... mashed potato pizza, or how I can now create a new blogroll ...

For the longest time I've wanted to have a separate blogroll for "people I know / have met" but also for the longest time all I'd have on that list were fewer than 5 people, most of them being my schoolmates whom I've known since, well, school, who got bit by the blogging bug within the past 2 years or so.

But last night, that all changed.

I attended Davecago!

... and I managed to get Kosh to come along too!

The plan was to get there at 5pm, but we ran a little late, and were of course subject to the vagaries of the public transport system, arriving right at 5:30pm instead, and everyone was already there (well, one latecomer after us, but still)..

... now, I tend to exhibit the social properties of wallpaper than that of a butterfly, so arriving next-to-last made the meeting-new-people aspect of the gathering a bit daunting, especially since everyone else seemed to know each other. Thankfully in total we were about 14, so while daunting, it certainly wasn't overwhelming! :)

A few came up and greeted us immediately - Gary and RW, if I remember correctly - that was nice :) And of course Dave, who equipped us with our tags, and a deck of cards each; we also got to choose flair (see Office Space if you don't know what this is) for the lanyards, cool! (I was very amused, Kosh chose meditative dave, while I chose try evil, LoL!).

You can see them here, taking their place among the other "hanging stuff" - in case you were wondering, that thing that looks like a leather stomach is a boda bladder thingy, a souvenir from the AXSigma Barndance of '94. I have a similar (less dusty) one somewhere in my boxes in Malaysia.

... looking for the tangent, and sliding back down, back to the topic ... where were we? Ah yes, meeting people: I immediately recognised Kevin, and made it a point to greet him, and so got to meet his wife, but our circles didn't overlap much after that. Of the others present, there were one or two who seemed slightly familiar, but they most probably were channeling people I know rather than me actually recognising them, because, well, as far as I know I haven't blogrolled too many Chicago bloggers. One totally stole all our hearts, tho, as Radioactive Girl doled out bags of some radioactively delicious brownies to everyone present, yummy yum yum!

Who else was there? Jen, Mocha Momma, Leah, Mrs RW, Robin, and professional lurker Suzanne. (will be adding to / making a new blogroll... soon ... after the template revamp!!)

We started at Piece Pizza, where one of their toppings offered is actually mashed potatoes. On pizza. And believe it or not, it was actually quite good ("so says the carb fiend," chortles Kosh). The white pizza was like liquid garlic, mmMMmmmMMmmmm! After a short stop at the ice cream place across the street, we were led to Violethour: and being led certainly was required - in the spirit (haha) of the Prohibition era, its entrance is just a nondescript door in what looks like a boarded-up place; upon entering, there are these heavy velvet drapes and dim lighting, all pointing towards a pricey and pretentious establishment - wasn't too far off the mark - well at least we know it's there and we can say we've been there :) After that, we established ourselves at Salud and proceeded to down a few before Kosh and I excused ourselves - it was only 10pm but it felt really late - then again, with the outing starting at 5-ish, that was about 5 hours of socialising, no wonder we were tired!!

I'll post or point you to other bloggers' write-ups of the night. We brought a camera but the battery died after two pix, LoL, hence the attempt to include related-yet-not-of-the-event-itself images :) Like this one: me once we got back.


Keen eyes will notice I've got Davewear on :) And that I'm still clinging valiantly to shreds of anonymity by not posting full frontals / immediately recognisable pix of me. *grin!*

Blogger write-ups (will update until about a week from now):

• Mashed Potato Pizza, Velvet Drapes & Absinthe, Plus A Professional Lurker Revealed (RW) (you can see me in one corner of a pic)


• Nerdurday... or How I spent my Saturday (Leah)


• Bullet Sunday 93, Live from Chicago (Dave)


• Bloggers, Beers, Brownies (Mocha Momma)


• Bogging Down (Robin) (just a little blurb at the end)


• Radioactive Brownies (or something) (Radioactive Girl aka Tori)


• R.I.F. (Jen)


• Get Down Tonight ... (Kevin)


• Piece Pizza & Davecago3 & The Velvet Hour (Gary)