Office Party

Our producer Robin decided that there were enough new people on our show that didn't know each other and so she threw a party for us all to get to know one another. I've never been to a party in England before, and our office parties back in Redondo were usually barbecues. I wasn't sure what to expect, but decided I really wanted to meet some more people from the show, so I went.

It was at a bar/restaurant called Red Soho. We had the whole downstairs to ourselves. Robin paid for the bar and they served beer and wine. I walked up to the bartender, sounding very much like I knew what I was talking about and asked what kind of beer they had. He said,"Grolsch, Grolsch, Grolsch or Grolsch." I said,"I'll have one of those then." I really had no idea what I was going to choose if there were any choices, so that worked out perfect for me. I nursed that beer for about an hour and a half. They had a few finger snacks and that was it for refreshments.

On to the good stuff. I met a very nice guy who sits about three chairs from me by the name of Matt Bell. He's working on Aslan and Trufflehunter. He walked away from his desk for a few minutes this afternoon and his cell phone went off about three times. He has a very entertaining, upbeat song on his phone, but it's very loud. Some people got annoyed. Jacob emailed this picture to everyone on the FX team:

I talked to a number of guys who are in the Compositing Dept. They are all very talented guys who do amazing work, almost as good as William Furlong!

As usually happens at these kinds of gatherings, everyone hangs out with the people they usually hang out with. I was no exception, but I did try to meet some new people. There was one guy, Paul, who is the lead shader writer for the show, but his accent was so thick that I couldn't understand him much at all. He had a number of loud interesting stories to tell (apparently), so I listened and laughed when the other people did. Robin spent most of her time walking around, breaking up cliques and introducing people to each other.

One of my goals for the evening was to let Robin know how much I've enjoyed working for her these last few months. She's been pretty stressed out lately, and I wanted to let her know that from my perspective, she's been doing great. When I did get to tell her, I think she had a hard time holding back some tears. You know how it is when you're working really hard at something and it doesn't seem to be going well and you're still in the middle of it and it doesn't seem to be getting better any time soon and someone says anything nice and you just want to lose it? It seemed like that's where she was tonight. I'm praying for her big time.

When I got home, my whole family was fast asleep, at 9:30. Wow. I think that's a first.