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August 19, 2004
Movable Type Mixer & LobbyCon SF
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..
Posted by Nicole at August 19, 2004 05:10 AM
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Comments
"the wonder of tax-deductible vibrators"
Where the hell was I when this conversation was going on!?
And you did great there. You were very social, you said stuff when it applied to you, so hey, its all good. Maybe I see you at BloggerCon too eh?
Posted by: Jasmeet at August 20, 2004 08:23 PM
Hi Nicole, it was great meeting you! I hope we'll get to hang out again soon.
Posted by: Dinah at August 28, 2004 01:03 PM