Massless

The things I've learned this weekend...

At Fray, as at secondary education in America, the real lessons come after class...

...which may be the tagline to Porky's...

...a movie which has a stunning David Lean-like quality in the letterbox version on the DVD. To wit:

They won't be coming for money. Not the best of them. They'll be coming for partial nudity, which I'm going to give them.

"Fair enough."

Fair? What's fair got to do with it? It's going to happen. I shall want quite a lot of money.

"All there is."

Not that much. The best of them won't come for money. They'll come for breasts!

-- (Massless paraphrasing David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia)

I'm happy to endorse this whole meeting people who are standing next to you thing.

"Hey, Nerdly Nerdnik," you might ask," what's with the sudden, out-of-left-field endorsement of interaction in real-time?" Because... any of the polite fictions of ignorance about sensitive or illicit subjects mentioned in an online journal or weblog are gleefully and entertainingly abandoned in any real-life meeting of web professionals/hobbyists.

Within 30 seconds: admission of prior jail time.

(An impulse from which I'm not immune. I'm sure I mentioned to any number of charming and beautiful new acquaintances that I never rose beyond the rank of Star in the Boy Scouts.)

I'm grateful to be occassionally placed in the company of some very intriguing and entertaining strangers.

I just wanted to say - to everyone who said such nice things to us newbies from the...

• well-traveled rhapsodist
• leather-clad CEO
• spiky haired technologist
• vegas rambler immune to temptation and (surprising!) whose will is stronger than swill
• winsome photographer
• near-fulsome quick wit
• softspoken birthday host
• straight-shooting, south bay answer to Buddy Holly; the tallest drink of water in any smart-looking pond
• dulcet dildo wrangler
• l33t southlander wund3rkind
• internet provocateur (unusually entranced by the Golden Balls of magical badgers, or tanuki kindama)
• the disarming Commando, deadly enough to be both Scorpion and Mad Dog, an E-ticket storyteller and the winning-est contestant
• the raven-ish swain near the winner's circle
• brainy secret paramour who knows the earrings may be hers after all

to the devoted community builder who was nice enough to rake the leaves out of the yard so that the kids could ride their newfangled oral narrative on fresh San Francisco sod...

and to many others whom I wasn't clever enough to reduce to overdone pith -

"Thanks." Everyone was nifty. What a great night.

I am a camera and a vest:

I captured a look* and was suitably disarmed. (Pictures.)

*And in an attempt to placate those who view slideshows of events involving popular web personas as far too much of a glad hand - I have attempted to accommodate you. I have tried to counteract the genuinely warm feelings of goodwill and acceptance amidst these perfect strangers by labeling each subject as if they were an evil sovereign leader of some kind. Enjoy!

And starwipe and...