DC, or at least what I've seen of it, has been interesting so far. Much like New York, I wish I could've seen what it was like 20 years ago. Much like Boston, I can't find breakfast before 9:00 fucking anywhere. The conference itself is pretty laid back, primarily because the only paper I'm the lead author on is in a poster session, and really, it's August in Washington.

I've seen some of the sights but not explored too much, because it's way too hot to spend a lot of time walking around outside, and the public transportation is not very good. Last night, though, we followed the Wisconsin social by cramming five of us into a cab to go to a party at Ezra Klein's house, because Kjerstin's sister Emily knows him and understood it to be the place for hip young folks like ourselves to be. Kjerstin had earlier identified him as "some blogger that was on Hardball yesterday," and was surprised that I could identify him, based largely on this post. I don't generally read Klein's blog, but that post was linked by Atrios, whom I do read. Also in attendance was Matthew Yglesias, whom I recognized, and I'm told a bunch of other bloggers, whom I didn't.

It was sort of a weird experience, in that I was sort of shocked that these 25-year-old prep school kids were part of the New Elite Punditry, my general agreement with them about most everything notwithstanding. Part of it also was a direct collision with the New Celebrity, which the fact that I recognized Yglesias immediately plays a large part in. On the other hand, we were provided with several beers and a piece of cake (it was Tristan's birthday, though I don't know who Tristan is), and had a generally enjoyable time hanging out on a wobbly old deck.

Also, some guy walked straight into the glass deck door, which everybody promised to blog, but so far have not.

I grabbed a big handful of bottle caps for Emily when we were getting ready to leave, so Madison readers may find themselves in the possession of 100% authentic Big Media Blogger trash if they come down to the farmers market and buy some bottle cap magnets. They are guaranteed to appreciate!*

* Appreciation not guaranteed.