Field Report: What do Happy Hour, Dead Animals, Killer Music, and Booze have in common?

Ohmigawd! The craziest thing happened last night at the Natural History Museum. In addition to dead animals, killer music, booze, there was also HBs, hot dogs on a stick with fresh lemonade, dinosaur and other animal bone displays, short films, a pseudo boat, killer kids room, a sasquatch and did I mention the Tina Turner Twins?

A friend of mine, SunTzu (formerly known as Yakuza in this post), invited me to hang out at his friend's party on Saturday night. What I didn't know before showing up is that the party was a film festival and DJed party at the Natural History Museum hosted by Happy Hour 2.

I love film and the short films that were screened were hilarious, fun, and informative (in some instances). After the films were screened we got a live performance of "Proud Mary" by the Tina Turner Twins, complete with flying confetti. And at the end a big sasquatch came out (if you know me than you know, I have a recent affinity for big things...so that part made me happy).

After the film screening and before that party, we stopped off at a conveniently located Hot Dog on a Stick stand. We were both hungry. I remember seeing a segment on the Food Network about this company. They make the display of dipping the dogs in the batter right in front of customers and the lemonade is made fresh every 2 hours. SunTzu was astonished at how fast I scarfed down my dog but I was hungry. Can you blame me?

SunTzu is a newbie in the community and the goal for the night was to talk to as many people as possible; I was his social proof for the evening. We ended up opening several sets of HBs with situational openers about the museum and films. It was fun.

Once inside SunTzu needed a drink and I opened a 3 set (2m&1f), we'll call her HBAsiangirl. The two males quickly left and SunTzu joined us. I DHVed for SunTzu but it was loud in the bar room. So we wondered around the museum checking out all the other cool rooms and displays.

SunTzu opened a two set while he was waiting for me when I was in the bathroom. We saw them again after that but his reopen was a little awkward and the room we were in stunk so bad because it had a bunch of animal bone displays in it. Needless to say, the room wasn't a target rich environment.

There was a kids room with a cool theater seating arrangement. It resembled rolling grassy hills. There were tons of cool dead animals displayed around the room. Which was great for photo opportunities; too bad I forgot my camera at home. However, I opened a mixed 2 set with a photo opportunity.

The other cool room had a large pseudo boat in it with the illusion of water, working telescopes, moving steering wheel and other semi-functional parts. That room had displays of (stuffed) animals in recreations of their natural environment. The gorilla was the best (do you see a reoccurring theme with my fascination of big hairy beasts?)

I opened a 2set by offering to take their photo of them in front of the elephant display. HBAustria was cool and friendly but her friend had to go, so they left quickly. HBAustria said she'd see us later but we never ran into her again.

Then of course there were big HUGE dinosaurs and other large sea animal displays in several of the rooms. My favorite was the Savage Ancient Seas room. There were some gnarly big fossils of some (none dinosaurs) bones. There was a hesperornis regalis (marine bird), a clidastes propython (marine lizard), amongst others.

I opened a few sets in the large display lobby before moving back into the boat room where we opened our last set. The last girl we opened was HB9 (in my opinion), we'll call her HBRussian. She was fun and played along with our musings until her friend (presumably her date), we'll call him AMOG Rings. Because he had two rings on. One was a watch band turned into a ring. I mentioned to him the site JustMetal for men's rings.

SunTzu commented that wearing a ring on the middle finger means he's a partier (from a ring routine). I hadn't read that routine before and it was cool. AMOG Rings got antsy and started displaying his alpha behavior very quickly. So we moved on.

Afterwards we debriefed shortly. And I ended up giving SunTzu some advice on the #close he got on Friday. The advice I gave him mostly came from the free chapter from Magic Bullets.
He wanted to call and ask her what she did after she left the bar Friday (he called it a "time bridge" but I don't think that's the correct way to use that term) and he wanted to tell her about some "man drama"/Alpha issues that occurred after she left.

I thought that was a REALLY bad idea to start off the conversation. I tried to convince him that it would be much better to start the conversation with "You'll never believe what I did at the Natural History Museum last night".

Amongst some of the reasons I gave him were: It shows he has an exciting life; She's a art instructor, she'll be interested in museum stuff; He can use a slight jealousy plot line by mentioning he went with a friend and then saying 'she' once or twice in reference to his friend (me); She might wonder why he didn't invite her; and it will start the conversation off on a high energy/positive level. I think he realized that my advice was better than what he was going to do.

I also told him to plan what he was going to say first, to get pumped up before calling, and to call me to practice if he needed. I also suggested that if he was going to invite her to the Getty Museum next weekend he should DHV by telling her "I am going to the Getty Saturday afternoon with a friend, Do you want to tag along?" If she says, "yes". Than on Saturday he can tell her that his friend had a photo shoot to do at the last minute and couldn't make it. If she can't make it or says, "No" at least she'll know his life doesn't revolve around her.

All in all it was a very interesting night, I had a blast, and the girls we talked to were very international.