I went to the NY Bloggers Talk at the apple store, which was by and large as mastibitory as one would assume such an event would be. It was fun, dont get me wrong, but it had a self loving tone that seemed very 1996 to me, for what it's worth.
That aside I was lucky enough to have Mr. Blaze take me to meet a young accademic who seems to think much along the same lines as me (i.e. theory, theory, drugs, politics, technology, theory, sex). I urge you to check out tobias c. van Veen's blog.
He seems to be working on lots of the same issues as me but his blog is much more well done, I make have to take my game up a notch or two to compeate, but i suppose thats a good thing.