Monday March 12, 2001

Obviously, up later today (9:15 am) and skipped the keynote (and, unfortunately, breakfast). I was really anticipating the panel on "New Media Project Management", and it didn't disappoint. Lots of interesting stuff and I went up and talked to Mark Mahoney (Creative Good) and Ian Steyaert who were really nice and helpful. They suggested taking on some internal project to manage and document processes. Not sure if that will work but food for thought. And don't tell anyone, but Misty West is really cute when she wrinkles up her nose.

The next panel was called "Pulp Fiction", about book publishing, and it had all my favourites, Jeffs Veen and Zeldman, Derek Powazek, Pableaux Johnson, Steve Champeon, and was really entertaining. Interesting to note that both Rebecca Blood and Dinah Sanders asked in-depth questions about getting a book published. I know about Dinah's plan and am even hoping to help her with the editing. But Rebecca would probably be an amazing writer, judging by her history of weblogs article, anyhow. Surprisingly, I stayed awake and alert during both panels and even made a couple of passes through the trade show, where I continued to score swag big time. A Cartoon Network watch, yet another t-shirt and some other good stuff. I bought Jeff Veen's book as well as Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. And I got Jeff to sign my book, as well as getting Derek and Zeldman to sign the sample chapters of their books they were giving away. Ended up hanging around with Anil, Jish and Brad again, and a little bit with Dave and Leia. I didn't see Denise at all today, or Ari Brown. I did get to meet Jason Kottke, who was ok, but not particularly enthusiastic about the encounter. And I formally introduced myself to Derek and asked him if there was going to be a Fray book and he said it's in the works. He was very nice, and I got to chat just a tiny bit more with Heather.

I decided to forego dinner since there was rumoured to be food at the evening's parties, so I went back to the hotel to change. I took a cab over to Club DeVille at 6:00 pm and just waited for people to show up. Eventually, I hooked up with Jish and Tim. Brad and Dan and Julie and Nikolai showed up around 7:00 but they wouldn't let Nikolai in since he's underage, so we just headed over to Stubb's, where the next party was scheduled. It was a great setup, with an outdoor screen showing bizarre short films and a band (The Damnations) playing later. I ate a delicious barbecued beef brisket sandwich, too. But the odd thing was that nobody else we knew was there. Later, Brad got a call from Jesse and Rebecca and they came over, as did Dinah. We also met Jess Cook and her boyfriend Adrian, who are from British Columbia. We mostly shot pool until 11:00 pm, when the whole bar closed! I guess we forgot that it was a Monday night. Luckily, someone remembered that there was a bar called Red Eyed Fly just down the street, where we happily passed the time until about 2:00 am. We walked back together, dropping Dinah off at the Sheraton, and Rebecca, Jesse, and Nikolai at the Radisson. Dan and I walked back to our hotel together. I didn't see Dave or Leia or Denise or any other bloggers the whole night. Dave told me the next day that they'd all congregated in the Omni Hotel bar and then went out to a restaurant/club called The Empanada Parlour where they heard a great swing/jazz band. Although that would have been fun, too, I'm glad we had our own small group. I told Brad that he looked a bit like Paul Lynde. If there's ever a Bloggywood Squares, he's got the centre square all sewn up.

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