tuftears | Company Xmas 2019

This year the company holiday party was to be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View... Which is almost literally 5 minutes away from my house, so I really had no excuse not to go. So off we go...

Behold... TEH FUTURE! It's all misty and you can't see what lies beyond? YEAH, KID, IT'S THE FUTURE.

The exhibits were all on the first floor, with the party being on the second floor. I went to browse the exhibits first, since it was still somewhat early.

In an exhibit dedicated to current trends on the Intarwebz, it's not surprising Blizzard got front-and-center attention. I think the first is a Protoss warrior, and you don't need me to identify the orc in the second.

This dummy seems blase about its impending fate.

We've killed enough time, let's head upstairs and check out the food!

A random selection of meat and cheese. Nothing all that unusual. I wasn't brave enough to sample the warmed brie though. Maybe one of these years.

The food was split across several stage areas each with its own attractions. Here's one of the stage.

Apparently you take one of these cups, shake it up to distribute the ingredients inside, which may have settled at some point, then take the lid off and dig in. It's "dry" ramen-- that is, there's no broth, just noodles and toppings. That said, the pork belly ramen was very tasty!

I mentioned the attractions, right? This was one-- a set of cubicles where you could try on VR headsets. One was the infamous 'fruit chopping' demo.

They had Impossible Beef burgers as well as the bison. I went for the bison, but IMO the sliders weren't very good-- too dry, and the bun was a little too hard to match up well.

This is one of my co-workers! Evidently about to ascend to become One with the Light.

Proof I actually went to a party with co-workers, rather than just randomly crashing a party. Not that I would ever do the latter. (looks sanctimonious)

This was, hands down, the best food of the various offerings. Super-tender beef shortribs and mashed potatoes. Yum!

On to the dessert offerings! Here we have waffles with a variety of fruits for topping, and of course, whipped cream.

The big thing about the donut holes evidently was that they were being made fresh, and you just gommed up some toppings from a nearby table, poured it in, then shook the bag up and nommed the freshly coated donut holes. Not bad, but not great. Might have been a better bet to sprinkle some of these on the waffles.

This was an eyecatcher for sure: they were spinning cotton candy onto light-up sticks. ANIMATED light-up sticks, so the colors would pulse and flicker.

Done with the various food offerings, I went to check out the other exhibit. I've been to the Computer History Museum so most of the exhibits were pretty much the same, but I figured I'd take a few pictures of the most interesting bits.