Nineteen Ninety Six is going to be a very good year. I am keeping a record of everyone I share a meal with this year. Come by to see what, where, and with whom! Will you be next?


Date What Where With whom Works for Position What I ate Memorable Quote

January 4 Coffee Rodger's, Palo Alto Steve Thomas Netscape Java Wonk Great salad and veggie lentil soup "I think the Web took off because a lot of people in Silicon Valley were really getting bored."

January 6 Dinner Gordon Biersch, Palo Alto Glenn Davis Project Cool Webmaster Grilled vegies and awesome penne "I'm the guy who introduced the <BLINK> tag to the Web."

January 8 Dinner Piatti, Palo Alto Gino Lee Studio Verso Senior Designer Pasta with grilled portobello mushrooms "So, Dave, with this Balkanization article, do you plan to be the Johnson of the Web?"
"As in 'Masters and...'?"
"As in Samuel."

January 9 Dinner LuLu, San Francisco Michael Nolan Hayden Books Editor in Chief Salad, beets, fusili and herb pasta "I read your journal and frankly, I prefer the Calvin Klein boxer shorts."

January 20 Dinner Mystic Cafe, Palo Alto Andy Shore Adobe Webmaster Spinach salad and cheeseless polenta "I'm going to Australia on my sabbatical, and I'm really looking forward to it."Ûwhen I asked him why Adobe hasn't announced a PostScript plug-in for Netscape Navigator.

January 30 Dinner Cafe Verona, Palo Alto Matthew Butterick Atomic Vision Site Designer Pasta with a nice green salad "Dave, Dave, Dave. You've got to learn to delegate. Have your guys write your journal for you; it'll probably be more interesting, anyway."

January 31 Lunch Japanese Buffet, Mt View Christopher Warnock Adobe Manager, Acrobat Vegetable suki-yaki I told Chris: "I never lose any data. Working on the Web, the software is so buggy, you get in the habit of saving every 20 seconds." That was just before Netscape crashed as I was showing him one of my sites.

February 2 Lunch Mandarin Gourmet, Sunnyvale Daniel Klaussen and Alex Edelstein Netscape Product managers, Navigator 3.0 and 2.0 Mu-Shu Vegetables and string beans "We all agree that site designers should have more control over the look of their sites."

February 3 Dinner Roger's house, Los Gatos Roger Black At Home Creative Director Pasta with home-made tomato sauce and artichokes "I think we should have the 'Eddie Bauer' edition browser... and the mood browser!"

February 6 Lunch Mandarin Gourmet, Palo Alto Kevin Hughes EIT Webmaster Braised mushrooms and greens I told Chris: "You want me to say something memorable? That's my quote."

February 6 Dinner Cafe Verona Andrew Wood Core Design Site Designer Pasta and green salad "I have an Apple server running System 7.5 and it never crashes."

February 7 Dinner Bijou, San Francisco Ridgeley Evers CoSite Entrepreneur Pasta with tomato sauce, salad "When can you start working for us?"

February 17 Lunch University Coffee Cafe, Palo alto Richard Powers Stanford Dance division Teacher, historian Soup and salad "Are people surprised, when they meet you, to find out you're nice?"

February 26 Dinner Mandarin Gourmet, Palo Alto David "Sparky" Cullinan Studio Verso Site Designer Mu-Shi vegetables and string beans "Dude, once you've had Legos, there is nothing better."

March 1 Lunch Cafe Borrone, Menlo Park Ridgeley Evers CoSite Entrepreneur Eggplant sandwich When I said "Ridge, it sounds like you need me to join your team," he replied: "That's why I'm sitting here having lunch with you, you idiot!"

March 5 Dinner LuLu, San Francisco Kim Clark A law firm in Chicago Lawyer salad, vegan pizza "I think women have a lot more choices than men do."

March 7 Dinner Piatti, Palo Alto Dan Baum Silicon Graphics Director of graphics engineering salad, Pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes "Dave, is your daily outlook on life going to change when Bill Gates is working for you?"

March 8 Dinner Mandarin Gourmet, Palo Alto Hal Rucker Rucker Design Graphic Designer mu-shi vegetables, broccoli, asaparagus "We are doing our first web site, for Connectix. It's not like doing package design.\"

March 12 Dinner Ecco, San Francisco Thomas Reardon, Hakon Lie Microsoft, W3C Iconoclasts both salad, pasta arrabiatta "I'm a staccato thinker." - Thomas

April 2 Dinner Farfalle, Hollywood Harry Marks American Film Institute Teacher, seer, storyteller Pasta and salad "Having a heart attack really changes your outlook on computer graphics."

April 3 Dinner The home of David Foster, Los Angeles Gary and Lisa Foster Gary Foster's Home Page Film Producer Salad and matzoh "Baruch aia adonai, elohenu melech ha olam... boree pre ha gafen."

April 5 Dinner Cafe Borrone, Menlo Park Sally Applin Portal Interface Designer focaccia "I hate carnations, saxaphones)."

April 12 Dinner Stanford Shopping Center Tom Papa General Contractor Pasta with vegetables and salad "What are you going to do? Move to San Francisco and leave Gizmo in Palo Alto? Does he know about this?"

April 16 Dinner Vicolo, Palo Alto Gino Lee, Matt Johnson, Todd Fahrner Studio Verso Intraoffice Troublemakers Sausage Lasagna, 5 varieties of pizza "So, Dave, with this third-generation site-design book, do you plan to be the Stewart of the Web?"
"As in 'Patrick...'?"
"As in Martha."
(okay, dave wasn't really there, but it was funny anyway)

April 23 Dinner Stanford Faculty Club, Stanford, CA Paul Ehrlich Stanford Center for Conservation Biology Director, Population expert Big salad-bar salad "Do you want to know my official prediction on what will happen to the world over the next 30 years, or do you want to know what I really think?"

May 9 Dinner Blue Chalk Cafe Reed Overfeldt GTSI salad and mixed veggie plate "Washington is a great town. It attracts interesting people. The asshole meter is in the red sometimes, but there's always something exciting going on."

May 29 Lunch Stanford Faculty Club Paul Ehrlich, Marina Alberti, Andy Weiss Center for Conservation Biology Big salads for all "Why don't we make a big site where all environmental groups can publish their content and teach everyone about conservation, ecology, and sustainability?"

May 30 Lunch Delancy Street, San Francisco Jeff Veen Hotwired User-Interface guru Chilled noodle salad ""I'd like to start a group of web designers in San Francisco who meet and exchange ideas."

May 21 Lunch South Park Cafe, San Francisco Anne Palmer Friend Salad and Soup After lunch, her four-year-old son, Joe, told me: "No kissing! Don't kiss my mom!"

June 2 Dinner Calzone's, San Francisco Terri Arndt and her friend Joan Nike Information Systems Coordinator Salad, pasta with dried tomatoes and arrugula "I got a tattoo from the guy who did Phil Knight, but I didn't get a Nike Swoosh. I got something else."

June 3 Dinner Ecco, San Francisco Harry Mott and Dan Nash Cyberstudios Prinipals Salad and pasta with wild mushrooms "We're building the studio of the future, and we want you to be part of it. We even have an Ego Patrol that makes sure nobody's head gets too big."

June 9 Dinner Gordon Biersch, San Francisco Ben Wuersching Independent Designer Salad and mushroom rissotto "Living in Grass Valley is nice, but there aren't many good designers to hang out with."

June 10 Lunch Gordon Biersch, San Francisco Alice Hill c|net Executive Editor Salad and mushroom-focaccia "We put up stories of people doing things and talking about their lives, but they bombed. When we do a story comparing 200 monitors, the hits go through the roof."

June 11 Lunch Caffe Centro, South Park, San Francisco Lee Swearington and Cathy Clarke DXM Shockwave Designers Green salad and an artichoke/roasted red-pepper sandwich