The bad news is that I haven’t received anything from anybody concerning my abstracts submitted for Lotusphere 2005, and because of other factors out of my control, it looks like I will NOT be attending Lotusphere this time.

The worst thing about it is that this is the year that I REALLY, REALLY wanted to attend. There’s going to be stuff on Workplace, ND6 and ND7. I think that I would have gotten a lot out of it.

Good luck to all those that will be going. It looks like there are going to be some great sessions. I’m especially going to miss attending “OpenNTF – An Open Source Community” BOF and “The Lotus Blogging Community” BOF.

UPDATE (12/7/2004): I got the official NO from “The Lotusphere 2005 Content Team”. I know that I’m not suppose to feel this way considering how many submissions there were this year, but given my mood as of late, I feel like I suck I’m not a good person, and that the “gods that pay for Lotusphere” are frowning on me. Oh well, at least I’ll see some great presentations when it’s over. (They WILL make the presentations available for download later, won’t they?)

The good news is that I’m scheduled to speak on Thursday, December 9th at the Detroit Notes Professionals “Fall DominoFest 2004” about IBM Lotus Domino 7. Check out the agenda here and register for this session. Hope to see you all there!

According to the Detroit Free Press, they have found the alleged chair throwing fan. He could face a felony assault charge. I’m not going to put his name here because it’s in the Free Press story.

In other related news, a lawyer for the Pacers have told the police in Auburn Hills that the players involved with NOT cooperate in the investigation. Meanwhile, NBA Commissioner David Stern has his thumb up his butt and a blindfold on hoping that this will all go away. Hey David! Why not show that the NBA really cares about ending this and ‘encourage’ the players to cooperate!

It’s around 3:20AM and I’m getting up so I can drive 20 minutes to a Disney Store to get there when it opens…AT 4:30AM!!! (BTW, I got to sleep at around 1:20AM.)

It’s ‘Black Friday’, and we’re out shopping for deals. Wish us luck!

From everyone at Bilyk’s Pride to your pride…HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I am thankful to all of my friends out there for coming by and reading my random thoughts. I hope that you all enjoy your Turkey Day…watch parades, eat and drink well with family and friends, and watch a little football! (Even though the Detroit Lions are not favored to win, the Thanksgiving game usually does something for them…don’t count them out!)

Thanks to Nexty, I was told that you can check out the video and get some more stories about the Ron Artest (and others) fight with fans of the Detroit Pistons at http://www.basketbrawl.us/. I’m getting a lot of hits from people looking for the video, and for good reason.

FREE BEN WALACE!

It seems police want to talk to the man who threw a chair during the Pistons-Pacers mess at the Palace of Auburn Hills. That coward should turn himself in, but he won’t. It will take a friend, co-worker, neighbor or family member to narc on him.

‘The Man with the White Hat’ and Ron Artest are making the rounds of news media this morning. They shouldn’t get 15 minutes of fame…they should get 15 minutes of shame!

As many of you already know, the Salvation Army was unceremoniously asked NOT to put their red kettles in front of their stores. They claim that they’re now enforcing a company policy that’s been in effect for years. I think they’re being Scrooges.

According to The Salvation Army’s national spokesman, Major George Hood, the Target store ban is likely to cost the Christian charity $9 million in lost holiday collections. This is going to directly screw up lives. We have to help!

Head over to http://www.redkettlecampaign.org (a Lotus Domino site) and make a donation. Even if you don’t normally donate, please help! In the ‘Company Name’ field, put my URL (http://bilykspride.servehttp.com) so they know that I sent you there.

Thanks for caring this season!

Congratulations go out to Duffbert on becoming one of the TOP 500 reviewers on Amazon.com. It’s an accomplishment that he set out to do, and he did it! Very cool! It’s another feather in the hat of a member of Team-TSG.

Hey, I guess he made the ‘Short’ list of top reviewers!

By now, all of North America and most of the rest of the world has seen or heard of what happened at the Palace of Auburn Hills with the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers last Friday night. If you have been living under a rock, take a look here and click on FIGHT VIDEO. According to WDIV-TV aka clickondetroit.com, they have identified the guy responsible for causing all of this. I knew who it was all this time…it was Ron Artest!

Every professional athlete knows that there is this invisible wall between the fans and the athletes. They get paid millions and millions of dollars to get cheered or booed by fans. That’s why they get paid what they do. You don’t cross the line and get over into the crowd. On an interview this morning, Chris Chelios of the Detroit Red Wings even said this…and he’s getting beer thrown on him all the time. You know, what makes Artest an even bigger idiot is that he ended up attacking the wrong person! What a jackass!

I have another take on this… You have a rap album that you can’t promote because you have a ‘day job’. You want to be known as a tough thug, but your NBA career is getting in the way. You even ask for time off, but get laughed at by everyone else for even thinking about it. What do you do? You add to your ‘thug’ persona by beating up on some fans who are much smaller than you. You get suspended, so now you can spend more time working on promoting your album. Good luck in your new career, Ron. Please don’t come back to basketball!

Oh, and if John Green of West Bloomfield, MI was indeed the man that threw the beer and Artest, THANKS, YOU JERK! You’ve put Detroit behind the 8 Ball again. Even if the Pistons play in Auburn Hills and you’re from West Bloomfield, they’re blaming Detroit, so you owe Detroit (and the Pridelands) an apology. I hope you have a good attorney…you’re gonna need him or her! [UPDATE 11-23-2004 14:42 EST: According to ClickonDetroit.com, the police have talked to the guy once, and he’ll probably lose his season tickets and face charges. (See Rich, wishes DO come true!)]