Conference III: bullets of the rest, and zombies

• The interactive part of my seminar went well. The person who ended up reading was already familiar with the text, which, although not what I'd intended, wasn't bad for the point I was making either. And the audience expressed appreciation for how I'd incorporated it. I'd definitely do it again, in the right circumstances and for a definite reason.
• The conference banquet was held at the same location as a high school prom. Not quite as good as the first conference I ever went to, which was in the same hotel as a debutante ball, but still, not bad.
• I found my first gray hairs in the bathroom at the banquet.
• Meeting other grad students at conferences is weird, especially when you don't work on the same things at all. You're not really there to meet each other for any reason, but you're thrown together by the fact that you're not affiliated with anyone who's introducing you to anyone else. If that makes any sense.
• Meeting really famous people is weird, since no matter what you say, the power differential is such that you're sucking up.
  
• LB describes our awesome meetup! Best meal I had in Cali, with the most attractively tattooed company.
  
• But the best dessert was homemade coffee and Thin Mint ice cream. Hand-cranked by two adorable kids, their parents, and me. Aw.
• The best single talk I heard was on Romero's zombie movies. I had to leave before the session was done, but I really wanted to ask the zombie expert: ARE THERE FAST ZOMBIES? Like, are the creatures in 28 Days/Weeks Later or I Am Legend zombies? They do attack you and make you one of them. But they are not the slowly encroaching, inevitable menaces of all-consuming capitalist culture that slow zombies are. Or are they? Discuss.