reminder: asa blogger extravaganza

The ASA NYC blogger get-together, a.k.a. YearlyRojas, is Saturday at 6PM, with the present plan to proceed from the Hilton Lobby. I have misgivings about this plan, as I don't quite get how people who are a little later are going to figure out where we are, but I am passive-aggressive in these misgivings, choosing just to state them publicly rather than act toward any kind of alternative. Anyway, you're invited. You? You. Fabio is offering to buy a drink to people who have pre-ordered his book. Dan is offering to buy a drink to anyone who can name a Kiss song that is not on his iPod. I am offering to thank anyone who pre-orders my drinks.

Also, Tuesday 8:30 am, at an as yet undisclosed location in the Hilton, "Blogs as a Forum for Public Sociology," including Hargittai, Healy, Uggen, Freese, and two people I don't know. Somebody should bring bagels.

they tried to make me go to prehab, but i'm not going anywhere until i have my luggage

Assorted:

• The wordsmith.org e-mail Word Of The Day for today is "premorse," which turns out to mean "Having the end abruptly truncated, as if bitten or broken off." I was hoping it meant to have regrets about an action even before one has done it.
• Sal has sent me a couple updates from Day 1 of the Lifecycle ride, and all appears to be going well.
• I have not, on the other hand, received an update from Northwest about my luggage. I tried to call them today to ask about it before going out to meet someone. Before being connected with the agent, I was told at the beginning of the call I would be asked to do a brief customer service questionnaire at the end. I went through whatever to get the agent to find my record -- to give an example of the incompetence I was dealing with at the airport last night: despite my having filled out the form accurately in very clear capital letters, my last name was entered in the system as "Jeremy" and my address as being on "Suum" rather than "Museum" street -- and then the agent said, "The computer is being slow today." And then a minute later I got a recording saying "You are now being transferred to our customer service survey" and I was dumped out of the call and into the survey. The survey turned out to be just one general satisfaction item, but I pressed the button on my phone corresponding to "Very Dissatisfied" extra hard.
• Ron from my last post never called to clarify, despite the tease in my comments.
• Chris has posted his summer songs with its 2007 additions, with Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" leading the list. O, how I love the first line of that song ("They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said no, no, no"). I feel almost like it's reached personal anthem status, which if true would mark the most recent anthemly song I feel identified with despite having no justifiable reason to do so, displacing Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent."
• If I am repeatedly deleting your comments, I've concluded you are a troll. If I've concluded that you are a troll, I'd prefer you not read my blog, much less comment. I understand that I can't stop you, and I don't feel like turning off my anon comments once again just yet, but you can reflect on whether you really want to be the sort of person who hangs around a space where they aren't wanted just because you can. Presumably, I guess, given that you are a troll, you are exactly this sort of person, but still I feel like pointing that out.

other sociology news

Score one for the upper Midwest: Chris is taking over Contexts, the plainspoken magazine of the American Sociological Association. All the more reason for me to remain a proud subscriber. I'm hoping he enacts my longrunning suggestion of replacing the humor column on the back page with Xtreme Sociology Stunts.