Three Night Stand

Rich

The one where boning is socially acceptable

Thursday, March 13th at 4:59 p.m. • 1 comment

The next day at SXSW was actually a bit rainy and overcast. So, naturally Rachel spent an extra 15 minutes straightening her hair and getting glammed up for the 2008 Bloggies for her nomination as a “Best-kept Secret Weblog.”

She was super nervous as the video at the end of this post will show you.

I never told her, but in my blogging hey-day (good Lord, I sound old), I wanted to win a Bloggie pretty badly back in 2004. So to go with her simply, I was impressed and content just to be there. So I’m arm candy. I’m OK with that! (In fact, I think it’s pretty freaking awesome.)

The awards had its own live chat in #Bloggies on irc.freenode.net on IRC. Naturally, only about 3 people (myself included) probably knew how to use IRC, so it was there that I smack talked like a petty troll on Rachel’s behalf where it was projected onto a large wall adjacent to the stage.

Unfortunately, the person from So Very Alone won the “Best-kept Secret Weblog” award. I don’t think it’s right for me to give my opinion on this matter, but I’ll leave you with this select quotation from his (her?) About page:

I’m ordinary-looking, and I’m rarely — if ever — rude. I guess, in a lot of ways, I’m pretty normal.

So why do I feel like I’m drowning?

Yikes. Nice design, too.

I went to the Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again? panel, which wasn’t so great. A representative from Apple’s Webkit team didn’t show up, which took away a big chunk of what could have made the time spent valuable. I believe the room filled to capacity; but for what? I mostly checked out mentally when they started bickering over what “open” really meant and the “limitations” of Apple’s iPhone.

While I’m sitting in a stuffy room full of nerds and bad fluorescent lighting, I get notified that someone proposed to a girl to marry him at the keynote of Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret. I miss all of the good stuff, argh!

But the next panel was the one I was looking forward to the most: Design Eye for South By, the one with, y’know, actual design work behind it. Just to clarify any confusion on what happened to Jeff at the panel, the panelists were talking about what people do at SXSW and what’s important to them and how the website could realign to those ends.

Things like talking, socializing, partying, and…that’s when one panelist said, “Unless you’re Jeff Croft, then you’re boning.” Wow, that was pretty awesome. That’s OK. I think Jeff liked it.

We caught dinner at P.F. Chang’s with Andrei, Bronwyn, Ryan, Mike and to a lesser degree Keith and Wilson (sitting at other tables). As someone who had been reading their blogs and articles for the past four or five years, I was stunned at how cool and relaxed and friendly everyone was.

I wish I could say I lived it up my last night in Austin, but I spent it, um, doing homework, and going to the Blue Flavor’s party at the Iron Cactus for not even a couple of hours. It was a slow and short night, but easily my favorite and most memorable.

Sorry, comments are closed for this entry.