I should start with pre geek dinner… The day started with Barry and I going shopping in Reading for some suitably embarrassing things for Dave Oliver’s pre birthday celebrations at the dinner. We started off with… what is it that stands out with Dave… and we picked on the Modelling Career and girliness of the entire thing… so then went and took that one step further… pink candles, little girly cake and care bear balloons on pink string with little pink teddies on the end.. Oh and a 40 badge coz we couldn’t find a 35 one… sorry Dave… we though people would understand… I hope they didn’t really think you were 40… If they did then they must have thought you were very well preserved!
Barry brought the cake and badge with him and I met Dave Oliver and Dave Caddick at the station and presented Mr Oliver with his balloons which I then had to tie to his wrists to ensure he kept them!
After a few drinks at the bar in the station we were off to the geek dinner… as soon as we got there I got a hello from Hugh McLeod. It was great to see him again, even though he did look a bit knackered from so much travelling. When will he ever learn to take things easy and cut down on the travelling… I believe it is his new years resolution but I don’t think he will manage to keep it
I could try to name all the people I met on Saturday… but it would be quite a long list… Buy I’ll give it a try:
- Robert Scoble (http://scoble.weblogs.com)
- Maryam Scoble -(http://spaces.msn.com/members/maryamie/)
- Hugh MacLeod (http://www.gapingvoid)
- Lloyd Davis (http://www.perfectpath.co.uk/)
- David Blumenstein -David.com (http://www.david.com/)
- Rachel Clarke (http://blog.bibrik.com/)
- Nicole Simon
- Oliver Sturm
(http://www.sturmnet.org/)
- Dave 'Sabot' Oliver
(http://www.geekwithblogs.net/sabotsshell) - It's my 35th Birthday!
- Richard Peat (http://www.peat.me.uk)
- Beth Peat (http://www.peat.me.uk)
- Dave Caddick (http://www.geekwithblogs.net/WallabyFan)
- Helen Keegan (http://www.technokitten.com) MD, BeepMarketing(http://www.beepmarketing.com)
- Henriette Weber Andersen (http://henriette.prograes.com) Prograes - Embassy of Creativity (http://www.prograes.com)
- Deirdre Molloy - NMK (New Media Knowledge) (http://www.nmk.co.uk)
- Ian Smith (Irascian Ltd) (http://www.iansmith.co.uk/)
- Ben Metcalfe (http://benmetcalfe.com)
- Mehran Nikoo (http://mehranikoo.net)
- Improbulus (http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/)
- Anuj Singhal
- Zoe Black - NMK (New Media Knowledge) (http://www.nmk.co.uk)
- Barry Dorrans (http://www.idunno.org/)
- James Crowley (http://www.jamescrowley.co.uk/)
- Ewan Spence AAS (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com), TPN Rock Podcast (http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/rock), Blog (http://www.ewanspence.com)
- Neil Dixon A Minor Technicality blog/podcast (http://neildixon.com/)
- Jen Dixon regularjen (http://regularjen.com/)
- Ian Forrester | cubicgarden blogger (http://www.cubicgarden.com), BBC Developer and Geek
- Nick Dymoke-Marr
- Karina Töndevold
There may well have been more people on that list but my memory has failed me if you aren’t there. If you want to remind me then just e-mail or leave a comment! (Apologies if I missed you off my list!)
At the dinner there were a few amusing things that happened… the most obvious was the presentation of chocolate nipples to Dave… and a girl eating them as well... You can imagine the scene… guy with long hair and in a kilt comes up to Dave and says “Hey mate I believe it’s your birthday…here are some chocolate nipples, they are moulded in the shape of my wife’s nipples” and the comments after around hairs etc… typical male tech talk! (pure filth from some people!)
The second thing that made me chuckle was that Robert Scoble had apparently requested an introduction to me… (Isn’t that the wrong way round… shouldn’t I be making that request… ) Anyway there is an amusing picture on Flickr of Robert and I when we were talking about random stuff. Binary watch on show and Robert giving the thumbs up. Who knows what we were talking about at that point. But it does look amusing. Robert also mentioned that Channel 9 are now designing the Channel 9 girl!!! I wonder if I will be the first person to get one… I can live and hope!
Robert’s speech was nice and short. I guess he answered peoples questions as he got accosted by everyone during the night. Poor guy! Oh and thanks Dave for ensuring I got the mic after Robert and Hugh’s speech… That was totally embarrassing as I was completely unprepared… Oh well… I guess it was payback for the balloons and stuff! I have to say I nearly decided to interview him in front of everyone and do a question and answer session with him… now that could have been amusing… but I’m not sure he would have appreciated it.
There were a few people that I didn’t get to talk to that I wanted to… they were:
Rick Segal
Lars Plougmann - mind this – I wanted to find out how wiki wed went for you at the Chinese location!
Sam Sethi (http://sam.sethi.typepad.com) – Entrepologist – Cos I subscribe to your blog and we have been to quite a few events and never spoken yet!
Steve Lamb - Microsoft Security Geek (http://blogs.technet.com/steve_lamb/) - Were you there? I didn’t see you!
Eileen Brown - Microsoft Girl Geek! – Were you there? I didn’t see you…. Dave was disappointed to have missed you too! ;)
Dan Gillmor – Curiosity factor
Anyway… this post has got far too long… All in all a great night feedback welcome!
Oh and don’t forget London Girl Geek Dinner in January! (Looks more like 19th Jan talking to the girls! And I’m still looking for speakers!)
posted @ Tuesday, December 13, 2005 6:32 AM