Blogger's and Beardy Weirdies

I like beer. That should be obvious - this is a beer blog after all, but why do I need to tell the world about it? Does this make me weird?
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to a Diageo event for St Patricks day, which was sponsored by Guinness and Bushmill's (thanks again Emma for the invite). The event was aimed mainly towards an online community called London blogger meet up which is a group I had never heard about. I was invited along as a token ring in as I like the Guinness brand, I always have. I even have a bottle of Foreign Extra Stout with a rubber nipple on it which I was given by a discerning relative for my Christening.
What I really wanted to point out is that members of the London blogger community seemed be slightly eccentric and I can see parallels between the eccentric types that you get at beer festivals and these blogger types. Now I am not talking about bearded freaks as such, but I think it's fair to say that there is a certain blogger stereotype - and it is slightly weird. Whilst sipping on free pints of Guinness Red and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, I was starting to equate the London blogger group as being the blogging equivalent to CAMRA. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, and I don't really have an opinion either way. Regular readers will know that I roll to the beat of my own drum and don't feel the need to shelter as part of a collective. I know how to raise my voice when I need to be heard and I pretty much always get my opinion across.
One thing that struck me as odd is the amount of time these guys spent blogging. Some maintain two or three blogs and spend hours a day authoring posts, spilling their hearts out to relatively small numbers of readers who probably don't really care anyhow. I don't know about other beer bloggers, but in general I would rarely spend more than 15 minutes a day on my blog. I write stream of conscience and then run a quick spell check over my ranting to eliminate obvious mistakes, usually which are a result of my crude typing technique rather than my articulation! I don't care much about my blog, it's just a creative way to fill part of my lunch hour. I wish I could say the same about some of the people I met last night. I felt a little sorry for them really, but then who am I to judge from my ivory tower?
One last thing. Discussing statcounter statistics (yes this is what conversation came down too!) I realised that my traffic is pretty good excellent in comparison to these semi-professional bloggers. Sloppiness counts! I think there was a certain level of blogger envy directed my way last night. I'm not a freak and I appear to be beating the freaks at their own game! Thanks again Diageo for the invite, I had a good evening and my ego certainly benefited. I hope I didn't belittle your other guests too much!