I feel like I missed so much. MAJeff organized a gathering of Pharyngula readers, and it sounds like it was great fun, as a group of like-minded godless skeptics and rationalists used my web site as a mere pretext to justify meeting to drink bar and talk.
I’m superfluous to the whole affair, which is a little strange, but also reassuring. It’s the opposite of the L. Ron Hubbard effect — what if you started a movement that wasn’t a religion? You wouldn’t get rich, you wouldn’t get worshipped, you wouldn’t even be personally necessary, and what you’d have instead is a whole lot of people thinking for themselves. Helping to catalyze freethought isn’t going to get me a yacht with a flock of slave bimbettes, but at least it also won’t lead to drug addiction, delusions of grandeur, criminal behavior, paranoia, poor hygiene, and dying in a soiled bed doped to the gills on psychiatric drugs and worried that the clams were going to eat me. Cool.
You want pictures? You can have pictures. And more pictures.
Now go organize your own.
Also, you don’t get to occupy the city of Clearwater, Florida, or have Tom Cruise refer to you as “PZM.”
KPM (Keep Pharyngula Moving)!
…it also won’t lead to drug addiction, delusions of grandeur, criminal behavior, paranoia, poor hygiene, and dying in a soiled bed doped to the gills on psychiatric drugs and worried that the clams were going to eat me.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. :)
Well the eldest asked me about pharyngulla the other day, she had heard of it from somewhere else. So I had better watch what I say, I suppose. Tonight we intend to have a comparison tasting of my different Talisker single malt whiskies. Does that count as a gathering?
“…doped to the gills…”
Do you mean that figuratively, or are we making some progress in genetic body modification after all?
I have pics too.
Even MORE peekchores of the happy godless.
Wherever two or more gather in my name, there I am.
But since you have the Trophy Wife, you really don’t need all those other perks, right?
Although a yacht with a flock of slave bimbettes trolling for cephalopods and keel-hauling cdesign proponentsists might be appealing…
Ediacaran, DPG (Scientia et Fermentum)
The Blunderbuss is a very nice beer indeed.
Thanks for the pix, pixelfish.
I think there ended up being at least three (maybe more) tables of people eating at restaurants in the 1 Kendall Square area, and lots of drinking, eating, talking, and laughter.
As I said, I just tossed together a thread, and people showed up (and y’all kicked the shit out of the Boston-area Kossacks who couldn’t be bothered to show up at Redbones!) Glad to meet y’all!
I see that the participants drank toasts to your health, PZ. Does that actually work? Perhaps there could be a placebo effect, causing you to feel peppier at the knowledge that mugs of beer were raised in celebration of your physical condition. Otherwise, it does seem like magical thinking.
Seriously, though. Uh… yeah. With all due respect to the impact Dr. Myers has here, one of the worst things that could happen to Pharyngula would be for it to turn into a Cult of Personality.
I guess that also means that MAJeff isn’t the leader of the Boston cell. Heh. :-)
“Now go organize your own.”
An order from The Exalted One?!? Hosannah unto all the saints!
You are of course invited PZ, should you find yourself in Eastern Scotland between 20:00 and 23:00 GMT. I should warn you thought that adding water/ice to Talisker is strongly frowned on here and in fact is seriously advised against. To me watered Talisker tastes like someone had squeezed a handful of wet peat into a glass. Talisker is fiery and fire and water do not mix.
Otherwise, it does seem like magical thinking.
With enough beer, all things are possible.
With all that merrymaking and fun, I’m surprised Grendel didn’t show up. No worries if he does, though. Oi will kill yorr monstah.
Grendel simply wanted some understanding and tolerance, if he turns up tonight he can have a dram or two. The eldest works where Fingall is reputedly buried, he is welcome too as well as any other Celtic legends.
check it out:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57683
I assure you that if I did end up in Scotland on that date (a condition much to be desired, but unlikely to be accomplished, alas), I would most certainly scrupulously observe all of the quaint local folkways, even at the expense of sacrificing my sobriety.
With all that merrymaking and fun, I’m surprised Grendel didn’t show up.
Grendel’s doesn’t have parking. :P
I had a blast! Anyone want to do a Worcester, MA meetup so I don’t have to drive into Boston again?
I just noticed that it’s not so much the clothes that make a Pharyngulite, it’s the spectacles. O-O/
You know, PZ, there’s a way to get all these get-togethers to include you and get funded by someone else. Finish your book and get the publisher to pay for alcoholic consumption in various locales as a “book tour.”
There’s some yummy squid and beer in Boston :)
I had a blast! Anyone want to do a Worcester, MA meetup so I don’t have to drive into Boston again?
And someplace with a better house Shiraz?
There you go, trying to look at the bright side of life.
And someplace with a better house Shiraz?
You bitch. :P
There’s a whole street of restaurants in walking distance of the commuter rail, so you will have no excuse!
(Goddamn, that wine sucked.)
Just providing independent confirmation that:
a) Jeff did a terrific job in arranging a gathering
b) It was a great time
c) The Blunderbuss Barleywine was awesome
wrt Zeno’s question wrt toasting…
I have no idea of what impact it might have on PZ, but it made -us- feel pretty good…
— Brian (second to the left, top row, in the flicker set.)
As is my wont, I celebrated in spirit by going out and tipping back way too many before coming home and sniping at the creotards that seem to infest this place at night.
Looks like you guys all had fun. Curse you PZ for appointing me to minister to the heathens in this FSM-forsaken northern town.
Hey, I may not be bespectacled, but I had a $2 squid pinned to my shirt. That’s got to count for something… right?
…one of the worst things that could happen to Pharyngula would be for it to turn into a Cult of Personality.
You must be new to world conquest.
Cruelty to cephalopods?
I just noticed that it’s not so much the clothes that make a Pharyngulite, it’s the spectacles. O-O/
Speaking of which, shouldn’t there be a link for cheap frames forthcoming at some point? (Eye accessories! Yay!)
Michigan Pharyngulites who would like to meet in Ann Arbor, click below!
http://pharyngula-mi.blogspot.com/
No new pictures, but some reminiscences. Let’s make it a regular affair.
PZ:
Chances are, on your way to the east of Scotland, you’ll make landfall in the west of Scotland.
It’s a little warmer here, a little wetter, a little less windy, and no one will assume you’ve had your tea.
There are local customs that must be respected. This includes honouring your hosts by never turning down the offer of a drink. Your hosts in turn will honour you with cephalopodic toasts, no two with the same single malt. A strange people, to be sure, but strong-minded and pragmatic to a fault.
Now. If you are here on a weekday, particularly a Friday, would you care to earn your keep with a seminar? We lean toward the science stuff.
You might think that’s a shame …
… or strangulation.
And someplace with a better house Shiraz?
That’s what you get for ordering wine at a brew pub ;)
Wherever two or more gather in my name, there I am.
Any pharyngulites in Vermont? I doubt it, but worth a shot.
There was a Toronto meetup today, although there were only 3 of us. We met at a Korean Barbecue, Grill Time, at 454 Yonge Street. This is a “cook it yourself” all you can eat, various meats and fish, including squid, with side dishes as well. We had a great time, and hope more from southern Ontario can make it next time. If interested, e-mail dan.corazza@gmail.com for coordination.
We are also planning a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum on a Friday evening, when entrance is half price. They have lots of dinosaurs, among a lot of other cool stuff. Date has not yet been set.
Anyone here from Montreal? I’d be up to organizing something at McLean’s Pub on Peel Street…
…
Speaking of L. Ron Hubbard, you said…
“Now go organize your own.”
That sounds very ‘cultish’
…tom…
.
I wonder how many Pharyngulites there are on Cape Cod.
Probably not many, if a Cape Fark party only pulled like a dozen people…
Is there any interest in an Order of the Cephalopod event in the Des Moines/Ames area? Surely there must be other undercover Pharyngulites in the region.
Something to consider for the spring, and probably for a weekend, Boston-area folks:
The Boston Public Library has a catering/cafe/luncheon type thingy, in a very nice dining room. The BPL, at least parts of it, is a lovely old building, and let’s be honest, would could be more fitting for a bunch of skeptics, thinkers, and researchers to have a grand meal at the BPL. So, something like a spring or summer luncheon or brunch or something…I’d again be willing to organize something like that, if enough folks were interested. (Something maybe even a bit more formal, as it were.)
Also, Rebecca at Skepchick emailed me, first with a link for really cool glasses frames (I am so going shopping) but also to remind me that the Boston Skeptics in the Pub is coming up. She’s still planning details, so I ain’t gonna steal any thunder: check out skepchick.org for more details and more meeting of Boston area folks.
Thanks again, everyone, for last night. I, for one, had a great time.
Is there any interest in an Order of the Cephalopod event in the Des Moines/Ames area? Surely there must be other undercover Pharyngulites in the region
If you’ll check the photos from last night, you’ll see I was wearing my Cyclones sweatshirt–Iowa State was represented (it was, of course, in honor of Guillermo Gonzalez, but I’m an alum).
Yeah, it won’t get you worshipped, wealthy, or diagnosable mental illnesses. But in a hundred years, it also won’t leave you as the subject for antitheistc polemics, satire, an episode of south park, sarcastic banter, or another variant religion.
MAJeff
How different our perceptions can be! I had an image of you as a bespectacled, portly, smoking jacket wearing, velvet slippered, profesorial Noel Coward type. Instead I now see you’re young, hunky and more than little spunky. Ahhh, if only I was single, you were straight and we lived on the same continents. Mountains could move my lad.
Sounds like it was good fun. Any readers in the DC area care to do our own rendition?
HUNKY?! I have refused to get a tattoo on my arm for over a decade because i don’t have enough surface area on my arm (and after I lost the 65 pounds I have sworn to never enter a gym again)
But thank you, I’m blushing.
But, the more confusion I can build, the more eccentric I appear, and the longer I can keep up those appearances, the more difficult it will be to get rid of me when i’m old and tenured (shit, my plan is now public)