RoboGames: The World's Greatest Minds and Their Robots

Saturday, June 14th. An "exhibition pier" at Fort Mason, in view of the Golden Gate Bridge. At first you might think it's an unassuming, low-hanging building. But no....

It's RoboGames, the biggest international robot competition. And it was AWESOME.

I honestly don't even know where to start. It was your quintessential nerd-fest. I saw more men with pony tails, Star Wars references (complete with home-made, fully functional/talking [?] R2D2s), "got robots?" stickers, and assured life-long virgins in that room that I thought humanly possible. I think one of the defining moments was during the Sumo Wrestling...with robots....when one of the Asian kids beat some white kid and pointed to his "Team Korea" patch on his track jacket. Only then did I realize that people literally traveled the world to be in this low-budg robot festival. And the people were hi-larious. You had your slutty goth girls, your mutton-chops sporting, wife beater wearing guys in their 30s, and then, of course, the swarm of pasty, gamers' body, bi-focal wearing tweens and teens. And it wasn't even a situation where you laugh at your surroundings. Moreso, it was the fact that these are the kids who get teased by the jocks and cheerleaders during school, but here they get to be the cool kid with the winning robot who has people cheering for them. I know it sounds corny, but it was heartening that these kids had a weekend where they weren't outcasts, but instead were among hundreds of their own.

But enough about that....on to the robots.

The highlight of the day, for me, was seeing the battles. There was the big plexiglass arena with bleachers all around it where the spectators could cheer on their robot of choice. There's nothing like cheering on a 340 pound piece of metal when it destroys another robot. My personal favorite was this lighter-weight one that had pointy clamps that SET THE OTHER ROBOT ON FIRE. Bad. Ass.

The little mini robot men that kind of looked like scaled down Optimus Primes that raced on this little board were also pretty sweet, especially the Korean one (of course) that started break dancing after it crossed the finish line.

The day continued into dinner at the Stinking Rose, a garlic-themed place that stanks you up from the inside out. It was delicious, and we met a kind of hilarious Dutch couple looking to "party hardy." Their words.

The night descended into seeing a TERRIBLE punk-ish band (think Fall Out Boy meets Good Charlotte/every other punk band from high school), complete with the requisite Asian lead singer and puffy, longer haired, glasses & sweater-vest wearing bass player. So good, and yet so bad. It was a solid day, one that we paid for on Sunday.

Note: the Dutch couple did not come to this concert...we sent them to the Mission.

RANT: Dunkin' Donuts doesn't exist here. All I wanted Sunday morning was a bacon egg & cheese on a croissant, with maybe a Dunkaccino or a Coolatta thrown in the mix. But NO! All people want here is stupid vegan scones with soy cheese and crumbled fake meat. FAIL.

I've wasted enough time at work. Expect more in the coming days.