43: 10th Party Memories

August 6, 2009 11:06 PM

Exactly what it says on the tin, memories of the 10th parties.

(Get Flash to see the podcast player.) direct link

Don't Stop Believing

pb's video of the Portland Meetup

Jessamyn and "Miguel" (more photos from mygothlaundry)

All 1,900+ photos tagged with mefi10 on Flickr

South Pole meetup shots: 1 and 2

Earthquake thread.

(I lost track of all the users that called in (phone calls weren't linked to usernames so it's a crapshoot), but big thanks to cortex for his mad audio-editing skills for melding them all together so well (including the weird repeated joke calls people left))

posted by mathowie to MeFi Podcast at 11:06 PM (76 comments total)

Callers included (in no particular order) ocherdraco, jonmc, stavrosthewonderchicken, Juliet Banana, lazaruslong, netbros, pxe2000, radioamy, RakDaddy, stavrostheagainchicken, and several people who didn't give names.
posted by cortex at 11:09 PM on August 6

stavros reading the deletion reasons reminded me of my all-time favorite reason I've written to-date.
posted by mathowie at 11:48 PM on August 6 [3 favorites]

That should be 1,9009 - mine still don't appear in the stream :-(
posted by tellurian at 11:50 PM on August 6

FRIST!

dammit
posted by special-k at 12:01 AM on August 7

Yaaaaaaaaaaay etc.
posted by Jofus at 2:24 AM on August 7

Yeah, two unicycles and some duct tape's whole Actually I Am Him moment at the Portland meetup was pretty freaking awesome.
posted by maqsarian at 2:48 AM on August 7

wats this old shit
posted by Eideteker at 4:06 AM on August 7

Cortex has the best laugh ever.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:04 AM on August 7

Excellent.
posted by rtha at 5:54 AM on August 7

Thank you for not mentioning our after hour meetup at Larry Flynt's Barely Legal Hustler Club.
posted by ColdChef at 6:11 AM on August 7

You are welcome, ColdChef. Hey, I still owe you a couple singles.
posted by tizzie at 6:39 AM on August 7

Is this where The Schmoopy continues yet again? Because I love The Schmoopy.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:53 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

THAT'S IT, I need to move to a more MeFite-dense area!

So jealous.
posted by Lush at 6:55 AM on August 7

Oh. So I take it it's too late for me to call in, huh?
posted by Item at 7:09 AM on August 7

Yeah, two unicycles and some duct tape's whole Actually I Am Him moment at the Portland meetup was pretty freaking awesome.

maqsarian!
posted by cortex at 7:14 AM on August 7

Wait, there was party?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:19 AM on August 7

needs more korean karaoke
posted by desjardins at 7:37 AM on August 7

My dearest Stavros,

I love you. You are the best. If you ever wonder where, in the grand scheme of things, you stand, rest assured: you are the best.

Sincerely,

shmegegge
posted by shmegegge at 7:38 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

This podcast made the commute to work much more fun.

I meant to call in, sort of, but never got around to it. My least favorite meetup moment: Waiting in line at Voodoo in the BROILING sun (what, you thought only the NoLa meetup was full of hot sweaty people? PDX too, baby) for donuts for the meetup.

My favorite meetup moment: pretty much everything else, especially the table fires and Mysterious Man, and seeing all the mefites from Seattle again.

And thanks to the podcast, I now have Don't Stop Believing stuck in my head. Thanks a lot.
posted by rtha at 8:15 AM on August 7

"how I called you up that one time...." is my favorite nonsense loop (that I think cortex actually shortened for the podcast) of the month.
posted by jessamyn at 8:24 AM on August 7

Did stav just say "meh-fye"?
posted by jessamyn at 8:26 AM on August 7

by the way, jonmc is correct: divine wino and gaspode were much missed at the meetup.
posted by shmegegge at 8:27 AM on August 7

No, the whole thing is there, I just cut it up to (a) make it less obnoxious to listen to and (b) make the obnoxiousness last longer. It's like a freakin' paradox.
posted by cortex at 8:28 AM on August 7

Juliet Banana sounds nothing like what I had imagined.
posted by runningwithscissors at 8:28 AM on August 7

Just so everyone's clear, that's not Stavros calling--that's me. I was the one who called and performed a dramatic reading of Stavros The Wonder Chicken's firsthand account of the eclipse, and then I called again and read the deletion reasons.
posted by mattdidthat at 8:34 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Hysterical. By the way, our block closes the street at the drop of a hat, and it turned out that a couple of them knew some of the attending MeFites through other circles, so it wasn't weird at all. In fact, I know two of them now read the site regularly: no word on registrations yet.

Thanks again for 10 great years!
posted by eamondaly at 8:36 AM on August 7

mattdidthat: "Just so everyone's clear, that's not Stavros calling--that's me."

so, wait... who did that?
posted by shmegegge at 8:43 AM on August 7

My dearest mattdidthat,

I love you. You are the best. If you ever wonder where, in the grand scheme of things, you stand, rest assured: you are the best.

Sincerely,

shmegegge
posted by shmegegge at 8:43 AM on August 7 [3 favorites]

Thanks jonmc and shmegegge! I wish I could have made it but I was out of town training for my (much needed) new job.

*starts counting down for the 20th*
posted by gaspode at 8:56 AM on August 7

What about all the photos on picasa? Those of us that don't use flickr?
I'm pretty sure I saw some posted from the awesome Portland meetup other than mine.
Do I need to break down and upload to flickr?
posted by fnord at 9:02 AM on August 7

My favorite part of that Don't Stop Believin' video is when brittafilter takes a sip of her drink about ten seconds in, with this look on her face that suggests, "That's right, this is what I came here to do, my work here is done."
posted by Greg Nog at 9:03 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

I looked at your picasa photos of the PDX meetup, fnord, and liked them a lot, but I don't know if there's any easy way to link to "all mefi10 photos on picasa" like there is on flickr.
posted by cortex at 9:06 AM on August 7

Understood. I was just looking at that too. I'll download them and put them all up at flickr.
posted by fnord at 9:08 AM on August 7

I had intended to call the voice line and read one of my own MetaTalk comments, but we've been overly busy for the past three weeks, so I'll just repost it here.

You know you're a mefite if...you notice that in tiny little ways, you've changed in the past few years. Your world has changed. You're listening to music that is made by people you know, and these people you know, you've never really met, but you know them. You know? And you count them as friends. You refer to them by username or real name or you just say, "This girl I know..." without saying how exactly it is that you know her. And you know about places you've never been--never wanted to go, but now you do because you have friends there. And these friends, these friends you've never met, they expand your world in ways big and small. You've seen pictures of their kids and know what kind of movies and art they like. And they have shared themselves with you. Maybe you never thought about circumcision, or declawing cats, or all the different cocktails that are perfect for summer, or why exactly porn finds its way to children in the woods. But now it's something that you've thought about. Something you've discussed. Something that makes you a person who is a tiny bit smarter about esoteric subjects, and--let's face it--a lot more fun at parties. You're trying new recipes that you've never considered, you're reading books and blogs and hating Comic Sans. You argue better. And not by arguing louder, but by backing up your arguments with facts. And you're open to debate, because your skills have been sharpened, your opinions are focused and deeply held. Day by day, in incremental ways, you find yourself becoming a better person. And without knowing it, you're making others into better people too, because you're sharing yourself with them. And you all grow. And the world becomes a better place. And it happens little by little every day. Because you're a mefite.
posted by ColdChef at 9:01 PM on May 4

Thanks again for everything, MetaFilter.
posted by ColdChef at 9:18 AM on August 7 [9 favorites]

Hokay. Those are now on flickr. Enjoy!
posted by fnord at 9:20 AM on August 7

Um, I didn't give my name, cause I figured a MeFi orgy call should be posted as Anonymous.
posted by greekphilosophy at 9:25 AM on August 7

cortex!
posted by maqsarian at 9:31 AM on August 7

wow..talk about meta, i just favorited a ColdChef quote of a ColdChef comment that I also favorited
posted by ShawnString at 9:41 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

jonmc sounded sober. Clearly an impostor.
posted by gman at 9:47 AM on August 7

wow..talk about meta, i just favorited a ColdChef quote of a ColdChef comment that I also favorited

I just favorited your comment about my quotation of a comment that you favorited.
posted by ColdChef at 9:49 AM on August 7 [3 favorites]

Also, before I totally forget, we got our t-shirts and I love mine a lot. I'm wearing it right now, in fact.
posted by rtha at 10:08 AM on August 7

Yowza, my pictures are on the gray! I have won the internets or something.

I meant to call in too and I had this kind of schmoopy mixed up comment of love for metafilter in my head but then I chickened out. It went sort of like this - I met moonbird at the very first (of three?) Asheville metafilter meetups in I think 04 or 05. We've been great friends ever since. So when I heard about the New Orleans mega meetup I knew who I could go with and I knew that we could not only tolerate but enjoy an 11 hour road trip and a shared hotel room. Is that just because we're both mefites? No, but it really helps. It was like going to a concert with another rabid fan: we had the last podcast on my iPod and because we are mefites we tried to listen to it just like we'd be listening to a band on the way to the festival. Because we are mefites and coldchef is right, above, we both knew we weren't really going to a big party full of strangers, but instead going to basically a reunion: old friends and new friends who immediately felt like old friends whether or not we had ever met them in the old fashioned sense. And it was awesome.

It was also awesome to be sitting on the streetcar tracks drunk with a bunch of other friendly drunk people and all end up jammed into a cab and then at a lovely divey bar. It struck me later that many people would not advise doing stuff like that with strangers from the internet. But thanks to metafilter, these were not strangers: these were friends and really funny entertaining interesting friends, at that.
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:09 AM on August 7 [5 favorites]

The "Coldchef barged into my hotel room" and "I rickrolled..." caller was Subbes, sounding more british than she did when she introduced herself to me at Mimi's (she switched to something vaguely resembling my northern-english-slightly-tempered-by-midatlantic after about 45 seconds)... :-)
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 10:21 AM on August 7

Oh, duh, I should have put two and two together on that one.
posted by cortex at 10:33 AM on August 7

The "Coldchef barged into my hotel room" is not an exaggeration. I literally kicked in her door, scaring her to death and demanded, "What are your dinner plans?" When she stammered that she didn't know, I grabbed her forcefully and said, "You're coming with us." And all of that before I think I even properly introduced myself. Not exactly a Southern Gentleman, but I made up for it by not teasing her harshly about having nothing for dinner except for two bowlfuls of parmesan-encrusted french fries and a bite of everyone's dessert.
posted by ColdChef at 10:36 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

I really need to come visit you.
posted by cortex at 10:43 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

"The "Coldchef barged into my hotel room" and "I rickrolled..." caller was Subbes, sounding more british than she did"

For a brief and shining moment at the beginning of the call I thought Julie Andrews was a mefite.

Not that Subbes isn't cool and all.
posted by katemonster at 11:20 AM on August 7

I didn't call because I couldn't decide which memory was my favorite - from ColdChef's greeting, to the 9622 shoutout, to posing with *s and a male stripper, and scaring our vegetarian friend Rottytooth with praline bacon - all that, and more. All the wonderful people I met - I love this whole crew.
posted by tizzie at 12:23 PM on August 7 [1 favorite]

Awesome podcast. Thanks again for this interweb home.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:10 PM on August 7

I am SO DIGGING hearing everyone's voices! a braver ersatzkat would share her phone number and take phone calls
posted by ersatzkat at 1:19 PM on August 7

Subbes rickroll (sorry, blurry) was one of the highlights for me. (I know I keep saying this, but I can't help it!) The fact that she got the audio that she played over the speakers by hurriedly getting the youtube video on her iphone and then playing it was also gadgetalicious.

Also I still feel like I owe everyone a round of drinks. Y'all were indeed fun to hang around.
posted by batgrlHG at 2:37 PM on August 7

Oh! I was going to phone in my 10th tuppence about a silly jolly drunken conversation with ColdChef via Optamystic's mobile phone but that felt a bit meta. Phonecalls to transatlantic strangers about phonecalls to transatlantic strangers?! But then - of course - not phonecalls to strangers at all! Phonecalls to people who've become oddly dear to me in some happy fashion, regardless of mutuality, because it's all about COMMUNITY! Dang, I wish I'd called. Let's have an anniversary podcast - 'Memories of the 10th, one year on' - in SUPER BEANPLATE SOUND!
posted by freya_lamb at 3:33 PM on August 7

Dad and I talked; you need to take riding lessons before you take Schmoopy the pony out again, just to be safe.

(That's right: I am Mom.)
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 5:13 PM on August 7

I think I get the call-in thing now, and I'm ready.

Awesome stuff.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:15 PM on August 7

I remember that phonecall too, Freya_Lamb. Sitting on London's Southbank and noting how odd it was that Optamystic's phone had been passed around to four people before ColdChef even heard a british accent. Good times.
posted by Sparx at 6:41 PM on August 7

I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention Chicago's rickroll.
posted by eamondaly at 7:18 PM on August 7

I remember that phonecall too, Freya_Lamb.

Here's my foggy memory of that phonecall: hung over and running on about three hours of sleep, Tizzie, rottytooth, CunningLinguist, Greg_Nog and I were waiting for a table at Elizabeth's, and I had already had two Bloody Marys and was working on a Corpse Reviver. My phone rings and the number is one I don't recognize. In fact, it has far, far too many numbers. I carefully answer and find myself chatting with MeFites on the other side of the ocean.

As they passed the phone around, we gabbed about our various meetups and members and it was very lovely, but a little hard to hear. As Sparx mentioned, I heard about half a dozen accents in ten minutes. It was like a call from the drunken United Nations.
posted by ColdChef at 7:23 PM on August 7

MetaFilter: The Drunken United Nations
posted by not_on_display at 10:15 PM on August 7

Wait, what?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:43 AM on August 8

(by which I mean that I didn't actually make any calls, although I am well pleased to be somehow involved...)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:40 AM on August 8

Oh yeah, it was actually mattdidthat reading a stavros comment dramatically, and later some deletion reasons that got me screwed up (and he forgot to leave his name on the recordings).
posted by mathowie at 11:04 AM on August 8

... although I am well pleased to be somehow involved...)

You were there in spirit, old friend.
posted by tizzie at 8:08 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

what, you thought only the NoLa meetup was full of hot sweaty people?

The NYC meetup was a virtual sauna.
posted by cmgonzalez at 8:39 PM on August 8

I intended to call in with this and then also got sidetracked, so here's the whole tale of how Mefi 10 Vancouver ended up with fish in our pants:

At every meetup I've been to, I've either known someone who was a MeFite (but not that they were a MeFite) or knew a entirely different party of people at the same bar. This meetup was no exception, as about five minutes after entering and meeting the MeFi table I was greeted by a friend and led over to a table to meet some other folks, and I was released back to MeFi with a reminder: "You're doing shots with us later."
The bar we were at was a sports bar, until it became a Newfoundland themed one about three weeks before the meetup. If you've never been to a Newfie bar, as they're known, it's pleasantly pubbish, with less Irish and more Canadian beer, though there's still plenty of Guinness to be had with your poutine (clam chowder on top: optional though delicious, according to mek.) There was live music that night, and some truly awful covers made worse by the inclusion of a fiddle. It was bad enough that we moved to the patio to escape it, and so we passed most of an evening, which ended up including the posting of a MeTa thread, some shoutouts, some gentle ribbing, and the almost-drunk-dial of stray, averted narrowly by her arrival.
As the waitresses came around for last call, my friend Brie came over and reminded me: "We're doing shots. Grab your camera."
We weren't just doing any shots, but shots of Screech, which is Newfoundland rum imported from Jamaica, and often used in Screech-Ins, which is a ceremony whereby one becomes an honorary Newfoundlander.

from Wikipedia:

Screeching someone visiting Newfoundland for the first time is a longtime custom of many older bars in Newfoundland, in which the person is to drink a shot of screech, kiss a codfish on the mouth, and answer the question "Is ye an honourary Newfoundlander?" with the phrase "'deed I is me old trout, and long may your big jib draw."

Prompted by my friend Brie, I did the shot, kissed a wooden cod, said the phrase, but didn't get a certificate. Other MeFites had gathered around to observe the spectacle and operate the camera and so, at the end of it all, I was standing, slightly bewildered holding a wooden fish and surrounded by nerds.
Sleslie sidled up to me, sized up the fish and looked at me before grinning. "Dude. Put the fish in your pants."

I put the fish in my pants.
We all put the fish in our pants, except for my friend Brie who was wearing a dress and put the fish in her bra. We talked a total stranger into putting it into his pants, and the fishpanting only stopped when a bachelorette party tried to steal the fish and it returned to the bar staff, who were none the wiser about our bout of quonsar emulation.

I do feel bad for the next person that had to kiss it, though.
posted by heeeraldo at 10:14 PM on August 8 [3 favorites]

Nice Guy Mike i : "The "Coldchef barged into my hotel room" and "I rickrolled..." caller was [s]ubbes, sounding more british than she did when she introduced herself to me at Mimi's (she switched to something vaguely resembling my northern-english-slightly-tempered-by-midatlantic after about 45 seconds)... :-)"

Yeah, sorry about that. My downstairs neighbour is from Essex, too, so if I talk to him or my parents for too long my accent comes back full force. My accent is kind of fluid, what with being married to a Southern boy and saying "y'all" on the phone while doing tech support.

I owe the Rickrolling to whoever suggested it (batgirl, was that you?) and the person who left his audio rig unattended.

Loving the podcast (and subjecting my husband to it right now before I buy him an account). Mefi for life.
posted by subbes at 8:51 AM on August 9

Added update to this thread: after listening to the podcast, my husband became a member.
posted by subbes at 9:23 AM on August 9

Yeah, sorry about that. My downstairs neighbour is from Essex, too, so if I talk to him or my parents for too long my accent comes back full force.

No worries, it was a pleasant surprise to find another Brit there (OK, so you're a halfie-halfie Dual Citizen, but close enough :-) )

after listening to the podcast, my husband became a member.

Welcome, Shammack.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 10:01 AM on August 9

Thanks!
posted by shammack at 10:38 AM on August 9

I feel a little bit bad about not calling in, but there wasn't a single memory I could point to as an example of what a delightful time I had; New Orleans and its meetup-attendees was simply Off The Fucking Chain, all around.
posted by Greg Nog at 8:10 PM on August 9

For some reason the phrase "And then me and Greg Nog went to the zoo" strikes me as incomprehensibly weird.
posted by The Whelk at 7:51 AM on August 10 [1 favorite]

I tried climbing a tree at that zoo, and slipped, and got this massive charley horse as I fell on a big tree branch. I limped around for the rest of the zoo-trip, and then it spent the next couple of weeks turning all kinds of purple!

also I saw baby nutria
posted by Greg Nog at 8:29 AM on August 10

Nutria!*

*posted only for the fantastic nutria-in-crown logo, not for the suggestion that one breed nutria for their fur.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:40 AM on August 10

subbes: "I owe the Rickrolling to whoever suggested it (batgirl, was that you?) and the person who left his audio rig unattended."

Not me, sadly! I only came over afterward to congratulate you I think.
Hey, whose audio rig was that? Because that was The Next Humorous Incident - when he stood up and said "That song is NOT in my music selection! I swear!" or words to that effect. And Subbes graciously let everyone know that it was not his fault they had been rickrolled. (I have to admit, that song is actually on my ipod. And now I have an example of what use I can put it, it's staying there.)

Also - I salute those in Chicago who rickrolled as well. Live rickrolling for MeFi 10 - wonder what the next uber meetup trend will be? (Apparently there's a call for moving from Rick to Lavarolling - beware, YouTube link weirdness. Or so they said at DEFCON.)

"also I saw baby nutria"

When I lived in Louisiana I was told that people had been encouraged to eat nutria to try and cut down on their numbers. (This isn't weird to folk who eat mudbugs/crawdads and turtles regularly, and gator from time to time.) But though I attended a good amount of local fairs and a church potluck or two - no nutria.
Wonder if it tastes like guinea pig? Er, not that I've had that. (I've watched way too much Bizarre Food lately.)

And I totally saved a copy of ocherdraco's nutria graphic! Because it's that cool!
posted by batgrlHG at 1:44 PM on August 10

I just listened to the podcast and read all the comments. This was quite a remarkable event and I really feel like I missed out.
Although, I am by a huge margin, just a lurker, I love the feel of community here. You all amaze me quite frequently.

Congrats on the 10 years!!!
posted by pmalek at 10:33 AM on August 13

oh Jessamyn I'm so glad you had fun! come back any time!
posted by radioamy at 7:22 PM on August 27

OK I'm a little late listening to this but I am reliving the memories again!

dashiv's photos are NOT ONLINE and I don't know why!?!?!

the "Miguel" guy is a looooong-time employee of the hotel, I think.

I don't even like Journey, but I did love that sing-along!

Subbes's rickroll was great.
posted by radioamy at 8:01 PM on August 27