Blume and I are in, perhaps unsurprisingly.

I should be able to make it.

I have had (and still have) very limited internet but this should work for me! Looking forward to seeing you all!

I will be back in NYC. Hélas pour moi! Hélas pour vous!

4: Indeed.

I'm definitely in. I've been wanting to go there.

We are in.

You might want to wait to see if the Pats have a playoff game before finalizing (unless there's only one plausible time for the meetup).

I'll be there. I don't even see Pats.

I can't imagine Backbar as a football hangout. Maybe becoming crowded with refugees from nearby?

Lurkers who haven't become lurkers after displaying long-term overt hostility to everyone else are welcome.

I'll be there.

11 notwithstanding.

Don't forget to bring an iPad so you can watch the football games at the meetup-table.

And don't forget to liveblog. Tradition does demand that.

What time?

I am totes there.

Backbar has no TV so I predict if there is a pats game it will be very empty indeed.

what time?
I don't know, what time? They open at 4 p.m. Should we make it early?

DonBoy, Saturday is pretty much the only time we can meet with all the out-of-towners. And even so we lose Smearcase. Hélas!

Let's determine a time and I will call the place tomorrow and, if they're not completely absorbed in preps for NY Eve, make a reservation. Looks like approximately fourteen.

Me also, please.

I have conference-related obligations until evening. Definitely stuck until 5, maybe until 7 or 8 (I've requested interpreters already. If other deaf people also are going to the later things, I can bow out with no ill will, but if it's just me, people will be angry if I don't show up because of wasted money).

I am going to be at the Boston Marriott (Copley Place?) and I don't really know anything about Boston but I am about to look at a map.

mr. turnip would make a good pseud. the internal rhyme is nice. mr. turnip-recipes doesn't scan as well.

I could probably only do later in the evening after kids are in bed.

So let's make the reservation for, say 7:30? With the certainty that we'll be there for a few hours at least. What do people think?

Or eight? It doesn't matter to me.

Would 7 work? With the understanding that we would be there for a few hours. Can you get food there without going to the restaurant?

Those sound good, but don't plan around me- even if it is later I still have to apply for my household exit visa.

Can you get food there without going to the restaurant?

There are food items, but I wouldn't plan on having dinner there. Cantina Mexicana (cheap and tasty) is right around the corner though. They have both sit-down and take-out sections. If you went before the meetup, you'd probably miss their godawful live music.

Or eight? It doesn't matter to me.

If E.Messily is tied up until 7 or 8, and will be coming all the way from the Marriott, seems like 8 would be a better starting time.

I might be able to make a Boston meetup in the spring or summer.

Backbar is, unintuitively, some distance from Back Bay. We may be able to make it. The prospect of hanging out with AWB is attractive. We don't get to do that enough. But the logistics (and the temperature) may defeat us. Plus the need to eat.

mr. turnip would make a good pseud. the internal rhyme is nice.

How about a teacher named Miss Turnip and Angeline calls her Mr. Nip all year long?

Okay, my guess is that if we make a reservation for 14, a few more or less won't be a problem. I will try to make it for 8:00, and will let you all know. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Thanks for taking on the leadership/organizing, mcmc!

That was me, sorry.

We are watching Preppers. Holy cow.

BUT WHEN AND WHERE IS THE AUSTIN MEET-UP?? AND WHY WON'T MY BROWSER WORK CORRECTLY PEOPLE???1?

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT BUTTERFLY BAR ON MANOR AT 7 OR 7:30, I FORGET.

Perhaps one of the kind front-page posters could bump the Austin Meet-Up thread back up near the top?

Ooh. I would like to come. If that is ok.

I'm not in Boston, but it is not only okay, but encouraged.

Nor am I in Austin.

yay!

Still waiting to hear back from backbar. I expect they are still recovering from New Years Eve.

42: That much excitement at knowing I won't be there? I think I'm hurt.

We smile warmly in your direction, LB. I wonder what we mean by it.

backbar says they no longer take reservations for Friday and Saturday. They further say that it will probably be difficult to seat 14 or so people at 8:00. They say at six it should be no problem, or they can take a reservation for Sunday.

Suggestions? Mine is to start trickling in around six on Saturday and try to save some seats by behaving unpleasantly to all interlopers, unless they have the password.

Or we could find another venue.

I suspect the trickle-in-and-hold-spots strategy will not work that well at backbar on a saturday; they explicitly seat people places and they have a hostess who won't let people in unless there's space. I am pretty agnostic as to venue but if people want to stay in Union there are the Independent, Cantina Mexicana and Precinct right there, all of which have drinks and at least one of which probably won't be jammed. No particular reason people would want to stay in Union, though.

Yikes. Trickling in around six and staying until an official meetup start of eight sounds like an expensive and drunk-making prospect.

Since it's a meetup on account of out-of-towners, would it make more sense to have it somewhere closer to where the MLA is taking place? The Back Bay to Union Square is quite a trek, requiring either a bus or a pretty decent chunk of walking. That said, I don't really know Back Bay bars at all and I rarely go to bars on weekend nights. Are there any good hotel bars in the Back Bay?

Eastern Standard has a fantastic bar but will presumably be mobbed. The Charles Street bars are generally shitholes. Over the hill there's the Ames hotel which has quite a nice (looking; not sure I've ever had drinks there) bar (that's probably very expensive) but I have no idea what it would be like on a Saturday. Yeah I... do not know.

Hey Blume what was the name of that hilariously terrible waterfront bar with the single-person karaoke? I bet that place would be completely empty Saturday at 8.

Meadhall (also awesome) would probably be crowded but also has a private room upstairs that might take reservations.

I'll try calling meadhall.

AWB and I are going to be at different conferences but it looks like they are next to each other. AWB, if you see this and want to travel together to & from wherever, let me know.

My parents are taking us out to dinner Saturday night- either I could meetup after or have them come too! (Not really.)

I understand that these two conferences are having some joint sessions. The, very juvenile, temptation to play this would be great. (E. Messily, the automatic captions are crappy.)

Okay, we have a reservation for 8:00 this Saturday at Meadhall. We have the private room upstairs. Be there or be square.

Yay! Thanks for doing the calling around, mcmc.

A notice to all planning to come to the meetup: Meadhall has homemade pork rinds. They are really tasty. They will also, approximately one hour later, make you feel very, very gastrointestinally bad. They even made Irongut Tweety feel crappy. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Yum. Those were good.

I always worry about how well they washed the pig.

57: So, are you planning on ordering them again?

55: Thank you! I was just looking at the hopstop map for getting to Backbar and wondering if there was some sadism involved. It's been like fucking 10 degrees here at night--too long for a drunken walk during a stressful conference.

Er, me, who has obviously gotten soft after living in a town where there is nothing to walk more than 10 minutes to, no matter how cold it is.

Are you at your conference as a combatant, AWB? good luck if so.

62: No, I am attending as a sucker who hoped to receive phone calls that never came and is now going to spend a lot of money she doesn't have to sit in the hotel room and try to avoid running into the motherfuckers who actually got interviews. My field this year had about 1/4 the usual number of advertisements, and half of the ones that did exist were advertised as appointments in my field and two other (much larger) fields. It was a real bloodbath. I've never not gotten at least a single interview before. It is phenomenally sucky, but it remains to be seen whether everyone has simultaneously decided to eliminate the 140-year span my field represents, or whether it's just a weird coincidence that no one is hiring in it.

It is especially hilarious that one of the top public research universities, one with an enormous department with sub-specializing folks in each nook and cranny of method and period, advertised for two open positions described as my period, the following period, and the one after that--the last of which is one of the most popular areas of study. So what will probably happen is they will hire two people from the popular area who say they've at least read a few texts from my period, and effectively end up with no one in my period at all. And instead of receiving 300 applications (a number that is wretched, but I have a tiny chance against 300), they'll get a few thousand, many from folks who are already mid-career scholars elsewhere. I can't even expect someone to read my application letter under those conditions. Maybe it's a fluke this year, but you can bet this shit doesn't happen to people who study Shakespeare.

55: Super. I'm at BWI waiting to board. Woo Boston! I hope my gloves are warm enough.

If you want to keep your gloves warm, put them in an inside pocket or next to the bare skin of your torso.

Even better, leaving your gloves inside a heat home will keep them very warm.

Moby, are we competing for the prestigious Least Helpful Commenter Prize?

Meadhall! Right across from my office. We can go do robot battles afterwards.

68 inflames my competitive steak.
Bashed neeps are the new bath salts !

me, who has obviously gotten soft after living in a town where there is nothing to walk more than 10 minutes to, no matter how cold it is.

I had lunch with my colleague and friend from your university today, and he said the very same thing, close to word for word.

70 68 inflames my competitive steak.

Is that a painful condition?

Hey could we get this bumped and updated pretty please? Saturday, 8, upstairs room at Meadhall is my understanding of the current plan.

My gloves are surviving splendidly, thanks to Moby.

Pork rinds a-plenty!

Can we get a summary of the current plan in the main post, so there's no confusion? Meadhall (near Kendall on the red line) at 8.

And nobody bring a double-edged sword.

I always get lost around Kendall. When you get out of the T, going inbound, where do you enter?

Enter what?

The entrance to the bar is at the corner of Ames and Broadway. (Whether you took the T inbound or outbound.)

One more RSVP from a lurker-so-far. I know it's hideously late, but I'm imagining that a private room can accommodate one more person smoothly enough...

This could be the biggestest meetup EVAR!

a private room can accommodate one more person smoothly enough...

ATM.

I have no idea why I wrote "enter." I think I had a vague idea that one is supposed to go through the Marriott.

Basically, I was asking for walking directions? Do I need to cross the street, etc.?

http://maps.google.com/ ?

From inbound exit, face Marriott. Cross main St, turn left, at corner of main and Ames (Legal seafood on corner) turn right, entrance is at next intersection (broadway and Ames)

Thanks, SP.

I did look at google maps, Bave. Without explicit walking directions I struggle. I navigate mostly by landmarks.

Aw shucks, if I got on a bus now I'd still be late for the meetup.

There is construction on that side of Main St. (f-ing Google) so you'll have to either walk through some covered pathways or you might get detoured back to the other side of the street)

You can walk through the Marriott, too. It's like a symbolic rebirth.

87: Do it anyway!

I got momentarily stuck in that Marriott the other day. The automatic doors on the Broadway side were behaving weirdly, and once I'd gotten through one set, the ones to the street wouldn't open, and nor would the ones back into the hotel. A bellhop had to come save me.

I agree with 90.

91: With forceps?

93: Ventouse!

And nobody bring a double-edged sword.

It's a mead hall, so we need something to defend ourselves with when Grendel bursts in.

Unfortunately those pork rinds are a delayed-effect weapon.

I really need a haircut and can't decide if I should go try to get one before the meetup.

Do scissors count as a double-edged blade? Would meadhall mind if somebody gave you a quick trim right there?

So many questions.

82: I carefully considered my word choice around "imagining" - I have a dim memory that "hopefully", used haphazardly, is a bête noire for someone here - but I see I did forget to check for double entendre!

Ah, well - it's polite anyway to leave your interlocutors an opening engage everyone in conversation.

I'll probably be there in the 8:30-9pm range, after the kid is in bed.

We took an early bus and are having ourselves a fine old time. See you reprobates at 8.

Grendel's Den is in Harvard Square and the Meadhall is in Kendall Square. Cambridge is really in Scandinavia?

Then there's the Asgard in Central.

Wotan! This is making so much sense now.

It's actually a well-hidden suburb of Copenhagen. The Danes don't like to acknowledge it because of the relatively low number of bicycles.

Greater Boston, where the Danes drive. (Very tetchy people, they are, when behind the wheel.)

I'm sad to miss you guys, but I am sick as a dog right now and won't make it. I had a cold for the past few days and tried to ignore it, and now I feel like shit. I thought last night was going to be the worst of it, but it seems I still have some serious suffering to do. Have a wonderful time, but not so wonderful that you don't miss me!

108: sorry to hear that. Get well soon.

I'm here. We have a circle of leather chairs upstairs. Instead of the private room.

Getting on a bus in west camb. About 25 min. Can you build the chairs into a fort to make a private room ?

Is this meet-up going to be live-commented? Think of this thread as a confidential backchannel.

I'm en route, see you soon.

30 seconds away! Live enough?

NO. MOAR LIVEBLOGGING.

Liveblogging! We are not yet in the private room but I think we might move there because we are LEGION.

Oh hey kinda pwned.

We have a private room with a very large table. We need something to put in the middle. Sifu says D&D. The waiter suggested a dancing pole. Mcmc wants a corporate report on why commenting futures are down 79%

we are LEGION

Legion doesn't go with the Meadhall mythos.

This is going to be one weird D&D game.

Football fans trying to trap us in our private room. Never!

We ordered pork rinds! Oh damn!

I send my regrets. I had to exercise Fleur's horse* for her today and I'm beat.

*Could that fruit be hanging any lower? I didn't think so.

We cannot be contained. NYers are smoking. Outside, though.

Pork rinds: delicious.

If they smoked on the inside, how could you tell?

The Vikings fans in the other part of the bar are sad.

122: "Knecht Ruprecht's" wife owns a horse and he lives in Massachusetts? A little less time commenting on Unfogged and you might be president today.

Early departure liveblogging: Blume is tired!

Everybody else seemed to be gearing up for some intense D&D, though.

A little less time commenting on Unfogged childhood lead exposure and you might be president today.

Euphuism for going to the bathroom: going to check out the chalk art.

The men's room chalk art I found uninspired.

What did you think of the women's room art?

In my imagination it is glorious. Just multicolored penises everywhere.

You mean to imply that the chalk art in the men's room doesn't consist of multicolored penises? I find that hard to believe.

I feel like it was flowers or some dumb bullshit. Maybe somebody still there can report back.

Maybe they were just oddly shaped penises.

Checked, it's still some Xmas based thing with someone
saying "Have you seem blitzen?" I'd have taken a picture but others were in the bathroom.

136 to 121.

That might explain 56.2.

Now an excellent debate about relative standing of gays and goys in Judaism.

flowers or some dumb bullshit

Look again.

When I tried to comment from in or near the bar I got the "you do not have permission to comment" error. Some technically-minded blog person should fix that. (neb)

So, yeah, really large meetup, multiple lurkers, general pleasantness. My surprise to see that the CVS in Davis Square was closed when I exited the subway attests to how rarely I stay out this late.

But I will be shocked if my credit card isn't doubly-charged for my first drink given the waiter's extreme confusion.

140: I'm sorry that I missed that.

It was lovely to meet all the people I'd never met before as well as to see old faces.

144: Sucker for not paying cash.

I think at some point tonight I had a witty retort I was trying to post to 125 when I got the error message, but I have no idea what it was.

Sucker for not paying cash.

Word. I always pay cash in bars. There's just so much that could potentially go wrong using a card.

Oddly he didn't seem to be charging anyone tax. People paying cash just paid the number in the menu, and my tab was some round number.

Oddly he didn't seem to be charging anyone tax. People paying cash just paid the number in the menu, and my tab was some round number.

Oddly he didn't seem to be charging anyone tax. People paying cash just paid the number in the menu, and my tab was some round number.

Oddly he didn't seem to be charging anyone tax. People paying cash just paid the number in the menu, and my tab was some round number.

Wow- blame that on posting from the T.

Huh. Yeah, that didn't occur to me at the time, but there wasn't any tax on my bill.

I think the most entertaining thing the waiter did was bringing Blume a glass of wine and a separate glass of soda water when she ordered a wine spritzer.

What a nice meetup! I was successfully delivered back to my hotel and eagerly await my next trip to Boston. Probably because I refrained from eating any pork rinds despite repeated invitations.

The pork rinds have delayed effect. You may have eaten them and you just don't know it yet.

It was great meeting new people and chatting with people I'd already met.

Indeed, great to see and meet people there. Thank you everyone!

(Signs that I'm out later than usual: the guy on the T who decided, based on my looks, that I should speak German. Better, I suppose, than the belligerent drunk guy years ago who accused me of... gasp... eating oatmeal! (Correctly, though I did not bother to point that out))

Many years ago we took the T to Revere beach to see a lunar eclipse. One of our party had M&Ms and ate them by color. He offered others in our group his leftover brown ones, and a rider on the blue line took exception to this, accusing us of all being racist because, "Sure, no one ever wants the brown ones, I see how it is."
I'm still waiting for the last bus to depart from Harvard station.

When I was leaving the bar, a drunk girl who'd been outside smoking said, "Nice helmet! Ride that bike!" I said, "Thanks." I should have warned the guy she was with that she was a mean drunk.

Was great to meet everyone! Hope we can do it again sometime. Now off to swim bed.

Drunk belligerent people often target one's functional but slightly unusual headgear. Once in Williamsburg, a hipster couple scorned my winter hat because it looked Russian. (It is Canadian.)

Ugh, 75 minutes to travel 4 miles. God bless the Boston transit system.

What do hipsters have against Russian hats?

Thank you for a lovely evening! Says one of the lurkers.

I should probably have contributed more to 130, and I didn't notice the men's room's chalk art - I focused on the equally chalky beer menu, ibid. - but I also praise the meet-up.

Morning-after commenting: a marvelous time was had.

I think the most entertaining thing the waiter did was bringing Blume a glass of wine and a separate glass of soda water when she ordered a wine spritzer.

This was pretty funny, but I was also entertained by essear's repeated and patient attempts to spell "sazerac" for our waiter who had no idea what that was.

Morning-after commenting: a marvelous time was had.

I think the most entertaining thing the waiter did was bringing Blume a glass of wine and a separate glass of soda water when she ordered a wine spritzer.

This was pretty funny, but I was also entertained by essear's repeated and patient attempts to spell "sazerac" for our waiter who had no idea what that was.

Posted by: Fluxus12 | Link to this comment | 01- 5-13 11:59 PM

Yeah, new commenter name! Fluxus12 was also one of the beers on offer.

Jackmormon alerted me to it. And since it sounded more like a science fiction film than a beer I could not resist.