• by Kelly Samardak , October 16, 2008

Ars Technica's 10th Anniversary Party, The Time Hotel, New York
October 15, 2008

With a name like "Ars Technica," you've GOT to be nerdy. Nerdy and funny because hey guess what, you can do a lot with "Ars." You bet your last recession-fueled economy bottom dollar that I suggested they change their tagline to reflect Ars humor -- it's what I do. Regardless, this company that began on the Web 10 years ago and has maintained a loyal nerd following for those 10 years has just joined The Man in his drive to take over the world. The man is CondéNet. I think we should all keep an eye on Ars Technica to see if they can keep it real or fade to beige.

The first person I ran into was Jenna Landry, a normal down-to-earth girl ready to usher me around to meet the big Ars people. At larger parties when I know I've got to hoof it around the whole place, I tend to get irked with PR types leading me around like my mom dragging me through DIY home centers when I was eight. But I needed it, man, I knew NOTHING about Ars Technica.

Want to know my experience with it? I had the Web page open on my Internet-accessing device and my IT nerd co-worker, Ryan Nation, walked by and gaped, "You're reading Ars Technica?!" You know, like "why aren't you looking at the Target circular instead?" I said "Yeah, I have an invitation from Tara Clark over at OMD for their 10th Anniversary party." "That's really nerdy stuff," said Ryan, settling into his still-plastic-wrapped chair. There was a chance I could win a helicopter ride, so I was in. Plus, I love nerdy stuff and I couldn't wait to meet the founders.

Jenna led me right into the easygoing, architect-glasses-wearing, spikey-hair-supporting Josh Stinchcomb, publisher of Ars Technica, Reddit, and Webmonkey as well as Associate Publisher for Wired.com. Josh is awesome. I have been saying awesome a lot, but October is the month of regular good humans. Awes..tober. Octawesome...ber. Whatever. Josh and I went back and forth with Ars Technica founder and Editor In Chief Ken Fisher on the novelty of new book smell and the feel of glossy mag pages between your fingers. As long as people still love that experience, mags and some newspapers are far from dead. Wired gets it; I mean, look at their diverse portfolio. Adding Ars Technica to the herd just expands on that. And Ken Fisher promises some big surprises along the way. Maybe they'll invent new book smell in a can to spray on your Kindle/BlackBerry/iPhone/face.

So I'm standing at the bar talking to Reddit founder, Steve Huffman, who by the way reminds me of this kid who I used to club over the head in 4th grade with my broken wrist cast. I can say that because Steve and I might both look like 4th graders today. We were admiring the hilarity of the naked stein contraptions that were snuggling with our Becks. Another one of those simple inventions, the wire frame stein gave you a shiny plastic handle to grip your beer with, keeping your frothy friend unwarmed by your sweaty mitts. Genius. Would have gotten the "pure genius" seal of approval had they been pewter.

But I digress. I look towards the end of the bar and see, what's his name... I've seen him before... Gary Galant from NewsGroper! I left Jenna and Steve to ponder Steve's fame and yukked it up with Gary and Bernie Davis, Associate Director, Online Content Distribution, Business Development at CondéNet. We all whipped out our mobile "stalk me on the move" devices and followed each other on Twitter. Bernie was cracking me up. He was just a little wobbly, but not offensive. "Cut me some slack, I've been drinking since noon!" he laughed.

We exited the bar, where I left my frothy friend half full, thinking ahead to the next party, and ran smack dab into a circle of CondéNet. And a good circle it was! Ted Nadeau, VP and General Manager, planted his super tailored but not afraid to laugh at my idiotic quips self with Sandor Marik, and Katie Ghelli.

Before heading out, I stumbled upon Julia Kaganskiy. She's an Editor over at Unigo, one of those "Oh! Duh!" communities where college kids AT the schools are rating their experience. Remember when you did your campus tour and the hacksackin' guide was all "choose the western campus, bro, it's full of heavy thinkers and love," while the other group had Skippy telling everyone to go Greek? Yeah, well get the real scoop from people who are living it, roll it up in a ball, get the average and make your choice. Great idea, implemented, not sat on. She, Brian Mitchell, who runs a company called "Exco Ventures" where he's a web consultant, and I gave each other deep-tissue brain massages, inventing data models for taking the mood temperature of the nation based on Facebook status and Twitter tweets at a given time of day. We're patenting it, so don't even try.

Cliff's notes: Ars Technica nerd herd: Yay! No food: Slight boo. Open bar and free Beck's with fun wireframe steins: Yay! Steve Huffman's baby face: Yay! The Time Hotel: yes! CondéNet big wigs NOT flexing snob muscles: Indeed! Omar from the Wire: Oh, indeed. After the Ars party, I hit Taj and became BFF with Treach from Naughty By Nature, not cuz I hatecha.

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