Techland

Last night I went to the "gala" dinner for the Time 100. It's always a bizarre experience -- this video is not actually unrepresentative. Basically it's like you're standing next to a woman who looks a lot like Claire Danes, and you look over at her, and instead of it turning out to not be Claire Danes, it actually turns out to be Claire Danes. Imagine that happening 100 times and you'll get the picture.

As a non-celebrity I was relegated to a marginal table, so the famous people wouldn't be exposed to my hideous non-famous visage and my ill-fitting tuxedo. But I could see them.

Nerd celebrities were in short supply this year. Jon Favreau was there, but it was the wrong Jon Favreau -- the speechwriter guy, not the Iron Man guy. moot was there with his mom. The Twitter guys were there, and J.J. Abrams, and the Houser brothers (the Grand Theft Auto guys). And does Liv Tyler count as nerdy, for The Lord of the Rings? She was there. (As a literary dude, I was disappointed that the only writer on the list was Jeff Kinney, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid guy. Sure the book is dead. Do they have to rub it in?)

The highlight of the night came when I moved down to moot's table -- moot, unlike me, had a table in the very front row. I had actually drunk enough that I was enjoying John Legend, and I happened to glance over to my right, and I realized I was sitting literally one foot away from Whoopi Goldberg. Which I know, but she was Guinan on Star Trek. I think we had a moment. Party in Ten Forward!

Though if I were drinking synthehol I don't think I'd be this hungover.

p.s. check out this Flickr set of paintings of video game characters killing each other. I totally want the Pac-Man one.

p.p.s. Don't take the above as disrespecting John Legend. I don't generally listen to R&B, but he was actually kind of awesome.