True story: w00tstock was born because we wanted to schedule a few dates in California; but not having toured out there on our own (without the protective sheath of Jonathan Coulton‘s fanbase to bolster the crowds), we weren’t sure how strong the attendance would be. So we called the two most famous California-based geeks we knew, Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage, in the hopes that one of them might be interested in performing with us.

Then they BOTH said yes. Without hesitation. And they had some “ideas”.

Things snowballed quickly, with everyone’s enthusiasm and input combining to evolve into the “w00tstock” concept: a full evening of entertainment celebrating all things geek.

A strict, thorough chronology isn’t really possible—well, sure, it’s *possible*; we’re just too damn sleep-deprived to coherently reconstruct the timeline—and also, plenty of evidence is showing up on the Intertubes, including pictures, video and blog posts. So we’ll just list various highlights from the whirlwind that was this past Monday through Wednesday…

• Watching people’s faces (including Wil’s) as they heard Kid Beyond do his incredible beatbox/live-looping for the first time.
• The wave of incredulity that passed through the gang backstage after people who had been working with and admiring Molly Lewis for three days finally learned that she is just nineteen years old.
• Seeing screenwriter Josh Cagan, whom most of the crowd in L.A. had never heard of, completely win over the audience by minutely breaking down 30 horrible seconds from the Roger Corman version of Fantastic Four.
• Kasper Hauser‘s dramatic reading of their ongoing correspondence with a 419 scammer–a sketch that is even funnier, we discovered, with accompanying PowerPoint slides.
• Finally getting to see Hard ‘n Phirm perform live, and thus more fully understanding why we hate them so goddamn much (i.e. because they are awesome and hilarious)
• Jeff Lewis KILLING IT doing “World of Warcraft” standup as his character Vork (from “The Guild“)
• Jamming on an acoustic version of “(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar” with Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh and Jeff Lewis
• The pure joy of being onstage with Wil & Adam at the end of each evening as they joined us in increasingly-epic versions of “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament”—culminating on Wednesday night with a 15+-minute “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” of fake cover band names and “R”-based pun one-upsmanship.

And last but probably most of all, getting to see so many geeks and nerds in one place enjoying the whole production as much as we enjoyed putting it together, extended by the love-fest meet and greet afterwards. Thank you all.

Finally, we make you this promise: there will be a w00tstock 2.x.

We’d heard about Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) several years ago, thanks to various friends of ours who had been there. For the uninitiated, PAX is a gaming convention in Seattle, WA started in 2004 by the creators of Penny Arcade (a webcomic of which—though we would never admit so publicly—we only understand about 50% of the jokes). This year, they decided for some silly reason to invite us to perform. Never ones to say “no” to a free hotel room, we eagerly accepted before they could change their minds.

Most of Thursday was spent on logistics: we got into town that afternoon, went to pick up the approximately 8,000,000,006 boxes of merch Coulton and we had pre-shipped to Seattle (many thanks to our friend Doug for letting us fill his garage with all our crap), transported it all to the convention center, went back to the airport to retrieve Coulton, and finally settled in for some late drinks with various cool and/or famous friends (Wil Wheaton, MC Frontalot, several folks form The Guild, and a bunch of our Harmonix pals)

Friday morning, we headed back to the convention center, and got our first taste of the true scale of things…

Most of Friday was split between sitting at our merch booth (which, thanks to the help of our merch volunteer army, ran like clockwork) and visiting the exhibition hall and previewing neato new games. Also, there was a sound check for our one-song guest stint later that evening with MC Frontalot, which included the aforementioned Wil Wheaton and his fake guitar…

Man, that guy was everywhere this weekend.

So anyway, things chugged along at a reasonable pace for most of the weekend. (Other than Storm being a little sick on Friday afternoon) That is, until the Saturday night concert…

We have to be careful with our adjectives here, so as not to fall into hyperbole. So attempting to discuss the concert objectively and dispassionately, we can only describe it as the most awesomely super-awesome thing ever, sitting on top of a pile of awesomeness. With awesome sauce. And more awesome sauce on the side, for dipping.

Before we even got started, the Ubiquitous Wheaton started things off with a tribute to Coulton:

…and then we stepped out into a veritable ocean of geek love with ~6,000 hyped-up people primed to have a good time. Much of the rest was a blur of lights, panties and “w00t”s and the occasional *squee*; suffice to say that we felt like real, full-on, honest-to-[deity] rock stars. Luckily, folks have recorded it for posterity, and video is starting to trickle onto the netterwebs. We do know that, at some point, our set ended and Jonathan Coulton went on stage and powneded as usual, with our old friend/enemy Molly joining the party; and somewhere along the way, we think we sang a song to Wil Wheaton (who apparently hadn’t had enough attention drawn to him yet)…

After the show, and then all day Sunday, we sat at our merch table and signed, signed, signed. We sure did sign! Boy, did we sign! We met hundreds of new friends, sold a lot of our crap quality merchandise, and generally cruised through the day with big, fat shit-eating grins. Once we closed up shop, we had time for one last quick meal with our “Guild”/”Legend of Neil” friends…

And then it was time to box everything up, head back to the hotel, and sleep for 3.5 hours before our pre-morning flights. (And then for Paul to be sick the next day. Fortunes of war.)

We cannot thank everyone enough—from Mike, Jerry and Robert in “management” to all the awesome Enforcers who unquestioningly did our bidding, to all the fans, both established and new—for making us feel so…well, let’s just say it: for making us feel so darn special this past weekend. If we could, we would do this to each and every one of you:

- Great crowds. Not that we don’t love all our crowds equally (of course we do!), but it’s so nice to know that there’s a whole other nation stocked with twisted minds.

- POUTINE! Several heaping helpings were enjoyed at Smokes in Toronto. If someone asks if you’d like the double pork, you say YES. And if they ever open in our home towns, we will go ahead and make reservations at our local cardiac wards.

- Felted Paul and Storm. Not inherently or iconically Canadian per se, but produced there by fan/merchtrix Zoe. Epic detailing!

- Robot Pirate and Nun by Robot a Day. Felted Paul and Storm came nested inside of these ingenious little vinyl critters.

Hope to see you again soon!

Also, big thanks to the many fine folks at Harmonix, who allowed us to eat some of their pizza, tour the offices, see a frickin’ laser, and screw around on Rock Band 2 for a couple hours Friday afternoon. A big bunch of them came to our show that night, which was cool, even if they did shout out a terrible request or two. You are forgiven, Harmonixites; everything’s gonna be fine, fine, fine.

On the "virtual love" track, we got some blog notice this week from Neatorama and Crooks and Liars. Hi, guys!

It bears repeating: Dana Snyder is the life of the party, and the party starts wherever Dana happens to be.

Most popular costume of the weekend seemed to be Dark Knight Joker. But at least one person appears to have come dressed as Storm (see left).

Ken "Plumey" Plume’s Saturday night film fest is reason enough to come to D*C. Obscure Monty Python productions, vintage GI Joe segments, Action Jackson action figure commercials, Dark Place, and I Hanker For a Hunk of Cheese, just to name a few. And they’re all even better when watched along with 300 or so fellow geeks. Click here to see a picture of those who made it all the way to the end (roughly 4 am).

We got some hang time with Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff from Cinematic Titanic, and formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000. That’s not particularly interesting, necessarily; we just wanted to drop those names like we’re so damn cool.

Sunday afternoon’s "Nuts on the Road" British-style panel/quiz show was a brilliantly entertaining trainwreck experience. Doc Hammer has no "off" button, and it’s a beautiful thing. Paul’s team (Paul, John "Widgett" Robinson and Robert Llewellyn) lost spectacularly to Storm’s team (Storm, Doc and Dana Snyder), though Paul and Widge are currently completing the paperwork to institute a mandatory recount. By the way, does anyone have video of the whole panel? We only got the last 30 minutes or so, and would love to get  copy of the first half.

And now, we are afraid we must report some very sad news…the audience at our Saturday concert shattered the record for thrown panties (which, oddly enough, had been held by Atlanta), with 30 pairs. Unfortunately, when packing up that night, we neglected to take them with us. By the time we realized our mistake, the panties had disappeared. We believe they were either thrown out, or are sitting in the bedroom of one very lucky Hyatt hotel worker somewhere. Double-unfortunately, this also means that we didn’t get a chance to catalog them for the Gallery of Thrown Panties. This makes us very sad, especially since many/most of them appeared to have personalized messages. Luckily, we have found a reasonable facsimile of them (see right).

 In all, a completely enjoyable experience. Huge thanks to our "patrons," Ken Plume of Quick Stop Entertainment and "Widgett" Walls of Needcoffee.com. Thanks, guys, for sheperding us through the Valley of the Shadow of Geeks, coming out safely (if extremely tired) on the other side.

And then, of course, the Highline Ballroom show was…well, what can one say except "The Kristen Shirts Ukulele Army?" Another full house, and we think we’ve found our new home in NYC for a while. Videos are popping up on the YouTubes already (find some links here), though they can’t quite capture the majesty of seven ukulelists on one stage.

Bonus: on the drive on Saturday, Paul found this, easily the greatest $6 sculpture ever, at a local drug store (see left).

Thurs. 5/15 – Phoenix
- Whatever chemicals are in the air there, they appear to facilitate broken guitar strings.
- We discover the Carl’s Jr. Cap’n Crunch Shake. 35g of fat, 79g of sugar, 16 oz. of heaven.

Fri., 5/16 – Bakersfield
- Anne Kelly on 96.5 The Fox joins the short list of the sweetest people in radio.
- The birth of our morning zoo radio duo alter-ego, Dunderhead and The Skeeter.
- Starla’s panties.

Sat., 5/17 – San Diego
- Did we mention the show was hot and crowded?
- Celebrity Guest Robot Voice Bill Corbett (from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax).
- "Awesome" is redefined by this fan creation/tribute to Nugget Man Dr. Baker (thank you, JadeSnake!), complete with handmade plush nuggets*.

Sun., 5/18 – Los Angeles
- Cuban food. [Homer Simpson drool sound]
- We extort free shirts from Jesse Thorn. And wear them.
- Those of you troubled by the nudity, our apologies. Everyone else, thanks a million.

All in all, a trip that was totally gear.

*"Handmade Plush Nuggets" is the name of our emo band.

Also, Jonathan left his face in Paul’s daughter’s pin art. (See above left)


Oh, and it turns out that the three of us make a terrible rock band.

But otherwise, a successful showing all around!

And Atlanta…what can we possibly say? Not only did you set a new panty-throwing record (Eleven! Eleven* glorious panties! Ah ah ah ah ah ah!); not only did you refuse to let the pirate zombies be ignored; but you also..well, maybe it’s better if we just show you:

These Atlanta superfans made an "ARRR" sign (with punctuation!?) for "The Captain’s Wife’s Lament"; and they also made a nearly-full-size cardboard coffin in honor of Dr. Robert C. Baker and our song "Nugget Man". Now that’s dedication. (Although, if they’d been really listening to the lyrics, they would have known that it’s "small cardboard coffins." A for effort though, guys!)

*these now go to eleven

Also, great big thanks to everyone working at the Con, and especially the Great Luke Ski, who’d been telling us for years how much fun it was and how great the crowds were. Right on both counts, Mr. Ski–we salute you for your persistence!

Side note: special thanks to Sharon (not that Sharon) for turning us on to Jun Bo for dim sum–as good as we’ve had anywhere!

Trip highlights:

- Paul successfully negotiating snowy mountain passes in a Kia minivan.
- Carnitas at Zocalo in Sacramento.
- Storm managing to make it through two sold-out shows on Friday night despite a voice that made him sound like Bonnie Tyler.
- Yummy steaks at Medford’s Regency Grill.
- Talking with several stalwarts from the Coulton Nation who traveled a great distance for the shows.
- The super-rowdy crowd Saturday night in Chico.
- Watching Cloverfield (two thumbs up, btw) without hurling.

Big thanks also for all of the great support we had from Redding Rock 106X, KBOY, and KFM Radio Chico,  who made us feel like the rock stars that we occasionally imagine ourselves to be (which is somewhere between Mick Jagger and Dennis DeYoung), and to Dick Stein (the promoter, and all-around mensch) for making the trip possible.

A few random thoughts from the trip:

• Tim Cavanagh is, without question, the Nicest Man in Comedy.
• Wisconsin Rapids smells kinda like a brown paper bag, but we loved it just the same. Next time, though, try to not have so much snow.
• Sometimes venues have awesome food.
• If Neil Gaiman were a comedian, he might steal the title from Tim Cav.
• The Majestic Theater in Madison is an awesome venue, and has one more red Sharpie stuck up in the backstage rafters than it had before we got there. (Sorry, JoCo!)
• ALWAYS stop at a "Cheese Chalet" if it has a gigantic fiberglass cow in the parking lot.
• Two shows in Chicago = crazy night. Show #1 had Emily (of YouTubes fame) doing the Code Monkey Dance on stage next to us, which was too surreal/awesome for words. Show #2 was, for whatever reason, one of the strangest in recent memory. Jonathan aptly described it as a "coked-up, poo-flinging monkey of an opening set." All this, plus a drop-in from the Great Luke Ski.
• At this point, we (us & JoCo) have a lot of emo bands on the side.
• We also, for a short time in St. Louis, became a wedding band, called InfuZion. (Can’t you just see the name printed on the bass drum?)
• The three of us have decided that, should our current acts, the emo bands and InfuZion all not work out, we’re going to start a band called the Deaf Tones, and we’ll sing tone-deaf covers of the Eagles, Beatles, Beach Boys, and many other ’60s & ’70s songs with rich vocal harmonies. Practicing these in the tour van gave us more hours of laughter than grown men should be allowed.

Anyway, thank you, everyone, for some of the dynamic shows ever being gave. See you in 2008!

But not two-week-long tours. That part kinda sucked. Too damn long away from home. I guess it just means we’ll have to cocentrate our rocking into long weekends and such.

Lengthy plane rides tomorrow (today, technically speaking) for everyone. G’night!