January 28, 2006
VRWC gathering blogged
The VRWC bloggers, and assorted MSM, NQAVLWC bloggers, blog readers, and puzzled onlookers gathered last night at Fiddler's Green, a pub in downtown Toronto.
As is my usual habit, I was among the advance party, arriving just at 6:00. Among the other advance party were co-host Bob Tarantino and Heather, Damian "Babbling" Brooks, and Brian Mertens. We were joined not long afterwards by Liam NeesonGreg Staples, John the Mad, and a non-blogger friend of his who took full part in the political discussions around the table.
I started to lose track of the arrivals, and there were a lot of arrivals. I'd guess we ended up with 50-60 bloggers/MSM/blogreaders (and there may have been more folks arriving as I had to leave earlier than usual). It was a remarkably well-behaved party, under the political circumstances, and almost the only violence of the night was when Andrew Coyne hit me with a pool cue.
I took more bad photos, but most of the early evening photos are just too dark to use. We were driven out of the downstairs room we'd swamped when the staff started up the Karaoke. You have never seen a party die so fast. We moved up to the third floor, to the room we had originally booked (or so Bob claimed . . .).
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John the Mad, not quite as mad as advertised. | Greg Bester and John the Mad's non-blogging friend |
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Jason Cherniak, the other co-host of the gathering. | The T-shirt of the night, worn by an anonymous non-blogger who arrived with WonderWoman (the shirt was actually grey, but my Treo's built-in camera doesn't handle low-light images as well as I'd like). |
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The Last Amazon | Andrew Coyne, just before the pool cues came out |
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Accordion Guy provided some musical accompaniment to the political blather | Antonia Z and Greg Staples (I took a much better photo using Greg's camera, actually) |
The party was great, overall, but I certainly felt I'd over-used my vocal cords when I woke up this morning. I sounded like someone trying to do a bad Lauren Bacall imitation at the bottom of a well.
Posted by Nicholas at January 28, 2006 01:42 PM
Hey, I'm the one who took that cue-chot from Coyne - you were just an innocent bystander (and a witness at a future trial ...)
A good time was had by all, I think.
Hey, I'll be a witness for you, you'll be a witness for me, and we do up old Coyne for multiple counts of battery. Whatcha say?
Phooey. I'm sorry I missed it. I'm pleased that a good time was had by all. Just wished I could have had it too. At one point I was thinking of wandering over with
Rex (I'm sure Antonia Z would have been more impressed with Rex than that other guy squeezing her shoulder), but then we had dinner, then I had to clean up things, then we had to spend an hour or two looking up real estate listings, then I had to put Boy to bed, then we had to walk the dog, then it was late. Thanks for the pics anyway. Much appreciated.
I was sorry not to see you this time, but I do understand. Damian Penny is supposed to be in town sometime next month, so there may be another gathering sooner than usual. Keep your eyes on the usual suspects for hints.
These things make for a jealous me even though it is only 250 km west. It is that whole child rearing thing that does keep one out of the taverns. That being said, I have started "Beer Club" in Kingston where now three soon more select one tavern and one ale to make the worries of the week fade.
That sounds like a good plan. Kingston has a fair selection of drinking spots, so you wouldn't need to repeat a tavern too often.
If you start Beer Club in your world maybe we will trigger a global movement of beer wisdom development.
It was a good bash. Very glad to have finally met you. You never did get that drink I offered ..........
I'm sure there'll be other opportunities! ;-)
I have a few good pics up at my site for those of you interested. Although I do admit I should have been behind the camera a bit more, but there were just too many interesting people to talk to and some of them were buying me drinks ;-)
oops wrong link try this one
http://thewingnuterer.blogspot.com/
I'll be posting a few more pics throughout the week.
Great to meet you all and I'm looking forward to the next one.
