I thoroughly enjoyed the Bloggerati Cape Town get together last night at Long Street Cafe. Even though the hosts of the evening, Vince and Matthew were fashionably late, the vibe was really good. I have never been to any of the 27 or Geek Dinners before, so being the total noob, I didn’t really know what to expect.

Its pretty strange having people actually recognise you from the online world in real life. I don’t have a massive presence online (but that is changing boys!), but I think Charl said it best “its the avatar on twitter man!”

The first person to say hello to me was Rafiq. We chatted briefly as the evening got going. He really is an awesome guy, but one thing I cannot understand how he only sleeps like 1 hour a day? Well I guess when you wwworking, who has time to sleep, hey Rafiq? :-)

I also met Foxinni for the first time. Funny thing was he introduced himself as Malan, and the first few hours I kept thinking “whats this oke’s claim to fame?”. I mean he was rolling with “the Norman” so I guessed he must do something interesting. Only later did I hear his nickname: Foxinni! That put everything thing into perspective. Great oke, and one damn great designer. ;-)

Mr. Imod, Chris Mills was there pretty early. It was also good to meet him, as we have run into each other a number of times online, but never off. We had some really interesting conversations from domain spammingbuying to Facebook. He was with Rox, from Rox in the City fame, now Roxilla. (Yes Rox, you are pretty famous! Not many female bloggers out there). Her actual claim to fame I rate, is she organised the very first geek dinner way back in 2005!

Vinny rolled in (with his BMW M3 might I add ;-) ) which was cool. He is a real jet-setter, so to see him make some time to come have a chat with us bloggers was neat. He bought everyone that looked thirsty a few drinks, so thanks for that Vinny!

As the night rolled on and people left, I was eventually found sitting at a table with Charl, Foxinni, Vince and Matthew. It was great to chat to the okes behind the Mail & Gardian netsites (Ya, “Bolton”). I have been a big fan of their work from Amatomu, M&G photos to Amagama and Thought Leader. I know a few people online don’t really get along with Vince, but I dig guys that give just as much as they get. Matthew is a really down to earth guy and we had a interesting chat on PHP versus dot Net and the likes.

Some notable others that I met where Tristan and Rowan from MyVideo.co.za, Brandon Golding that probably took like 3500 photos or something, Chris from Stormhoek that supplied some very good wine and Henk from Skyrove - who popped me some free Skyrove credits. Shot!

2 things that I will have to clear up before the next meetup

1. Be able to sum myself up in like 1 sentence. Vince put me on the spot, so next time, I will be ready! ;-)
2. Sort out this whole debate with regards to the web and desktop. My passion totally lies with the Web, and currently I am learning dot Net from a desktop app perspective, moving towards the web. I already know PHP pretty well, so I am just adding more tools to my toolbox! - so this one sorted, yes? ;-)

It was a great evening with some great company and interesting conversations. I’ll definitely make the trip from the Strand again for sure!