My one thousandth post, apparently.

Typical navel-gazing narcissistic solipsistic blogger bastard.
10:51:48 PM  #  comment []

But why go so far afield for a dysfunctional tee? Paul has got the goods.
10:41:03 PM  #  comment []

You know, I could have sworn that when last he came, he was a much thinner, younger man. At the last BABB I went to, he said his blog was about atheism, and I jokingly told him mine was a Catholic blog, which met with awkward silence. Though reading through the last several-odd posts, that assessment doesn’t seem to be completely joking, eh? But I think a more accurate assessment is still “Stuff.”

I thought he looked different, but I had not interacted much with him in the last one, either. I don’t know that it’s kind of keen to have the kind of enemies of your writing who would do this sort of thing, if this sort of thing was actually done.
10:15:18 PM  #  comment []

From what I can tell, it can read my navigator bar, but it cannot read one of the templates: ah, figured it out, I wanted to change the “Computationally Minded” template, but mv’ed instead of cp’ed the thing.

Sorry all.
8:42:47 PM  #  comment []

14th BABB 2003

Our gracious hosts, Brian and Caryn were wonderful and charming but had almost as little endurance for these things as I have, and left shortly before I bowed out.

So, if you are sitting with a librarian, a web information architect, and a quietly successful   dot com co-founder, and if you jokingly excuse yourself to mingle with the comment, “Let me go see if I can break into the cool crowd,” people will actually get offended. Must remember that. Plus you’re probably going to get swept away from those cliques by streams of waiters passing by. Only got a glimpse of Meg Hourihan. For someone who has been blogging so long, Kottke was surprisingly reticent, at least to me. Ms. Spiers still would not say more than a few words to me. Ah, the humiliations of being a Z list blogger.

(How do I know he was successful if he was so quiet? Eavesdropping on him talking to Mike Wolf and Alex of Brokentype:
—Stamford yadda yadda square footage yadda yadda 1700.
—yadda yadda 3400.
—Wow, do you have roommates?
—No.
[Complete silence.])

Paul Katcher: did he manage to achieve his aim? Dunno. But here’s proof-positive that alcohol robs me of the power of coherent speech: stuff. The way he was staring at Kambri Crews, I was wondering if he was cursing himself for not having read her blog more deeply. I’m sure he is now.

Pitchaya was at this one, too. I enjoyed the cookie, thanks! Unfortunately, I did not get to talk to him more than just a little bit. But then, I know he finds middle English crusty.

Ken, of course, was his usual(ly) charming self, and Erin was refreshingly genuinely like her blog. She doesn’t manage to namedrop me on her page, though, staid and uninteresting as I am. Jersey bridge-and-tunnel jerks gotta stick together, no? [updated, whoopsey, there I am on the bottom.]

Interesting conversation pieces:

• Paul’s Minolta DImage X, before I forget again. No moving external parts to zoom, all those things are in a periscope like assembly inside, making Mike Wolf, who may or may not look like Chris Elliott but has much better comic timing, goggle for another look. (Paul, I am sober now, and still can’t remember why I owe you a drink. Knowing the klutz that I am, I probably spilled one of yours at your BABB.)
• Dave’s lighter, acquired in Hong Kong, with its shocking green light flaring out at your extended cigarette, if you were a smoker. I think if you put flaky copper in the stream of flame in your lighter, you can reproduce this effect, but it has been so long since Chem 201.
• Green penlights for reading tags and writing in the semidarkness.

• My vote for the most interesting conversation piece:

  The “raving atheist”.

  Proof that the Zanzibar is the best place to go gonzo blotto drunk off your ass:

  The “raving atheist”. You can drink yourself into a stupor within forty minutes of getting there, remain unmolested for five hours, and when you are escorted out by the big beefy bouncer and throw up on the tree, the guy will graciously provide napkins to clean yourself up while hailing a cab. What a place!

Megan McArdle cut her hair short, almost did not recognize her at first across the room. Now, why is she so camera shy at these things and yet goes on television? Is she saying something about the comparative size of blog readership versus PBS? or the relative wackiness? I could have sworn she would not be able to help herself concerning her fairly new policy on foreign policy postings, but she has been good, despite the setback in her pursuit of a foreign service post.

Speaking of camera shy, Orchid is posting again: she just had a thought, and bang, on the blog it goes. Hum. Did not get to talk to Asparagirl this time, either. Ah well.

Jim, yet again, managed to monopolize Megan and Asparagirl (again!) for the last two hours I was there. Lucky bastard. How does he do it? Will his friend, who quizzed me on the monophysite, monothelitist, and Arian novelties as opposed to the Catholic position, ever start a blog? Did Jim ever find Farid? By the by, Jim, I spoke untrue: Graham seems to have recently restarted his blog, having found a job. In Canada.

Cute couples:

• Zeebah talked about blogging at work and relative anonymity. For me, it’s verboten now, as my employers know (Hi Bill! Hi Jon!). Bringing Zeebah’s sister from the Chicago show was Lauren, come to sample the insane subculture that is the Manhattan blogosphere. She has graduated, and is thinking about starting a blog herself. Do, Lauren, please. I think the intersection of your interests would make for great reading. Plus we’ll get the real dirt behind what Liz doesn’t say.
• Mr. Swill and .... wait, I forget.

The great thing about talking with Aaron at these things is he makes me look at what I think about literature objectively. The bad part about talking to Aaron at these things is that I am too drunk to think of good counterexamples. We also commiserated about the poets against the war thing. Sigh.

Ken, Paul, and I were entranced by the seemingly kaleidoscopic (if kaleidoscopes were all black and leather) display of our waitress’s outfits. Was she one of a pair of twins? Or a quick change artist?

Other people who actually took the time to speak to me but for the life of me I can’t remember anything said:

• A Girl Named Bob
• Ari
• Eric Rosenfield

Doc Weevil could not attend, as he was up in Canada, watching an opera or two. Speaking of opera, Sasha, despite the possibility that opened up for her and Ian, could not attend either. Where were Ravenwolf and Nick?
2:41:06 PM  #  comment []