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My trip to New York during the first weekend in June was short, but overall, it was extremely productive.

I attended Book Expo America for a number of reasons, the top one being to find an agent for my new project, "Polos to Ties." I communicated with a number of agents, some beforehand on the BEA's social networking site. The biggest mistake I made was not attempting to schedule appointments with agents beforehand. But considering that I haven't completely finished the manuscript, maybe that wasn't such a big deal.

If you just read the headline of this story, maybe you thought "Man, that sucks that I won't be able to open documents in five states. Then again, if I get a job in one of those states, I guess I won't have to stare at a computer screen all day." Before I continue, let me explain what open document format is.

I still have a few more chapters to write, but I would like to share with my readers an early excerpt from my new project. It's a workplace humor memoir (the working title is Polos to Ties) that is based on a job I had two years ago. Let me know what you think!

Instead of finding a new job, which of the following would you rather be doing?

1. Watching the documentary - "The History of Sun Dresses."

2. Watching the story of heterosexuals in the fashion industry, "Pinking Sheers are for Straight Guys too!"

This weekend (June 2-3), I will be attending Book Expo America, dubbed the "premier event serving the U.S. book publishing industry." My primary reason for attending is that I'm currently working on a new workplace humor memoir, and I'm looking to meet agents and publishers to pitch my book. I am also interested in networking with others and compiling a list for reciprocal web links. At the minimum, I'll be visiting a new city, so I'm pretty hyped about that.

Oh, and of course, I'll be pitching "The Developers" and my newest project, "Polos to Ties," as I go.

IM tellin' takes a look at a bad joke gone .. er .. bad. It's important to note, however, that one great thing about chatting online is that you do have the capability to make up your own sound effects.

Ben: knock knock

Sean: I HAVE A DOORBELL

Ben: damnit

Ben: DING!

Sean: THAT SOUNDED MORE LIKE A MICROWAVE TIMER

Ben: damnit!!!!!!

Ben: DIIIIIING .... donnnnnng

Sean: haha

Spam has arrived, so much so that it is now more widely ignored than ever before. People in general, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life project, receive more spam but don't seem to care too much about it.

A recent PC World article shows that the main reasons people don't see spam as a threat is because the volume of messages has decreased, along with the fact that people are becoming more knowledgeable regarding spam.

Chatting with bots can be fun ... sort of strange, but fun. But what about bots chatting with each other? Can they determine that each other is not human?

Well, that's a tossup, but Discover Magazine tried to determine this particular item. ALICE and Jabberwacky have been chatting with people for quite some time now. And finally, they have been introduced.

As many of you are aware, I'm in the process of writing my second novel. This novel is closely based on my experience in the business world, so I'm currently rifling through various books on that topic.

No score and four years ago (sorry, but I visited Gettysburg this weekend), I wrote a column about the presence of computer programming in movies. The idea spawned from a viewing of Swordfish, but of course in recent times, if a movie didn't have some type of computer in them, the younger generation would probably be confused.

Sometimes we take for granted our ability to type in domain names in our native language. It's true that the most of civilization accepts English as the way of the Internet, but researchers agree that it doesn't necessarily have to stay like that.

Of course, this means that in the near future, you might be able to type accented letters, Chinese characters and even cave paintings into your web browser.