The Time 100 Gala: A Nerd’s Perspective

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.

Will Google’s Insanely-Fast Kansas City Network Shame U.S. ISPs?

Google’s highly-anticipated plan to build an ultra-fast city broadband network kicked into gear Monday with the search giant’s announcement that it will begin laying miles of fiber-optic cable across Kansas City, Kansas and neighboring Kansas City, Missouri. Google said it aims to create a new “high speed infrastructure” that will allow local citizens to enjoy data speeds 100 times the national average. Google’s goal? To show off its telecom engineering chops and showcase next-generation web-applications. Oh, and maybe shame the big national broadband providers into improving U.S. Internet service speed, which currently lags behind many other countries around the world.

http://youtube.com/churchhatestucker Church

The same J.J. Abrams who is rebooting Star Trek? The franchise that Ronald D. Moore used to write for? Before he re-imagined Battlestar Galactica?
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(In three, peeps.)
Kemper

A drunk nerd in close proximity to Whoopi Goldberg?
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“So..(hic).. Guinan….What’s Picard really like?…I mean..(hic).. He’s cool and all….but sometimes he seems kind of prissy.. (hic) Hey, did you ever get to fire the phasers? (hic) ‘Cause that’d be pretty cool… So…(hic)..Where’s your hat?…(hic).. You worked with Ron Moore, right?…(hic).. Can you get him to comp me some Galactica DVDs?…(hic)… ‘Cause these stupid commenters on my blog are ALL over my a** about that show..(hic)..”
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Lev Grossman

@kemper it was seriously almost like that. if I’d been slightly more disinhibited … thank god for my legendary alcohol tolerance …
LeeJH

It’s so funny that there’s a gala linked to a bogus list. I guess the names on the list are reasonable ones, just not their ordering.
http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1883644_1886141,00.html
Kemper

@ Lev – Classic. I hope someone at Time got some video of that encounter.
Dave

I hear ambrosia provides a much better time than synthehol.
dennitzio

@kemper – Lev’s a pro – he was there as a writer for Time. So he was probably hitting her up for gossip about Alice Walker and Terry McMillan.
Cliff

Jon Favreau was there, but it was the wrong Jon Favreau — the speechwriter guy, not the Iron Man guy.
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Am I the only one thinking that they need to duel with swords to determine who achieves the Quickening?
Kemper

@ dennitzio – Lev admitted that my version was pretty close. I think his inner nerd came boiling out due to alcohol and desire to be close to someone who had talked to Ensign Ro….

@ Cliff – There can be only one! (And let’s hope it’s the one making Iron Man 2.)
lostepic

Thee JJ Abrams. The one who is rebooting ‘Star Trek’? Which was created by Gene Roddenberry when JJ Abrams and Ronald D. Moore were in diapers? The very same Roddenberry Ronald D. Moore owes his career too, since TNG wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Roddenberry and thus one could hypothesis that BSG would never existed if it wasn’t for the opportunity of working on TNG which is the product of TOS, which was created by Roddenberry for his own imagination and not a reboot. Hey, Abrams and Moore have a lot in common.
No, I do agree that BSG had great original concepts employed in a universe that was created by someone else, as I am sure the new Star Trek “so-called” reboot. I only say “so-called” because Abrams says its not but everyone I know says identify it as such.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/05/06/time-100-paul-krugman-makes-me-cry-ayaan-hirsi-ali-says-shes-proud-of-me-and-i-squeeze-out-one-lousy-tweet/ TIME 100: Paul Krugman makes me cry, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says she’s proud of me, and I squeeze out one lousy Tweet – The Curious Capitalist – TIME.com

[...] Here’s Lev Grossman’s account. Turns out he has a different view of what “nerd celebrities” are than I do. And then there’s this [...]