I was too young for Woodstock, but I got to see w00tstock v1.0

Billed as "3 hours of geeks and music", the show was 3½ hrs long and definitely had geeks and music in abundance. Also, "special guest" video appearances of Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (being read by Wil Wheaton), which got a reaction of mixed laughter and applause, and Neil Gaiman, as seen in the opening credits of of a fictitious sitcom video clip (he's seen at 33 seconds in) who may have gotten the loudest applause that night for being in a 5 second shot in a video. Neil does add a lot of cool to anything he's seen in. The sitcom, which "...was canceled during the first commercial break of the first episode, and was ordered destroyed by then-ABC President Grant Tinker..." starred Jonathan Coulton (also not in attendance last night).

We spent nearly two hours on the freeway/city traffic to get to San Francisco last night to see w00tstock v1.0. Normally a 45 min to 1 hr drive, but traffic was slowed down considerably by rain, often very hard rain. Some of the delay was also due to me not giving the DH good directions and having to take a very long detour. Nonetheless, we did arrive before the show started and got fairly good seats even though they were in the very last row - it wasn't that big a venue, fortunately.

The majority of the w00tstock v1.0 audience, as far as I could judge, was male (rough guess, 60% maybe more), iPhone carrying, mathematical or ironic tee-shirt wearing, late 20's to late 30's people. As a 50-something female in a Jones New York blouse and sweater, with a rather old Motorola Razr, should I have felt more out of place? Nah, I had a great time, got most of the jokes and references, and occasionally laughed very hard. We got home really late, so I wasn't able to write this when everything was fresh in my mind, so these are just some general impressions.

The house lights dimmed and Wil Wheaton came out in his official Department of Geek Affairs tee-shirt. We were welcomed, told that the show was under a Creative Commons license (warm laugh from audience) and warned that the show is "in beta". My first clue, before even being told, was that Wil was reading from a folded sheet of paper. I didn't mind that one bit, nor the other little flubs and goofs - it was kind of like being a special guest to a dress rehearsal. Someday, when a more polished w00tstock is on tour, well, I can say "I was there for the first one" :-)

Paul and Storm performed some sets throughout the evening, but because I had seen them open for Jonathan Coulton, I'd heard the songs before - maybe not the Frogger one, although I don't recall. Then came Molly Lewis, who plays the ukulele, and Kid Beyond, whose first piece I missed while taking a break outside for a bit, but I got back in time for the end of his set, which featured two Muppet mashup videos and his commentary - which were quite funny.

Wil Wheaton did a dramatic reading from Just a Geek accompanied by Paul (kazoo) and Storm (guitar) and two of the Kasper Hauser troupe read "[an] actual exchange between Kasper Hauser ("Jock Plenary") and a Nigerian e-mail scammer ("Justice Shaish")" (by the way - as a huge fan of This American Life I found their podcasts spoofing TAL hysterical).

The last guest was Adam Savage, who did a slideshow of his 100 Wishes which I found touching, sometimes funny and generally pretty cool.

We got home pretty late, nearly 1 am, which, especially this morning, made me wish the show had been on a Friday or Saturday night - maybe w00tstock 2010... As I write this, the second San Francisco show is about to start. There's one more show scheduled, down in L.A., tomorrow.

• You can see some (fabulous) pictures of the stars of the show over at Laughing Squid.
• Geek Dad posted about the show on Wired which includes a YouTube video of Paul and Storm doing their Frogger song.
• In this picture on calixtonpix's Flickr site you can see the side of the audience where the DH & I were sitting, but we were in the row just behind the ones you can see at the very bottom and didn't make the shot. Note all the glowing iPhone screens...
• In this one, from smadness' Flickr site, at the very bottom left hand corner you can sort of see the DH looking at his iPhone. I think he was checking the score of the Dodgers v Phillies game.

w00tstock poster by Len Peralta
read more at Len's site: Jawbone Radio

Update - from w00tstock in LA Wil Wheaton Intro and (Do You Want to)Date My Avatar with Felicia Day & friends

Tempus Fugit

I went to Office Depot last weekend for printer ink. Of course that's not all I got, but that's what I went there for. Ostensibly. Really, just printer ink...ahem, anyway...and of course the place was packed with back-to-school shoppers.

Now that I have an empty nest, I don't keep track of those sorts of things. Glad I didn't need to go to the mall for something. Watching the girls (for some reason it was mostly girls there with their parents - I maybe saw one boy) looking at notebooks and pens and paper made me just a tiny bit nostalgic for the times my kids and I did our back to school errands. But just a tiny bit and only for a moment.

Back to school also meant clothes shopping, and wincing at not only the price tags, but the clothes themselves. I guess every generation goes through it's "really ugly fashion" statement period and ugly is always subjective, so I'm sure my opinion isn't worth the pixels it's written in, but I don't think in 30 years these kids will look back on their mini-skirts and Ugg boots and think "That was the apex of beauty and style." Then again, I thought the midi-skirt was cool. Hey, I'm tall, I carried it off! My daughter was eclectic in her clothes choices, so she pretty much bucked the fads in high school with my full approval. (She did finally buy Uggs last year - her feet were freezing in the winter and the Uggs were nice and warm.)

I forgot about my weekend reflections in the days between now and then, but just got a Tweet from Wil Wheaton's Twitter feed that said "Did I miss a memo? Are tights + UGG boots + a T-shirt dress thingy + a headband the new thing? I keep seeing this disaster everywhere I go." and it reminded me.

This from the actor who wore some of the (sorry, Wil - I know it wasn't your fault) ugliest sweaters ever, as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, TNG...I hope he knew then what those girls don't know now - sometimes following the latest fashion fad (or being forced into someone's conception of the future of knitwear) just makes you look ridiculous. I was too old for legwarmers and high-heels with torn sweatshirts (Flashdance), but yeah, I did wear polyester disco dresses, so I shouldn't talk.

In Which Dawno Plugs a Book

The happy serendipity of the Internet leads me from a post about a great food meme to a post about a book by a waiter...

I am on Twitter. I tweet. I read other folk's tweets. I follow about 50 tweeters, one of whom is Wil Wheaton, actor, writer, blogger and uber geek. In a tweet he sent last night, he recommended reading a post by the writer of Waiter Rant, a blog, and also, as I find out at his blog, a book. I followed the link in the tweet and read the post, which was insightful. Went to take a look at his book. The Harper Collins website had preview pages, so read all there was available of Chapter 1 and decided I wanted to read the book right then - and, as luck would have it, they had it available as an e-book, so I could download it immediately and not have to wait for it to come in the mail.

Download completed, I dropped everything else I was doing (I've been very busy with the whole beading thing lately and was in the middle of re-organizing my beading area, doing an inventory of my creations and re-naming and creating tags for them, amongst other stuff) and started reading. By 11 pm I was getting rather tired and went to bed with about 3/4 of the book completed. I have just finished reading it.

Waiter Rant (by Steve Dublanika, The Waiter) starts off with a preface that introduces you to the author's conversational, first person style. He's obviously educated and witty:

"Today waiters are expected to be food-allergy specialists, sommeliers, cell-phone-rule enforcers, eye candy, confessors, entertainers, mixologists, emergency medical technicians, bouncers, receptionists, joke tellers, therapists, linguists, punching bags, psychics, protocol specialists, and amateur chefs. Foodie-porn TV programming has generated a new class of entitled customers with already overblown culinary expectations and a rapidly diminishing set of social graces. Economists say that the restaurant business is a bellwether of the nation’s economic health—but I think it’s a bellwether of America’s mental health as well. And let me tell you, 20 percent of the American dining public are socially maladjusted psychopaths. We should start putting Prozac in the Perrier."

147 words into the book and it's got me completely hooked.

The sub-title is "Thanks for the Tip -- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter" and yes, he's cynical. But he's also self-analytical, a keen observer of people and a writer whose descriptions neatly place you right in the setting - I felt like I would be able to recognize his anonymized restaurants and the people who worked there, if I ever made my way out to New York City.

About mid-book the reader has learned a lot about the author's life, what led him to become a waiter, how and why he struggles with the culture of the restaurant world and its denizens. If you are going into this thinking it's just a series of anecdotes about the behavior of quirky customers, you will be disappointed - it's that to a point, but it's also an introspective memoir and very nearly a psychological/sociological treatise on the way people treat people in the service industry. He keeps it all moving apace, however, with his personable writing style and sense of humor. You also find that he puts his education to use with mention of, or allusions to, classical literature, but also from popular literature and culture. While his prose is accessible, it doesn't talk down to the reader, either.

The book is also about the author learning that he *is*, indeed, a Writer. Starting with a blog that eventually gains a large following and then on to getting an agent, and a book deal, the author discloses the ups and downs many writers experience before finally breaking into publication. I know a bit about that as a moderator on Absolute Write where daily writers discuss their triumphs and challenges and disappointments.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Because I want to make a point about writing, I'm going to discuss the end of the book - please don't read on if you don't like spoilers and intend to read Waiter Rant. There's nothing else said after the spoiler, so if you're going to pass up the spoiler bit, you're done - thanks for visiting!

*****************

The book closes with the author still working as a waiter, even though his book has sold. Unlike the lotto winner who walks into work the morning after the numbers were posted (yeah, you don't have that dream, do you?) and says "take this job and shove it," he takes a respite from waiting and then, eventually, goes back to it, albeit at a less stressful place and pace. The hopeful thing about his return to the job, is something he says just a few paragraphs from the end of the book:

"Now that I’m a waiter trying to become something else, I feel like my life has direction. The chip I was carrying on my shoulder fell off. My sense of hospitality has returned. I no longer feel like a loser. Those horrible dreams about wasted talent have disappeared. For the first time in a long time, I’m at peace with myself."

I like a book with a happy ending.