Sounds fantastic. Congratulations. Why are our NYC meetups so relatively underreported? (I must admit we don't have the switching chairs thing down at all.)
I assign Emerson the task of hating on Slol.
Hasn't Tim already taken this up?
He keeps trying, but he hasn't had much success so far.
Pictures! We want pictures! Esp. of the attempted face lickings.
Luckily, slol's camera phone was too slow to capture the attempted face-licking, not that those would get posted in a billion years.
You should clarify which sense of the word "catch" you are using, Ogged. And you must admit that he was singing the praises of corn liquor in a pretty convincing fashion.
You should clarify which sense of the word "catch" you are using, Ogged.
No, I think the ambiguity is nicer.
I'm not sure how this page ended up in my referral log but suspect it has something, somehow, to do with Unfogged.
Jealous, bah.
Still, off to Dunkerque tonight to catch a bit of the Tour de France tomorrow, and then having 3 days in Paris, so that will have to console me.
then having 3 days in Paris
Poor you! The hardship! The sacrifice!
Jealous, also.
You should clarify which sense of the word "catch" you are using
Oh, you thought I meant when he walked right past the restaurant we were in, and I went outside, called his name, had him turn to look at me, and then just keep walking (twice), before I got him to come in with me? No, I meant earlier, at Jupiter, as I was shepherding him out while you all waited outside and he caught his foot on a chair and I had to catch him.
I didn't get nearly as many drunk text messages as I would have liked to.
12 -- it seems to me 6 was referring to the "pitcher"/"catcher" distinction.
But I shouldn't overdo Froz's drunkenness, amusing as it was, as a big part of the night. It was only for the last bit, after Jupiter, that I think we even realized he was so drunk. He was having normal conversation the rest of the time.
Sounds like a splendid time. The east coast crew should designate an official Meetup Secretary, because these after-action reports are charming.
Hey! Where did you get Persian food in Berkeley?
Ogged always writes the best meetup reports. It sounds like a fantastic time. So jealous!
Where did you get Persian food in Berkeley?
Here. Not great, but pretty good.
I'm pretty sure my nerdcore was offset by the coolness of Jake.
Funny, I remember a great many things from last night in addition to getting extraordinarily drunk. A fun time indeed.
Oh, and public transit here is easy; don't know what all the fuss was about.
Oh, and I forgot to mention Magpie wearing her ragebunny shirt!
I'm looking forward to the final Unfogged meetup, when one of our female readers mediates a climactic "Y Tu Mama Tambien"-style encounter between Ogged and Labs.
Not just one attempt, but multiple attemps, huh?
[Ben: oblivious]
I should have kept a count of how many times you had no idea what was going on around you.
Are you saying that I should know what an attemp is?
26, I seem to recall that in that movie the boys were actually inexperienced with homosexuality.
mrh--This write-up reminded me that we're due for another Boston/New England meetup. I just e-mailed arthegall. Drop me a line, if you like.
Jesus, I should have known you were noting a typo. You know that stuff about how we all love you is bs, right?
Froz! What the hell are you doing up? I'd have expected you to be sleeping off your hangover for at least another 6 hours.
29: But after a point, you would have had to take off your shoes, and it was getting pretty cold at the end.
Josh! Go demo the Super Duke on Tuesday. It compels you.
Is this about me handing the bill to Josh and saying "can you do math?"
It does compel me. That's why I'm afraid of doing it.
it was very fun! everyone was super and great. now i am off to do touristy SF things. i'll write a recap later. or vlog one.
We see what ogged's claim that lurkers are welcome at these things comes to in practice: shunning, and then public mockery.
37: Although as I then proceeded to demonstrate, the answer is clearly "Maybe". Thankfully Jake was there to divide 145 by 5 for us.
It would be petty of me to point out the subject/verb agreement error in your comment.
I'd also like to note that for all ogged's claims of my obliviousness, I at least could tell that froz was trashed. And I didn't, technically, tell Magpie that I "really liked" her bag, but that I have one made by the same peopoe.
Witness the benefits of a non-liberal-arts education!
25: The captioned query on that ragebunny shirt is: Would you wear one?
No. Gosh. I live in Baltimore, for god's sake.
Now Ben is just letting Ogged win. Disturbing to see.
I have one made by the same peopoe
If I were not now and forever obliged to appear urbane, I would say something about this.
Likewise if I say that "peopoe" is probably not what you intended to type in 43.
I swear I have no idea how that happened.
This is what comes of eating candy for breakfast.
Maybe your 'l' and Ogged's 't' are off having gay sex. If they aren't back in a couple hours, we can start to worry.
If I had T-shirts as cool as Josh and Magpie's, I would wear more T-shirts.
I believe I'll sit out any swim meet that pits Jake against ogged. Or any drinking contest that involves Froz.
Slol: Ben has a pu-urse.
Witty, urbane, and obviously the parent of small children.
obviously the parent of small children
I assumed the irony was intentional, ogged being the clever wordsmith that he is.
Unfortunately, empirical observations of ogged's attempts at humor don't bear you out, slol.
Hey, I said you were a parent, not that you're a small child yourself.
empirical observations
Christ, I'm under oath even in casual conversation.
Hey, I said you were a parent, not that you're a small child yourself.
The (accurately) quoted portion of my speech is not, however, what one would describe as urbane.
Casual conversation? But I was wearing a cummerbund!
It's the price of witty urbanity. You're not allowed to relax. Now, if Saheli were here, she could say anything she wanted.
60: Might one describe it as witty?
Okay, you're right. No way.
I disagree, actually. Surely part of wit, and certainly part of true urbanity, is the ability to pitch your remarks at the level appropriate for the audience. Slol, wishing to make himself comprehensible to ogged, chose a manner of expression ogged could grasp. I'm sure that were his remarks directed instead to, say, Josh, they would have been much tonier.
C'mon, B, you heard slol ask about sexing Mutombo. Although, admittedly, he did do it wittily and urbanely.
I'm just giving him a hard time. It's true, slol is a gentleman. I'd never even dare to try to lick *him* in public.
The real question in my scenario in 26 is who gets to be Gael Garcia Bael, and who has to settle for being "Tenoch."
Obviously Labs is Bael--Ogged's too uptight.
29: w-lfs-n was sitting next to the fountain, so the obliviousness wasn't all him. And his recounting of our conversation is 43 is correct. Wait, why am I defending w-lfs-n? Go find that macapuno.
46: I don't wear Ragebunny to work. Josh has been known to from time to time, however.
Josh, Catherine and I were there first (we ran into her on the street corner on our way to the bar), so your recap misses the commenter-corraling that happened before the group hit critical mass. There are a lot of lost-looking people wandering around Jupiter, so it was kind of hard to tell which were our lost people. Among the herdees: rhymeswithmaria, who walked past the table several times, despite Josh's mentioning commenters' handles increasingly loudly as she went by; and slol, who introduced himself with the following witty and urbane conversation:
slolerner: Is this the group that wants to sex Mutombo?
Everyone: What? You're going to have to say that louder.
slolerner: That's as loud as you're going to get.
And we don't do accounts of NYC meetups for what, I think, might be very good reasons.
If I said what the reasons were, someone would come and assassinate me. There is a lot of extra-Unfoggedular gossip.
Because the NYC meetups aren't as awesome as this was.
Where are the Fargo meetup commenters?
I think that Bernal is every straight man's "constitutive exception" -- this may even be true of Ogged himself.
slolerner: Is this the group that wants to sex Mutombo?
I'm normally not too shy, but I'm really, really glad I didn't need to resort to this question. I may have chickened out. Oddly enough, it was racial profiling that led me to approach the group; by reference I suspected court to be held held by a skinny Persian. Ogged looked the part.
Where are the Fargo meetup commenters?
In jail. Emerson, at least.
I don't think any meetup beats my meetup for two with slol, in which I got embarrassingly drunk rather quickly and complained about my love life.
I'm starting the Unfogged gossip clearing house blog, a secondary source akin to Standpipe's joke-explaining blog.
Gael Garcia Bernal = delicious cupcake.
80: the problem with this is when peopoe refer to "'Smasher's blog" everyone will assume the reference is to Grammar Police.net.
(I'm assuming B. will play the cougar's role in the Y Tu Mama Tambien re-enactment.)
The Fargo meetup commentors are out buying jackboots. We have business to take care of. Splittism must be nipped in the bud.
As I said before, I'm just glad I wasn't quite brave enough to ask about sexing Mutombo to the first group of strangers I tried to sit down with.
76: I could just say the Fargo meet up was great since I am pretty sure if there was one, I would be the only one there. So where ever I am so is the meet up.
The Fargo meetup barhopped central Minnesota last night. In Melrose, MN, there's a vintage WWII era bar run by the same guy (now 80+) since about 1950. He plays swing band music and even wears the little white apron in front of the big mirror. Ex NBA player Mark Olberding comes by now and then.
Around here every town of more than 50 people has a bar, so we stopped by the Sidewalk in Nelson (pop 143). It was packed with 2 bachelorette parties and a small bike gang. The hot, sulky blonde waitress was like in a noir movie, just waiting for some man to take her to the big city.
I spoke to one of the brides about the no-relatinship policy. She took it well but her mind seems to have been made up.
Earl's Bar, Melrose, MN. Don't miss it
I'm sorry we didn't get to talk, Ogged. Next time--I had to go to a Berkeley co-op party and listen to Dennis Kucinich.
I got a chance to talk with Craig, and I will vouch for his great intelligence and personability.
See, ogged? You made Craig feel bad.
Also, I totally was there, but in disguise, and didn't talk to anyone or introduce myself. I liveblogged the whole thing on Armsmasher's rumor-explaining blog.
Does 25 count as "shockingly young"? I think I might actually be older than Ben, although I've been mistaken for 18 more than I'd care to admit.
The meetup was the kickoff to a very strange day for me. First I find out that Megan's good friend was the person who recruited me to move out to the West Coast. A couple hours later I realize that the drummer for the second set at Jupiter was my teacher at the Stanford Jazz Workshop 9 years ago. Then I go out in SF that night, and at the same bar, run into not one but TWO girls I was kinda-sorta-no-not-really-at-all involved with last year. Awkward!
does magpie have a queenbee bag? further evidence of her excellent taste.
Now, if Saheli were here, she could say anything she wanted.
Actually, I totally forgot to ask about sexing Mutombo. Again. Dammit.
I had been fixing up my blackberry bushes and was crankily covered in thorn-scratches at the appointed hour, and my lateness was due to deciding I'd be better off taking a long shower first. Paid off!
woops, hit post too soon. Wanted to say---I had a good time, everyone was charming, sorry I had to leave, and Ogged was surprisingly like I had imagined him.
97:
Nerdy?
Stanley and I almost had a Charlottesville meet-up. Well, at least, I was in C-ville and he probably was too. If he had come into Durty Nelly's, it would have been a meetup.
98: I was in Richmond today, will. Where were you? I looked all over.
(Also: email me next time. I'll swing by for a beer and some ogged-mocking.)
Just keep in mind that Will's mocking is born of the terror with which my superior kicking times--which have revealed to him, let's not mince words, his being-towards-death---have imbued him. If you can enjoy that, cool.
102 is awesome. I guess we'll have to limit ourselves to w-lfs-n-mocking.
104:
Ogged, I'm a lurker, after all--I am presently lurking in an intelligent and personable way.
Come on, ogged. You of all people should know that terror and awareness of being-towards-death are utterly different, since terror is oriented towards the ontic.
I didn't think that even you would call me on that, Ben. It just didn't have the same mojo to say that his mocking is born of anxiety. Poetic license, baby.
Even me? Who else is both prepared and inclined to?
I said prepared and inclined to. Kotsko came to my mind as well as someone who could have, but he doesn't indulge in little bitchery very much (at least, not of this sort).
Kotsko is a fucking loose cannon. Don't even pretend you know what that guy'll say. One might say the same of Parsimon.
You two can keep arguing all you want. will and I are just gonna read Being and Nothingness and mock you in simpler terms.
Commentary on Sartre's place in philosophy with respect to Heidegger, or ignorance of the relevant title? FIND OUT TOMORROW!
Kotsko is a fucking loose cannon.
You said that about me once, too. And now I'm all gracious and adult. And shit. You never know.
It takes a serious headcase to act all gracious and adult just to mess with people.
115: I shouldn't try to make philosophy jokes, but I did mean the former, jerkface.
117: Baby, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
118: I'll take a crack at Who Moved My Cheese so you can take some of that humiliation out on me, if you'd like.
120: Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine with having w-lfs-n try to mock me when I knew what I was talking about
will and I shall have a field day at the next Charlottesville meetup.
It was worth a shot. One can't be too certain when dealing with percussionists.
Damn, sorry I missed it. All the wit and urbanity of a great thread, plus face-licking.
In retrospect, it was very unrealistic to think we were going to complete a three-day hike, come out on the east side of the Sierras, and then make it all the way back to SF on the same day.
124: Yeah, completing a three-day hike all on the same day does sound challenging.
So jealous! Sounds like a great time!
I hope at least some of you all are willing to muster again - so soon - on Sunday the 22nd when I'm in town?
So how is it that there aren't enough southern California people for a meetup? Damn pretentious book-learnin' types.
Come north to where the literacy is.
But I live here, amongst the microbiologists.
Plenty of microbiologists up here, too. I even know some who live in the cultural mecca that is known as San Francisco. Of course, there are also some out in Vacaville and Fairfield and other such armpits, but at least they have houses.
Also, I lived there for four years and, by the end, couldn't stand it anymore. So there's that.
Sifu, I didn't realize that you're currently in SoCal (and for the record, so am I, and I'm quite literate, thankyouverymuch). Anyway, I think the only reason a SoCal meetup hasn't happened in a while is that no one's gotten off their ass about organizing one.
I am, yeah. I just don't live in LA anymore.
I'm pleased to read that Froz represented apostropher.com in fitting form.