. In exactly the same place.


Channel manager makes waves

Who ever said IT people were boring? Ascend Business Solutions’ latest top manager, Lynda Christophersen, has just been appointed but is already making plans to move from the IT business
boardroom to the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race.

Yup, she’s going to sail the seven seas -- well, one of them -- in this year’s rerun of the world-renowned 628-nautical-mile yacht race often promoted as one of the most gruelling in the world.

Ascend, a software testing company, hired Christophersen as enterprise application assurance manager. She considers herself an IT professional -- but she’s skilled in more ways than one. She
has previously sailed to Africa and beyond.

According to the company, Christophersen is one of a ‘new breed’ of ‘high adventure’ corporate women. "I enjoy the challenge of succeeding in high powered environments," she said in a statement. CRN wishes her the best of luck. So get down there and cheer her on this Boxing Day.