Conference Lesson 3: Happy Pride Day
On Saturday morning, the three M-skteers, the Divine Ms Em, the lovely Ms Michelle and me, Ms Mess had a very early breakfast in Brunswick and squeezed in a quick browse through Brunswick St. markets (Brunswick is Brisbane's Newtown equivalent). It was far too early in the morning, and neither Michelle nor I had had a good night's sleep. We were staying in the Palace Backpackers and seemed to be the only people who were interested in sleeping during the night. The other guests preferred to sleep when the sun was out. (We BookCrossers were the crotchety, old people who grumpily yelled "You kids keep it down! Some of us are trying to sleep!")

After breakfast, Michelle, Emma and I headed off to meet the other BXers at King George Square. Andrew has always said that BookCrossing is just a front for my lesbian activities (Apparently, all women are either lesbians or bisexuals). Andrew has always been suspicious of BookCrossing meetups which are mostly attended by women, and my weekends away to visit Tash and Michelle in Melbourne. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only was I in Brisbane for Pride Day (Brisbane's equivalent of Mardi Gras) but the conference meeting place for the morning, King George Square, was also the meeting place for the Pride Day march. A coincidence, which both Andrew and I found hilarious.

Our morning event was a flash mob. I've defined flash mob before so you should know what it is, but just in case you've forgotten: flash mob v: A large group of people who gather in a predetermined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse. We were directed to make our way over to the Energex Arbor at Southbank. At 10am, we were to walk single file through the archway. When our fearless leader, Neesy, released her book on the ground, we were instructed to follow suit and place our books in line along the ground. We were to disperse and head over the way to a coffee shop which had a good view of our books, lined up and awaiting new owners.

So how did it go? I think it went off without a hitch. We generated a lot of interest with many people stopping to browse the books that were lined up on the grass. I don't think there were any books left over by the time we'd finished our morning tea.

Conference Lesson 4: Winning isn't everything
Saturday evening, we were back at Con the Fruiterer's for an evening of trivia fun. Our team, Passion Palace, had been boasting about trivia prowess throughout the course of the day. Unfortunately we didn't manage to come up with the goods on the evening; we tied for last place. However, if there had been a trophy for the "loudest and rowdiest" team I think we would have won that prize hands down. Congratulations to the winning team, The Honeymooners!

Photos from Day 2:

• FuShMuSh photos

Our final conference event, Yum Cha @ the Marigold, was held on Sunday morning. Yum Cha was a genius idea as it is the perfect antidote for a hangover. Once again I had woken up with a very sore head. I think there is a direct correlation between Natalie's visit and an increase in the number of alcoholic beverages Jess consumes in an evening.

At Yum Cha, we consumed oodles of dumpling goodness: prawn dumplings, scallop dumplings, vegie dumplings. We squeezed in pork buns and munched on vegies in oyster sauce. The trolley would roll up to our table and Sue would point and say "two of those and two of those... wait a sec, two of those as well!". We were hungry!

Tradition dictates (well, Sue's tradition) that a Yum Cha meal must be completed with custard tarts or Dan Tat. When we'd had our fill of savoury delights, we waited patiently for the dessert trolley to arrive, but it did not appear. We asked the waiters, "where is the dan tat?", they'd say "ah, maybe later" (that's what they say to every request). We did the Dan Tat dance (it works for the maxi taxi). In the end we could wait no longer, so we sent Sue out to search for the elusive custard tarts. Her hunt was successful and she bought back a bemused waiter, carrying a tray of dan tats. A hearty cheer arose from the table. Our Yum Cha experience was now completely perfect!
Photos from Day 3:

• FuShMuSH photos
• Nat's photos from Yum Cha

When organising the conference we'd debated between a dinner and karaoke and a trivia night for the Saturday evening event. In the end, a trivia evening won and after the success of my birthday trivia night I volunteered to organise the conference event.

I think the conference trivia evening was a big success. We had five teams of 6-7 people competing for the prize of nerdiest book geeks. The West Christchurch Cats triumphed in the end, coming in first place on 67 points. It was a very close game with only three points separating the top three teams. Obviously, Tania, Catriona and Claire are trivia secret weapons as they were on the winning team for my birthday and, once again, on the winning team on Saturday night.

Here are some sample questions from Saturday evening:

• What is the most common language in Australia after English?
  
  
• In Muriel's Wedding, what seaside resort town did Muriel call home?
  
  
• At Hogwarts, what do the acronyms (1) O.W.L and (2) N.E.W.T stand for?
  
  
• As the crow flies, which mainland Australian state capital is furthest from Uluru?
  
  
• What is the BC name of the BookCrosser who has the most books registered in Australia?

After the trivia I was ready for a drink or too (especially after dealing with so many argumentative BookCrossers!) The Clock was our first point of call. I think Paddy is right; the Clock is full of wankers on a Saturday night. When the Clock closed at midnight, we found ourselves out on the street and not quite ready to call it a night. We brainstormed a list of pubs in the area that were still open and picked Bar Cleveland as the most likely contender. After a few drinks in their fancy, upstairs cocktail bar, I think we may have discovered a potential new favourite cocktail venue! They have a fantastic range of cocktails (mmm, the ying-yang was my favourite) and their upstairs area is very comfy. The most important requirement for a favourite cocktail bar is a happy hour. Bar Cleveland happily fulfils that prerequisite with 4 hours of half price cocktails on a Thursday evening. I'm sure there will be many repeat visits to Bar Cleveland in the near future. We'll have to rigorously test it before we give it "preferred cocktail bar" status.
More Photos from Day 2:

• FuShMuSH photos
• Nat's photos from Trivia

Originally, we'd hoped that we would be able to convince an author to come and speak to the book nerds on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, our negotiations with the very lovely Allison Rushby fell through and we had to scrap the author talk idea. Such a shame, I hope Allison can make next year's conference (*hint hint*). With heavy hearts we replaced the author talk, on the agenda, with a flashmob.

So what is flashmob? It's another nerdy, geeky thing so it fits right in with BookCrossing. WordSpy defines the term flashmobbing as follows: A large group of people who gather in a predetermined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse. Sydney has a very active flashmob group and they gather on the weekends and, for a brief period of time, pretend to be zombies, vampires and werewolves or surf on beach towels in the Strand Arcade, or conga line outside the Opera House singing the oompa loompa song. Sounds like a blast!

Our flashmob was a little less flamboyant; BookCrossers generally aren't huge extroverts. I think Pete explained our flashmob really well, so I'll just borrow his description: "one by one we walked up the steps to Jessica sitting at the top, collected a book and formed a descending row sitting on the steps one behind the other. When we were all there, books were passed down from behind, when the first book reached the first in line, she got up and walked away, leaving the book behind and the process was repeated as everyone in turn became the first in line. At the end, there was a line of released books on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, and a crowd of Bookcrossers rapidly dispersing, most of them with cameras in hand." We actually generated a fair bit of interest and some tourists even took photos of us. Although, tourists generally take photos of anything and everything.

Unfortunately, our sunny weather had turned into gale force winds. The books left on the steps of the Opera House were flapping wildly in the wind and some were even sliding across the steps towards the harbour (those were the books that really wanted to be free!). Next time we'll remember to take heavy books to leave outdoors.

Photos from Day 2:

• FuShMuSH photos
• Nat's photos from Flashmob

Conference Lesson 1: Berocca brings you back your b-b-bounce!
The conference kicked off with an event on Friday morning...very early on Friday morning. A couple of very enthusiastic BookCrossers had decided that they would release some books in Martin Place and try and attract the attention of Sunrise, channel 7's breakfast program. On Thursday, Natalie and I decided (after one too many cosmopolitans) that if the weather was nice on Friday morning we would tag along for the ride. Of course this decision was made while the view from the bar window was something akin to a second Noah's Ark. I rolled out of bed on Friday morning, with a very sore head, and cursed the sun streaming in through our bedroom window. Luckily, after a Berocca and a couple of Nurofen, I was able to overcome my hangover and I headed into Martin Place to meet up with Natalie, Pete and Kevin.

It was surprinsgly easy to identify Pete and Kevin, two people i'd never met before, in the crowd at Martin Place. Natalie, Pete and Kevin quickly got to work releasing books, propping them up outside the studio wall. Although people were more interested in the TV cameras and getting on television than picking up free books. Obviously television is winning the media battle.

Eventually, I had to leave to go to work. Later on, Natalie, Pete and Kevin met and spoke with Kochie and Mel, had a photo with the stars and also got their autographs. We also managed to get a mention about BookCrossing on the show (in the last 5 minutes) so Nat, Pete and Kevin's hard work was not in vain.

Conference Lesson 2: FuShMuSh rhymes with Push
12 hours later, and a very tired jess turned up to the second conference event, Registration and Welcome Drinks @ the Shelbourne Hotel. Event 2 was a meet and greet session that gave us a chance to get to know a bunch of new BookCrossers. It was great to finally get a chance to meet some of the more well known and infamous bookcrossers (hello newk!).

Whenever I was introduced to someone new, I found myself having to instruct them in how to say FuShMuSh. Everyone seems to say FuShMuSh to rhyme with plush when it actually rhymes with push. I'd cry in frustration... "it's fooooooooooooooooshmoooooooooooooosh!". I think by the end of the conference everyone knew how to say it the right way. It's quite amusing to hear the Kiwis say FuShMuSH; I should have got a soundbyte!

Photos from Day 1:

• FuShMuSH photos
• Nat's photos from Sunrise event & Welcome Drinks