Gameworks Gets Epinionated, Epinions Gets Texafied: Blindsider's Take on the Dallas Epinions Meet & GreetNov 14 '05 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Go meet. Go greet. Go get some Epinions dolls that come alive in the middle of the night.
Ya know that feeling of walking into a room, knowing nobody in it, and being unsure of what is going to happen? Anyone who's ever moved to a new town, or changed schools knows exactly what I'm talking about here. It's a cool, exciting thing - meeting new people is FUN, but at the same time, it can also be rather scary for those of us who aren't extremely outgoing around strangers. Multiply that feeling by 10. That was me walking into Gameworks in the Grapevine Mills Mall. So, first things first: I, Sheila, am an Epinions addict. It's true. Ever since I was little, I've loved to write, and writing about my favorite thing in the universe (mmmmusic) is something I do quite frequently. However, aside from a few AIM conversations with a couple of Epinions members, I don't really 'know' anyone on the Epinions community. Similarly, I didn't know a single thing about the Grapevine Mills Mall. ...which only made the M&G all the more exciting! So, the time for my first M&G came. I wasn't sure how to dress. Obviously, one of two things could happen: I'd go in a dress and everyone else would be in T-Shirts and jeans, or I'd go in casual clothes and everyone else would be dressed formally. Which outcome would be worse? Let's just say I played it safe, and wound up throwing on my Blindside T-Shirt and jeans. Basically, I'm too chicken to drive around big cities that I'm unfamiliar with. I printed out the directions to the mall, handed the paper to my mom, kicked back in the passenger seat, and blasted Blindside on my headphones at a rather deafening volume (that may explain why most of my initial responses to questions asked at the M&G were variations of "Huh?" or "What?"). I then noticed I was running a little late, and traffic was in-freaking-sane. Ah, well - what could I do about it? Better late than never, right? We pulled up to the beautiful Grapevine Mills Mall. My mom and little brother bolted, and I was left to take in all the sights [forgive my redundancy, but this truly was a COOL mall]. Where on earth was Gameworks? I stopped by the quickest store [which just so happened to be Zales], and asked. The employee sighed, disappointed that I didn't want to buy some jewelry, and told me. Turns out she either gave me inaccurate directions, or my ears were still ringing from my loud music in the car -- 'cause 15 minutes later, I was still wandering around aimlessly, trying to find Gameworks [soon becoming distracted by The Virgin Megastore in the process -- ohhhhh, music]. Finally, I spotted my destination. Ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not when I say this is the brightest, most enormous arcade I've ever laid my eyes upon. Keep in mind, though, that I live in quaint little Sherman, TX, where there's not too much going on. Whatever the case, Gameworks was cool. I saw a little room with an Epinions banner above it. There were people gathered at a few round tables. I knew I was finally at the right place - this was the Epinions Meet and Greet. I was quickly greeted by Garrett, aka roheblius. He gave me a nametag and a raffle ticket for a chance to win the iPod Nano later on. After picking up a few carrot sticks, a cookie and a Coke, I was directed to the table where most of the music reviewers [including madtheory and bob_tomato] were sitting. As many people probably noticed, I did much more observing than talking. I've always been this way - it's just difficult for me to know what to say around strangers - and I found out soon enough that the Epinions community is made up of friendly people, so that put me at ease. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet everybody in the room. I exchanged quick "hello"s and/or briefly chatted with many people whose reviews I frequently read and people whose usernames I recognized [including mrkstvns, openroad, hstisgod, pyfr and mike.holmes], which was really cool. At the table, there were discussions about atrocious music [hi, Black Eyed Peas!], great new writers on Epinions, music reviews, the 'pros' and 'cons' of Epinions, reviews in general, movies, and much more. Time really seemed to go by quickly - what had seemed like only 30 minutes was, in reality, 2 hours. It was then time to give away the iPod Nano, which went to bob_tomato - congrats! Several Epinions members gathered to admire the cool-looking iPod, while some went to take advantage of the dozens of cool games. The other Epinions members didn't walk away without a prize, though. We all got cool navy blue Epinions M&G T-Shirts and were free to take a couple Epinions Dolls -- my poor little green plus-sign doll can't seem to keep his legs on, though. :( Besides, it was cool to place a few names to faces. I enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk to several of the members. I look forward to attending more Epinions Meet and Greets in the future. Just a quick memo to any member who lives in an area to which an M&G is coming soon - Go! And if an M&G isn't coming anywhere near you - Travel! Why not? You certainly won't regret it if you do, but if you don't, you'll read all these raving write-ups and feel bad that you missed out on such a cool experience.  |
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