Finally, almost a week after the Bloggers’ Bash at Quetzal, I’m getting around to posting my report.
First of all, Quetzal. VERY nice place. Big room, free wi-fi, good selection of coffee, beer and non-coffee drinks. They have a pool table and lounge area in the back, and a meeting room which we used. Suggestion to Quetzal – update your website saying that you have free wireless at your Memphis location. Right not it only talks about your San Fran location, where it looks like you’re charging $7.95 a day for wireless. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been in Quetzal before now.
So I went in and I met Mike, who writes Half-Bakered and who was the host. (I’m not going to try to link to the blog of every person I met.) But if you go to Mike’s site and find his Bloggers’ Bash review (should be 12/21/05 or 12/22/05 I think) you’ll find all the links.
The next person I met was Mark, who writes The Conservative Zone. The name of his blog would indicate that I’d spend a lot of time disagreeing with him, but no – I immediately liked him. I tend to judge people by the energy they give off more than their politcal views, and he struck me as a listener – someone who was more interested in hearing what other people have to say than pushing his own agenda. I enjoy hearing the opinions of people who think differently than I do, so I look forward to reading his blog.
And, I can’t go anywhere without running into a former student – in this case, Markus, who took my computer literacy class 1997ish and is now an indie film actor. He writes A View From The Middle.
I spent a good amount of time talking to Derek (autoegocrat) who writes for The Pesky Fly. I had never checked out his blog before (he co-blogs with several others, including Chris Davis from the Flyer who was also there) but I had read some of his posts on the old Mid-South Raves board and was impressed.
Derek told me that after Christmas is THE time to shop at thrift stores. People get stuff they don’t want for Christmas and don’t even bother returning it – they take it straight to Goodwill.
He also told me how to find cheap stuff on eBay. Type in a product you want and search. Note the misspellings in the listings. Now search on those typos. You’ll find more typos, and then search on those. Eventually you’ll come across items that no one else can find because they’re so badly listed. He also said, try rearranging the words you’re searching on – that can make a difference. “Massage your search,” as he put it.
He then posed a question: Is Bush really stupid or really evil? I would’ve voted for stupid (Cheney and Rumsfeld are evil) but Derek raised a good point. He thinks Bush is actually smart, in the area of social intelligence, because of the way he deals with power, and because of the way people who work for him react to him. Never heard it explained that way before, but it makes sense.
I then met Rachel who writes Pulp Faction. I immediately liked her because she brought in a cold flask filled with vodka. I hereby name Rachel an honorary downtowner for that move.
Rachel told me that the Hi-Tone has thrown psychedelic parties, with vintage psychedelic music and movies. Wayyyyy cool! I’ve read biographies of bands like The Pink Floyd (back when they still used “The” in the name) and in the late ’60s, they’d have these psychedlic, freak-out parties with wild lighting and trippy music. Always wish I could have attended one, but I was born about 20 years too late.
(“Interstellar Overdrive” remains my all-time favorite Floyd song, surpassing the later, more commercial stuff that happened when Roger and then Dave were leading the band)
The other Rachel (Rachel and the City) couldn’t make it. I found out that she mentioned me in her blog as the downtown version of her. Does that mean I’m a “hipster”? Hmmm… I can drink the hell out of some PBR, so maybe I do qualify.
Those of you who write blogs about going out to bars in Midtown: Do any of these bars employ Romanian women?
I also met EJ who writes Cherry Blossom Special. I like him, he puts a lot of himself into his blog. Which brings me to a topic that was brought up… once your blog develops a theme, it’s hard to write anything that departs from that theme because it’s not what your readers expect to see. “You’re stuck portraying a character,” as one of the bloggers put it. That’s one reason I’ve kept my blog as “Paul Ryburn’s Journal” rather than call it the blog about going out downtown or something similar. Maybe one day I’ll write about a new restaurant on Union, and the next I’ll write about some deeply held belief of mine, and the next I’ll write about how you can see the face of Jesus in the pigeon crap on the side of the Exchange Building.
We also discussed places like MySpace that host blogs. I think MySpace is way cool – kind of a combination of Blogger, Friendster, and a photo album. But I want to continue to host my own blog rather than use MySpace or another service, if for no other reason than it gives me the freedom to use the word “fuck” in my blog if I feel like it.
Hmmm… let me flip through my notepad… the only other thing I have is a recommendation for Quetzal’s Caramel Apple shake from one of the other bloggers.
That’s it for now… congrats to the Tigers on a big win over Gonzaga tonight, and congrats to the Rapscallion trivia team who won in my absence tonight. We have FOUR $25 gift certificates now!
Hope the links to the other blogs work – I’m too lazy to actually check them or anything. If they don’t work let me know. And welcome to readers from other blogs who have clicked over to this one. And it’s late, so I’m off to bed. Back tomorrow with more to talk about, unless I decide I don’t feel like typing a post tomorrow.