Had a great time at last night’s Poliblogger (politics blogger, not
polyamory nor polysaccharides blogger) get-together, which took place
at
the little side-bar on the west side of the Drake Hotel, a place where
somehow a number of friends of mine have acquired jobs over the past
few weeks.
I spent most of the evening chatting with the folks at the end of the
table that still had some free seats, which inlcuded David “Ranting and Roaring” Janes, Rick “Boomer Deathwatch” McGinnis, Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle and special out-of-town guest blogger Damian “Daimnation!”
Penny to name just a few. The conversation and beer flowed freely, and
topics ranged from poncy local journos to
love-the-people-hate-the-Cuban-government to little indie pet software
development projects to “you had me, then you lost me” politics to WiFi
to hot tubs and rock and roll to wondering what it is about Accordion
City that gets people from wildly divergent
socio-economico-complexo-migraino backgrounds to get along reasonably
well.
At one point, someone at the table saw Kathy and I in conversation and
said “Glad to see you two have made up.” We both got a laugh out of it,
and took turns explaining that there’s a difference between spirited
difference of opinion and blood feuds. Besides, fashion-coordination
rules alone dictate that we had
to get along: she wore an American flag scarf, and my over-shirt was a
big Hilfiger affair whose back was one huge stars-and-stripes.
One thing David and I talked about were sideburns. His wife made him
trim down his. Wendy likes mine, so it’s up to me to hold up the fort
for the Toronto Python-programming sideburns contingent.
Rick and talked about Thor and his work at the Metro newspaper, which definitely has more of a local feel than the Metro in Boston (the Metro chain of free newspapers is owned by Metro S. A. in Sweden).
Damian told us a funny story about the independent TV station in
Newfoundland, NTV, which is owned by a rich-but-completely-bonkers old
man. One day, he wanted to watch the cartoon show Inspector Gadget
right then, and phoned the station, demanding they put it on
immediately. Unfortunately, it was during a broadcast of the news. He
had enough pull for the station to come up with a compromise: they
showed Inspector Gadget in a tiny window in a corner of the screen as
the nightly news continued.
I had a great time at the gathering, and hope we can do it again
sometime soon! Thanks to all who showed up, and thanks to David for
pulling the whole thing together!
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The best thing about NTV is that late at night, when any self-respecting TV station is showing infomercials, NTV often shows tapes of Sterling going on about how mankind was created by aliens or similar. I've heard the Inspector Gadget story before but with Scooby Doo. It's probably true; Sterling's a raving lunatic.