Thanks to Hysterical Bertha for the photo.
It's like the dot-bomb never happened. There were pool tables, foose-ball, bean bags, Really Cool Chair that look like they were made by Apple designers with too much free time and an advanced degree in plastics, free pop, juice, muffins, candy bins. It was a little overwhelming. At any moment I was expecting someone to walk by with a Pets.com shirt and start raving about his stock options.
At lunchtime, the conference provided the lunch, in three large rooms, one for Mexi-Cali, another for deli, and another for grill (burgers etc). The opulence of it all was pretty stunning, especially for me, coming from the public sector; where the only thing that's free are the stir sticks for the coffee you had to pay a quarter for.
The after party featured a band with enormous geek cred, "The Flight of the Concords". They sing songs of fantastic musical value about awkward park meetings, a future populated by ironic robots, and the tepid and routine love life of a couple that have been together for years. The crowd went as wild as crowd full of (mostly) hyper-intelligent geeks can get over loud lights and music.
The party room itself almost sent me into full cardiac arrest. They had free arcade cabinets, open bar (beer, wine, etc), sushi, sundae bar, thai food, pasta to order, Wiis setup with Wii Sports all loaded up.
It felt like it was 1999. Without Prince, of course.
Comments
Or were you just keeping it quiet so we didn't feel so bad. Yes, that must be it, good form old chap, good form.
monky : let me tell you, you haven't had fun until you've been stuffed into a room full of really smart, highly paid geeks, WHO ALL KNOW EACH OTHER AND ARE HAVING FUN. The isolation was like summer camp and the first day of school all rolled into one.