No convention has a rave. That would be bad, because raves are totally only about drug-induced insanity, crazy dancing, and generally unacceptable tomfoolery. Dang kids!

However, every convention has an “informal dance party” that involves glowy things, blacklights, strobe lights, darkness, techno / trance music and a dance floor.

But that’s totally not a rave. Nope.

So, I was psyched to go. Partying with convention people is always one of the high points to a weekend like this, since everyone lets their hair down and goes a bit crazy – you get to see the uncensored and unleashed side of nerds… nerds who’re going all out to make up for the many times that they stay demure and mature.

Keeping that in mind, it was no surprise to me that Daniel and I started making friends as soon as we got in line to get into the ballroom. We started out just chatting with some random guys in line near us, but soon enough I had a posse of severely intoxicated ladies helping me try to convince Daniel to take off his shirt and paint himself with glowsticks.

And that… that was when I met “Trippy McRaver”, an impressively drunk/stoned/high girl who looked far too young to be drinking from anything besides her parents liquor cabinet. But man, was this girl hysterical – she kept trying to tell this one Cowboy Bebop joke, but was never able to keep her mind on one track long enough to finish it. At one point she literally stopped, mid-sentence, and started trying to steal my hair.

With Trippy keeping us entertained the line went supre-quick, and soon enough we were all dancing and rocking out in the middle of the dance floor, kicking it to the geekiest dance-mix I’ve ever heard. Seriously, they were mixing Usher with the Legend of Zelda theme, and pooling random pop with the original Contra soundtrack. It was excellent, and I found myself dancing with tons of random fun people, and participating in more conga lines that any man has a right to participate in.

As the night went on I chilled with a few groups of people, even meeting back up with Trippy once or twice for a brain-addled run through the crowd. I believe we were looking for lost treasure at least once, and for her lost soul another time.

But honestly, the night started to get a bit repetitive as it wore on. The music, while good, was very genre-specific… and while that can be cool, and the DJs were quite good, the music ran into itself after a few hours. So after once last adventure with Trippy and a final goodbye conga, Daniel and I headed back to the room to prep for our presentation the next afternoon.