Epinions Meet & Greet, Dallas 2005 -- Diary of a Mad… Theory?
Nov 22 '05
The Bottom Line All in all, attending the Dallas M&G didn’t suck quite as hard as I thought it would.
Ugh, ‘meet and greets.’ An introvert by nature and choice, I have an inherent dislike of meeting or greeting anyone or anything. Naturally, the thought of attending one of Epinions’ Meet & Greet affairs has always both fascinated and repulsed me, but since Epinions finally got around to holding one of their M&G’s near Dallas, I could no longer use distance and expense as an excuse not to go. So, when the date and time of the event finally rolled around, I hopped in the g-ride and made my way to…
Gameworks @ Grapevine Mills Mall
First a few words about the facility. A lifelong diehard gamer and one-time resident of Grapevine, I was already very familiar with the Gameworks arcade and restaurant located at the super-touristy Grapevine Mills Mall. It’s a pleasant enough place; a variety of games as far as the eye can see, including a bank of networked racing games and a massive elevator shooter in the middle. Upstairs there’s a nice bar and restaurant-style seating that is great for grown-up gatherings.
Assuming that such a up-and-coming company would naturally reserve a section upstairs, I made my way around the lower section, circumnavigating carriage-wielding suburban moms and over-stimulated pre-teens in the attempt to find a game worthy of a few minutes of my time before actually heading up. I was making my way back to the tried-and-true Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 after being thoroughly disappointed in my other fighting game options (Tekken 5? Mortal Kombat 4? Bleh.) when I noticed the Epinions banner flying high above one of the “birthday rooms” (no diss; its just that the upstairs is so much nicer) in the back.
Is It Hot In Here or Is It Just…
And when I say that I noticed the Epinions banner first, of course I’m lying; I noticed Epinions staffer Christal standing under the banner first. I had read more than a few reviews of previous M&Gs that made it a point to comment on her flame-inducing properties, but I took those with a grain of salt as guys who spend a great deal of their time on the internet tend not to be umm… “picky” when it comes to women. I took a moment to summon up as much “faking-like-the-hotness-is-no-big-deal” manufactured (and probably transparent) nonchalantness as I possibly could and turned and walked in to introduce myself. Although I didn’t get to speak with her that much, I did overhear some of the conversations she had with members at the other tables, and she definitely knows her business as well.
It had already been an unbelievably long day for me and I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet, so after I collected my name tag and iPod Nano raffle ticket (slightly singed) from Christal, I plotted my route to the silver catering trays on the back wall. My goal was to avoid the two full tables to my left and the ring of guys standing on my right and make a beeline for the food, but the latter group pulled me in. The cipher consisted of Epinionators bob_tomato, openroad and his buddy hardcoreham, pyfr (who actually teaches at a school near my house although I still have absolutely no idea where the hell it is), and Eps staffer Greg a.k.a. “Gary.” I kicked it with them for a few minutes before hunger compelled me to excuse myself and continue on to the snack table.
Once I finally got a plate of veggies, ‘tater skins, (the buffalo wings looked suspect) and an ice cold Coke I took up the standard “unfamiliar-people-slash-fast-getaway” seating position (for the uninitiated, its back to the wall, chair closest to the door). It wasn’t long before I was joined by bob and the rest, as well as Epinions Community Care Rep Garrett Gonzales a.k.a roheblius. Once the quiet but friendly blindsider and the outspoken hstisgod arrived, it was officially all about the music. We chatted on stuff ranging from Joaquin Phoenix’s new Johnny Cash flick, to the lack of interest in the new-ish Black Eyed Peas album despite the fact that its been on the charts for more than a while now, and a variety of other music-related subjects.
I also got a few minutes to talk with one of my favorite Epinions music writers, mike.holmes. Like me, he’s a big fan of jazz and blues (although a great deal more knowledgeable – he has a radio show on NPR), and we got into a cool long discussion about our backgrounds in the genres and thoughts on the music. And even though his taste in second-rate emo alt-rap is questionable, hstisgod’s taste in women is pretty admirable; his lovely date Andy is a big jazz and blues fan who jumped right in the middle of our conversation about the progression of those art forms and their relationship with Hip-Hop without missing a beat. Thoroughly impressed by this, I urged her to step outside of her Myspace home a little and give Epinions a try. It’s up to Bryan to keep the pressure up…
Eventually the table did get around to discussing the site itself. Garrett tried to start up a roundtable on cool features you would add to Epinions, but I may have unintentionally deflated that conversation by bringing up some preexisting issues that still needed to be addressed. Sorry, man… I’m just not a person who dreams about putting rims on a car when there are noticeable dents in the body. First things first and all that. In addition to site issues, there was plenty of dish about Epinions members, Shelly’s Epinions Music Source board, and blindsider’s new Epinions stalker (just you wait… the creepy emails will come any day now).
Whoa, You Guys Are Actually Reading My Isht?! *Edit *Edit *Edit
Probably the scariest moment of the afternoon was when we got on the topic of writers and writing styles, and my writing style came up. After five years of writing on Epinions, I guess I’ve started thinking of my reviews as simply vanishing onto this mysterious “Internets” entity after I click ‘submit.’ Sure the Epinions page view counters reflect that people are actually reading my work, but these aren’t flesh and blood people, they’re virtual internet people who may or may not actually exist. Sitting at a table with real live human beings who have read enough of my stuff enough to actually have an opinion on my isht (and be so complimentary about it) was humbling to say the least. Almost makes me want to re-write some of the stuff I’ve got here. Almost…
Time's Up…
Apparently I missed out on meeting the some of the members at the distant tables including legendary book grump gracef, and only got to exchange only the briefest of pleasantries with a few recognizable names such as tchoate and mrkstvns. It didn’t help that was Gameworks right on time about evicting us from the room once the time was up. I guess little Timmy’s big thirteenth bash just couldn’t wait.
All in all, attending the Dallas M&G didn’t suck quite as hard as I thought it would. Putting faces to handles and actually meeting some of the people I share such a valuable piece of cyberspace with was definitely a positive experience, and I’m actually considering hitting up one of the ones next year (I’m leaning towards passing on NY and waiting for the Las Vegas one). Aside from a negligible loss of cool points due to my basketball knee giving out from standing in an awkward position too long (sturdy chair for the save), and Andrew winning the sweet iPod Nano (I’ll neglect to mention the obvious wink-wink-nudge-nudge action that was obviously going down there) it was a great afternoon.
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Epinions.com ID:
madtheory
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 - Top 100 |
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Location: Dallas,TX
Reviews written: 487
Trusted by: 593 members
About Me:
DON'T CALL IT A COMEB... wait. I guess you actually can call it a comeback.
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