Shorthand for Nothing

I am late in posting this! This Friday was HelloSilo‘s latest apocalyptic meeting: Wing Attack Plan R. Under normal circumstances, I would say it was a success, but in nuclear war, nobody wins. The only way to win is not to play. But we bombed the hell out of the Russians with only acceptable casualties, and they will no longer be able to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

Highlights of the evening include talking to someone who hasn’t really talked to me since she got a boyfriend. I offered to provide her with some information via IM, but I don’t recall what that is. I can only hope this intelligence is not vital in the dark days ahead. The inestimable Seth Woodworth’s torso became like unto a living pensive caterpillar–our success over the Russians was, alas, too late to save him. Tim Hwang did his country proud by joining the boy scouts. Plans were hashed out with Michael Wolfe, who is the new black. Mistakes were made. And I have many, many photos of Matt Blake asleep on an arm chair. HI MATT BLAKE.

Good night, and God bless America.

UPDATE: “Many, many” is apparently exactly equal to three. Now accepting bids.

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It is quite possible I am the only person who finds awkward reintroductions kind of enjoyable, if only because of that shared moment of realization. I started the night of ISH with an awkward reintroduction to someone I’d met at Harvard Free Culture what feels like months ago, and from then on it was more or less predictably enjoyable. But in a good way.

Over previous parties, there was a marked improvement in things to both eat and drink. Previously we tended to opt for a few bags of chips and maybe some cookies, which went away quickly. This time there was a Costco run and an ungodly amount of nostalgic and semi-nostalgic snack food staples from being a kid in the 1990′s. And Capri Sun.

Sporting a nametag bearing the legend ‘it’s complicated,’ I discussed unnecessary linguistic dilemmas, Karl Rove’s Twitter account and how it is well-maintained, Moses Lake’s Twitter account and how it is poorly maintained, Washington state politics, places Greg Marra should go when he is in Seattle, memes, circus peanut candies, the classiness (or lack thereof) of drinking wine straight out of the bottle, pretentious philosophical plays, and some idiot’s microfiction blog. and several other things besides that have since eluded me.

Something about tonight felt different–perhaps the absence of some of the more conspicuous characters of previous events, or our failure to conclude the evening at the IHOP, as is our wont. This is a mystery I will probably never solve, because I am lazy and not very curious about it.

This to say nothing of XORCon, which was also enjoyable and which will receive its own treatment later this week (GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN)–once again a good crowd and good times had by all.

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Everything in the last post was a lie.

Moving on! April Fool’s day, such as it was, was kind of a let-down as an April Fool’s day. No clever pranks happened. I was not much nourished by Google’s yearly joke, vaguely amused at Whole Foods’ website, and didn’t really pay a lot of attention otherwise. I’m not going to say I particularly enjoy it–my poor attempts at humor are mostly because I feel it’s sort of obligatory, and because I’m a person who likes to violate Gricean maxims and play with people’s expectations. I like it when it’s clever.

However, I unexpectedly had dinner with Ellen, who is evidently in town. It was a nice time. And, despite this past week having been rather unpleasant by most measures, I’m looking forward to several coming events. In many ways it’s comforting to live in a world where April Fool’s just isn’t a big deal.

Apologies to Michael Wolfe, who is in the future and probably read my atrocities on April 2nd, because of time travel.

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I could talk about the YawnLog meeting tonight–mention how it sounds like we’re really going places, that we’ve got plans and a future and it’s going to be glorious–but what I really want to talk about is cheap boxed wine.

I was expecting bad. I mean, that’s what cheap boxed wine is all about, right? Something which is cheap and available in bulk and isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination? But no, it wasn’t like that. It was cheap–some California blush wine–but it had almost no flavor. It wasn’t pleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but it was drinkable. It was flavorless, but drinkable.

I never asked Tim Hwang why he had it. That would break the magic, surely. So we drank bad wine from a creepy sack, and discussed, in many ways, the future of our little organization, whatever it is. I think we’re on the verge of doing something genuinely impressive. YawnLog is both our proof of concept and our best and greatest hope for the future, our flagship.

And if anything tonight was its christening, not with champagne, not with ceremony, but with cheap wine and a bunch of kids sitting around a flimsy coffee table, joking and talking and maneuvering and generally getting there in the end.

I’m excited.

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