In the beginning

I had to go to Maryland for work, and while I was there I met up with some kibologists for dinner and to harass Ralph Nader.

Not in the beginning any more

KeV was to pick me up at the hotel at 5:30 pm. Unfortunately, I ran late, so he had to wait for me to show up, then wait for me to run upstairs and drop off my work junk and change my socks and get my digital camera. However, this did give him extra time to notice that the restaurant in the hotel had a sign exhorting people to "rise and slime!" so not all was lost.

When I returned to the lobby with digital camera intact and nice clean socks, he proceeded to drive me to Bethesda, where we were to meet with robert lindsay and Joe Manfre.

The middle

Once in Bethesda, we had a little trouble finding the Japanese restaurant everyone was supposed to meet at, so we went into a Barnes and Noble (where a sign proclaimed that Ralph Nader was going to be signing books later) and asked for directions. The first person we asked didn't know, so she called over another guy who informed us that the restaurant was right next door. While he did this, an expression of pure wonder at our foolishness played over his face; it was quite something to see.

Upon reaching the restaurant, lcrl greeted me by saying, "My God, you really do look like a serial killer!" So I chopped him up like cordwood and stored him in the crawlspace. No, that's not right, I must be thinking of someone else. Anyway. Here is a picture of his hand which you can click to see more of him:
The odd long thin glowing thing over lcrl's shoulder, he informed us, was intended by the owners of the restaurant to look like a grain of rice. This was not a concept that lept readily to the eye, and they looked more like they were going to hatch into aliens or musicians from Spinal Tap or something. However, they didn't, so perhaps they were giant grains of rice after all.

Everyone had noodle soup for dinner. It was enjoyed. I learned that there actually are people who read my website on purpose, which came as something of a shock.

Joe and robert had also noticed that Ralph Nader was signing books next door, and a desire to have him sign a book and give him a noogie was expressed. So after dinner we headed over to Barnes & Noble to see what was up.

Denoument

a blurry Ralph Nader at a crowded Barnes & Noble

Ralph Nader was indeed there, giving a pre-signing speech. A large crowd separated us from him, and a store employee gave us a piece of cardboard that informed us that we were 149th in line to get a book signed by him. Also, we were total wimps. Prospects for giving noogies seemed slim.

So we did what any self-respecting group of kibologists would do: we gravitated to the business section of the bookstore and started mocking the books there.

Astonishingly to us, there were books titled God is my CEO (by Larry S. Julian and subtitled Following God's Principles in a Bottom-Line World) and Jesus, CEO (by Laurie Beth Jones and subtitled Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership), as well as many other silly things. We decided that to make a million bucks we should write our own business book, Make Your Company Excel the Beable Way. This would have the added plus that we could then charge Beable van Polasm a fee every time he used his name (if that IS HIS REAL NAME) a la Jo eBay. Actually, the whole book might be an explanation of that trick. Details are hazy. Ask again later.

After coming up with our master plan for taking over the world, we gravitated to the science fiction section, which adjoined the "International" section, which for some reason consisted solely of books written in or about Ireland or by Irish authors. The world really is getting smaller, I guess.

Then we went home. The enb.

Thanks again to KeV, Joe, and robert for a diverting evening.

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