And wouldn’t you know it, right there in the title it announces that I’m mild-mannered. Next time, I swear, I’m gonna…I’m gonna…I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll take off my glasses. Maybe I’ll cuss, darn it.
I’ve got to do something to shed this teddy bear reputation. A tattoo, you think? Get my teeth filed all pointy-like? Stop taking showers?
I repeat: Skepticon II was a blast, and I think what really contributed to the fun was that there was a lot of young people organizing it and in the audience, and no stodginess was allowed. Make sure you go next year — it really was one of the more entertaining and enthusiastic meetings I’ve gone to this year…and it was held in the heart of the Bible Belt, in the city otherwise best known as the capitol of the AssGod church.
I have to answer a couple of questions I was asked repeatedly. I dazzled everyone with my sartorial flamboyance, and on the first night I wore my infamous crocoduck tie. I’m sorry, you can’t get it, at least not yet. Josh Timonen had it made, and so far, only Richard Dawkins and I have one. Maybe it will show up in the RDF store someday, or maybe it won’t.
On the second day, I was asked about the Creation “Museum”, and ripped open my shirt to reveal a portrait of the epic battle that was waged on our visit. People asked where they could get that, too (although one audience member showed me hers — she’d already got one). This one is easy.
Just go to Jen‘s store, and you can order them right now. You can also get it on a black shirt, too.
You’ll have to get your own boy toy, though.
By the way, the photograph is by Ziztur — who has a nice blog.
It’s strange…I was offline all day yesterday. I’ve been at Skepticon II down here in Springfield, Missouri, and unfortunately, I had no internet access while I was in the meeting, which went on all day Saturday late into the evening, and then, once the talks were over, the socializing began. The party went on at a bar until 1:30am, then moved to a hotel room until sometime around 4am, and then DJ Grothe, Rebecca Watson, and I kept it going until 6am, at which time the lesser two beings conked out, and I was the last one left standing (Rebecca will seethe at that)…when I had to take off to the airport for my flight home. And that’s where I am now.
I expect to be home by early afternoon, and back online full time again. Maybe I’ll take a nap, too.
There will be a Skepticon III next year, and you should plan on going! Good speakers and a very enthusiastic crowd makes it an excellent event. The late night parties are a bit much for an old geezer like myself, but they’re fun, too.
Jen has the full account, complete with a video, of my talk. I was a rude boy.
Right now, I’m in Bloomington, at the “Current Frontiers in Evolution, Development and Genomics” conference. I gave the keynote last night — which means I am now free to sit back and simply enjoy the meeting without fretting over a silly talk any more. I think I’ll be able to get online in the auditorium, so you may be subject to more live-blogging of evo-devo over the course of the day.
I see we’ve got events scheduled all day long, up to 11pm. I might die.
The mild nausea I mentioned earlier? Gone now, it seems to have vanished as soon as I disposed of the wretched rag Answers in Genesis sent me. It’s a good thing, too, because I have a frantic weekend ahead of me.
Today and tomorrow, I’m pounding the keyboard to prepare a couple of talks. At least one I can borrow liberally from the book-in-progress (yeah, I’m still working on that, too).
On Thursday, I’ll be giving a public lecture at Purdue University. I’m cutting it close on this one; my plane gets into Indianapolis a mere 2 hours before the talk, so if I’m late, feel free to leave scurrilous slanders on the blackboard for me. The talk is at 6:00 in the Class of 1950 Lecture Hall Room 224. It should be fun. My trip in is tricky in timing, but afterwards, my time is unrestrained, and I think we’re getting together to shoot the breeze that evening. If you’re somewhere near West Lafayette, Indiana, stop on by.
On Friday, I’ll be at this evo-devo meeting:
This is not a public event, but a serious science conference with registration fees and all that. It should be fabulous, even if it does have some nattering nobody for a keynote speaker. Expect heavy real-time science blogging all day Saturday and Sunday morning. I might get out for a wild night in Bloomington on Saturday, though, we’ll see.
Finally, on Monday, I’m lowering myself from the glories of real science to a debate with a flaming creationist on the St Paul campus at 7:30pm. Show up! I’m sure the creationists will be trundling in their bible-clutching faithful to boo, even though the subject is nothing about god or religion — it’s simply “Should intelligent design creationism be taught in the schools?” The answer is “no,” if you’re at all confused.
Tuesday I’m sleeping in late. Don’t bother me.
It’s another podcast, this time with Mother Jones magazine.
I just finished cleaning up something like 400 spam comments made here, so it’s with grim resignation that I notice the podcast already has a spam comment on it. Is there some reason my name should be associated with sanitary ball valves?
Since Jerry Coyne will never ever let me forget my modeling session with Ruse, I’ll counter it a little with a photo of the sensible people from the University of Northern Iowa.
I’ll be speaking at UNI on 10 February, too.
When I gave my talk at Minot, ND a few weeks ago, one of the things the Northwest Art Center (which hosted the talk) did was to have the audience evaluate me. This could be useful, I thought, but they actually mailed me copies of the forms, and…umm, no, they weren’t. As I rather expected, the evaluations are highly bimodal, with a majority giving me an enthusiastic thumbs up, and a substantial minority giving me a thumbs down. The negative reviews might have had some potential for helping me out, except, well, take a look at one example.
I’ve got a surprisingly consistent subset of reviews in which the listener seems to have spent most of their time doodling praise for Jebus on their forms.
That last one was an entirely positive review of the lecture, but still…I see signs that some people walked in with their brains firmly switched to the “off” position.
Don’t faint. I met some people at this meeting.
What did you think, I’d strip half-naked, paint myself blue, and start swinging a broadsword?
Jerry Coyne has put up a few photos from the conference, including one of me hunched over my teeny-tiny note-taking laptop doing the exciting live-blogging thing. It doesn’t look as glamorous as it actually is.
