Last week, a bunch of us were able to hook up in New York, with Melissa and Taningia danae (Tani) joining yours truly for ika sashimi and some green tea, and in Boston, with Clem and Ob drinking basically anything but tea.

I'll leave it to Clem to post the dire details of what transpired in the New England Aquarium and beyond, but let's settle for the moment on that it contained failed attempts at nautilus, octopus and cuttle communication, a much heated debate on Mesonychoteuthis ocular morphology and unpublishable photographs of great importance in light thereof.

And googliness, obviously, much googliness. :bugout:

Especially after six beers or so.

So, back to the New York event. The three of us met up at Sharaku on 3rd and Stuyvesant. It is really funny how people that are from all over the place and simply know each other through TONMO can still feel fairly familiar in no time. We are a pretty tight community, so it seems. We sort of agreed that the way the forum is moderated has a lot to do with this, there is little (need for) intervening and so people's personalities are allowed to come through clearer in their posts than their arguments or personal demons :old:

We spent a leisurely afternoon finding out the stories behind each of our lives so far, careers, choices, travel, kids or definitely none, spouses or definitely none, their social aptitudes etcetera. Oh yes, and squid, obviously. What a joy to meet people like this. The subsequent stroll through Tompkins Square park, brought us to the much more important matter of bubble tea, however.

New York being New York, bubble tea proved only a short walk away. I found the whole experience,..., "interesting" :hmm:

Summise to say that D.B.A. on 1st found a very willing patron in yours truly when I found out they had "de Koninck" on tap, a glorious golden ale from Antwerp, quite without tapioca :wink:

In all we had a great afternoon, I felt privileged to play a bit of catch up since having had to cancel my Tonmocon II attendance at the very last minute, earlier this year.

I'll attach a pic for your perusal once my camera's recharged... It'll show the big O in the middle there, surrounded by the dainty figures of melissa and tani on my respective right and left, or left and right, if you take the viewer's perspective, or, wait, let's have one more de Koninck :beer:

Ob -- that's awesome! Good for you guys. I agree completely, there's nothing like getting together with fellow TONMOers, it's amazing how well we mesh. And drink. :cheers:

Thanks for sharing -- looking forward to pics!

Ob,

I wouldn't call it "failed" communication, necessarily. We don't know what messages they received (or sent).:wink:

More pics later.

Cheers,
Clem

You were not supposed to tell until our publication in "Annals of cross species communication", you -bleep-!!!

Sorry.

Glad you were able to meet Melissa and Tani. Sorry about the bubble tea, I'd just as soon put walnut jellies in my coffee.:yuck:

Clem

What in the world is bubble tea???

Hoo boy! that was my 2000th post! :talker:

:cheers: :archi:

What in the world is bubble tea???
Hi Sorseress,

Bubble tea is tea with tapioca "pearls" swirled into it, which are slurped up through a straw.

Below are some pics from last week's Boston nanocon. I met ob at the New England Aquarium, which I hadn't visited since the late 80's. Some Gehry-esque pavilions and an IMAX theater have been added to the plaza, but the exhibits haven't changed all that much and the main attraction remains the giant cylindrical ocean tank. There is a lovely new jellyfish gallery; the animals in the attached pic are moon jellies, lit by colored spots which can be selected by dials. The cuttlefish tank was a treat. The Sepia were intrigued both by Olaf's hands and the autofocus lamp on my camera.

Cheers,
Clem

We had a good time - it could only have been improved with cephalopods! Our chitchat was less ceph-centered than your visit to the aquarium in Boston, and I was sad not to be able to partake of the delights on tap at DBA. So we have to plan on a next time!

You were on antibiotics Melissa, so forgiven, let us not discuss the interesting medication I'm on :smile:

Here's to squiddy banter and octo repartee!

Nice photo, Olaf. Sounds like you guys had a good time.

Speaking of squiddy banter and octo repartee...

You see, I'm not overweight, I'm undertall...

Nice one Adam :wink:

Those are fantastic pictures.

Hey, the NEAq has cuttles again! Awesome. 8-)

They where trying to tell us something, apparently a little boy had fallen down a well, threequarters of an hour on horseback out towards Salem...

Thanks to the cuttlefish, we got there just in time!

It could also have been they where trying to tell us about a boy who got trapped in a deserted mine, in the third valley on the left towards Framingham. That one ended in tears, I'm afraid; I was never good at the subtleties of pair number one.

Just catching up here. Bubble tea? UGH! Boba - not Fett mind you - is the nastiest substance known to mankind. Truly hideous. Back in Los Angeles, it spread out of the Asian neighborhoods like, well, a shoggoth. Nasty. Like blobs of snot in a straw. In LA they drink it in fruit juices as well. Why does anybody - how can anybody like this?:yuck::yuck::yuck:

...I'd rather eat crickets. Again.

I had crickets, deep fried, near Teotihuacan, with some lovely roasted ants' eggs as an accompaniment. Truly delicious,....., compared to boba!

I still like Jill and Melissa, although they really stretched the envelope, there :wink:

Next con up, Arizona?

Mmm, crickets with chilis

Actually, the mole topping the crickets was truly wonderful. Part of the problem was the fact that those of us in the Silverlake Dinner Club didn't realize that the true method for eating them was similar to the proper way to eat crayfish in Creole country. Suck 'em clean. We, being gabachos, were crunching the entire exoskeleton while the busboys and dishwashers pointed and laughed.

Actually, the mole topping the crickets was truly wonderful. Part of the problem was the fact that those of us in the Silverlake Dinner Club didn't realize that the true method for eating them was similar to the proper way to eat crayfish in Creole country. Suck 'em clean. We, being gabachos, were crunching the entire exoskeleton while the busboys and dishwashers pointed and laughed.

well, the true method involves beak, cephalotoxin, and radula, but us inefficient vertebrates are constrained by our inefficient anatomies...

Last week, Phil and myself where present in the lovely coastal town of Dover sur la Manche in the South East of England. This, with a sole purpose in mind: to conduct a five minute token cephalopod discussion, followed by as many hours of concentrated real ale sampling :beer:

Rest assured, we were absolutely able to stick to most of this new year's resolution, but I fear that we also were able to expand those five minutes in almost Einsteinian fashion to fill up all the gaps between most samplings, however frequent they turned out to be...

For your envious interest, I have included two fine scenes from last Wednesday's event. One is an original Eyden, chalk on blackboard, of a Martian tripod vapourising an unsuspecting snowman on Horsell Common, adorned with an often misquoted passage from H.G. Wells' classic story.

The second is obviously that of the two culprits in what would later be called "the pool incident".

We both, however, deny all involvement with regards to the latter!

We did have a great time, however; we all should do this more often :smile:

Sounds like a fun time... wish I could have joined you (although not sure about the pool incident :roll:).

Uhm, urrrr....

I recognize that pub! Phil, glad you found someone who was able to enjoy the drinks list as well as the conversation. :wink:

In Olaf's (ob's) continuing world tour, I shared a few beers with him and his friend Pete in Ventura today, followed by sushi with Pete's wife Kim and her friend Carrie and their kids, showing off of the Kondakovia beak I'd brought from TonmoCon2, allowing Olaf to satisfy an urge to drive an American muscle car (if only briefly), and a bit of playing "Rock Band," which proved that I couldn't be a drummer, but can be a passable singer (but pale in comparison to Olaf). I forgot my camera, but Olaf has photographic evidence on his camera which will no doubt be forthcoming...

8-)

i like bubble tea. But the pearls should be a little firm, not slimey.