Siggraph & HD Party Mode - A Reflection in General Mental Anesthesia

Oh sure you can learn about me by checking out my “books” on here and try to figure out what makes me tick, but every so often I’m going to repost an old od entry and update it for the sake of nothing because like everyone else; who I am now is a part of who I was and who I was is who I still am.

So, if you’re interested in ceramics or birding or perhaps even blindfolded calligraphy, this entry is not for you.

Without further adieu…

Yeah, yeah I know… I’ve been busy, cut me some slack fruity lips!

I figured, since I just got back from Los Angeles that there would be a few tomato’s wondering what happened out there. I’ll start by saying it was a business trip. 8 days, working 13 hours a day, and getting piss drunk every night. Sleeping for 45 minutes in yesterday’s clothes, taking a 5 minute shower and going back to work.

In more apple pie......

It was not a dark and stormy morning, but I was in quite a disarray as I had been awake 2 straight days before the 7 hour flight was to depart. And that was the most amount of sleep I’d get that week. I’m sure it had something to do with the naked girl with the orange snowball who bent the rug, but I digress.

My hotel was in Beverly Hills, right near Rodeo Drive. The air was expensive and choking at the same time.

“Digital Dimmu” was already there, we hit it off right away, then came in roommate #2 “Cards”. Cards was a good guy as well, and easily joined in our merry good conversation. He liked to rub blueberry pancakes on his nipples, but hey, we all have our thing.

The LA Convention center was not “pear shaped” like it says in the Everglades travel guide, but it was bigger than Yohan’s ego. We got our credentials and blue credit card type thing. But we couldn’t get a “pink” pass that would give us full access, however, we did find a large conference room with a mic system plugged in and we also found some interesting tunnels, and a golf cart.

Welcome to Siggraph! (short for Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques). Some highlights of the conference are its Animation Theater and Electronic Theater presentations, where recently created CG films are played. There is a large exhibition floor, where several hundred companies set up elaborate booths and compete for attention and recruits. Most of the companies are in the engineering, graphics, motion picture, or video game industries.

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I was there selected by my school out of thousands of college students across the country to head up the 1st annual film/video dept there (working with the deans of other colleges).
For the for first time, Siggraph was to be filmed and streamed live in HD throughout the conference.

Day one of Siggraph, started out with the alarm screaming loud, at 6:45 am. Good thing it worked cause the front desk decided to wait till 7:30 to do the 6:30 wake up call. Maybe they were pissed at us, cause all night long we called them to ask for things like, bathrobes, a cot, a French maid, a pillow stuffed with corn niblets and once just to ask if they would please plant some trees in Israel.

RED VESTS!!! RED VESTS!!!

It was fun and nerve racking playing with a $100,000 HD camera (That was my job).

This is similar to the camera I used, except mine was a few years older and a bit bigger. I can’t quite explain what it’s like to have something that expensive on your shoulder as you’re walking around.

No complaints, though; but women clearly thought I was compensating for something! The fact that I got free bagels and coffee, and juice, made me not care; oh yeah, and mints from the lobby of my hotel. With about 40,000 or so in attendance, the work week was nothing shy of hectic. I met the guy that invented computer animation (No, not Al Gore). I also go to test out some wicked pissah virtual reality and I saw a new color! Besides walking around getting free stuff during lunch, all fun was to be had at night! (so, skipping ahead).

Each night there were many parties being held, most of which you needed to be invited to, and I do mean mega parties!!! The kind where giraffes paint caricatures and the 1st person to successfully jerk off a robot wins a box a mechanical tampons.

Party 1. Must have been 20,000 people there! It actually started at our hotel, where we met up with Crazy Dave & O’douls. We waited for the shuttle at the lobby bar.... 5 beers and 15 minutes later we get on the bus. I was NOT the one who took a header in the bus bathroom as we left the hotel!!! Free drinks!!! (Excellente!!!)

Piss beer though… (budweiser, coors etc…) I mean, sure drop $50,000 on a party, but buy the cheapest & crappiest beer you can find??? Fortunately, thanks to my skills as a paranormal investigator, I found the spirits! Amen!

Getting ever so hammered, we posed for pictures, some boobie rubbing… hugging… juggling… tugging… I can’t really get into..... Large balloons… paper flowers… It was like a cartoon, with a girl named… Yowzers!!! (Middle name “Yikes!”) There was even a Bungee running thing (which I won! Yay! and of course there was some tumbling… bumbling… flipping… falling… Theme song singing… concrete swimming… you know, all that. The best part… It was Wonderfully catered… FREE MEAT! Oh hell yes! I horded food like it was the start of Armageddon, and ate like a critter on a cow farm.)

I must have gained 10 lbs!

“Excuse me? Is that a meatball sandwich in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
- “Well, I’m happy to see you, but I’m not sharing this meatball sub in my pants”.

Then of course there was another party to go to after that.

Every night was the same, Everyday at work we trudged onward knowing there’d be something to look forward to. They even closed down part of Universal Studio’s for us one night. On another night yours truly got to hang out with Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode!

Turns out that they were playing at Staples arena that week. We drank beers together and talked for maybe 2 hours? I lost track of time, but we were chilling poolside at some hotel with a shit ton of other people mingling about. There were ice sculptures of mermaid vampires that flatulated into fire pits. It was quite the scene! He was a cool guy, and I know you’ll ask, but I can’t divulge that we were talking about the existence of a race of carnivore bellybutton people.

It was an exhausting week and worth the long hours and hard work during the days. I did grow some cankles, but that’s nothing a little racquetball won’t fix.

Let’s end this with some music!

Last updated July 13, 2018