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INCREDIBLE CROSS-SECTION FILLS HOTEL
DailyKos functionary Susan G. revels in the nation-changing success of the YearlyKos convention:
What is amazing about us in the flesh is our diversity.
Our energy, we all knew about. Our intelligence, both collective and individual, has always been on display here on the site itself.
But when we fill up a hotel ... well, we are the most incredible cross-section of America.
You’d be even more diverse if you included the sane.
When you walk down the hallways and through registration area, the people who are sitting cross-legged on the floor, backs to wall, logging on, are every age from 16 to over 70. You can hear accents floating through from every corner of the country - twangs, drawls, short Northeastern clips ...
... stammers, ululating, unmedicated screams ...
Remember all that talk about people feeling shy? Pffffft. Forget about it. Of course, there may be people lurking in their rooms, but for the most part, it seems barriers are really down. You just walk up to a clump of people, or turn around to whoever is walking down the hall behind you, introduce yourself, and are welcomed as a long-lost friend.
Or first-ever friend, as the case may be.
We are hungry, hungry for each other in person. If someone is spotted with the orange lanyard around their neck, you fall upon them. Who are you? What’s your screen name? Ack! We recognize it!
Ack! It’s the Holy Fellowship of the Orange Lanyard! Pity any other conventioneers currently in Vegas who might be wearing similar identification. Hello! Will you be my friend?
The media is, of course, in fascinated attendance and it seems like every fourth person you run into is here covering the phenomenon of ... us.
We’re worth it, too. We are something else.
You are only 1,000 people at the Riviera Hotel. Check the attendance at these conventions, also scheduled for Vegas this month:
* Western States Roofing Contractors Association: 4,000
* Las Vegas Hair & Nail: 12,000
* Electrical Apparatus Service Association: 4,000
* Intl Esthetics Cosmetics & Spa Conference: 33,000
* Coffee Fest: 8,000
* Casino Chips & Gaming Token Collectors: 5,000
* Truck Show: 30,000
Kinda puts this little party in perspective, doesn’t it? These netroots folk amount to just one-fourth of the Electrical Apparatus Service community. Susan concludes:
We are here. We are at the gates. We will no longer remain passive and meek in order to court favor. We, the people, are coming to power slowly and indefatigably, here in Vegas and here on the blog. We have arrived.
I salute your indefatigability!
And we’ll never go back to silence again.
Sorry? You were saying something?
(Via Wonkette)
UPDATE. YearlyKos saves a life!
UPDATE II: “Remember when Davey Jones showed up at Marcia’s prom? That was nothin’.”
The Riviera? Eewwww. One of the older casinos. Not one of the newer megacasinos at the end of the strip.
Now, if they had held it at the Bellegio, Paris, Alladin, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Flamingo, New York New York, or hell, even the Excalibur, I’d might even attend. But not the Riveria.
But maybe that’s all they could get.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 06 11 at 10:29 AM • permalink#3 To be pointlessly pedantic, 1000 people is about 0.0003% of the population.
I’ll concede it’s probably a substantially larger proportion of the bedwetter demographic.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 06 11 at 10:45 AM • permalinkI wonder if wearing the Orange Lanyard is a leading cause of repetetive head tilt injury.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 06 11 at 11:20 AM • permalinkOrigins wargames convention—in the vacation mecca of Columbus, OH—managed to gather 15,000+ last year despite being over the 4th of July weekend.
The role-playing geeks gathered 30,000+ in Indianapolis last August.
Nobody tell the Kossacks these numbers. They might get a sense of perspective.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 06 11 at 11:31 AM • permalinkTeehee. I just heard the NPR story about this on Weekend Edition. Weirdly and oddly, there was no mention whatsoever of KOS’ zero-outta-twenty batting average.
Posted by Huck Foley on 2006 06 11 at 11:34 AM • permalinkThe roofing and electrical folks (and some of the others) might feel they need to be in Las Vegas for business. But there were 5000 token collectors! Presumably they came on their own nickel, the same as the KOS folks.
So five times as many people care about collecting clay and plastic tokens as care about leftist Kos politics.
And, yeah, the Riviera is pretty downscale for Vegas. Probably all they could afford. The upper end places such as Mandalay Bay are expensive and in high demand.
Posted by Billy Hollis on 2006 06 11 at 11:39 AM • permalinkWeirdly and oddly, there was no mention whatsoever of KOS’ zero-outta-twenty batting average.
You know, I pointed that one out in the comments for another blog (a tech blog by a Microsoft friend of mine that veered into politics when Kos visited Redmond).
Kos claimed then he was 3 for 17. But I’ve never seen any reference for his “wins”. I too would like to see a journalist pin him down on that one.
Posted by Billy Hollis on 2006 06 11 at 11:46 AM • permalinkThe media is, of course, in fascinated attendance and it seems like every fourth person you run into is here covering the phenomenon of ... us.
Just…wow. That’s the cult of the anointed, right there. I haven’t looked for any pictures of this parade of idiocy; is it possible to capture their magnificence on film?
We are something else.
You sure are, babe. You sure are.
Kos claims a win in the primaries. It’s like how Seattle “won” the Super Bowl.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 06 11 at 12:05 PM • permalinkThis was probably the most revolting cross-section since the “conceptual artist”, Damien Hirst, last sliced up a farm animal and plunked it formaldehyde.
And I can just see these misfits wandering around yanking each other’s lanyards, their mouths popping off like toy cannons.
The Coffee Fest convention looks interesting, though. I’ll have to check it out.
The media is, of course, in fascinated attendance and it seems like every fourth person you run into is here covering the phenomenon of ... us.
So… assuming Susie G’s dizzy hyperbole is accurate, approximately 250 of the 1,000 are with the media? Which leaves, really, only 750 actual participants.
I think Susie G is just experiencing the normal giddiness that goes with attending a fan convention. That, and probably too many apple martinis.
To get the full comedic effect, read the comments after the article. Yes, of course, there were tears:
Am I the only one who is sitting here in tears after reading this diary. Tears of JOY! Tears of RELIEF! Tears, that to me, mean it hasn’t been for nothing, we’re going somewhere, we’re going to make a HUGE difference and save our Country, our planet.
Wow, this is a really great feeling.
Thank you! Thank you to everyone who got Yearly Kos going, who’s attending, who promotes it and who supports it.
{{{{{{{{{{{GROUP HUG!!!!!!!!!}}}}}}}}}
We are hungry, hungry for each other in person. If someone is spotted with the orange lanyard around their neck, you fall upon them.
Brains…Fresh brains…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 01:28 PM • permalink#24 Walking into the reception hall the size of an airport hangar last night, I was struck dumb . . .
“Who are these people?”, I asked myself, with an increasing sense of fear and trepidation. It looks like a zoo run on the honor system, a carnival of the damned, the waiting room for the world’s largest acne clinic. What if my mother were to see me associating with these people? Or my friends from high school? Hell, the guy who runs the Jiffy Lube would give me the raspberries if he saw me hanging around with these losers. Maybe if I hurry, I can catch the next flight back to Omaha.
Walking into the reception hall the size of an airport hangar last night, I was struck dumb
Of course, some airport hangars are big enough to hold a Piper Cub or two.
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 06 11 at 01:40 PM • permalinkI’m pretty sure that the 30,000 at the Truck Show will have a bigger impact on the next election than the 1000 Kossacks since I bet they vote disproportionally Republican.
Posted by Randal Robinson on 2006 06 11 at 01:54 PM • permalink#16 Billy Hollis
Kos claimed then he was 3 for 17. But I’ve never seen any reference for his “wins”. I too would like to see a journalist pin him down on that one.
He’s counting moral victories, where Kos-supported Democrats lost by a smaller margin than was predicted… such as in San Diego last week where in the special election to fill Duke Cunningham’s seat, Brian Bilbray garnered “only” 54% of the vote, when Cunningham had received 64% in 2004. Bingo! Kos victory! Same as in an Ohio special election last year where an anti-war military vet lost, but “forced” the GOP to spend their supposedly “dwindling” campaign funds where they otherwise might not have…
He may also be claiming Screamin’ Deano’s appointment to the Democratic National Committee chairmanship as a victory as well, although the good doctor’s public tomfoolery since then may have actually harmed the Democrats’ fundraising efforts.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 06 11 at 01:59 PM • permalinkYou just have to understand the paradox logic of the Left.
They’re Failurists. Losers are the winners for them. Success is like sunlight to a vampire.
With all the economic systems in the history of the world to choose from, what do they pick? Communism, the most graphically-demonstrated failure of them all.
Of all the military leaders, past or present, who do they glorify? Che Guevara, who lasted less than a year and accomplished absolutely nothing beyond gratuitous bloodshed.
Their ultimate statesman? Yasser Arafat, who spent decades not only failing to get his people a state but steadily reducing the size and quality of any state they might wind up with.
Nation they most admire? France, currently circling the drain in a demographic death spiral.
Favorite religion? Islam, guaranteed to drag any culture it’s allowed to influence down into a violent pit of bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic ignorance.
And who do they annoint as their political kingmaker? Daily “0 for 20” Kos.
So you see, being outnumbered 12-to-1 by manicurists tells them they’re doing something right!
Too late, the zombies realized they’d been forced on a starvation diet…
Noooo… Goooood brains…hardly used…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 02:25 PM • permalinkI was gonna go until I heard they didn’t get Nimoy or Shatner.
So I’m like, what’s the point?
Posted by P. Froward on 2006 06 11 at 02:30 PM • permalinkwe are the most incredible cross-section of America: Amal the camel driver, Ahab the whaler, Baklavad the recent (9AM this morning) Episcopalian convert to Islam), Joe Shapiro searching for a minyan,144 reporters and photographers from the New York Times, 12 John Kerry look alikes (and maybe one or more John Kerrys), one cyclist of violence, one Soros in drag (after all, it is Vegas), et al. Can’t get any more incredible than that.
Ace over at Ace of Spades HQ had a recent riff on how the Left constantly needs to feel it is superior in intelligence to us Right Wing Death Beasts, and possessed of some arcane knowledge that lifts them above the common herd. They’re always banging on about how smart they are. Leftists as a group and in many cases individually have been some of the most spectacularly stupid people I have ever met. I’m talking full-on, raffia-basket-making, don’t-run-with-scissors retards. I actually had one the other night saying that all human life was of equal value and that the US killing Zarqawi was no different from Zarqawi setting off car bombs and hacking peoples’ heads off. That’s a special kind of stupid (P. J. O’Rourke (PBUH) hit the nail on the head—he indentified that brow-furrowed, intense earnestness of the Leftoids, and described earnestness as stupidity gone to college).
I don’t think I could be Michelle Malkin’s mole. If I were exposed to that concentrated level of cretinism for any time I think I would wig out and start stabbing people. It’s not just that they’re wrong on just about every issue of importance in the world (and most of the unimportant ones) it’s that they’re so fucking happy in their ignorance. Another O’Rourkism: these people have the self-satisfied look of toddlers on a pot. Great job, lefto-toddler! But at the end of the day you’re still left with a pot full of crap, and Mummy has to clean it up.
Posted by David Gillies on 2006 06 11 at 03:05 PM • permalink#42 David Gillies you said it. From reading Susan G’s arrogant cake frosting, I’d say she has a serious self-esteem problem (a characteristic typical of leftoids) and is over-compensating by crowing (see how smart we are, we’re united!). Unfortunately for them, I will spend the rest of my life reminding them that they are in fact stupid, kicking them in the ass until I die.
Damn them, damn them ALL to hell. Even Zarqawi deserves more respect than they do. At least he knew what side he was on.Beware of those who must keep reminding you of how smart they are.
While there seems an excessive amount of verbiage coming from this convention, there seems a dearth of photos. Are they afraid that a picture might tell a few thousand words about that “incredible cross-section”?
The old casinos have their charms, wonwright, but yes, the Riviera is definitely downscale. I don’t imagine, though, that many of the Kossacks live large in the real world.
Walking into the reception hall the size of an airport hangar last night, I was struck dumb: Video screens hanging from the ceiling near the stage, a half acre of tables, subdued lighting, a low buzz of anticipation and excitement, the room had the feel you sense before a rock concert - except we ourselves were part of the upcoming performance.
Do 1000 people really require an airport hanger and half acre of tables? Really?
Of course, there may be people lurking in their rooms…
Do people go to Vegas and actually lurk in their rooms? What’s the bloody point (although gaming is available on your television)? Might as well go to Des Moines (no offense intended, Iowahawk).
And we’ll never go back to silence again.
Oh, please, when were you ever silent? I’d like to know so I can be nostalgic for those days. As if.
(On a side note, Star Trek Experience—at the Hilton—is an absolute hoot for the fan and I highly recommend it. Unless you’re a complete dweeb, though, leave the outfit at home.)
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 03:35 PM • permalinkElectrical Apparatus Service Association:
HEY! What about the Battery people?
The media is, of course, in fascinated attendance and it seems like every fourth person you run into is here covering the phenomenon of ... us.
‘They’ could give two shits about you individually or collectively.
‘They’ were interested in the tonnage of Tin/Aluminum/Aluminium, utilized.
Great post, David Gillies. Nail, head.
I’m a flaming dork.
Oh, not possible, DaveS. Wit and a razor-sharp sense of humor are the sexiest things going and you’re at the top of the game. And, yes, I think your wife and/or girlfriend (or both) should make up like Chianna (had to Google that one—haven’t seen Farscape) on your birthday if that’s what floats your boat. You can tell her/them I said so.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 03:47 PM • permalink“Unless you’re a complete dweeb, though, leave the outfit at home.”
Other than the conventions and the odd Whitewater trial, where else can they where it?
Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 06 11 at 03:48 PM • permalinkWell, TBob, I never thought of you as a dweeb, but whatever. Party on!
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 03:49 PM • permalinkGood point, Ed (the Little Rock story was great). Okay, you guys have convinced me. By all means, wear it to Vegas, wear it all, and strut your stuff proudly. After all, who’ll really notice. It’s Vegas.
Which reminds me of another recommendation: Trekkies (and it’s sequel Trekkies 2, not as good but worthwhile).
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 11 at 04:05 PM • permalink(Whoops—just noticed the where/wear typo in my last post. PIMF!)
I watched Trekkies late one night four or five years ago when it ran on DirecTV. Sweet smokin’ Jesus—it was like watching a two hour slow-motion car wreck: painful and frightening, and yet somehow impossible to turn away from the horror.
Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 06 11 at 04:25 PM • permalinkThe only difference between Trekkies and Lefties is that Trekkies have stayed out of politics (at least as far as I know). Lefties didn’t have the good sense to stay in their fanstasy world and are unsuccessfully trying to bridge it to reality. That and the uniforms, of course.
Trekkies are harmless dorks who like to dress up and worship fictional characters, while Lefties like to….. you know what? Never mind, I guess they are the same.
Beam me up now.And we’ll never go back to silence again.
Deep inside every leftist is a bratty child who has never gotten over being shushed in the library.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 06 11 at 04:31 PM • permalinkDare you mock the nerd based community!!
Have at you!!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29464And they have 20,000 paid up members.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 06 11 at 07:06 PM • permalinkYa know, for a cross-section, that’s a mighty pallid sample…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 07:07 PM • permalinkI work in an extremely obscure field called photogrammetry. (Think of it as the fence-pliers and baling-wire cousin of the satellite image folks.) A few years ago some of us were sitting around in the coversation pit in the bar at the Inner Harbor Marriott in Baltimore and started counting. Leaving aside the purely military applications, we reckoned there were only something like 50,000 people in the world active in the field, and three-quarters of them were the approximate equivalent of highly-trained ditch diggers.
We have conventions twice a year. Our last one was in Reno, at the Hilton (no, we’re decidedly not upscale—that’s a place that has to subsidize the bus people.) It drew a little over 1100 attendees. The next one, this fall, will be in San Antonio, and we expect to see about the same numbers.
What that tells me is that all that noise is being made by maybe twenty thousand folks, probably fewer. Talk about perspective.
Regards,
RicHow about Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trades Show (SHOT Show):
2006, Las Vegas: 26139 attendees and 14753 exhibitor personnel
Posted by ausdiplomad on 2006 06 11 at 07:22 PM • permalinkSo why are you making such a big deal out of it then?
To mock them.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 06 11 at 07:38 PM • permalinkBecause pointing and laughing is fun.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 07:41 PM • permalinkbongoman
Its called mockery, something which with your track record on posting, you should be familiar with.
Also I dont see the same media numbers working most other larger conventions and breathlessly calling it a grassroots change.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 06 11 at 07:45 PM • permalinkActually, Kos was telling the truth for once. This was an incredible cross-section…
... of the nation’s AV squads.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 07:45 PM • permalinkWe came together in the desert to celebrate what people can do who love their country and dedicate their lives to bettering it.
Next time just go to Burning Man.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 06 11 at 07:54 PM • permalinkBongoman is just so…so… well, sooooooo, baby…
“So why are you making such a big deal out of it then?”
“So the War in Iraq is about fighting for our civilisation?
“So can we please catch Osama now?”
“So does the Al Qaida colleague of Zarqawi who reported his whereabouts now get to claim the $25 million bounty?”
“So Fisk should be jailed?”
“So pot smokers should be hanged?”
Bongoman’s got one bongo with a “So” on it, one bongo with a “?” on it, and a whole bunch of irritating, repetitive, mindless noise in bewteen.
Bongoman’s got one bongo with a “So” on it, one bongo with a “?” on it, and a whole bunch of irritating, repetitive, mindless noise in bewteen.
So you’re saying Bongoman should be thrown in jail?
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 06 11 at 08:23 PM • permalinkSo, in the self-centric universe category, TV movie critic on KNBC-TV here in LA just praised the movie version of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, closing with the line, “even if you’ve somehow never heard an episode of this series on NPR…”
Remind me again how large the NPR audience is…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 11 at 08:34 PM • permalinkI have to agree with Dave S. Nerdie women dressed in a Star Trek uniform, are hot.
Actually I think nerdy women dressed up in a nice dress and high heels are hot too. I don’t why that is. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to seeing very attractive women dressed in high fashion, with make up carefully applied. I think I’m getting inured to it.
So when an computer nerdette or a pocket protector statistician dresses up, pushes up her glasses, and then her bodice, THAT I notice.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 06 11 at 08:49 PM • permalinkPaco say bongoman no can find ‘em woman. Since him hold ‘em drums between legs, him pound away as cheap substitute for woman-love; stunt growth, make ‘em blind. Make ‘em stupid, too, by ‘n by; that why him ask so much question, not learn wisdom of Death Beasts. Plenty sad. Paco reckon him one day get chased up tree by tabby cat. “So, who get bongoman down?”, him ask. If fool make noise in woods, and only tabby cat near, anybody hear ‘em? Paco think not.
“Maybe it’s because I’m so used to seeing very attractive women dressed in high fashion, with make up carefully applied. I think I’m getting inured to it.”
Oh no, it sounds like the hallucinatory effects of too much time travel. Didn’t the doctor tell you, wronwright, don’t use the TARDIS more than once a month? The adverse effects must be given time to wear off.
On the dearth of photos at the Convention of Kossacks, Wonkette (there to cover this epochal event) is probably as hot as you can find there. The Kossackinas probably all look like the NION apology-cum-compassionate-head-tilt crowd, sans Miss Travis County.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 06 11 at 09:45 PM • permalinkI’d rather go to a Trekkie convention than a Kos convention…....and I swore years ago I’d cut off my right hand before going to a Trekkie convention, even though I am a science fiction fan (a long story, has to do with being exposed to Trekkies at a tender age [college]).
But I’d like to buy a Star Trek uniform, just to wear to the office, or some club meeting. I’m a flaming dork, but a higher quality flaming dork than Trekkies.
But I might be convinced to go a Kos convention wearing that uniform, just so I could wander around and say, “Hey, dude, nice costume!”
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 11 at 10:28 PM • permalinkGarrison Keillor is renowned as a gentle, folksy, homespun humorist.
Also, through his show, A Prarie Home Companion, he is known as a wry exemplar of simple Midwestern values.
well, we are the most incredible cross-section of America.
It’s a typo. They are the most incredibly cross, section of America.
A lifetime of being wrong about everything tends to make one cross.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 06 11 at 11:31 PM • permalinkSan Diego Comic Con: 100,000
BTW, do you know the difference between a Klingon pacifist and a standard Klingon?
The pacifist will fire a warning shot.
Posted by mythusmage on 2006 06 12 at 12:10 AM • permalink89 - It’s a typo. They are the most incredibly cross, section of America.
No, no still wrong. You meant, ‘They are the most incredibly crass section of America.’
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 06 12 at 12:10 AM • permalinkIf you want TRULY delusional amusement over yearly KOS, check out Taylor Marsh’s blog. It doesn’t get any better (or more delusional) than this. She even boasts about meeting “Ambassador” Joe “are my 15 minutes of fame up yet” Wilson, posting pictures of herself gushing over the man in orgasmic joy.
I thought Treacher was giving us a fine example of parody. He wasn’t.
The highlight so far was not having Wesley Clark standing near our table tonight…
I know that would be the highlight of my trip.
The Washington Times has this keck-inducing tidbit about Mark Warner:
Friday night, he threw a swanky party atop the Stratosphere tower high above the Las Vegas Strip featuring sushi, chocolate fondue and martinis that were named after Markos Moulitsas, convention host and founder of the popular left-wing blog DailyKos.
Mr. Moulitsas declared that as a “first date,” it was pretty “cool” and the chemistry between the two men was clearly enthusiastic.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 12 at 01:38 AM • permalinkWhat’s up with all this nerd bashing?, we rule this planet!. Don’t believe me?, who’s the richest man you can think of?. That’s right, he’s a nerd isn’t he (although we prefer “geek”)
You can have my foam-rubber sword when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 12 at 03:28 AM • permalink# 84 The Real JeffS: But I’d like to buy a Star Trek uniform, just to wear to the office, or some club meeting. I’m a flaming dork, but a higher quality flaming dork than Trekkies.
Dude, why do I feel you’ll be wearing the red shirt uniform?
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 06 12 at 04:55 AM • permalinkDems still trying to find a unifying message.
Sigh. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry for the Underpants Gnomes.
``... the 12,000+ who attended the anime convention I attended last month in Chicago.’‘
12,000 people? Wow. My daughter was there (not Sonetka, her younger sister) and she told me it was crowded, but I had no idea there were that many people.
(You may have seen her, BTW. She’s 5’10” and was dressed as Jenova - blue bodysuit and weird contraption on her head.)
As for me, I’m up for Coffee Fest. Wonder if they’ve still got room available.Posted by Sonetka's Mom on 2006 06 12 at 08:50 AM • permalinkIt was wrong of me to compare the Kos Kids to Trekkies, anime cosplayers, and comic geeks. I apologize. It’s one thing to have no life; being a psychotic moron as well makes it a different thing entirely.
Also I know yacc, so I shouldn’t throw stones.
Posted by P. Froward on 2006 06 12 at 09:00 AM • permalinkOafish and Infantile — He tried wearing the Yeoman uniform, but that opened up a whole don’t ask-don’t tell thing.
Too bad. He had the legs for the boots.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 12 at 09:11 AM • permalinkBTW, do you know the difference between a Klingon pacifist and a standard Klingon?
The pacifist will fire a warning shot.
At the person standing next to you.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 12 at 09:13 AM • permalinkSeeing as how comics fans, anime collectors and gamers all outnumber the Kossies, there’s only one logical conclusion for the Democratic Pary:
Yugi-Oh!/Lara Croft ‘08!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 12 at 10:48 AM • permalink“Friday night, he threw a swanky party atop the Stratosphere tower high above the Las Vegas Strip featuring sushi, chocolate fondue and martinis that were named after Markos Moulitsas, convention host and founder of the popular left-wing blog DailyKos.”
What a combination of taste horrors. Raw fish with wasabi, AND chocolate fondue (no doubt made with Hershey’s Syrup), AND gin! Named after MarkyKos! Jeeeeeeesus. Let me throw up again now.
These people can’t even dine properly.
I’ve done medieval reenacting in a group called the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). I’ve attend the largest event that the group holds, the Pennsic War. It’s literally a tent camp that arises Northeast of Pittsburgh PA, every August. Average attendance: 12-13,000. We’re a larger group. If anybody can take over, its us! We actually have the weapons to do it with ( if you count longbows, and swords made with rattan)
P.S. I’ve met some of the Australians that make it out to the War. They’re nuts! They once had a pizza delivered in the middle of a battle.
To: RWDB Rovian henchman entrance committee
subj: audition for henchman second classDear beings,
I have patiently tended the flocks of elite killer birds here in Delaware as bidden. I should note that, as summer rolls around, it ain’t the non-stop laugh fest that it was in April.
However, I write to you informing you of an
excellent opportunity to leave Wronwright and Paco in the dustto inform my betters of a unique situation. It seems that one Michael Berg, oh he of odd notions and a nifty tin foil hat, is running for public office within the realm of Delaware. Specifically, He’s the Green Party cadidate for the one (count ‘em one) Congressional seat that mighty Delaware posseses. It should be noted that Delaware only needs one, unlike the other, lesser states. Like Texas. Since I have been tending the war flocks, I feel that I am well placed to do thy bidding.Command me.
Dude, why do I feel you’ll be wearing the red shirt uniform?
‘Cuz Starfleet Engineers also wear the red shirt, and I’m an Engineer as well.
Dang it, Roddenberry, I know you’re dead and all, but couldn’t have you spared a few nickels to dress Security in another color, like brown or something? The crap that we Engineers have to put up with thanks to that decision so many years ago.
And, no mcenroe, I have NEVER put on a yeoman’s uniform. Never. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the
yeoman’s uniform of old, but I don’t wear it.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 12 at 03:20 PM • permalinkYou’d know it laddie. All DUI ceckpoints would be equipped with photographs of our beloved Governor, along with the following question:
Excuse me sir, please look at this photgraph and answer the following question: Would you sleep with this woman?
Anyone who answered in the positive can be positively identified as being drunk and/or insane.
#120 They haven’t read that scientific study about Al-foil hats yet? Do not click on this link, it’s secret:
Scientific ReportPosted by Michael Lonie on 2006 06 12 at 10:07 PM • permalinkThe Real JeffS — So if you’re an engineer, would you feel comfortable handing the E-1 in the other red shirt the clacker while you’re crimping the blasting cap?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 12 at 10:18 PM • permalinkShe’s 5’10” and was dressed as Jenova - blue bodysuit and weird contraption on her head.)
Hi, mom!
Yeah, I was at ACen in Chicago. I heard that we hit at least seven thousand people; does that make us an even more significant cross-section of the American people? ‘cause not only did we have black and white, gay and straight, old and young, we had black and white, gay and straight, old and young, Democrat and Republican.
And I’ll wager that we at ACen were a lot more fun than the Kos people. It didn’t matter who or what you were; politics or global warming might as well have not existed. People didn’t take my photo because they wanted to see what kind of a statement I was making about the situation in the Middle-east, they did because they wanted a pic of a girl dressed as a blue alien with red-and-purple organic wings and an exposed brain.
It says a lot when the people with the Pokemon cards and the hugely overweight man in the Sailor Moon costume are more down-to-earth than the touted intellectuals. And we throw a better party, too.
ROWR!
I appreciate it, I’m sure. You a Final Fantasy player, Dave?
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2006 06 12 at 10:39 PM • permalinkSorry. Some men like a girl to know her own mind, so I thought I’d better take a look at it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: geeks are more fun than Kos people. But when it comes down to it, there’s really not much of a difference between cosplayers and Kosplayers.
Doesn’t it strike anybody else that these people are delusional to the fan-geek extreme? Ever since the 1960s, when the Left started Rebelling against the Evil Right, the leftie intellectual types have been role-playing as the heroic heroes heroically fighting . . . whomever. They live in a world all their own, where they are the main characters and everybody else is either a secondary character, an NPC, or a Villain. Bush isn’t one of Them, so he can’t be a good guy. He’s clearly not a secondary or a non-playable character, because he gets in their hair too much and turns up whether they like it or not. That must make him a villain, and to establish his villainous bona fides and reinforce their own illusion, they’re giving him all the trappings of a villain: the sinister plots, the evil second-in-command (Rove or Cheney, depending) and the crimes against humanity which make you so eager to use Fire3 and the Double Apocalypse Blade on him.
The Kos people are an excellent example of this. Heroes have got to be superior to the masses of secondary characters or civilians, so they need to tout something over us. Toughness and decisiveness are out, so intelligence becomes the new +5 stat. That one thousand deluded saps showed up at their convention only reinforces the illusion that The Public is On Their Side. (Heroes are beloved by the ignorant masses, and it ain’t a victory without a parade and people thanking you for saving their lives.) Hell, even the language of the site itself betrays their Kosplaying:
What is amazing about us in the flesh is our diversity.
Our energy, we all knew about. Our intelligence, both collective and individual, has always been on display here on the site itself.
. . .
We are hungry, hungry for each other in person. If someone is spotted with the orange lanyard around their neck, you fall upon them.
The repetition of the most dramatic word and the use of “fall upon them” doesn’t so much conjure up an image of fellowship as of the gaming table or the fan-fiction website. It’s What Ho, Thou Fellows larger-than-life consciously dramatic Hero Talk. I keep expecting them to announce that the next primary will be determined by rolling 2d10.
Maybe the Kos people would be better off if they were standard geeks instead. At least then, they’d know it was an act, and at the end of the day they could take off their costumes and go home. But they can’t, and that’s what makes them sadder than any Trekkie.
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2006 06 13 at 12:07 AM • permalink#110 Blue Hen,
The SCA should never be mentioned in polite conversation. Now you know.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 13 at 12:59 AM • permalinkre, #124:
The Real JeffS — So if you’re an engineer, would you feel comfortable handing the E-1 in the other red shirt the clacker while you’re crimping the blasting cap?
Not really, not unless his hands are handcuffed behind his back, and he stays in my sight. That way accidents are less likely. Of course, it’s been 20 years since I last shouted “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” More’s the pity for that, but someone had to build the roads.
And clackers aren’t generally used that much for explosives in general, just Claymore mines. The M32 or M34 blasting machine is used these days, replacing the older blasting machines (forget the nomenclature, but you either twisted the handle, or pushed it down [avoiding the wire lugs to avoid a nasty shock]. Although the clacker would do in a pinch, once you dealt with the different connections.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 13 at 02:52 AM • permalink#127—“Kosplay” is damned good. And the fact that they can’t take their costumes off.
But for that reason I’d say they’re not “delusional to the fan-geek extreme”. They’re delusional far beyond that extreme. Fan geeks know it’s not real. Fan geeks may be goofy, obsessive, and frequently ill-groomed, but very few of them honestly believe they really are Romulans or whatever. Fan geeks who wear Spock ears don’t really believe that they’re infallibly logical beings.
An overweight middle-aged man in a Sailor Moon costume almost certainly has a far tighter grip on reality than Joe Trippi does. Think about what that means.
Posted by P. Froward on 2006 06 13 at 03:42 PM • permalink33 Spiny & Billy
#16 Billy Hollis
Kos claimed then he was 3 for 17. But I’ve never seen any reference for his “wins”. I too would like to see a journalist pin him down on that one.
He’s counting moral victories, where Kos-supported Democrats lost by a smaller margin than was predicted… such as in San Diego last week where in the special election to fill Duke Cunningham’s seat, Brian Bilbray garnered “only” 54% of the vote, when Cunningham had received 64% in 2004. Bingo! Kos victory!
I actually can’t tell if you’re kidding or not, but either way, is there some kind of “official” tally, posted somewhere, that I can cite to my LW e-mail eumenides. Some kind of MSM press story would be ideal, especially the exalted duraNtY Times. Can KOS actually be pinned down to a win-loss record, with some kinda authoritative-looking reference? Please and thank you?
Posted by Huck Foley on 2006 06 13 at 05:48 PM • permalinkThanks, guys. Hope I didn’t ramble too much.
Oh, and #134?
An overweight middle-aged man in a Sailor Moon costume almost certainly has a far tighter grip on reality than Joe Trippi does. Think about what that means.
is my new bumper sticker of the year. Thanks!
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2006 06 13 at 05:51 PM • permalink. . . whoever is walking down the hall behind you . . .
Letting them get behind you is not recommended. It’s a ‘One Flew Over’ thing.
introduce yourself, and are welcomed as a long-lost friend.
If they pat you on the back, they’re just checked for rib seperation.
As you may find the very same ‘folk’ playing FPS, RPG and other online games requiring sanguine thirst a good trigger finger and some idea of what ‘edged’ weapons are really used for . . . wandering the halls without a backup may not be the wisest activity.
That ad line ‘What happens in Vegas’ is the second half of an old mob quote, ‘What ever you stab or shoot here, bury it in the desert. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!’
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One thousand people in Vegas, self-deluded into thinking the people usually in Vegas care. Bugsy would be a-chucklin’.
Hey—just occured to me—I once attended an MLA conference—the same kind of self-important hallucinatory thinking abounded! Without the hugging, of course, as people in the MLA would as soon slit your throat as any Islamic nutbar.