It strikes me as rather surprising that a week after the Movable Type 3.1 Sneak Peek Mixer I haven’t seen that many blog entries about it. I figured there would be a vast proliferation of photos and reports about it by now, but I guess people are just as lazy as I am (Note: I have noticed 4 or 5 blog entries about it though). Then again, I’m not really tuned into the blog scene all that much, so what do I know. Update: Judging by the number of trackbacks on the MT 3.1 mixer entry, I guess there are a little more than 4 or 5 blog entries about it.

Anyway, I went to the mixer only knowing Jasmeet would be in attendance. I really didn’t know anybody else. I sorta got to know Justin Foster of Airblogging earlier that day when he helped me out with my moblog. Other than that, I was looking forward to a night of sitting at the bar by myself staring at a sea of unknown faces. I’m really not all that comfortable in a social environment like this — I’m more of a listener, not a talker (Although I’m way better one-on-one). I guess I was primarily there for the food and the sneak peek, plus getting to meet Jasmeet and getting to know a couple people.

However, I did end up meeting more people than I expected, albeit without much conversation. Let’s see if I can rattle off their names: There was Anil, Mena, Ben, Ms Jen, Tom Coates of plasticbag.org, Dave (for the life of me I can’t remember his last name or his website, though I did recall it having to do with CSS), Dinah, Niall Kennedy, Min Jung, Andrew Zangrilli of Blogbook, Rebecca Blood, and other people that I can’t quite remember. Min Jung and I got together due to the SF Metblog connection, and she ended up introducing me to quite a few people. We also ended up going to LobbyCon SF together, and she later took me home as well. Might have a new real-life friend there. Also, as thrilling as it was to meet all the MT folks, I was really quite humbled to meet Rebecca Blood, who is well-known as one of the pioneers of the blogging phenomenon (And who, to this day, continues to blog by hand, despite the proliferation of Blogger, MT, and the like). I told her I used one of her books as a reference in a research paper, and she was rather pleased with that.

Like I said before, I’m not too much of a talker in these mixer parties. I just tend to pipe up occasionally and do most of the listening. The conversations were quite fascinating though — we talked about everything; from the delights of CSS, to the wonder of tax-deductible vibrators. Ah, geek talk, ya gotta love it. It was also quite a pimp-myself-to-get-a-job sort of evening, with Jasmeet and Min Jung looking out for potential job opportunities for me. I already emailed the MT folks for any job openings, but no one has gotten back to me yet.

As for the Movable Type portion of the event, it kicked off with us getting free USB keys containing a beta version of MT 3.1 and Six Apart buddy icons. In the last half hour of the evening, Ben and Mena finally demo-ed MT 3.1, which promises to be A Very Good Upgrade. Notable improvements: Further integration of plug-ins, better spam control, introduction of sub-categories, and most awesome of all, the choice of dynamic rebuilding. That’s right: If you so choose, you may be able to update your entries and templates without having to rebuild every single time — all you would need to do is click “save” and the pages would update. That, in and of itself, is GOLDEN.

Soon after that, it was time to head to LobbyCon SF 1.0. I first heard about it on the SF Metblog, and it seemed interesting enough — the idea is for a group of bloggers to gather around and talk shop. We met up at the W Hotel lobby, and I got to meet Eric Rice, the host of the event, and various other bloggers pictured here (Note the hilarious picture of me and MJ). We mostly just shot the breeze. While we did talk about blogs, moblogs, and such, the overall tone was that of social bonding. Jasmeet and Justin showed up too, and Dinah ended up buying me a drink. It was cool to just sit around and soak in the friendly blogger buzz (Although the thump-thumping of the DJ music was a bit much).

By 9 p.m., my brain was beginning to melt. So while I didn’t want to leave Jasmeet so soon (It’s not everyday I get to see a fellow Malaysian), I did feel grateful when Min Jung asked me to leave with her. During the ride home, I discovered we had a couple of mutual friends, which was a pleasant surprise (Amazing how small the world is). I got home, talked like a frantic monkey high on caffeine to the boyfriend (I was still running on post-mixer adrenaline), had some dinner, and slept.

So, that’s that. It took me a week to report the dang thing, but there you have it.

Now to blog more often.. er.. soon..

Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. I haven’t fallen off the edge of a cliff. I haven’t drowned in the Pacific Ocean. I’m still very much alive, thank you very much.

The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. First, we went to Brandon’s brother’s house in Los Angeles, where we first saw Brandon’s niece, sweet baby Mira, with our very own eyes. She is such a tiny, cute, little thing. I’m sure she’ll break many hearts when she’s older.

Then we were off to Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Brandon was an exhibitor there for the first time, and we managed to get into the convention center without waiting in line. It was super-cool to browse around the area with hardly anybody there. We shared our table with a friend, Gary Buechler, who owns a comic shop in San Francisco called Comic Outpost. It was certainly different being behind the table rather than in front of it (For one thing, Brandon was keeping longer than regular work hours at the table. He woke up everyday at about 7-8 a.m. and stayed at the hall until 6 p.m. or so). But it was all good because he made serious bank. We sold a ton of Geek Pride t-shirts and buttons, and lots of comics to boot. We even came to a PROFIT, which is amazing.

I won’t even bother giving you the details about the awesomeness that is the San Diego Comic-Con. I mean, it’s too much to even describe. The amount of comics, toys, merchandise, video games, tv/movie related things… it’s overwhelming to even think about. I’ll just give you a general overview of what I did. I bought a few things from Giant Robot (Great company, support them!), a couple more things from Drawn and Quarterly (I met Adrian Tomine of Optic Nerve, got him to sign things), met up with Scott Kurtz of PvP and just generally soaked in the awesomeness of pop culture that was Comic-Con International. I managed to sneak a peek at the new Incredibles movie, plus saw a preview of a new HitchHiker movie (Yes, they’re making a movie out of the HitchHiker series! Too awesome). I couldn’t meet Neil Gaiman for a signing, but I did show up at his MirrorMask panel. If you’re any kind of fan of Gaiman’s or the Sandman books, you’re not going to want to miss it. It looks wild and crazy, like most Dave McKean stuff, and they basically described it as “acid for kids.” Which seems quite accurate, really.

Other than that, much of the time was spent with our mutual friends from Comic Book Resources. They were great fun — we had a get-together dinner, a beach barbecue/grill, late-night talking sessions in hotel rooms — ah the beauty of Internet friendships. There were more sexual double entrende jokes than you could shake a stick at (No pun intended). I think some of them are coming out to San Francisco for the Alternative Press Expo next year, which will be great fun as well.

After that, well, we came home and just crashed. I just didn’t want to do anything at all for a few days. And here I am blogging about our trip. For a whole boatload of Comic-Con related pics (All 133 of them), click here.

More updates about my life in a few days. For now, I rest.

The first week of June flew by. I’m not even going to bother going into too much detail because it’s 2:30 a.m. and I need to wake up at 9:00 a.m. As the previous post indicated, Mom and I did go up to wine country for a couple days. We walked around Sonoma Plaza, enjoyed a cool Farmer’s Market (with cheap food and free concert, natch), had good wine, and good food. Y’all should try some Pinot Blanc from Valley of the Moon — it’s the stuff. Also, head on over to The Girl and the Fig restaurant for some good seafood. Don’t miss the dessert either.

As for around here, Mom has been busying herself with shopping. Lots and lots of shopping. Well, she didn’t buy that much stuff, but she has been spending hours on end at the mall. Me, I’ve just been sleeping. I got abit of a sore throat bordering on sinus issues a few days ago but I remedied that with some Theraflu.

Tomorrow we’re going on a 1-hour bay cruise on the Red and White Fleet. Fun.

Pictures will be posted soon.

Yes, folks, I’m officially 25 years old now. It’s scary how fast time passes by. I swear I still feel like I’m 21.

Anyway, I had a lovely day yesterday. I woke up at noon, went online, and had a good 3-hour chat with new-found friends while listening to the radio. From noon until dinnertime, I only ate two pieces of toast — I was that engrossed with chat (It’s amazing how time-sucking this Interweb thingy is). At about 4 p.m. Brandon and I then spent some quality time together. Just because.
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