W00tstock 2.4 has ended. It was awesome.

Well, I'm still reeling from my experience at W00tstock 2.4 last night.   I'll let the rest of the digirati cover all the juicy details, since I'm sure it was live-blogged, tweeted, and streamed to no end.  I love events like these, where I come away reminded that I am part of a greater, and growing, community of like-minded devotees of all things geek. 

My favorite specific bit from last night's show, though, was the sequence of events surrounding Wil Wheaton's retelling of his first experience with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. There was a cascade of funny that began with a heartfelt reminiscence of life as a teenager in 1980's LA. Then while recounting the gathering of some slightly burned white toast, onto the stage wanders Aaron Douglas, complete with BSG "Chief Tyrol" flight-suit costume, setting up Wheaton for the gag: "No, we asked for toast, not a toaster!", which of course slayed the audience as intended.

Funnier yet is what came next.  After Douglas stomps of stage yelling "Frak you, Wil Wheaton", our storyteller turns to the audience and says (in seemingly one breath): "So its pretty cool when you're friends with Aaron Douglas and you hear he's going to be at ComiCon so you call him up and ask him if he'll come to your show 'cause you have this idea for a bit that you think would be really funny!  Then he calls you back and asks 'Hey, what if I wore my flight suit? Would that be OK?', and you say 'That.... would... be... AWESOME!', then I went into my backyard and screamed to the heavens 'What did I do to deserve this bitchin' life?'".

It came across as completely genuine and reinforces everything else I've heard about Wil Wheaton and his view of this place in the world.  In any case, I laughed until my sides hurt.

There was much more awesome, including a brief Astronomy lecture and sneak-peak at a new upcoming Discovery Channel show from "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait, surprise cameos from a variety of other geek celebs, and I even got to spend a couple of minutes chatting with Mythbuster Grant Imahara whom I haven't spoken with since we were competitors at a Battlebots event a million years ago.  All in all, a great night, and I can't wait for W00tstock 3.x!

EDIT: 
Addendum: I can't believe I forgot to mention this.  So security was stupid.  Like really stupid.  The show started like an hour late because they were doing thorough pat-downs and bag-checks which doesn't sound bad until you remember that 1/2 the crowd came straight from ComiCon and had those massive Swag-bags.  It took FOREVER to process the line.  Worst still, they confiscated my Leatherman Squirt S4, because it was a "weapon".  OK, they didn't confiscate it so much as take it and put it into a plastic bin without any sort of claim ticket whereupon it was gone after the show, even though we had to leave a few minutes before the end.  Oh well, I think the a-hole guard now has a beatup, dull Leatherman on his keychain.  Maybe letting people know before you tear their tickets that there's a "no re-entry" policy, eh?  My car was just around the block.  Moreover, if you're looking for "weapons", maybe you should pat me down a little better, 'cause the farkup rent-a-cops missed my 3.5" Ritter RSK Mini-mk1, which is razor sharp and probably better at the "murdering other nerds" they seemed to be so concerned about.  Obviously I didn't volunteer that one, since I wasn't about to hand over $100+ cutlery.  OK, rant-over, W00tstock was still awesome!  Besides, now I have an excuse to purchase the new Leatherman Squirt PS4 instead!!