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12:32 a.m. - 2004-05-18
E3 04 Chapter 2: \"not so standard\"

In Chapter 1, Athena droned on about seeing the Nintendo DS and playing games and stuff. When we last left her, she was standing on the SimParentCompany demo floor, giving random GBA demos to passersby. The expo floor was about to close.

Uninvited

Now, Thursday was the evening of the crazy Official Traditional SimCompany Fancy E3 dinner - the one Hunt and Ray were definitely not invited to. I'm not important enough to add folks to the guest list wantonly, and since my boss is friends with them too I figured she'd bring it up if there was a way.

Hunt's boss felt badly about the situation, and even went so far as to tell Hunt and Ray that if they wanted to come he'd see what he could do. But Hunt and Ray seemed to feel awkward about that, and they told me they were going to go off on their own.

The whole "are you sure you're going to be OK with me going" thing took an awfully long time, and while we were talking yellow caution tape had been erected around the booth to deter straggling attendees. At this point, VA swooped in and proclaimed she was taking me with her, and at that point all of the demo folks left the conference hall and headed for their hotel to get changed.

In Over My Head

As we waited in the lobby for the whole group to congregate, I felt very nervous and out of place. Luckily, there was one girl from Marketing who was in a similar predicament - first time at E3, feeling a little bit the fish out of water. We talked on the walk from the hotel to the restaraunt.

We ended up dining at the Cicada in downtown LA, which I am told used to be the Rex and was the place where Julia Roberts broke the escargot in Pretty Woman or something [I wouldn't know, I haven't seen that movie in forever.]. It was a beautiful 40's style Art Deco building, and there was a very long table set up for us on the balcony there.

As luck would have it, I ended up sitting right across from Bluejay, who is the Marketing VP that I didn't quite hit it off with as a result of some things VA asked me to do before leaving for India on November. Sigh. I was terrified, since Bluejay is loud and outspoken and harshly witty, and I knew I wasn't necessarily on her good side. It turned out that the peace offering was a game of flip-the-cork, which I did very poorly at and required her advice to complete successfully. After that and a wine or two, Bluejay was plenty friendly enough and things were just fine [thank you, God in heaven.]

Probably something like 25 bottles of wine saw their end that fateful eve, and the dinner was really very good indeed. The cheesecake was divine and I don't even like cheesecake. [Nor should I, with the lactose and all.] Most of us had 4 or 5 glasses of wine and got a bit punchy. Our General Manager was showing us all his text messages from the previous evening, which consisted of many messages from our Exec Producer proclaiming "I htink wee need anuther shot," etc. etc. I couldn't get over how surreal it was to sit there at that table - in front of me two VPs, to my right several seats was Will W*right and our executive producers... Great fun, but very surreal.

The Worst Laid Plans

Afterwards, a small splinter group left to sneak into the Sony party [where, as it turns out, the Black Eyed Peas, Missy Elliot, and Crystal Method performed.] Will and Bluejay, among others, split off for other events. The rest of us decided to go out to a bar at "The Standard", a hotel downtown. Hunter's boss had promised him we'd do cocktails after dinner, so I called them with the information about the hotel. Name, street name, establishment type. And off we went.

Apparently the Thing to Do when you go to the Standard is to go to the bar on the roof. But when we got there and talked to the bouncer, we found that the Standard was so busy that only hotel guests were being allowed up, and there was a wristband system in place to enforce this policy. Thus, we went inside, and I discovered that perhaps the Standard is thus named because it has not been touched since 1960. The place was packed [even downstairs] and obviously happening - but the decor was so amazingly mod I've never seen anything like it. Right down to the red velvet swingers couches and a bar room done *entirely* in lemon yellow and white.

Our general manager opened up a tab for us and then promptly disappeared, leaving us to toast and get even toastier while waiting for spots on the roof to open up. No word yet from Hunt and Ray - but soon a series of amazingly staticy phone calls ensued. They had gotten my message and would join us at the bar.

But no sooner had I hung up than the GM returned, proclaiming that we were allowed to bring 13 guests upstairs to the roof. Too bad Hunt and Ray were #14 and #15. Personally, I would have much preferred to stay downstairs and avoid the $20 roof cover charge [think about the irony there for a second] but I was outvoted, and we went upstairs. VA assured me we'd be able to bracelet-switch and get Hunt upstairs.

Half an hour progresses and still no word. VA is sent downstairs to stand at the ready for the swap. I'm left upstairs to sit on the waterbed pods and schmooze with Marketing and drink more free booze while unable to go and help VA since she had my bracelet.

This is where the phone tag gets really bad. VA calls me. I call Hunter. Hunter calls me. I call VA. I call Ray. No one has any clue what's going on. Long story short, their cab driver took them to the Standard NIGHT CLUB, not the hotel. Clear across town. And during the chaos, roof admissions had been shut down and there was no way for them to get up to us, while VA has wasted a half hour waiting for them.

VA and Hunt's boss came to me, and we decided sadly that we'd just go back to their hotel. Hunt and Ray could find us there, and we could do the drinks we promised. Strangely enough, rather than dissing us, 90% of our group decided to follow us back to the Grand. We took a series of very silly pictures on the roof, then called Hunt to relay the plan, closed the tab, and headed off.

We're Very Important Drunks

We found Hunt and Ray at the Grand, already sipping drinks. We were about to sit down when someone grabbed Hunt's boss and beckoned us to the "VIP" room in the back of the bar. There we found some of our departed SimCompany friends - most notably W*ill W*r1ght (aka WW) and Bluejay. We all sat down, another tab was opened, and more drinking ensued. [At this point, I had 5 wines, a Tom Collins and an appletini in my system. I didn't need that last vodka tonic.] But this time Hunt and Ray got to participate in the fun. [Thank God.]

The evening got more and more surreal as time progressed. WW grabbed a handful of straws from the waitress and began using his lighter to burn them in the middle. He offered his handiwork to one of our EPs, explaining "Look. They're nunchucks." And sure enough, the two hollow pieces of straw were connected by a melted string of plastic. But then the string broke, and Will was sad, and he went back to making more nunchucks.

Then I turned to our general manager, who showed me more text message conversations and we talked about generally inane things, because I was trying to talk about "real" things and not make an ass of myself. Not sure if that worked. Not sure what I said, either. Yeah.

Revenge of the Eccentric Millionaire

Bored with his nunchucks, WW opens his wallet, turns to Ray, Hunt, and I, and hands each of us a random piece of obscure foreign currency. [Hunter's was fromYugoslavia. I think mine might be from Morrocco.] Apparently he likes to take his money to banks, exchange it for completely random currency, and then give that currency away as silly gifts to people.

At last call, our GM tried to order a round of champagne, but was summarily denied: "Um... the California lottery winner came here yesterday, and he bought all of our champagne." Well, *that's* a new excuse. So we ordered mixed drinks and beer and bottled water, and a large quantity of liquor was brought in for us. It was about 1:15 AM, and they told us the bar wouldn't close until 2.

Amidst this chaos, the Sony group arrived, very drunk, and showed off their schwag to the envy of many. As part of their gifts they received awesome stainless steel flasks with the PS2 logo etched onto them. (WANT!) We were too busy oo-ing and ahh-ing over the flasks to protest when WW jumped up onto a chair and did something to the security camera dome in the ceiling.

At about 1:35, a security guard came in and basically told us that the room was "closing" and we'd have to leave. Someone, apparently, had tampered with and broken the security camera. We tried to argue, pointing at the large quantity of unconsumed alcohol, but they told us to bring it back to our rooms. Thusly, WW got us kicked out of the crappy hotel bar. (Insert me rolling on the floor laughing here.)

We dutifully gathered the alcohol and moved to camp out in the hotel lobby - classy! - where we spent the rest of the evening. People started trickling away at about 2:15. But not Hunt's boss, who was So. Very. Trashed. that Hunt had to spend the rest of the evening getting him to drink 4 bottles of water. I just generally schmoozed and chatted with WW and Bluejay and JK and Jenna until most of them went upstairs - and then about 15 minutes later I hit a wall (figuratively) and passed out on the couch.

Now *that* was worth the drive down to LA.

Chapter 3: More demos, hangovers, eating alligator, and crappy rides home.

 

 

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