Fringe Benefits

A couple of lively days at work this week – for reasons having nothing to do with actual, you know, work.

Yesterday our department had its annual holiday party. Breaking our recent tradition of going bowling – which actually was more fun than you might think (even though I suck at it) – we instead went to the nearby comedy club Rooster T. Feathers for lunch and a show by comedian Don McMillan, a former engineer turned funnyman. And he was in fact very funny, and I’d certainly pay to see him again.

Today there was a mini-concert in the cafeteria. A few weeks ago we had Corinne Bailey Rae, and today was a group named Lifehouse. I guess this is what happens when your company has passed Wal-Mart as the largest music retailer in the country. (Sheesh!) Both acts were pretty good, although not exactly my cup of tea; Rae’s singer-songwriter approach appealed to me more than Lifehouse’s modern-alt-rock style. (And of course I always think of Lifehouse as being an unfinished rock opera by The Who.)

You could tell it was a concert attended by geeks: Hardly anyone was dancing, and everyone was taking pictures and/or tweeting about the show. I realized this because I wondered if there’s any hope they might book a prog-rock band (Spock’s Beard, for instance), but of course prog isn’t really danceable – but if no one is dancing, then it doesn’t really matter, eh?

But even if it’s not exactly aimed at my tastes, it’s still a nice perk. I hope the musicians had a good time, too, playing to a bunch of geeks! 🙂

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