Watching videos from Mix09, one presenter called offstage to someone named Austin. It wasn't me.

But I did hear one of the keynote presenters use a phrase I wrote in my "graphic design principles for developers" ASP.NET blog when he spoke about using these new graphics effects for good, not evil.

Although he might have gotten it from reading my blog, it's likely he got the phrase from the title of a presentation at last year's TechEd conference (something like "Using WPF Graphics and Animation For Good and Not Evil"). That session's presenter probably read the phrase in my ASP.NET blog. By using appropriate keywords, my ASP.NET blog entries show up on the ASP.NET blog's main page so these posts are read by many more people than who know me personally.

Anyway, when I first saw that a phrase I'd written was being used in the title of someone else's presentation, I initially felt as if my original writing was being used without permission or acknowledgment. Of course legally one cannot claim the use of a common phrase or expression.

I recently saw a musical guest on Saturday Night Live perform a catchy song. Most artists on that show I'm unfamiliar with and often never even heard of.

But this singer-songwriter did a song that I started liking almost immediately. His name was Jason Mraz and the song was "I'm Yours".

I watched a few versions on YouTube. In some interview, he said he was in Sweden for the first time and playing that unreleased song in concert while everyone to his surprise knew all the words and was singing along! So he said he decided that if people like the song that much (his fans must've all gotten bootleg copies recorded at some previous concert), he would record the song right and give them a good copy.

Evidently he has a loyal following, but that song in particular seems to have crossed over into wider public consciousness.

I bought the sheet music to strum the chords on my guitar. The sheet music says to play "with a Reggae feel." Notice how the emphasis falls on the 2nd and 4th beat, instead of the 1st and 3rd, where the words are:

I [boom] won't [boom] hes [boom] - i - [boom]
tate [boom] no [boom] more, [boom] no [boom] more...  ¶ 11:44 PM