Free beer? Massages? Where have I been? No wonder I’m the first one to arrive every morning. From the Mercury News, today:

Think of it as Animal House, but with a corporate sponsor. The free beer starts at 1:p.m. The couches are comfy. And the words flow from the Big Tent day and night.
Some 500 bloggers from Berkeley’s Daily Kos to Susan “the Neon Nurse” from Lamar, CO (pop. 9,062), are crammed into what, it turns out, is a not-quite-big-enough tent to meet the crush of bloggers descending on Denver this week.

The two-story, 8,000-square-foot tent, a few blocks from the convention center where traditional media types are holed up, is advertised as new media central for the convention.
With sponsors including Google, YouTube and Digg, the Big Tent also underscores how the blogging community is going mainstream….
While the tent has become a handy marketing tool for hot-tech companies, it also is providing an outlet for diverse blogging voices.
Jill Stanek is a conservative, anti-abortion blogger from Chicago. The Democratic convention organizers had turned down her credential request, but “I’m being treated cordially here,” she said…

I told you I was an anomaly. But you already knew that.