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   Wednesday, March 14, 2007  
have i mentioned that im having the time of my life? got out of the hotel around 333pm and made it over to Rex from fimoculous's hotel room (which is the same hotel i was at last year except its now been given an $8 million overhaul and looks killer) to interview he and the hottest chick in kansas, ms ariel de la twenty-two.

because life isnt fair i just discovered that those interviews got eaten by my sometimes faulty memory card. ps its 6am right now.

then walked in the rain over to the convention center to interview some more people at the trade show but that part was closed so i hunted around for the panel discussion that was to star Hugh MacLeod of gaping void whose cartoons ive happily had on the sidebar of the busblog for quite a while now.

for some reason i expected hugh to be a curmudgeon but on the panel he was the life of the party. he lives in london and hasnt been in the US for 7 years until now.

also on the panel is Kathy Sierra who seems superdooper nice but i disagree with pretty much everything she says. beginning with "don't say I too much in your blog" and "listen to your readers". no offense, and everyone knows that i adore my readers so much that sometimes i literally love them, but seriously, fuck the readers. write from your heart and if they get it good and if they dont let them fucking die. but seriously shes a sweetie and pretty much the womans touch of the blogosphere.

and then to my surprise Gabe Rivera, best known for Techmeme was also on the panel. i go to his sites WeSmirch and Ballbug several times a day and loooove them. apparently if you get on Techmeme you get a gazillion hits but since neither the busblog or LAist breaks any tech news i'll never know, and i will keep using those sites as the information treasure troves that they are.

i sat in the front row and took video for you but alas that shit got eaten by the faulty memory card too. fuck.

after the panel i approached Gabe and somehow he knew me or my blog or something, which blows my mind because this guy is super softspoken and borderline shy and i think what on earth could i have done to have this code genius know me, but the crazy thing is lots of people know me here. and they all like me. i know i can come off as a pompous s.o.b. on here and its true that people occasionally recognize me or my name, but i blow that off whenever it happens, but for it to happen here where there are Actual internet stars is quite a thrill.

i interview him in the hall where its quiet and the card ate half of that but saved half of it and i will post that later.

finally Hugh's fans let him go and i extend my hand and say hi hugh, my name is tony pierce, may i

and Hugh gets on his knees, i shit you not, and bows to me in front of Gabe. and says Tony Pierce!

now hugh doesnt fuck around. hes the real deal. former NYC ad agency genius or PR guy or something, but he was big and then he gave it up because at some point you have to stop getting fucked in the ass by the man, and hugh turned his cartoon blog into a Technorati Top 100 hit, and simultaneously ventured into a massively successful wine business. one that saw him sell 40,000 cases last year which grew to 40,000 cases a week this year. if anyone should be bowing to anyone its me to him.

so we went over to the hilton and had a half dozen drinks with his artist buddy who will be the next governor of Michigan, and his brother-in-law who lives here in Austin. after a really great chat i interviewed him and it worked out and we said goodbye to each other but we had to take a leak so we did and then decided to grab one more drink on 6th street.

we passed a blues bar that sounded beautiful and drank and then walked down the street and kept walking and eventually made it to the gingerman bar where we got more beers and then more cool internet people showed up and it turned out to be the party of the night. hot babes were there, the inventor of word press was there, a dude from yahoo was there who said he had read the busblog for years, and soooo many very very very cool people were there and damnit did i have a great great great great time and if heaven exists it would be very much like this - where super cool strangers whose work you use every day somehow know you and want to talk to you and are so smart and so damn nice and the beer is free and you can go two days on two slices of pizza and not get the shits.


Previously on busblog...