Adventures with Nerds
Wednesday I went into NYC to see the live Diggnation taping, the first on the east coast. I've been a fan of Diggnation from very early on. I dragged along a friend of mine, who as none too pleased to be there. We waited on line for almost two hours, nearly didn't get in due to crowds and raising the age limit, but at around 7pm we finally got in. It was packed, like people all around, but my friend and I weaselled our way to near the front. I never pegged Diggnation to have an opening act, but they did. It was kind of a Revision3 lovefest, starting off with Scam School, which was this dude who did crazy shit with fire and lots of awesome stuff. Cool, dude, he wanted everyone to subscribe to his iTunes podcast, basically to break iTunes and rising to the top spot in the Tech News section. So if you get a chance, maybe help him out. It was awesome.
Then Kevin and Alex briefly appeared, and I totally wigged out, because like KEVIN ROSE FTW. Yeah, I kind of love him. They told us how there were people out in the rain, this was about an hour after we actually got in, so everyone was pretty shocked how many fans came out. So after a lot of waiting around and a lot of sweating, Jay Adelson and Kevin came out and talked about new Digg features, mainly the new comment system, which everyone agrees was a great improvement over the old one. Finally things started moving along, with Kevin and Alex coming out with "boy band" mics and trying to get them working. They killed time by chugging beer and being generally awesome. Eventually, they gave up on the new expensive tech and resorted to mic stands. I was a little bummed about where they did the actual show, because there was the super tall guy in the very front who completely blocked my view of Kevin and Alex. But I thoroughly enjoyed the whole show, which you'll see when you watch the podcast. There were all these little jokes and mentions that I'm not sure how people who weren't there would get, but maybe that happens every live show, which I've seen. Kevin and Alex said they wouldn't do shots, designating some girls in the front (I wasn't the only one!) to be the "shot girls", but that kind of broke down and they did a shot of whiskey. After that they started getting drunk, which was hilarious for me and my friend to watch. Seriously, the alcohol just makes things even better. Sure they cover top stories, but the booze gets them on tangents and other amazing stuff.
After the show, the guys had to pee, announcing it like any proud drunk, and said they would make their way around and say hi to everyone. Well, that didn't exactly work out as they planned, they kinda got mobbed coming out of the bathroom, then hopped back on stage, jumping off towards the back of the crowd, which then led to a new crowd forming. Basically, by this time I had already told my Mom I would be out over an hour earlier, so I just quickly looked for Kevin, picking to say 'hi' to him over Alex. After locating, I snuck around and I did get to say my piece, "ZOMG I'm a big fan... Really appreciate you coming to the east coast... Waiting for this for a long time..." Kevin was really nice, I got two pictures, both are awkwardly zoomed in because the kid operating my camera couldn't figure out the zoom, which I forgot to unzoom. But you can definately tell that's Kevin, and I'll know it's me, which is really all that counts. ZOMG I totally got to touch Kevin, like he put his arm around my waist and I was just so glad to be there. I've been watching the podcast since summer 2005 in its early episodes, first listening, then watching. And I've been waiting ever since they announced their first live show for them to hit up the big apple. I was thrilled to be there over two years later, when they finally did!
I have a ton of pictures which I will upload sometime between now and eternity, I like having my pictures for myself, as opposed to on flickr, because no one I know really sees them, anyway. I showed my mom, who I needed to BEG to let me go out to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which was a pretty nice area, but wasn't always. She and my sister saw Kevin and agreed that he is so adorable. Because he really is. Kevin, if you ever see this, marry me, dude. Seriously.
Then Kevin and Alex briefly appeared, and I totally wigged out, because like KEVIN ROSE FTW. Yeah, I kind of love him. They told us how there were people out in the rain, this was about an hour after we actually got in, so everyone was pretty shocked how many fans came out. So after a lot of waiting around and a lot of sweating, Jay Adelson and Kevin came out and talked about new Digg features, mainly the new comment system, which everyone agrees was a great improvement over the old one. Finally things started moving along, with Kevin and Alex coming out with "boy band" mics and trying to get them working. They killed time by chugging beer and being generally awesome. Eventually, they gave up on the new expensive tech and resorted to mic stands. I was a little bummed about where they did the actual show, because there was the super tall guy in the very front who completely blocked my view of Kevin and Alex. But I thoroughly enjoyed the whole show, which you'll see when you watch the podcast. There were all these little jokes and mentions that I'm not sure how people who weren't there would get, but maybe that happens every live show, which I've seen. Kevin and Alex said they wouldn't do shots, designating some girls in the front (I wasn't the only one!) to be the "shot girls", but that kind of broke down and they did a shot of whiskey. After that they started getting drunk, which was hilarious for me and my friend to watch. Seriously, the alcohol just makes things even better. Sure they cover top stories, but the booze gets them on tangents and other amazing stuff.
After the show, the guys had to pee, announcing it like any proud drunk, and said they would make their way around and say hi to everyone. Well, that didn't exactly work out as they planned, they kinda got mobbed coming out of the bathroom, then hopped back on stage, jumping off towards the back of the crowd, which then led to a new crowd forming. Basically, by this time I had already told my Mom I would be out over an hour earlier, so I just quickly looked for Kevin, picking to say 'hi' to him over Alex. After locating, I snuck around and I did get to say my piece, "ZOMG I'm a big fan... Really appreciate you coming to the east coast... Waiting for this for a long time..." Kevin was really nice, I got two pictures, both are awkwardly zoomed in because the kid operating my camera couldn't figure out the zoom, which I forgot to unzoom. But you can definately tell that's Kevin, and I'll know it's me, which is really all that counts. ZOMG I totally got to touch Kevin, like he put his arm around my waist and I was just so glad to be there. I've been watching the podcast since summer 2005 in its early episodes, first listening, then watching. And I've been waiting ever since they announced their first live show for them to hit up the big apple. I was thrilled to be there over two years later, when they finally did!
I have a ton of pictures which I will upload sometime between now and eternity, I like having my pictures for myself, as opposed to on flickr, because no one I know really sees them, anyway. I showed my mom, who I needed to BEG to let me go out to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which was a pretty nice area, but wasn't always. She and my sister saw Kevin and agreed that he is so adorable. Because he really is. Kevin, if you ever see this, marry me, dude. Seriously.