The Token Rising Tide 6 Post
Name-dropping like a mofo!

Rising Tide was last weekend and I attended with my lovely fiancée Natalie. Here a brief rundown of events.

Friday Night: Greet-N-Meet at Tracey's (The Real Parasols™)

Natalie and I arrive around 7:30. I said hi to a few people I remember from a year ago, Sophmom and DangerBlonde to name a few. After placing a food order we were treated to a round of drinks by one VargVargas. I intended to buy him a shot but timing never matched up.

My friend Louis and his girlfriend Annie stopped by and hung out with us since they live in the area. We mainly hung out with them with brief guest appearances by the singing engineer Tim Ruppert, Lafayette homeboy Karl Schott, a sweaty Mark Mosley, and a nice hug from Mags.

Speaking of sweaty, I was dripping with the stuff. For some reason there were 5 parties going on at once inside of Tracey's: it was a steam bath. It was Tracy's one year anniversary, a parade krewe was meeting up there, and some odd folk singer was playing. Other mishaps transpired.

I mixed up LunaNola and Racymind on my twitters/in person which led to confusing exchanges in person and online, sorry. I also misread a tweet from Jeffery thinking he wanted to start a mosh pit in front of the folk singer(s). I was totally on board for this endeavor, but alas, maybe next year.

After like two drinks Natalie wanted to go home to spend "quality time" together. So she got her picture taken with a dude in a "EVERY DAY I'M HUSSLIN'" t-shirt and we were off. We left at 10pm and I totally missed meeting the internet's Brian P. Moore, of internet fame.

Rising Tide Proper
We made it to the con with the first panel already underway. We grabbed black coffee and some pastries. During the breakfast festivities I learned of the greatest innovation in the history of Rising Tide: the Beer Bracelet™. Half way through the 2nd panel I was starting to incite a beer riot on twitter. Luckily the beer started flowing at 11am: and boy did it flow (heavy on the head at first).

The panels were fun, I made snarky comments on twitter the entire time. David Simon's STANDING rant and calling Mitch Landrieu an asshole was pretty funny. The capping the well panel was good as well, especially when the panelists explained the state and the oil industry is constantly engaged in consensual sex. My favorite panel was the food panel, I dunno, smug assholes are endless entertainment for me.

In the middle of everything we enjoyed a kosher pulled pork with mac and cheese lunch at the "cool kids" table with Ashley Award Winner Clifton Harris and Cade "I can't make it to the after party because of the kids" Roux. I had constant beer trips throughout the panels, 95% of the time Karl was either walking up to or away from the bar.

Shocking moment of the day came during the Ashley Award ceremony. I was "nominated." 2010 was a pretty slow year for me on the blogging front, so maybe it was a hint? Luckily, a blogger who deserved the award got it instead, congratulations G-bitch. Keep on bitchin'! Please don't kick my ass.

During the final panel I started drinking a lot more beer and passing out cups to help Mags finish off the last keg. I later learned that Karl and myself made the best use of our beer bracelets. So after the panels Natalie and myself talked with Pistolette and Adrastos. I don't remember about what, I was pretty drunk.

After Party at the Rendon Inn
After the conference we all filled up the Rendon Inn. I was starving and nodding off at the bar. Talked a bunch to Karl and had to explain to Mr. Vargas that some random guy in the bar looked nothing like "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase. I also turned the world upside down by ordering half of a sandwich via twitter (thanks Pistolette). I'm all about innovation on the information super highway.

I felt sorry for the bartender since she was serving a full bar all by herself. I hope everyone tipped the fuck out of her. The food was pretty good as well. Couldn't drink the free Rum beverage everyone was drinking. I don't like rum, had it been whiskey-based I would have polished it off.

Epilogue
Overall Rising Tide was pretty fun. Xavier was ice cold and had working bathrooms so it's the best venue thus far by most accounts. I hope the Beer Bracelet™ is here to stay. Felt like a victory lap in a way, nothing too hard-hitting political wise, but maybe we all need a breather.

More Shout-outs
I wish Grandmaster Wang and Cenlamar could have made it. Loki was greatly missed as well: no one could pull off the whole Rockstar MC thing. Wish I said more than an awkward "Hello" with Maitri. Should have said hello to Athenae as well for that matter. Oh well.

Fun conference guys. See you next year.

PS:
Here's some pictures Natalie took because she's awesome.

Rising Tide 5: A Convention without Cosplay
Serpassing all Expectations

This past weekend A few weekends ago I attended Rising Tide 5, a one day local blogger/rebuilding type of conference down in New Orleans. I was immersed in a crowd of strangers all on my lonesome since none my my friends were interested in going. Now that I think about it, I should have invited Ally since she's pretty prolific on the twitters. Anyway, I did a lot of pacing, drinking, and keeping pretty much to myself. But I did meet a few people along the way.

Day 1: Pre-party

Friday evening I drove down to the Howling Wolf in the Warehouse district. Parking was non-existent so I used a parking garage across the street. I then walked up and in to the Howling Wolf. Inside a band was setting up for a gig. No bloggers to be seen. After asking around by a couple of other attendees who showed up at the same time we discovered the party was in the bar and grill attached to the side. I go in, start my tab, drank a few beers, and watched the Saints game.

At halftime I had enough liquid courage within me to go up to strangers. My typical greeting was "SO, WHICH INTERNET PERSON ARE YOU?" Most people had their real names on their name tags, this is an internet people conference, I needed internet names damnit.

After some Rising Tide staff "fabulous prizes" were awarded the party wound down and people stumbled off to hotel room parties or, in my case, bed.

Day 2: The Actual Conference/After-Party

I kind of slept walked/drove to the conference the next day. After enjoying same baked goods and moving my car to a parking garage instead of parking illegally like other attendees I took and seat and watched the first round of panels. At the initial "smoke break" I got my first beer and pretty much averaged a beer per panel from then on.

Panels were informative and a lil' preachy to the choir at times but that is to be expected. Some of the "questions" by the audience were more people getting on their soap box, kinda reminded me of people calling in to radio talk shows.

My favorite panel had to have been the politics panel, with Clancy DuBos being the MVP. Seeing Ronal Serpas on a panel Serpassed all Expectations™ with me. The keynote speaker was pretty funny, anyone willing to call Bobby Jindal a "fucking douchbag" is a-ok with me.

After the conference I helped carry some donated food to someone's car. After much deliberation by organizers and other attendees the location of the after party was chosen, the Half Moon just off of Magazine Street.

At the after-party I was starting to get a lil more comfortable but I was still in observer mode overall. The bar itself and the cheeseburger was alright. I left slightly later that most, but there was a good 10 left who gave me a round of applause when I left.

Blatant Name Dropping or "Man my first impressions are going to be sooo wrong if I read this 10 years later."

Mark aka Oyster was a nice goofy guy, hung out with him more at the after party. He was one of the few who stood up to my staggering 6'3 3/4" 6'4" frame, he was an inch or two taller than me. We share a birthday with Clint Eastwood, go us.

Jeff from the Library Chronicles, loves piss beer and is just as much of a smartass as I expected. He did a good job of inflating my twitter ego. For some reason he assumed the identity of another blogger at the pre-party to what I can only assume would be to ruin his good name.

Varg from the Chicory seems to be the life of the party, he and his wife gave me some wedding pointers the during one of the smoke breaks, good people. At the after-party he told me about the alcohol lobby he wants to start up.

Lamar of CenLamar was pretty cool, sharp guy. Sucks that he lives in the blander part of the state. Just kidding.

Met one blogger didn't realize who he was then noticed he was Jason Berry aka Ashe Dambala of American Zombie fame. Initially he reminded me of a guy I used to work with in college, then after realizing who he was he came off as some darker internet badass. Silly human perception.

Peter aka Adrastos wacky guy with a nice hat (or was that the other way around?), seemed a lil busy or distracted. His wife was nice and was making everyone feel at home.

Karl was a real bro' he was a reoccurring hangout buddy. I hear he lives a double life in California or was that online? I forget.

Loki aka George aka not a damn Yankee aka so New Orleans he shi... um never mind, had a very rock star attitude. I guess being cramped up in Ohio will make anyone snap in that way? He runs too many websites for me to reference here.

Tim writer of his own namesless blog has a kid into the Animu and put me on the spot about my Hulk shirt at the after party. Dry and sciency which is rad. His Dam(n)/Levee Safety panel was fun.

Derrick and Mags were cool. Though I mainly plotted bank robbery with Derrick on twitter.

Honorable mentions go out to Racymind and Virgotex whose real names fail me now. They were cool chicks.

I met the infamous linchpin of the underground journalistic movement known only as The Lens Karen Gadbois. Didn't talk to her much but she had a real glowing personality to me.

Who else? Leigh and Sharon seemed to be the den mothers of this motley little convention. They were hip dames.

Pistolette was cool, pretty sure she could kick my ass. She had some opposing viewpoints which is good.

I know I am leaving a few people out. I blame the alcohol and social awkwardness. I'm also bad with names. Anyway, didn't really meet a bad person really decent human being.

Epilogue

Rising Tide was a fun conference overall. Next year should be a bit better since I know people now. One more thing, I learned I was almost not allowed in because of the "guyhatesyou" thing. People were wondering if I was some kind of hate group or something. "The one man hate group" I kinda dig that.