My brother and I just returned from FITC (in Winnipeg), and man was that a blast : ). I'd really recommend making it to a FITC conference if at all possible. I was at the one in Toronto last year as well and they are totally well run, the presentations are really well balanced, and the people you meet are of course what makes it in the end.

We gave a session on combining games and animation, which I still think is a way under explored area. Our computer fried about 10 mins before we went on, luckily we had computer number two in the hotel room, yikes. We were lucky to have presented first, that left lots of time to talk about these things with people over the rest of the day. There are plenty of interesting things going on to be sure, some of it local even - always nice to see.

I also managed to meet Marcos Weskamp, a person I've known forever and never met. Super cool guy, and he does amazing stuff. He also has a very neat social circles app that sums up newsgroups in a glance. It was hilariously accurate. There is a "social circles home version" there that I plan to give a spin. It takes a day or two to digest after seeing so many sessions, but every one gives a little push. Kind of like an attitude/goal fine tuning for your head. Very nice.

Anyway, FITC, highly recommended - next one is in Toronto, April 2007. Maybe see you there : ).