Denvention - Day 3

Friday, August 8, 2008
Day 3 of Denvention! The geeks are starting to arrive in force. Which is kind of cool, actually.

I got to meet Matthew Jarpe today, who had a signing. I tried not to be all fan-girlish and freak him out, but you never know. Sorry, no pictures.

I ran into Joe Haldeman in the T-shirt line, who is a nice man, and also wears his suit with Birkenstock's. For some reason I find that incredibly endearing.

We had a snack with Tania and her friend Lance at lunch-time, and forgot to take pictures. Yeah, we suck.

We also attended a panel on birds and dinosaurs, moderated by my nerd-love Robert Sawyer. It was a bit confrontational, but pretty good.


We also went to an SM Stirling reading, as my Smart Man is a fan-boy of his Dies the Fire series. Most excellent.


Last but not least, we met Anne and Jeri for drinks after the reading. 75% of the UCF attendees, sharing nachos. "Hmm...Nachos!"


Tomorrow is Scalzi-stalking day for the UCF. I'm sure Jeri will live-blog the event, but I'll post as well. Ciao!

15 comments:

John the Scientist said...

Dang, I forgot to feed you some pharmacology / microbiology questions to really freak Matt out into thinking you were stalking him professionally.

Because, if you check your Linkedin, he is in your extended network, now. ;-)

Nathan said...

Well, I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I'm dying of jealousy. I sooo wish I was there.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get photographic evidence of Scalzi endorsing the UCF.
How's that for stalkerific?

There will be extra points if you're able to make an impression that Scalzi feels the need to blog about.

Janiece said...

John, that would of made me laugh my ass off. But it probably would of made Matt remove my link from his blog and run away to get a restraining order, so it's probably for the best.

Nathan, I'm going to e:mail Scalzi the picture of him with the UCF. If he chooses to post, then swell. But again...don't want a restraining order. But for the record, he knows who we are from the "e." He just couldn't remember our initials. So that's pretty stalkerific without being hauled off to the pokey.

Anne C. said...

I have to admit, when Janiece told me Scalzi knows of the UCF, it was a bit disconcerting. From the teeming mass of thousands of fans, he knows of our tangential group of 15-20. Wierd (for me anyway).

Nathan said...

Now hold on a minute.

Where's the reference that says Scalzi's ever heard of us?

Random Michelle K said...

Does that make us infamous?

Jim Wright said...

No no, Scalzi thought Janiece said "IRS."

Random Michelle K said...

So we are infamous.

Nathan said...

Hey, I forgot to ask...

Did you guys all wear your loot to the con?

Ilya said...

It's great seeing you guys having fun!

Jim Wright said...

Joe Haldeman ... also wears his suit with Birkenstock's.

If I remember correctly, Haldeman was wounded in the legs in Vietnam. I'd read somewhere, maybe on his site I forget now, that he doesn't wear regular shoes because they make his old injuries hurt.

MWT said...

Considering that Scalzi has a dozen different sophisticated ego-searches on his name going at all times, I'd assume he's run into every single conversation we've ever had anywhere where he was mentioned.

Also: what was confrontational about birds and dinosaurs?

Janiece said...

MWT, the talk centered around evolution, and one of the panelist made a couple of unsubstantiated claims. Robert Sawyer, who was moderating, confronted him in a "defend your position!" kind of way, which obviously made the guy a bit uncomfortable.

Eric said...

Well, it's pretty indefensible. Just because birds share a common lineage with dinosaurs does not mean that there must have been marshmallow Peeposaurs during the late Jurassic. It's a ridiculous logical leap and a claim that shouldn't be made unless you have some kind of fossil evidence--which is obviously unlikely, since Peeps have practically no hard tissue that would mineralize (ergo, any hypothetical Peeposaur would also lack hard tissue formations).

(Hey, since I'm not in Denver, I'll just have to use my imagination as far as what the confrontation was about. And honestly, whatever the argument was really about, I'm pretty sure I'll still like my version better; it has Peeps....)

Anne C. said...

Peeps always make an arguement more valid, right? Like Nazis or bacon?