Blogger dinner on TECHSHOW Eve - Demented and Sad, but Social…

Posted by J. Matthew Buchanan

March 10, 2005

Disclaimer — I didn’t have the idea for the title of this post….its my wife’s creative input.

You see, last night I was giving her the details of my upcoming travel schedule (a 10 week-old baby at home assures that she stays on top of this lately…). When I told her about TECHSHOW at the end of the month, my eyes lit up. She actually said “you’re really excited about this thing, aren’t you?.”

Yes, honey, I am.

I told her I’d be leaving sometime on the 30th for Chicago. What time? Dunno. “But I have to be there for the blogger dinner.”

“The what?”

Juddasbender “The blogger dinner. You know, a dinner….for bloggers.” (I am guilty of adding a little mild sarcasm to the discussion)

At this point I could have explained the intricacies of the whole terminology issue, i.e., I’m a blawgger, she’s a blogger, but opted not to. Instead, I told her about the dinner and how excited I am to put faces with pages. She laughed, and without hesitation, gave me that famous line from the Breakfast Club where Bender (Judd Nelson) refers to the geek’s (Anthony Michael Hall) Physics Club meetings — “Demented and sad, but social.”

I totally lost it…its hilarious, and appropriate. “Demented and sad, but social”….it fits the dinner (and TECHSHOW, really) for a couple of reasons.

First, people on the outside (Bender) don’t understand the reason for the excitement of the people on the inside (the Geek). When I talk to other bloggers about TECHSHOW and the dinner, they are completely psyched (one fellow IP blogger is agonizing over the fact that he can’t get to TECHSHOW early and will have to miss the dinnner). When I mention TECHSHOW and the dinner to non-techie lawyer friends, all I get in response is a polite “oh, that sounds interesting” (the best response yet is “what’s that, where they show new software and stuff?”).

Second, Bender’s famous quip is meant to be a dig at geeks in general. And, if you haven’t noticed, the blogger (and, probably even more so, the blawgger crowd) tends to be a geeky one. Technology in the practice of law sort of has geek written all over it. Its ok, though. We wear that badge proudly.

In response, I offered my wife another Bender line — “You load up, you party…” Yep. Geeks loaded up and partying. Bring on the blogger dinner.

NOTE: After writing this post, I noticed that Dennis Kennedy is holding a contest to name the blogger dinner (wait till my wife hears that!). I decided not to submit the Benderisms as potential names. Why? I’d feel like I’d have to give the prizes to my wife. I doubt Dennis and Tom Mighell would be excited about giving comments, suggestions and tips to improve her blog and its traffic, and I doubt she really wants to read Dennis’s eBooks (sorry Dennis).