A little over a week ago, I had my first accidental blog friend run-in. That was the entry that spawned a million comments. Ok well 42. Half were mine. But whatever, it was the most comments I’ve ever received on a post ever.
It got me thinking. There are so many people in (more or less) the same blog circle in the Boston area. We geek out and read each other’s blogs on a daily basis, we comment on each other’s blogs like we’ve known each other for years (in some cases, we virtually have). We commit the ultimate act of geekery: we refer to each other IN REAL LIFE as ‘friends’.
After having a discussion in my comments section about this very topic, Stacey, Jaynie and I think it’s time we turned off the computers (GASP! The horror!) and got together in this lovely little town of ours.
We can bitch about the T, have intelligent discussions on locations to buy our morning coffee with regards to price and office proximity, decide who has the worst BAHSTIN ACCENT .. and oh yeah. There will be drinking. And lots of it I’m sure.
I know the summer is a busy time for some of us, particularly the precious summer weekends. So we need time to plan (or, in some cases, schedule babysitters *cough cough* Erin *cough cough* Erika). So I’m just throwing this out here now and hoping to get everyone together maybe sometime in September?
This doesn’t have to be a girlie blog summit because there are some fun guy bloggers out there (Hi Tom! Let’s be friends IN REAL LIFE! I’ll show you my header….)
So let me know what you think, Boston Bloggers. Suggestions for dates and meeting places encouraged (we’ve already had someone suggest the Legal Test Kitchen). And don’t forget to invite all your Boston area blog friends (friends and ‘friends’). Non-bloggers, but frequent commenters invited as well.
PS. Can there be nametags? I love nametags!
PPS Kim, Kate.d, Sannie, Lindsay and the other million non-Boston bloggers, don’t feel left out because we’ll probably talk about you. And then blog about it.
BLOG!
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
Craziness, I was just thinking this morning about when you were going to post again about the Boston Blog Summit (BBS) – and – just the other night, I referred to you as “my friend Jenny” who burnt her leg on a motorcycle this weekend!
Sometime in September would be fabulous! Count me in.
It will be #2 for us! Bring plenty of pics of Ladybug.
but, but *chinstartstotremble* i’d LOVE to come. oh, okay but only if you promise loads of photographic evidence of the offline craziness AND make sure to talk about me.
BLOG! *sniff*
I know you would :*(
Someday…
and OF COURSE there will be plenty of pics!
OOH. Fun!
And know how you have a jason who comments on your BLOG, well, I have a Jason who comments on my BLOG. And he is an IRL-er. So the frequent-commenter-Jasons can meet as well.
This is all too exciting.
I think it’s a great idea! (Am I allowed to say that, having been one of the people who thought of it??)
September would be great for me, as well. And LTK would work – but we’re lucky to live in a city with a dozen place that would work. I’ve never been to Cuchi, Cuchi . . .
Count me in, regardless of the locale.
Cuchi Cuchi is a FABULOUS place. BUT – it is always crowded (like T at rush hour crowded). Also it is expensive!
I’ve been there for a dinner for 2 type situation and it was perfect and romantic and delicious and lovely. but for rowdy bloggers? I’m not so sure.
And YES you are allowed to say it’s a good idea. That’s why you came up with it!! haha.
Yeah I’ll see if I can get Jason to come (he’s my sister’s boyfriend, so may she’ll come too. Although she makes fun of me and Jason for the whole BLOG! thing).
Also, Hooker (a frequent commenter) just got his own blog — he still in the design stages so I wont post a link, but maybe he’ll geek it up with us too!
Jaynie forgot to mention that she dates the Jason who comments on her blog. ;) He’s a friend from IRL for both of us & he’s loads of fun.
Good point about Cuchi Cuchi, Jenny. Hmm – is there even a place that CAN handle us rowdy bloggers??
Oh we will find a place, fear not. If we set a date early enough we can give the location fair warning … and hopefully they’ll set us off in our own corner of geek. I have ’special relationships’ (dirty) with area restaurants, bars and hotels … we’ll figure it out.
i am not a blogger.
but i am a blog reader!
i want IN
Blog readers/commenters should totally be in! You guys are just as geeky as us blog writers (in the good way). :)
oh i would love to come, too… you boston bloggers can’t meet [in my favorite city of the whole world btw] without telling us every single little detail about it AND without talking about us, who can’t come!
btw, my favorite coffee place is the starbucks at the government center… the one with the steaming coffee pot outside ;)
i aint hangin out with you NERDLINGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
nah just kidding ill do whatever. im down. i rule.
I am in. This will help me move out of the world of ‘creepy blog stalker who pretends to know everyone’ and into the world of, um, knowing people… aside from Stacey and Jaynie my IRL connections to the BLOG!
I would definitely be IN IN IN. I’ve been dying to try LTK, and with enough advance notice I can definitely whittle out an evening :)
hooray!!
Dude, sweet! I want a nametag! I may not be there, but I’ll still wear a nametag. That ought to get people talking :)
I wanna come! I may not be able to bitch about the T, but I can be a good judge of Boston accents (and you can make fun of my valley girl twang– dammit, that is what I get for growing up half in California and half in Missouri).
Send us a picture of you wearing a nametag and we will totally bring it. haha.
I just took my geekery to a whole new level.
oh my GOD so jealous. i am mandating three things:
1) the nametag thing. they have to be big and conspicuous and possible bedazzled.
2) you have to take pictures of everyone wearing the fabulous nametags.
3) you have to get jaynie k drunk, so she can find something totally asisine so funny that she laughs till she’s doubled over and can hardly breathe. i’ve seen her do it sober, but i imagine it’s much easier when she’s drunk.
wait wait wait….nametags???
look i only read your poindexter blogs i dont write them….i think that makes just a tad bit cooler than you guys and makes me nametag exempt. i just spoke to my legal council…
alleyesonjenny dot net…its DOT COM
Hey—
as long as no one mentions dogs wearing raincoats or the Showcase cinemas opening sequence where the cup of coke is drinking a smaller cup of coke, I should be able to maintain some semblance of composure.
um, probably.
well, unless the mashed potatoes look too much like a celebrity. Then it’s all but over.
THAT’S IT. WE ARE BEDAZZLING NAMETAGS.
dogs wearing raincoats? what about your own 45 pound beagle stuck in a tomato cage?
because that one made me laugh pretty hard. then again, fat beagles in general will get me every time.
dogs in raincoats = awesome.
also, I LOVE fat beagles.
Also DRUNK beagles: http://flickr.com/photos/alleyesonjenny/86692038/in/set-72057594048457816/
You’re all crazy.
But, if you really do want people to show up, and make this feel “official” and not just some open invitation on your BLOG to get drunk, someone has to take the situation in hand and whip up some sort of registration process.
You know, a url, submit name, email, website, rsvp, a space for comments, and an automatically generated email that gets sent out as a reminder “don’t forget, put BBS on your calendar! September XX, 2006 at LTK (or elsewhere). What fun!” etc.
Simply, but juuust this side of respectable.
Otherwise you’ll have sixteen people wandering around some bar saying “um, hi, are you…erin? or… jenny?” and another four people with name tags the size of dinner trays that no one will talk to.
I’m not saying that wouldn’t be fun, but it may be more fun with a touch of coordination.
Also, I am totally NOT volunteering for any of that work. That is all on anyone else.
Aaaaand one last thing. If we do this in September you all will miss meeting Johnny Bombay (amazo.blogspot.com) who is leaving the country in late August.
to sum up: you’re all nuts. I came up with a brilliant coordination idea that someone else should implement, and … smaller nametags.
-t
TOM. THE NAMETAGS WILL BE BEDAZZLED. AND HUGE.
And I already started coordinating the other stuff SO THERE.
aw, what a cute drunkard puppy. beagles make me laugh. as do dachsunds, but that’s a whole nother story…
and tom, if i remember correctly, jenny was some sort of event and party planner extraordinnaire in a previous life (a.k.a. previous job), so i’m sure she’ll have it under control!
holy crap- i want that drunk beagle. i would take him sober too.
that completely 150% made my day.
Oh, and organizing shit is one of my best skills. email me and we can coordinate tasks.
I’ll also say (TOM), that I already have my namecard all worked out in my head, and it may or may not involve puffy paint and metallic studs.
I’m soo excited about nametages & drunk/beagles & organizing shit. Jaynie – remember the fights over colored sharpies that used to go down at SEG?
Jaynie … we are incorporating puffy paint into the nametags as well.
WE ARE GOING TO LOOK AWESOME.
I’d definitely be up for some Boston Blogger Fun.
I haven’t had much fun lately – my head has been buried in school books all summer.
Someone needs to drag me out and show me what it’s like to have fun. I’ve forgotten what it means.
I have designed myself a crude, non-bedazzled nametag.
http://www.sweetkindoflife.com
And since I can’t have a bedazzled nametag, I will be making a snazzy stonewashed denim jacket, and it will be bedazzled. Jenny, I’ll make you one for your birthday.
You are SO welcome in advance.
Lol, Jenny, when you wrote a comment back to Jaynie, the first thing I thought of was your name all Southern-ed out. Jayyyynie.
Then I got it. I’m special like that.
You are so special. haha.
okay, just one more question: even if i can’t attend due to the big water that lays between us may i PLEASE get a name tag? if i get it soon enough i could take a picture of me wearing it and send that picture back to you so you could take it along and it’d almost feel as if i was there…
BLOG?
I like how BLOG! is now BLOG? Um, of course you can get a name tag. Lindsay already designed her own. haha.
well, of course that’s because the comment was more of a question so i thought a ? was more appropriate than a !
BLOG!
:)
just an idea, but I was thinking last night that I may want my nametag to be pleather. thoughts?
I was also thinking that perhaps the nametags should take the form of sashes…
PLEATHER SASHES. OH YES.
I have one of those woodburner tools somewhere that I bet I could use to burn names into them. It would all be very professional and chic, of course.
PLEATHER SASHES. Can we still bedazzle them?!
We are going to be so freakin hot I can’t take it.
We could make pleather sashes with “ghetto” incorporated into them in some way. Like “Miss Ghetto Booty 2006″
Miss Ghetto BLOG!GY 2006.
you guys crack me up. i’m booking a flight. NOW! BLOG! NAMETAGS!
BOOK! DO IT!
Ok, I haven’t done it yet: BLOG! Whew – felt good to get that off my chest. ;)
Haha. Feels GOOD doesn’t it.
BLOG!
Make it work!
(sorry– pleather + sashes got me all Project Runway Tim Gunn-y)