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Words cannot describe the sheer volume of alcohol consumed over the course of Summercon 2007 (Aug 24-26). It is a testament
in and of itself that the con even happened at all. A mere 3 weeks ago, in the #summercon channel on EFNet, the wheels started turning. Redpantz started looking for
a conference room in Atlanta, T-shirt graphics were getting planned, people started looking for speakers, and a website was finally put up. From this point on, the
#summercon channel became a frenzy of productive planning sessions and ass jokes. And to everyone's surprise, a week before the con started, we had a website that
actually had content, T-shirts were printed (front, back), we had a
schedule of speakers and bios, the conference room and hotel was booked, and new people were popping into the #summercon channel every day. It looked like Summercon
was actually going to happen this year.
I was in Brooklyn when most of the planning was happening, so I had the pleasure of spending plenty of time at the local bars in Park Slope with Mark and Mel. On one particular night of heavy drinking, Mark convinced me to give a talk about my SMTP Honey Pot and Single Malt Scotch Whisky, he also came up with a cool name for the talk: SMTP: Scotch Made Totally Practical. So, the next day I wake up remembering very little, and was reminded on the #summercon channel that I had agreed to do the talk. Something many people may not know about me, is that I get uncomfortable when a lot of people are looking at me, in other words, speaking in public. Mark assured me that I'd be drunk enough by then and so I said "OK, What the hell" and started putting together some slides and thinking about a good way to present all the material (which wasn't a whole lot). I picked 3 Scotches that were readily available (or so I thought) and worked that into my talk, and the good people at #summercon (especially Mark) was kind enough to help me out with procuring them. Friday the 24th rolls around, I get in my car which was packed to the brim with the new Summercon T-shirts as well as several boxes of the old ones, and I drive with Michelle from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, 10.5 hours. We get there, get checked in, moved all the shirts and stuff upstairs, then met Mark and Mel downstairs for drinks at the hotel bar. It wasn't before long that other attendees started showing up at the hotel, more drinks were served, and everyone got to meet each other. The crowd was moved to Jocks N Jills across the street, where food was consumed and more drinks were served. I somehow made it back to my room in one piece, thanks to Michelle I'm sure. Saturday morning, Mark calls me and we go downstairs with all the shirts. Shirts get sold and by 11AM, a bar has been setup outside of the conference room (the bar upstairs doesn't open until 4:30, and that was unacceptable). Mark buys me 2 Glenlivets (thank you) and that was the start of a day of debaucherous drinking. Scott's talk on data recovery was really cool, Decius' rants were fun to listen to, Neel had a lot of neat tricks with C++ and how that gets compiled (exception handling, etc.), Billy's talk was about web worms, something that I wasn't very familiar with, and it was interesting nonetheless. I'd also like to point out that by this point, I was getting very sauced. Caleb's webapp hacking talk was really fun, then it was time for dinner break. Me, Michelle, and the Trumpbours went across the street again to eat dinner, and I pounded a few Jameson's for good measure because my talk was going to be in an hour or so. A few people came back on-time, but a lot went to Vortex a few blocks away and was late getting their food. I broke out the 2 bottles of Scotch that we were able to find (Talisker and Caol Ila), and started drinking a little of it with Mel. Me and Mel watched Tokyo Godfathers on my laptop until the room started to reconvene. Freakn then gave his talk about beer, and my apologies to him, but it was a complete blur. When it was my turn to come up to the front I was plastered. I vaguely remember trying to setup my laptop to work with the projector, and failing miserably. I remember making sure to say that my slides sucked and that I did all this stuff 3 years ago so that it was probably nothing new. I remember drinking a lot of Scotch while up there, and that was about it. I think people enjoyed it, I wish it could have been recorded or something because I'm curious about how it went. Afterwards, was the greatest hack contest (don't remember), and closing statements by Redpantz (don't remember), and we went across the street to drink more (don't remember). Michelle described my evening which sounded not unlike any usual evening where I'd been drinking enough to kill myself and turn into an uncontrollable raging drunken lunatic, stuff Amy is pretty used to (god bless her soul). I tried to pick a fight with 8 guys in the street, which would have really sucked the next day if it wasn't for Michelle diffusing the situation. Here are some other recounts of the night, excepts from the #summercon channel: (10:48:37) tdz: oh theres pics on memstreams (10:48:56) shmeck: sweeeet (10:49:07) tdz: lol you drunk idiots (10:49:16) redpantz: look how drunk i look (10:49:19) redpantz: i can barely stand up (10:49:27) xyg: im glad i didnt get drunk (10:49:30) xyg: and do anything embarassing (10:49:45) xyg: other than stand up and mumble about C# to neel (10:49:49) xyg: then instantly pass out (10:50:03) tdz: lol (10:50:05) shmeck: Hmm. I can't figure out why I look drunk in every picture. (10:50:10) tdz: that wasnt funny at all (10:50:10) shmeck: Wait, oh, right. (10:50:12) tdz: you talking to neal (10:50:28) xyg: i had a serious question but i couldnt make any sense (10:50:32) xyg: my brain was drunk (10:50:38) xyg: o well (10:50:43) xyg: at least redpantz still respects me (10:50:50) redpantz: yeah, i respect you (10:50:59) redpantz: because, your question made sense to my drunk brain (10:51:15) tdz: oh it amde sense (10:51:26) shmeck: "Uh, question. TCP/IP: explain." (10:51:34) shmeck: loooool ----If you want a copy of my presentation, HERE it is. And finally, a big thanks to Mark, Redpantz, and everyone in the #summercon channel for helping make this happen. Thanks to the speakers for putting up with a room full of drunken assholes. Thanks to Michelle and Mel for putting up with Mark and I. Thanks to the hotel for putting up with a conference of drunks and for being nice when Redpantz attempted to jump over (under?) a table and moving anything that could be broken out of the room. And thanks to everyone who attended. I had a great time. Some Pictures.
Filed under: Summercon, Computers,
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