The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Part II: Friday, April 25

Freed from the clutches of the post-scavhunt plague and sorely in need of procrastination with senior deadlines fast approaching, I present part deux of my ROFLcoverage. That, and the video of Jason Scott's Before the LOL was just posted in full, and I'm in the mood to walk down memory lane, though at the time it felt more like some sort of bizarre rocket-powered three-legged race. In any case, you are doing yourself a grave injustice if you aren't watching the Jason Scott video. as. we. speak. Cool stuff for all ilk of culture nerd.

In any case, my Friday began far, far more adventurous that anyone had intended. The creepy security guard/musical couches game resulted in a fractured two or three hours of sleep that night, but all's fair in ROFLs and scav. If anything, the 5:30 wake up call gave me an extra boost of adrenaline and excitment. It helped that I was able to Finagle myself a Bagel and see the infamous Hahvahd Yahd. I regaled Tim of what the Harvard Law School has in store for it as Cass Sunstein joins its ranks (Harvard kids, if you don't know about the Lisa Ruddick/Martha Nussbaum story, man have I got a story for you... if it weren't so ridiculously dramatic I'd just tell you flat out) and tried to care about the scenery as I wolfed down my bagel and kept checking my watch. I had zero official responsibility, but damn it, I was in scav-mode. But this time? No enemy. Competition is something that I am utterly fierce about, even if it's obscured behind neurotic anxiety. But that's just in scav when it has to be that way. Here, it was just awesomeness against the odds at large, and my head was about to explode with excitement. Also, it occurred to me, I'd landed in Boston like 14 hours ago? Knowing one person, kinda? Uh, Rock and Roll. This is what I live for.

Tim and I got to the Berkman Center with time to spare (time to drink coffffffeeeeee) before the schwag schlep over to MIT commenced. It was at that point that I proudly donned my 'staff can halp?' shirt, which continues to be a source of pride in my wardrobe.

In one of the most unexpectedly bizarre moments of ROFLcon, I heard my name called out while I was helping set up the registration tables not by someone on the team, but Daniella and Harold! Daniella went to the UofC our mutual first year, and Harold is a UofC alumnus as well as a Newark Academy alumni like Tim and Garett. Fresh from the red eye from San Fran, I found excellent UofC affiliate company to keep during the event in a further demonstration of how the world is ridiculously small.

I felt a bit useless at anything but manual labor at first, but badge checking at the door to the room of the first panel at least gave me a prime spot to watch as guests arrived and the ENTIRE INTERNET WAS MADE MANIFEST BEFORE MY EYES. Tron Guy and the Firefox hugging! Leeroy Jenkins! Brief glimpses of my webcomic idols! And Brawndo, Brawndo everywhere. It was, by and large, the most surreal time of my life. Now, I have danced on an antique fire truck in a prom dress, installed my own exhibit at Lincoln Center when the subway's been totally flooded and Beyonce has to film a commercial in the lobby right behind me, so surreal? is not a term to be taken lightly.

After the excellent keynote panel, I helped make the move over to building 34 with the rest of the team, including a ride in a shopping cart captured by 3 different film crews, though I seem to have made the digital cutting room floor in each case. Then Tim's family laughed at me through the window as they had lunch in the cafeteria. Too much of a scavvie too care.

Back over at 34, I sat in on a few minutes of the LOLpanel i can has case study?, but mostly hung around the lobby gawking like everyone else and helping out where I could. It was at that point that I met Erica and we collectively gathered up the nerve to overcome our total fangirl squealing and talk to R. Stevens. I thanked him personally for giving the Max Palevsky team a shout out in a comic for an item my captain year (Revenge of the T.A.C.O.S. ...am I going crazy or did it used to be "Death Rides a Pale T.A.C.O.?" Did he change it again after I talked to him?!). He gave us "propz," saying he could never do something quite as nuts but more power to us. He also gave me the hookup with MC Frontalot's autograph on my lunchbox, who was standing right next to him but as I was still getting used to having to read nametags to identify celebrities, I kind of overlooked him. One of the more hilarious consequences of such an event, really.

Since, you know, that hadn't made my day or anything, then I had Martin Sargent interviewe me on camera for the webcast TV show, Internet Superstar. While my story of having come from the University of Chicago, denying rumors that people had asked Jay Maynard (Tron Guy) to put on pants, and being asked if I thought Jay was hot never made it to the final cut, you should still totally check out the video, which is pretty epic. Also, Martin Sargent is a young Gregory House. Just saying. Gator is Wilson? Ahhhhh! art imititates art imitates art imitates life deconstruct boom! For the second panel, I sat in on most of the When Lightning Strikes discussion with Matt Harding and Jay Maynard, which promptly made me feel bad for speaking ill of Tron Guy earlier even though it's all Martin Sargent's fault for pushing me beyond the tactful 'he's a little old for me' response. Famous to 15 people, indeed.

As the afternoon wore on, I helped get the momentum going in moving boxes out to the loading dock for Fred and the van to get things back to Berkman, while sleep, hunger, backaches, and blisters started to catch up with me. But frankly, they all felt like battlewounds and hiking over to some great little Mexican place for dinner with the team plus + the Firefox guy + Ben "Leeeeeeroy" Schulz was no big deal.

It wasn't long until it was time to head over to the Middle East upstairs for the ROFLconcert, about which I was so uncontrollably excited. You can, in fact, see me arriving there on G4's Attack of the Blog 4 realz, as well as HIGH FIVING LESLIE HALL later on during her set. The concert was Pretty Epic.

For starters, college town? . I live on the south side, where 'going out' is a very different experience, it in that generally involves small bars and people just sitting around. Car space lacking, I took the bus home after Indiana Jones last night. I ran into 3 people in 6 blocks. All of them ended up on my bus, because the loop is a ghost town after 10. Either you're in the hipper and safer north side, catching a cab, or right around the UofC camput where you just focus on your target and speed walk. So yeah, Cambridge? Kinda trippy. The effort it takes to go out elsewhere made this the kind of experience especially bizarre because I haven't had the experience of 'going out' save the local, student-riddled joints since Vienna in the autumn. Denny Blaze was up first, and while rap isn't really my thing, the fact that he was on stage proved to me the power of teh intarwebs. As far as I know, the only other venue he's really peformed at is the Agora, located in that precious 1/4 mile stretch of Coventry Road in my hometown of Cleveland Heights, known for being 50/50 East Cleveland and Shaker Heights, total opposites in suburban flavor, but producing a single tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny stretch of land hailed as the Cleveland Renaissance cause it has, like, a thrift store, and vegetarian place, and a parking garage. Whoa. Also, that anarcho-communist bookstore that totally turns a profit and whose bookshelves I totally want to liberate from the oppression of alphabetical order. Fuck you, Mac's Paperbacks, your ideology is that of a 14 year old's livejournal.

But then, oh man, then! was Lemon Demon. Neil Cicierega, also of Potter Puppet Pals fame and, according to wikipedia, a mere 10 days my junior, fronts a band that I now quite, quite like, and whose bassist I'd apparently been talking to periodically the whole day without a clue. But you probably know Lemon Demon for the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Which was performed live. Which was EPIC. There's a shot of me waving a lighter in the air on flickr somewhere, and I couldn't leave without getting 1) a t-shirt, and 2) the band's blessing to throw the Ultimate Party of Ultimate Destiny should Millikan's blowout bash want the title. My ideal: guests will have the option of reprising their favorite past costume, be it Halloween, black and white, monochromatic, or decade-based, OR, they can choose to be any character from the Lemon Demon song. I'd be either a) Margot Tenenbaum (Halloween '06) or b.) Mr. Rogers in a bloodstained sweater.

But there's still so, so much more. After chilling with Pete outside for a bit, I came back in to chat with Ben&Ben who were having dinner together. And by the Ben's, of course, I mean CHEEZ and LEEROY JENKINS, omg. Mentioned previous scav references to both, and still need to send Teh Odisee, bai Homr, by way of page captain training Cheez's way. In any case, I made it back to the mainstage in order to hang out with Tim and his brother for a bit and hear some of Trocadero's set. I kept telling Tim and Jim (rhyming and alliterative sibling names creep me out, not gonna lie....) that I was sure I recognized their sound and couldn't place it; answer: associated with Red vs. Blue, and while I'm not a follower, I either just really liked the band or had come into some subconscious knowledge of the music from teh intarwebs @ large. Either way, they were pretty great.

And then! Then! The Goddess in Gold Pants herself, Leslie frickin' Hall. Actually, prior to ROFLcon, I really only knew her as a recurring personage on bOINGbOING, and assumed the most cynically hipster of her. It didn't take long for me to change my tune. The sheer fangirl enthusiasm with which she greeted icanhascheezburger.com CEO Ben Huh at registration started that, and that her mother was selling her schwag next to the Brawndo guys after driving them from Iowa? Priceless. That, my friends, is maternal dedication. Which Leslie must have inherited, because that woman never breaks character. Or she never breaks. Or never characters. Or something. I don't know, don't care. She's either the queen of the pre- or post-ironic world, and frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn which it is. Leslie Hall is just so unapologetically awesome that not even Cory Doctrow knows what to think. And if Cory Doctrow doesn't know, well sheeesh. I dunno wot th'ank of such a li'l grl like Lezlie. Wearin the golden corncob sleeves 'er mom finished sewing for her that very day, Leslie and the Ly's took the stage by storm with the most stage presence I reckon I evar dun seen. Hell, Stuart Murdoch tried to stage dive when I saw Belle & Sebastian a few years back [no lie! horrible idea, but no lie!], but daaaaymn giiiiiiiiirl, Leslie has the moves! If you can't dance like no one is watching when Leslie and Tron Guy are in your midst, then you never, ever can.

Which is why it sucks to be you. Meanwhile, Susannah and I found ourselves right at the front of the stage along with Cheez (Ben Huh), and it was pretty much the most epic thing ever. THE CEO OF ICANHASCHEEZBURGER AND I REPEATEDLY HIGH FIVED BECAUSE LESLIE HALL WAS SO AWESOME. I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THE WIN. Also, it was the three of us who started chanting Tim's name at one point, resulting in the shiniest, sparkliest, most gold lapdance ever for ROFLcon's fearless leader. Congrats/sorry about that, Tim.

After the set, I ran into LESLIE HALL'S MOM, and, based on a conversation I had with Susannah, told Mrs. Hall that she, clearly, was the GODMOTHER OF THE INTERNETS.

Little did I know that Nora Young of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., who was working on a production for Spark Radio was listening in. Let's do the (shut up, yes I'm an English major with a philosophy minor shut up shut up) math, shall we?

if
Leslie Hall = everything that is beautiful about the internet, incarnate
and
Mrs. Hall = the mother of Leslie Hall,
then
Mrs. Hall = the mother of everything that is beautiful about the internet, incarate.
Q.E.D.,
Mrs. Hall = the Godmother of the Internet.

Not exactly tipsy but more high on adrenaline at the time, I told Leslie's mom as much.

She gave me a hug. Cameras flashed.

When, I got back to Chicago: this. I can has fame? Plz? Minor? kthnxbye. Leslie and her mom both waved hello to me as we collectively tried to find the room for the Internet Superstar taping the following day and let me tell you, I felt SPECIAL. I'm about to get a degree in English! Just get me one catchphrase to my name and I will be satisfied for life.

After such a performance, Group X just couldn't hold my attention and I spent most of their set chatting it up with people who were becoming scarily familiar faces. Get enough nerds together for the first time, and you will have the best conversations of your life. It was like starting college back in September 04.

And then I crashed. This time, free of creepy security guards, I sprawled out on the futon and slept like a baby. A very happy, entertained, popopopomo baby.

With these shoulder pads I have the strength to destroy villages, homes, and crops!

Part I: Thursday, April 24

I finally went ahead and bought plane tickets to Boston, oh, Wednesday morning. My schedule sucked, but eventually I realized how angry I would be with myself for missing ROFLcon while watching it online.

The conference was held Friday and Saturday at MIT. By Thursday night, I was convinced that it was worth every. goddamn. penny.

I arrived in Boston around 5 pm Thursday evening, and after a bit of navigating and teleconferencing, I found myself en route to Cambridge via T. The old familiar stench of a living, breathing public transit system. New York, I miss you. The CTA just can't compare to the efficiency of Vienna or London or even Paris with its strikes. I am never happier than when I am navigating a city. I'd never even tried until I got to college, but New York solidified it all. Already, I could feel the weight of Chicago lifted and I was ready to conquer ANYTHING.

And a damn lucky thing that was, cause the next few days were gonna be ridonkulous.

I reached Cambridge and met up with Tim, where we instantly picked up our usual banter. Tim reminds a bit of my friend Liz from high school. Liz and I haven't gone to school together, per se, since I was 11, but we have the kind of friendship we can pick up anytime. Still, it's a little weird. Tim and I both had one weekend left while our mutual friend Garett was in D.C., so we visited him together for a long weekend, had a blast, and then hung out while both working in NYC last summer. ROFLcon was, actually, only my fourth time meeting Tim face to face, though after the hours put into the event I think counting will be futile from here on our.

But there I was, in Boston (my parents, to date, do not know that I've ever been to Munich or Massachusetts), for his conference which I'd been following since I was in Austria. We met up with the rest of the ROFLteam at a place called Miracle of Science, making me SO. JEALOUS. of Cambridge compared to Hyde Park. At this point, having met a number of awesome people and seen what it means to go to a school in a place that is PART of a real city, I began to wonder if I'd totally underestimated Harvard and myself. ...Then I saw everyone networking with grace over the next few days and remembered that I'm socially awkward and that we Maroons aren't taught the social arts. We could learn, easily, but we are not exposed to such things as other people. So, yeah know, awkies.

I say all of this out of utmost respect for the Harvard and MIT kids. Frankly, if you all take over the world as I suspect you will, I AM TOTALLY COOL WITH THAT.

So Miracle of Science, right? The menu is on a periodic table. Awesome. And tasty. We proceeded over to the Asgard, the kind of cool bar that you can't find without trekking to the north side in Chicago, for the meetup party thrown by Laughing Squid. First of all, I'm a total culture nerd and bizarro weblog junkie (boingboing, neatorama, kottke, notcot, buzzfeed, digg, metafilter, are only the tip of the daily iceberg), so Laughing Squid earned so, so many props in my bookmark lis that night . Secondly, open bar, complete with Young's double chocolate stout which I had shockingly never had before despite it being served at the local yuppie bowling institution of Hyde Park. Thirdly, the people.

Oh, the people. Once I got over my lack of social graces and got up the nerve to talk to people other than Tim, I had a blast! I even got better as ROFLcon wore one and have temporarily maintained the ability to talk to strangers. Unimportant to the story, I know, but unless you've been to the University of Chicago you have no idea how epically FTW this is. The Laughing Squid party is where I first met Suzannah, the other non-Cambridge ROFLer in charge of swag attending college in my home state. She is awesome beyond words.

It was there that I also hung out with Pete (iscari0t) who was blogging the event among many, many others. Among those people I met were those who I knew by internet fame but not face, or would later come to know by face and then ROFLfame. Notable incidents included complimenting a man on his lolrus shirt only to learn that he is CHEEZ, of the one, the only ICANHASCHEEZBURGER.COM. He went to Northwestern! He does not own a cat! He is awesome! We TOTALLY fangirled over Leslie Hall together.

At about 10:30, Pete's friend Dillweed brought a surprise for the drinkup which had been revealed to me about an hour earlier grabbing a cigarette outside: one of the ORIGINAL Mooninites. Not only was my experience of Boston complete, but that of the locals. Everyone wanted to take advantage of the photo-op, setting the official tone of GEEKING OUT for the rest of the weekend.

And what a great tone to set, because it made for an event that was pretentious is all the right ways.

With that, I followed Tim back to the Harvard campus to crash for just a few precious hours before the real fun of ROFLcon began, and adventure in itself. First of all, not pseudo-gothic architecture? DOES NOT COMPUTE. And then his blockmates were throwing a party in the common room so I crashed in the screening room in the basement. Which would have been fine if not for the creepy, creepy, creepy security guard hitting on me repeatedly such that I had to have Tim rescue me at 4:30 am. Only to waver in and out of sleep for an hour on a futon, creeping out his blockmate's boyfriend in the process. But sleep was hardly the issue: a seasoned scavvie, I knew how to ride out an adrenaline rush like nobody's business and I welcomed Friday morning with the kind of fire that the worst comment thread flamers can only dream of.

More to come on the whole of ROFLcon in the coming few days; I have midterms and sleep to get before the infamous University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt takes over my life again.

In the meantime, at least, I have Leslie Hall on my iPod, making life infinitely better.

Beeeenedetto!

Take a look at any bus stop, phone booth, or train station in Wien this week and you will almost certainly see Pope Benedict XVI waving menacingly at you. Alternatively, you might see him hugging/suffocating a neatly diverse group of children.

I had gone to see Stephansdom a few times already earlier in the week. It is beautiful and oppressive and shiny and everything I'd hoped for out of an old European cathedral and more.

And then, on Sunday, the Pope was there.

I woke up less early than I had hoped, but finding that the Stephansplatz stop on the U-Bahn was (unsurprisingly) closed, I got off at Schwedenplatz instead.

At the top of the escalator, I was greeted by two women in yellow and blue uniforms handing out commeorative newspapers. Apparently, I wasn't late. Sure enough, by the time I had reached Stephansdom (all the while missing the huge crowd coming from the other direction), I was carrying as much Papal paraphernalia as I could hold. Pope poncho. Pope program. Pope handkerchief. Pope mineral water. Pope pope, pope. Pope? Pope pope.

The poncho actually came in handy, though when Benedict XVI exited the doors of Stephansdom after mass, the clouds parted as though through an act of, well, God, lifting the miserable weather that had plagued Wien for the past week at last.

Backdated entries for the win.

Cat: I'm intrigued by the way Austria seems to be both very modern and very outdated at the same time.
James: Outdated? Like how.
Cat: Like mullets.
James: I have a friend who as a mullet.
Cat: But is it an ironic mullet?
James: Maaaaybe... But maybe Austria is in a perpetual state of irony.


Another cold and rainy day in Wien. It's nearly 13:00 and I still haven't eaten. The obvious solution is Wienerschnitzel. I look up the highlighted places in my guidebook. I find a place near where we had all gone out the night before--perfect. A quaint neighborhood outside the ring, lots of stores and cafes, and a traditional little spot frequented by locals.

My few choice words of German have been enough to order food and be polite so far, though this is the kind of city where everyone makes conversation with each other. Check out lines, restaurants, cafes. Everyone says a little more than hello. I can only follow what the waiter says through: ,,Gruß Gott!'' Figures. He immediately switches out the menu for one in English. Inner monologue says: ,,D'Oh. Tu es touriste, nein? Gah! Bad Cat! One language at a time! No French! Pas de français! Kein Französisch!''

I am starving. I order the full order, not the small lunch plate.

5 minutes later, the waiter passes through the room with what appears to be two plates. He stops at my table first. Wait. Strike that. Only my table. That's one order of Schnitzel. AS BIG AS MY HEAD. [That's what she said?] An old lady looks at me with alarm. I shrug and grimace. A regular at the next table chuckles. I resign myself to eating like a reptile: one huge meal to last me the month. Half way through, I cannot eat another bite. I look around nervously. The waiter notices. He has some butcher paper and a plastic bag when I see him next. He has seen this before. Er spriechst Englisch ein bisschen, ich spreche Deutsch ein bisschen. He pantomimes wrapping up the rest, I try to make my ,,Danke schön'' as obviously genuine as possible.

I go back to reading Marcus Aurelius. Wien is a city that doesn't like to be rushed.

"You are an old man. Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future."

Odd advice in a city that can be modern when it wants to, but has above all resigned itself to aging gracefully.

My first day at home in the 2nd district, Leopoldstadt. It's in the red light district, and is across from the neon-filled Prater amusement park.

As a result, the nearest ATM is a giant pig.

It oinks when you use it.

Occasionally, steam shoots out of its snout.









After an absolutely blissful night's sleep in a bed!, I mostly wandered around the neighborhood in the morning and afternoon. The local markets are closed on Sundays, but I managed to negoiate my way into getting some food at the fair and went up on the ferris wheel to get a look at the city. Spent the evening with the other people here for the pre-session, grabbing dinner and heading to this odd little quasi-hipster bar. Bartender one wore what I can only assume to have been an ironic t-shirt, plastic-framed glasses, etc, etc. Bartender two wore a skin tight, sleeveless black shirt with a target labelled 'aim here' over his heart, arm warmers with garters, a spiked collar, and black eyeliner. Patrons had everything ranging from mullets (which is alive and well in Austria, oh my), mohawks, dreadlocks, dreadlocked mullets (!), and more forgettable, typical clothing. MST3K-worthy projections lit up the abandoned dance floor (its Sunday), with a disco ball thrown in for good measure.

Notable observations:


















1) Apparently my 'friend' at the International House in New York this summer was just the beginning. The African-European men, they love me.
2) The German word for the menu at McDonald's (I know this from walking past one at the Prater only) is every bit as hilarious as I could have hoped: McMenü.
3) Austrian music is hilarious. It comes in techno and 80's pop, often covered and translated, sometimes leaving the chorus intact.
4) Austria in part of Europe???

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

Which may explain why I passed for Swedish. I had a something of a marathon layover but ultimately didn't make it into the city (the airport is well outside of town, luggage is annoying, a lack of research about what would be feasible in a day, no faith in my ability to resist doing Swedish Chef impersonations, etc.)

That, and the airport can be a good place to reflect. Unfortunately, when you're surrounded by nothing but duty free shopping and bars, reflects end up being mostly about food.

1) European airlines are all about the free booze.
2) Food at Stockholm Arlanda airport comes only in extremes. All items must contain either:
a) one or more of the following: salmon/gravlax, caviar, shrimp, moose, elk
-OR-
b) the name of a US sports team (i.e. Boston Celtics BBQ bacon burger)
3) Sorry guys, I didn't see any Swedish fish. Gummy candies, yes, but not fish. They're available in 'orginal' and 'salt.'

At least the day let me get the jet lag out of my system. And with that, to sleep.

72 hours from now, I'll be over the Atlantic Ocean.

Today I bought a blank journal and a guidebook. It's finally sinking in, but not because of those.

Nope. What made me realize that this is it is the fact that

I
Have
Class
On
Monday.

And to begin exercising my vast knowledge of the German language: Scheiße.

Transcendental Homelessness means never having to give out your permanent address.

Cat is on the move.

For those keeping score at home, I'll be taking up residence in 6 different places in 4 different cities in the year 2007.

I started the year off at home in Cleveland, then headed back to dear old May House for the rest of the school year. One exhausting and cathartic Saturday got me to New York in more or less one piece. In just three short weeks, I'll be back in Cleveland. But not so fast! My parents are moving out of our home of 18 years--this very weekend, in fact. Then it will be out to Chicago for a week for a sneak peek at the most permanent address I'll have any time soon.

Then we get to the one that's the reason for this blog. It's a travel blog. Because I will be travelling. And because I am an English major who suffers from illusions/delusions of grandeur.

After a little more than three months in Vienna--and other places, I'm sure--I'll be returning stateside to... well, I'm assuming my parents will not have moved again, yet, though the Shaker Heights apartment is meant to be somewhat temporary.

And then, at last, I'll get to settle down at Millikan for a whopping half of a year!

Theoretically, I will be updating this thing with some regularity beginning in September.