Not Disappointed By My Disappointing Prize

Such disappointment, as promised.

Earlier this month I stayed up late one night to catch Josie Fraser’s keynote at the 2016 ALT-C Conference; you know it’s going to be a good talk when it’s Josie, but even better when it’s got a title like “In the Valley of the Trolls”

I would watch it if I were you (Sadly I missed being on the even later in the wee hours Virtually Connecting session; #alarmclockfail).

In her intro, Josie said that in keeping in line with the conference theme of play and games, she had a “little game”– in one of her slides would be an image from an “obscure” movie. The first person to tweet the correct movie would win a “very small disappointing prize”.

How could anyone resist that? I’m game.

Hoping I have what it takes to win @josiefraser's "small disappointing prize" #altc

— Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 6, 2016

It was not too hard to spot the image… OMG A SCARY DOLL!

That has to be the image from an “obscure movie”

Now I have no inside knowledge of obscure movies… but I was able to grab a screen shot, run a reverse image search, and hit the movie!

@josiefraser That troll doll is "Alice" https://t.co/bs96BEgtIh #altc

— Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 6, 2016

And indeed, I was deemed a WINNER!

https://twitter.com/josiefraser/status/773105399880966144

I did admit to the Prize Committee that I had looked it up, that I really did not know the movie at all… but they are very proper people:

Great digital literacy skills are just as good as czech cinema knowledge 😀

So the “disappointing” prize was on its way. For some reason I had in mind an old fruitcake, but when I got my mail today, the shape was a mystery to me and Felix.

My disappointing #altc prize from @josiefraser arrived from UK today. Felix said it was oddest shaped fruitcake ever pic.twitter.com/XdGFMkh1tX

— Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 22, 2016

Sorry Josie, I am not disappointed at the disappointing prize!