It was a cold Friday night in Los Angeles, and a dozen or so nerds from distances far and wide converged on Renee’s Courtyard Cafe in Santa Monica. more…
Jon “y6y6y6” made the drive all the way from San Diego, and Sean (sorry, I don’t remember the screen name) was actually here from Florida on a five week get a job or the wife will make me move back to Florida adventure.
Actually, a surprising number of the MeFi LA crew had done some time in Florida. Leonard (again, can’t remember the screen name) hit Florida before moving out to LA via Austin. David “GatorDave” spent some time rowing crew for a Florida school before moving out to LA to star in and win The Weakest Link – to say nothing of his foray into professional tickling on the daytime TV show, The Other Half. He also runs BlogTracker and was busy asking everybody if they have a blog.
I think Daryl “Optamystic” did some time in Florida as well. At this point, I should point out that there is a better than good chance that Daryl is actually Jason Kottke, or at least a clone of some kind. This thought didn’t naturally occur to me, but once somebody pointed it out, it was undeniable. There was a lot of picture taking (much to my consternation – I’m pretty sure those magic boxes really just steal little pieces of your soul, and I need all of my soul), so I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to confirm this cloned or separated at birth theory for yourself. This just in: Pictures (nice job Jon), More Photos (thanks Phil).
Andre “perplexed” of FilePile fame was there. In a fitting moment of life imitating the web, he was actually burning warez onto CDs for Andrew “Waxpancake”. [this was good]
“Bingo” (sorry don’t remember the real name), our resident filmic storyteller, spent some time chatting with Matt “eyballkid” about movies, TV and everything. I have to say we all seem to have amazingly similar tastes in TV and the lovely, attractive ladies of TV. Matt actually seemed like a pretty cool guy, and I could totally see hanging out with him – if he wasn’t married and so required to “not have friends”.
Chris “kaftkaesque” was circulating and generally seeming amused by the whole thing as you might expect. I’m sure I’m forgetting some people, and I’m sorry, but it was a heady night, and I have trouble keeping people straight even in the best of situations.
Of course the drinks were flowing, moderately in most cases. Actually, Sean may have had a little too much of the grape (make that a Manhattan – the woman!). He started out seeming pretty cool, but by the end of the evening he was actually trying to Troll us. Can you believe it? Now if you think trolling is strange and annoying on-line, you’ve never been trolled off-line where it’s more transparent, and more clearly out of place. We didn’t think to section off a corner of the Bar as a MetaTalk analog, although if we had, I’m sure we would have hauled his butt in there to face the music.
Now, let’s talk about the nerd factor for a moment. As nerds go, we were all extremely cool nerds. Thank god for the web and William Gibson right, and I’m OK with my nerd status. Still, I have to say it’s a little uncomfortable exchanging screen names with a bunch of guys while a semi-attractive wait staff looks on with bemused indifference. No, my innermost nerd nature should be confined to on-line personas. It just doesn’t translate into life very well.
On more than one occasion, somebody joked about having a 10-sided die, and can you believe that the conversation at one point actually ended up discussing Star Trek? We all knew it was cliche, but somehow it just seemed fitting. We all also agreed that Wil Wheaton seems like a pretty good guy, and were surprised to find that although you hear a lot about the kill Wesley movement among the fan-boys, none of us really bought into that, and we all sort of liked the Wesley character.
Well, I could go on and on, but suffice it to say a good time was had by most.
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