DarrenByrne.com

Okay, well, there was an abundance of alcohol consumed on Saturday night. So I can be forgiven for forgetting to tell the story of the yellow balloons.

Like the star that led the wise men to the manger that fateful night, Elly provided us not-so-wise men with some bright yellow helium balloons to guide our way. As analogies go, that one is a stretch.

As the evening progressed and cream eggs were violated, the balloons took centre stage (or centre table at least). It was inevitable that they would go walkies. The first was pilfered by Elly herself, and seeing as she was the one to provide the I guess we can’t be too judgmental. It was much much later, as Ben and I were being gently ushered from the building, that we noticed something lurking in the distance…

Our anger got the better of us and we had to confront these balloon thieves. It wasn’t pretty…

Then, Ben tried to steal their shoes in retaliation…

In his defense, they were just the right shoes for him. He has problems telling his left from his right…

It’s nerdiness. It’s nerdiness on acid, on LSD, on pain meds. It’s nerdiness taken to a level not normally known by the consensus, the populus. Up until three weeks ago I was blind to this world, but now my mind has been opened.

Firstly, thank you Elly. Thank you for organising the piss-up, thank you for being so luverly, thank you for introducing me to some great people. And some odd people – hi Ben. While the early part of my Friday evening may have seen me nestle into my comfort zone and chatting with old friends, my developing evening saw me annoy and irritate Alexia, Red Mum and Anthony, but my developed (read drunken) evening saw me bend the ear of Laura and Sam and become intoxicated by Ben’s suggestion of SubWay.

My WWMD sticker and knowledge gained at the blog awards gave me a level of credibility; I have been granted a pass into the world of the modern Irish blogger. I arrived this evening, into a group of people who knew each other, who know each other, and while I make all efforts in my life to portray myself as a confident guy, one who can take on any situation head on, without resistance – I think I hid my crackling nerves well; I think I hid the fact that I was desperate not to feel out of place and desperate not to embarrass myself. And then I asked Elly about her jar of condoms. It all went downhill from there. (Please ignore the self indulgent in-joke and keep reading).

I met Anthony and Sam, who were fawning over Anthony’s iTouch, and while I attempted to be nonchalant, while I attempted to look as though I was not drawn in by the silly gadget, while I attempted to wipe away the drool caused by the kiddie’s toy…I was incapable of functioning without at least touching it. It’s beautiful. It’s sexy. It’s now on my wish list. If I hadn’t been bowled over by the perfect multi-touch system or the user friendly, net friendly, add-on friendly interface, the simple fact that it rendered the song lyrics on screen as the track played would be enough to hook me. It’s a faded, empty, throw-away phrase, but this is the future. Clichéd phrases need to come from somewhere, and this is no different. Apple’s latest invention is not just pretty, it shows us what the future is, what the future could be. The iTouch is gorgeous, but the functionality is only glancing at what we are likely to see in the next year or two or twelve from a company that has revolutionised the music industry. We will very soon see the iPhone (and its imitators) replace all of the gadgetry we carry with us. I can easily see a day when, the same device allows us to interrupt the taking of a 10 mega pixel photograph of our cat, with a phone call from our solicitor telling us that he is in the process of sending us an email with a Word document attached, where we can make changes and send the reply without ending the conversation. After we’ve finished the telecon, mailing and amateur cat photography we’ll continue using the device to learn the correct drumming pattern of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing (well some things can never die).

But I digress. I am trying to prove that tonight was not about geekery, but about the interactions of people, of friends, of strangers. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sufficiently prove that though, as I’m not sure there’s much to separate. Has the term ‘social geek’ already been coined? Often the term geek or nerd inspires an image of a quiet, inward, social misfit, but none of that was evident on this night out. This was a group of confident, socially aware, funny and above all intelligent people who quickly put me at my ease and I already look forward to meeting them again. More and more I am seeing a world I didn’t know existed and could never have understood had I not become part of it. Three weeks ago, I could not have imagined how much fun it would be Twittering in the pub, or exchanging website addresses. Viva la Social Geek! Viva la Drunken Bloggery!

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Incidentally – I do now Twitter!

The photos above are by Elly and thank you for allowing me the use of them.

And I am sad that I didn’t use my time better to talk with Suzy of Maman Poulet fame. It was lovely meeting you again, if ever so briefly again!!