smart kitty

4) The infamous Mark Zuckerberg keynote (pictured above)! Dude. People were ready to bitch slap Sarah Lacy. She treated Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg like he was a bad interviewee. Maybe he would have been. We'll never know because she didn't actually ask him many questions. She would make her own observation about Facebook for about 2 minutes and then follow it with a closed-ended question such as "Is that a fair assessment?" And then when he tried to say more than seven words, she would interrupt him and talk more. The internet is full of people who went into greater detail than I. I will just add this first-hand tidbit: Yes, I did see people on iPhones and laptops Twittering, blogging, IMing, etc. about how terrible she was while she was still talking. And, yes, I did hear people actually say they were going to hunt her down afterward and yell at her. Favorite thing someone said to me about it: "On top of being rude to him, she really looked and acted like she wanted to shag him."

5) Talk by Kathy Sierra. I do have opinions about it, but only boring professional ones. I like her a lot.

6) Barbecue break! I went to Stubb's and got some pork ribs and a beer. Yum. Friendly Austin people said friendly things to me. They want us all to visit their city, even if we all come at the same time and roam their streets wearing conference badges.

7) Pre-Web-Awards party and then the Web Awards. Comedian Eugene Mirman (the apartment super on Flight of the Conchords, to me) hosts. The Ninja of Ask A Ninja accepts on behalf of anyone who isn't there to accept the award. Perhaps he should have accepted on everyone's behalf?

8) Gawker party = free beer

9) PBS/Wired party at the Austin City Limits set. Morgan Spurlock is there and I almost talk to him. He and I have met before, when he was a keynote at a Project Censored awards ceremony. But I am certain it is not my own warped modesty that makes me think he won't remember me. Instead I let him bump into me and then I go closer to the stage to watch The Spinto Band. I liked them a lot. I also liked the free margarita.

While I did not talk to Spurlock, I did talk to Natalie Zee Drieu of Craft and Diana Eng, a designer who was on season 2 of "Project Runway." Super cool! They are working on a book together about the intersection of fashion and technology. One cool thing Eng has made was a camera connected to a heartbeat monitor you wear so that it could take photos of all the things that made your heart race with excitement. So cool.

Tidbit: I can see why a lot of the college kids at this conference are tempted to quit school. I told a couple not to be a fool and to stay in school. I am not sure how convincing I was.