'Tis a small one after all.

Design by Fire, which I keep tabs on, is running another hilarious installment of Gurus v. Bloggers, where Andrei He…Her… the guy who does the site pits industry gurus against respected members of the blog community in a “Celebrity Deathmatch Style” design take-down. Both rounds have been thoroughly entertaining, but I was especially surprised to see that my soon-to-be advisor John Maeda has been pitted against Ben Fry.

This sort of crossing of paths should not be surprising as both of these guys are very well known and respected, but it still stirs up my own suppressed excitement (suppressed by disbelief) about joining the PLW this Fall. The rumor is that Ben is one step away from completing the requirements for his degree, so he may be gone from the lab before I get up there. Which is too bad for me, I would really like to meet him. John Maeda I have only met once, during my interview. It was an experience I should describe sometime. His personality is as unique as his design work. It is the only time I literally ran about twelve flights of stairs during the course of an interview.