I grabbed a few quick drinks with co-workers today after work (no hugging was involved), but made them promise not to let me miss my train. I can easily be swayed by groups of people encouraging me to stay, eat chicken tenders, and drink Blue Moons with orange slices. But true to their word, they released me from their grasp in time for me to catch my train, get home, and make it to the gym in time to watch Paula Abdul’s tearful confessions to Dr. Phil.

It was only after about ten minutes on the elliptical machine that I realized, “Holy crap. I’m drunk.” I think my first clue should have been the fact that I was watching Paula Abdul’s tearful confessions to Dr. Phil. Recognizing the inherent risks involved with operating heavy machinery under the influence, I did what any responsible adult would do: I moved over to the recumbent bikes and watched the Olympics.

This experience made me think of another group of people I hope can sway me into staying, drinking and eating chicken tenders well past my bedtime. Yes, I’m talking about you, TequilaConners.

Here’s the scoop: on Monday I sent out an update email with a top-secret attendee list to everyone who had RSVP’d for the big event. So… if you didn’t receive an email from me, and you are planning on attending TequilaCon ‘06, it can only mean one of a few things:

1. You never RSVP’d. I can’t read minds, yo!
2. You RSVP’d but I forgot. I can only manage so many details, yo!
3. You RSVP’d and I know you RSVP’d, but you did something to upset me recently and I left you off the list intentionally so that you would hurt like I hurt right now. You know what you did, there’s no point in airing our dirty laundry here.
4. You RSVP’d and I know you RSVP’d, but I have a mad crush on you, so getting emails from you makes me feel like a pretty pretty princess, and I’m just pretending like I forgot to put you on the list so that you’ll have to email me again. When we finally meet, I will watch you from across the room, averting my eyes whenever you look my way. Eventually, I will ask you if you have any tattoos. That will be our signal to make out.

So, if you fall into Categories 1, 2 or 4, please send me an email at jenny@runjenrun.com and I’ll add you to the list. If you fall into Category 3, I think you owe me an apology first. Thanks!

And the info once again:
What: TequilaCon ‘06
Where: New York City, NY (exact location is TBD)
When: April 22nd (with April 21st and April 23rd designated as preparation and recovery days)

Hope to see you all there!

PS – I think I might still be drunk.

Filed under: TequilaCon on February 14th, 2006 | 15 Comments »

Okay, this time I think the date will stick. It will. It will stick. But I’m not engraving any invitations this time – it’s eVite all the way!

What: TequilaCon ‘06
When: April 21-23, 2006 [Main Event will be April 22]
Where: New York City, NY
Who: Still everyone. Yes, that means you, too!
Why: How else would we celebrate the week after Easter if not by consuming obscene amounts of tequila?

For those of you who still need convincing, go here for the history. And if you haven’t RSVP’d already, let me know if you’re interested in joining the fun! Exit polls indicate that anywhere from 3 to 50 bloggers will be there. The question is: can you afford not to go?

Filed under: TequilaCon on January 9th, 2006 | 17 Comments »

***Your Attention Please***

The TequilaCon ’06 official date is in a bit of a holding pattern right now due to unforeseen circumstances. As soon as a new date has been selected, I’ll post it here.

Until then, please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened low and tight across your waist.
[I knew I shouldn’t have had those invitations engraved…]

Filed under: TequilaCon on December 27th, 2005 | 5 Comments »

The date has been set. Location selected. Invitations engraved.

What: TequilaCon ‘06*
When: May 5-7, 2006 April 21-23, 2006
Where: New York City, NY**
Who: Everyone. I’m talking all y’all
Why: Geez, if you really have to ask…

So to give a brief background, TequilaCon ’05 happened when I tricked Jill and Brandon into coming to visit me in Chicago this fall. I told them that there was a big blogger convention here, and that they were up for some awards for outstanding writing.

“No, no. There’s gonna be lots of people, honestly. Um… I’m not sure, there’s an intern handling the RSVP’s. But it’s like the most popular blogging event, like, anywhere. My site? It’s run jen run. No, run jen run dot com. J as in jellybean. Yes, that’s it. No, my legs don’t really look like that. Mmm hmm. Okay, cool.”

When they arrived at my apartment and found me sitting in a dark corner, flicking the light on and off while listening to Madame Butterfly, things got a little awkward. Until I gave them their laser-printed certificates of achievement and pointed them in the direction of the tequila. Then we became fast friends.

But that was 2005. 2006 is all about more love now than last year. And I have so much love to give, people. So much. And so many laser-printed certificates. You don’t even know.

Which is why the TequilaCon committee decided to open up this event to the whole world. And where better to host a blogger convention than in the city that never sleeps? So start saving your money, my friends. I mean, would it kill you to drink Folgers for a couple months? Do you really need to get your hair cut at that fancy schmancy MasterCuts place, Mr. JP Gotrocks? So now we’re too good to eat generic cottage cheese, are we?

So mull it over, check the seat cushions for change, detox your liver, and leave a comment or send me an email at jenny@runjenrun.com if you’re interested in joining us in the 3-D world of flesh, blood, sweat, and tears. As the self-appointed keeper of all things list-like, I am working on an elaborate Excel spreadsheet.

There are already some really famous bloggers signed up for this. Who? Um… I’m not sure, there’s an intern helping out with the RSVP’s. But honest, it’s like the most popular blogging event, like, anywhere…

*Don’t let the name fool you – non-drinkers are welcome and encouraged. Someone’s got to be clearheaded enough to delete all the pictures…

**There is a crack team of field researchers scouting out watering holes as we speak, so once we get closer in, we’ll announce the exact location.

Filed under: TequilaCon on December 22nd, 2005 | 35 Comments »

The plans were made months ago, it seemed, and I became more impatient with each passing week. I had somehow cleverly convinced Jill from Egg in Spoon and Brandon from One Child Left Behind that Chicago should play host to our inaugural TequilaCon.

But little did I know the stress that would accompany this invitation: What would we do? Where would I take them? How much would we drink? Would I recognize them from their pictures? Would they feel betrayed to learn I was really a middle-aged Asian man?

I looked at this as a sort of social experiment – finally meeting people I had come to know only via the Internet. It was like match.com, except that instead of learning that they loved the Cubs and long walks on the beach, I came to know them through months of beautifully crafted and wonderfully humorous essays on their respective blogs. And as an added bonus, I would also get to meet Brandon’s mythical wife, Alex, whose Transylvanian accent has grown familiar to those who frequent his site.

But most importantly, there would be much tequila and photo-documentation. So, I suppose in that respect, this would be a lot like my match.com experiences.

The obsessive planner in me fought hard not to over-structure the weekend. I wasn’t quite aware of how obvious a personal trait this was, until minutes after meeting Jill, when I rattled off about 30 different things we could do, at which point she said, “You really like lists, don’t you?”

Yes. Yes, I do like lists. In fact, I like to:
• Make them
• Read them
• Cross them off
• Highlight them
• Rewrite them
• Bullet them
• Throw them out
• Make new ones

So while respecting the pre-established boundaries of “What Happens in Chicago Stays in Chicago,” I offer up this list of brief vignettes from our weekend with the aforementioned photo-documentation.

Scene 1: Sitting around a table, perusing the menu at a tequila bar.

Jenny: “So they have something like 80 different types of tequila here. And they’ll throw you out if you order Jose Cuervo.”

Jill: “I was at this one place in Atlanta that had shots of tequila for $100 each. I wonder if they have that kind here.”

Brandon: “$100? Dang. I wonder if they’d take $30 to let me just lick the shotglass.”

***

Scene 2: Hiding in foyer of Wrigley Building to escape the torrential rain that started three minutes after we disembarked from our architectural river cruise.

Jill: “See… I told you I was funnier in writing!”

Jenny: “Sadly, I thought I was funnier in person.”

Brandon: “When did I say I was funny?”

Alex : “I theenk you are all just trying too hard.”

***

Scene 3: Dinner in Lincoln Park with Jill, Brandon and The Romanians (Alex, Alex’s sister Cristina, and Cristina’s friend)

Cristina: “So I’m teaching class and this leetle boy comes up to me and says, ‘You’re from Transylvania? You know, I can tell by your pointy teeth.’ So then I’m like, ‘Ohmigod! Do I really have pointy teeth?’ I guess maybe I do.”

Jenny: “No, you don’t have poi-“

Cristina: “You know, it’s like in America there are only two things you know about Romanians, and that’s Nadia Comaneci and vampires.”

Jenny: “Nadia Comaneci was a vampire? No wonder she had such good balance.”

***

Scene 4: Sitting at a coffee shop reviewing photos on my digital camera.

Jenny: “Wow. Half these pictures came out really blurry. I really need to learn how to use this thing. And what the heck is this a picture of? Who took this one?”

Jill: “Uh, yeah, that would be when you took a picture of the back of the cab driver’s head.”

Jenny: “I did? Oh, that’s just unfortunate. I should never be allowed to operate high tech equipment after two glasses of wine and two tequila cosmopolitans.”

***

Scene 5: Sitting in Millennium Park, under the shadow of the giant bean, drinking Jameson & ginger ale and Johnny Walker Black & soda

Jenny: “So do you get a lot of trackback spam? God! It’s driving me nuts ever since I moved to Movable Type. And I swear, I have to block like 50 new IP’s a week!”

Jill: “No, I don’t really get any, but I use Haloscan. They’re pretty good. I’m still trying to clean up my design and make it more user friendly. I was thinking of switching to a new host, but Blogger’s been really good to me so far.”

Brandon: “Yeah, I was having a lot of problems with my server because I was always going over my bandwidth, until I switched over to hosting my photos on Flickr. Now I have no issues at all.”

[reflective pause]

Jill: “My god, we are dorks.”

Jenny: “Yeah, but no one else needs to know that.”

Filed under: TequilaCon on September 27th, 2005 | 14 Comments »