We Interrupt This Program…

As you are probably aware, I went to SXSW earlier this month. (Photographic evidence is here.) What you may not know is the truth about my latest addiction. I have become addicted to having books signed by bloggers and blog-related people. There is a purpose to this post and a plea for help at the end, by the way. But I figured you deserved the whole story…

It started innocently enough. Jennifer gave me a copy of “Design for Community” by Derek Powazek for my birthday last fall. I knew Derek would be attending the event, so I packed it in my suitcase the night before I left town. When I saw him at the Bloggies, I sheepishly approached him and told him that I was wondering if he would sign it. I admitted that I felt silly asking, but it would mean a lot to me. He was so gracious in accepting and told me that it felt really good to be asked.

That was it. I was hooked.

After the Bloggies, Rebecca Blood and the EFF were selling copies of her book, “The Weblog Handbook” for $10 as a fundraiser for EFF, and she was signing them. I couldn’t pass them up. After all, the EFF is a great cause.

Sunday night I got a copy of the San Francisco Stories book at Fray Cafe. Derek signed that one too.

Monday, Barkingmoose Mike gave me a copy of John Freyer’s book, “All My Life for Sale”. After John signed it, I asked Mike to sign the page about the items he bought.

On Tuesday I got a copy of the O’Reilly book, “Essential Blogging” and I had to ask Ben & Mena Trott from MT to sign it. When I spotted Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing in the halls, I asked him to sign it too.

But the icing on the cake?

That night, on the way to Bruce Sterling’s house, we (that would be Karen, Nikolai and Leia, Queen of the Anti-Bloggies so insert your scandal here if you want…) stopped at the book store. Not only did I get a copy of Bruce Sterling’s latest book, “Tomorrow Now” for him to sign, I also picked up a copy of “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” (which you can download for free!).

But that just wasn’t enough though to fill my need.

Then I spotted it. “We’ve Got Blog“. Considering I was heading to the party at Bruce Sterling’s house, a number of the authors would be there. Heck, Nikolai was at the bookstore with us, so I had a head start on the signatures!

I had every person who was at the party that was in the book sign it – Nikolai, Rebecca, Brad, Cameron Barrett, Derek (again, I think his hand was starting to cramp by this point), Matt Haughey, and everyone else that has accounts for MetaFilter signed the article credited to the MeFi Community. This included Anil Dash and Allison (who really does have a great signature), Leia, Karen (who helped me overcome my fear of asking people to sign the book), Andre Torrez, Dana, Michael and Ari and many, many others.

It was almost like a yearbook signing.

I may even send the book to Geekman and Chris Pirillo just to make it even more complete – they both have articles in it too.

And if THAT doesn’t earn me an Anti-Bloggie for being the “Biggest A-List Suck Up,” I don’t know what will. Go visit the Anti-Bloggies and nominate me, ok? Yeah, I’ll ask for it. Heck, I asked a ton of people to sign my book that night, asking you to nominate me is no big deal! You can nominate me once an hour even, so set a timer and go back again & again. You just have a day or so left, so get on it!

(And Brad? I promise, it’s still not going up for sale on Ebay.)