In this photo from the craziness at Viceroy on Saturday night does it look like I woke up at 6:50 am and hiked up a mountain later in the day? (Boy did we make a wrong call on what hill to go to! We went to Steven’s and the backside was closed because they were running off of generator power; tragic given how much snow they’d received.)
At least I look awake in this one…
Saturday I wrangled an invite to the Microsoft EXG party (so eHome, XBox and Zune) at Pier 30:
EXG Hosted on ZooomrAnd it was quite the party. Free valet parking, numerous open bars, ice sculptures, air hockey, foosball tables, photo booths, three large rooms, food and Eagles of Death Metal played:
Eagles of Death Metal Hosted on ZooomrBut of course like the other large Microsoft party I went to two years ago only a few social butterflies from eHome showed up.
Social Butterflies Hosted on ZooomrWhich is sad because the people I ran into at this party are the people I usually either go out with or run into when I’m out. What I’d prefer is to get a chance to socialize with all the people who normally don’t go out but when there’s a big party they seem to all stay at home probably afraid that the space for the party is too large and they won’t bump into the people they work with. And so even though this party was bigger and more extravagant than last year’s eHome only party I don’t think it was nearly as good because it didn’t bring the eHome employees together. Now it did bring the eHome and other groups together in one space which I’m sure the vice presidents believe will create greater ties between their groups but really there was little meaningful interaction between the groups.
(Begin tangent)
After the party we went to a house party at Jeff and Chris’s place where I discovered that Jeff has a serious Lego addiction:
Jeff’s Lego Collection Hosted on ZooomrCheck out this condo he built:
Jeff’s Lego Condo Hosted on Zooomr(End Tangent)
Compare this to our Redfin company party last night at Glenn’s house where nearly everyone showed up:
A Blurry Redfin Christmas Hosted on ZooomrAnd we had a great time eating, drinking and socializing (though we tend to all those things at work too.) I’m sure next year’s party will be much larger and won’t be hosted at Glenn’s house!
Last Friday after a blogger dinner at the office I hopped in a cab and went down to the Arcade Party at the warehouse at 3600 East Marginal Way. Unfortunately the cabbie got way lost even though it’s not that far south from Pioneer Square. At one point he ended up just south of the warehouse but there was a stopped train blocking East Marginal Way. Frustrated I paid my bill, hopped out, and climbed over the train to get to the party.
There I encountered huge crowds of architecture and interior design geeks.
Arcade Party Hosted on ZooomrIt was a good party though with $1 drinks and $1 pizza straight from a wood fire pizza oven on wheels.
Arcade Party Wood Fire Oven Hosted on ZooomrOn one of the walls at the party I found this message which I really enjoyed:
Arcade Party Hosted on ZooomrThis was my second party at this warehouse (last time was for a friend’s birthday party) and highly encourage you to attend any parties you get invited to there. It’s a cool space, albeit hard to get to and from if you’re not driving.
More photos from two big parties at the end of October/beginning of November that I went to… Depending on your office environment these may not be safe for work (NSFW) :).
After putting so much effort into Saturday night and having such a blast I didn’t think I would be able to make it out again for Halloween proper. Well, I did! Now while I did not get home until 8pm I was able to quickly brainstorm an idea, rush to Value Village and pick up the necessary black jeans and a dark red-ish shirt, then I hit up the grocery store for some white out and washable markers (unfortunately Redlight was already closed but I was able to make do at the first two places.)
Here is the result:
I won! Hosted on ZooomrWith a close-up on the neck:
Jeffrey’s neck tattoo Hosted on ZooomrNow I was pretty sad how un-recognized my costume was at Linda’s and Havana, you think Capitol Hill would have been dialed into this fad, but no.. Thankfully a few gays made my night while walking home:
Random guy: ‘is that a real tattoo on your neck?’
Me: ‘no, i did it with this Crayola washable marker’ (Ben really wanted me to use a Sharpie but I was skeptical I’d be able to remove the next morning)
Random guy: ‘wow, you know who has a tattoo like that, Jeffrey from Project Runway’
Me: ‘oh really?’
Random guy: ‘wait, you have cut off black pants, sneakers, wow, good costume!’
Well, don’t take some random guy’s opinion, here’s Jeffrey’s picture, how did I do?
Big thanks to Stina for altering my $6 in clothing and tattoo’ing my neck.
Once out we saw some good costumes like, Hulk Hogan and Steve (too soon!), Mr.T and pothead, Robinhood and construction worker-lady and Barbie fan.
See all the photos from last night.
Update: Ben A. pointed out another person who dressed up as a Project Runway participant.
Wow what a weekend! We raced around from Seattle to Redmond (costumes and make-up) to Fremont (getting dressed) to West Seattle. Once in West Seattle some kids from work partied at Ang’s place and then headed to Hive Mind’s Grease Frightening held in an old elementary school. Needless to say it was a blast! There was many dance rooms, a detention room, liquid refreshments, a nurses station and on and on. Beats the string of bad house parties I ended up at last year. The first question now is, can we all rally around SeaCompression?
Since I know these photos are already out in the wild on the web might as well pre-empt the embarrassment now:
Halloween Hosted on ZooomrThough I must say that I’m a little said I missed my housemate’s costume. He dressed as Tobias from Arrested Development during his blue man phase:
I guess the second question is, what do we do tomorrow night?
The night before I saw Short Bus ‘that sex movie’. Ugh, it was interesting :).
Thanks for coming out to Startupalooza! We didn’t know how many of you to expect and you certainly didn’t disappoint; the place was packed with lots of startups and people interested in them. I know we got lots of resumes, hopefully you get a call back. But oddly enough we had left over beer.
And if you weren’t able to attend, check out our jobs page. We’re still looking for rockstar candidates.
Here are some photos and I hear the video will be up on Youtube soon :) :
CIMG1994 Hosted on Zooomr
Don’t mess with Aimee Hosted on Zooomr
Cynthia our PR and beer expert Hosted on Zooomr
I don’t know Phil but he’s dressed to find a job Hosted on ZooomrA random assortment of people, myself included, spent the weekend in Whistler. We took off after work on Thursday and partied hard straight through to Sunday. We had three days of decent skiing and two nights of lots of fun. I’d post more but it’s all a bit foggy.
Photo courtsey of No Friday.com (check out albums for 4-1 to 4-2) (No Friday is Joe’s website. Joe just spent three months living in Whistler. We’re all very jealous and trying to figure out how we too can take a three month leave of absence.)
What I do remember from this trip is that I need to go to Whistler more often (should I go to Telus..?). Two weekends this season was not enough so this April I’m going to buy an Edge pass and load it up with 12 days to ensure I don’t make the same mistake next year.
Last night we ended up at the Zillow launch party. Apparently what we saw launch earlier this week is just the tip of the iceberg.
(Yummy Zillow jelly beans)
Before that we had been hanging out at Chop Suey and saw The Divorce and Wolfmother (apparently Wolfmother is the hottest Australian band right now. They sounded like a cross between The White Stripes and The Strokes).
Today I’m sitting around doing nothing, which doesn’t happen often :).
Last Thursday after skiing some pretty vacant hills we headed into town to see some movies. Now we didn’t have tickets to any shows which meant that we needed to show up at least an hour early to try and get waitlist tickets. So we show up more than an hour in advance to the theater showing God Grew Tired of Us and proceeded to the tent outside where you have to line up to either get in the theater or for waitlist tickets. Unfortunately there was already about seven fifty people on the waitlist (this theater only seated about 150) so we decided ot waitlist for Shorts V instead. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see God Grew Tired of Us since it won the Grand Jury Price: Documentary, but we did see a few good shorts. My favorites were Aruba and Before Dawn (you can watch them online). John would have also enjoyed One Sung Hero about a karoke missionary (go watch it!). After the shorts they brought up all the directors for Q&A and I felt like an idiot when an audience member would ask ’so, why did you decide to do one long take for the entire movie? how many takes did it take before getting it’? I would sit there thinking, that movie was just one long take. Who knew! …After the shows and Q&A, the actress who played the karoke missionary in One Sung Hero tried to convince me to come out for some karoke but I wimped out.
Friday we skied some more. It wasn’t as sunny but still really good. After skiing we tried to see the world premier of Alpha Dog introducing Justin Timberlake. Again, even though we showed up way early there was a huge line. Fortunately someone approached us and sold us their tickets to the 9:30pm showing for $40 each. Festival tickets are normally $10, but these tickets were going on Craigslist for $125+, so we gladly paid $40. We later found out that NO ONE on the 6:30pm waitlist got in to the movie.
Having the tickets freed us up to go see Quinceanera. Quinceanera was a really good movie and ended up wining the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. It’s a movie about coming of age and gentrification in LA bookmarked by two Quinceanera celebrations. Definitely go see this when it gets picked up and released.
After Quinceanera we needed to grab a bite to eat before movies so we called our driver (uh yeah, the trip was paid for by someone else). And they called ahead to their sister-in-law’s restaurant, and we were whisked in past the line and were greeted with apetizers and a great meal before heading back out to see the later showing of Alpha Dog. The theater was packed (1200 seat theater in a highschool) and they started the show out by bringing out all those involved in the movie, including Justin Timberlake. Now while I’m sure this movie will take a bit of a ribbing because it’s Justin Timberlake’s introduction to movie stardom, it really is good. Unfortunately though none of the people involved in the production stayed around for Q&A (and we heard the 6:30 Q&A was really good), I guess they were too busy celebrating their premier.
After the movies on Friday night we headed out to Main Street to party. Our destination was Harry O’s the only club on Main Street that had been taken over by Cargo Magazine for private parties every night (you had to be on ‘the list’). Friday Liz Phair and Ben Folds Five played, but we missed them because we showed up so late. We also had a bit of a situation getting in, but one of our friends on the inside (who knew people) was crafty and got us in and up to the VIP room (free drinks!). Of course, we rolled in at 12:30 and in Utah they stop serving at 1:00am :P.
Saturday, again, we got a few tracks in and then tried to see some movies. Unfortunately we completely struck out! First we tried to go to see Kinky Boots and they didn’t let a single person from the waitlist in! (Originally we were like 140 on the waitlist, failed to by tickets on the street, but got someone else’s waitlist number and moved up to 45). Next we tried to see Friends With Money (a Jennifer Aniston movie) and again, were way back on the waitlist and had no luck. Even worse was that it was super snowy out. Here’s the line; keep in mind that there are several hundred people waiting inside for tickets and this was the overflow!
And needless to say the snow wasn’t good for my cold:
Pretty sucky we didn’t get to see any movies but we did get a decent dinner before heading back to Harry O’s for some partying. Now this team we didn’t have any connections inside but still high off my Las Vegas bribing success I tried similar tactics here. Unfortunately, Park City bouncers and hosts are unaccustomed to the practice of bribing and I got nowhere. Our other friends also got nowhere. However, because of the weird bar setup, we were able to cozy up to two people who were retrieving their coats from the coat check and we asked, and got, their VIP necklaces! This enabled us to waltz on in and see the Counting Crows (our other friends ended up being able to bribe their way in at $70/person):
Of course, Harry O’s is a complete b-list party scene. There were no famous people just a bunch of wannabe’s like ourselves. Next year, we’ll need to figure out how to get plugged into the a-list scene.
After Harry O’s shutdown we called our driver and had him pick us all up in the van:
And we headed off to our friend’s condo for more partying (last call at 1am sucks!).
Sunday was more skiing and then back to Seattle.
So would I go back? Would I recommend it? Any advice? Yes, I definitely recommend it and would go back. Next time I’d go for the first half of the festival (opening weekend) instead of the last half (closing weekend). I’d also ensure I had tickets ahead of time because the waitlist situation sucks. You have to wait at least an hour (some people would wait two or three) and even then our success rate was only 50%. I’d also adjust my expectations about random celeb sightings (though maybe there were more at the beginning of the festival), and Park City is no Vegas in terms of partying (unless you can get into those a-list parties with Paris). I’d also check out the skiing at Park City and Deer Valley.
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