Thread by @QuinnyPig

In tonight's thread, incoming @awscloud CEO @aselipsky gets to learn who I am, along with anyone else new to my nonsense. This might take a few tweets.

Around the time @aselipsky was leaving @awscloud I was starting the consultancy that eventually became The Duckbill Group. We fix AWS bills for large customers, and also have a "media" division. Our mascot is Billie the Platypus, who is dangerously unstable and frankly scares us.

Those scare quotes around "media" account for the @LastWeekinAWS newsletter, blog, and podcast, meanwhileinsecurity.com, and the non-snarky interview podcast "Screaming in the Cloud" to which @aselipsky has an open invitation. I also tweet actively and aggressively. Oh dear.

If someone can tell me @aselipsky's birthday, we have Spite Budget reserved for a thing.

https://twitter.com/quinnypig/status/1280504892524822531?s=21

Yes, I said "Spite Budget." Most companies don't have one of those. Most companies also don't need one to hire a troupe of opera singers to cover a parody of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" to wish @werner a happy birthday, either.

https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1179728786595762176?s=20

I'm an analyst, engineer, marketer, writer, consultant, public speaker, stand-up comic, and cloud rodeo clown. I'm not nor have I ever been an @awscloud partner, employee, or member of the press.

I can describe virtually every AWS service in some depth off the top of my head.

Onalytica claimed I was the Greatest Cloud Influencer in the World. The New York Times christened me an "AWS Gadfly."

Someday @awscloud will realize that while I have many odd talents, I'm probably not immune to crossbow bolts.

Every year we do a charity t-shirt fundraiser for re:Invent. This year's is already in the planning stages, and will benefit @826national.

I have many running gags / deeply held beliefs. Some of them include:

* AMI has three syllables
* AWS is bad at naming things
* Route 53 is a database
* I'm the Head of AWS Marketing in my spare time

https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1361712619791413250?s=20

I suspect the most aggravating thing about me is that I'm usually right about a customer pain or problem, so you can't entirely write me off as some random internet troll; I have an uncanny ability to "Be Right A Lot" and point out the gap that got missed. We share customers!

The only hard and fast rules are that my opinion isn't for sale, and I absolutely will not punch down.

I think that about sums it up. Friendos, what have I missed that @aselipsky should know?

Ah, right! In 2019 the "AMI has three syllables" shirts were $10 more, because there's a cost associated with being wrong.

https://twitter.com/lostpaolo/status/1374926106244038657?s=20

A few other points have been raised! I'm a father and husband, which are the most important hats I wear. I don't usually involve them in my shitposting extravaganzas.

I have a recurring theme of "happy, and with your mouth open" in selfies. I look forward to taking one with you, @aselipsky.

You can subscribe to my email newsletter at LastWeekinAWS.com. It's generated by an architecture that looks like a shitpost but I swear to you is real; I didn't say I was a *good* engineer.