A dinner story

Driving home from a long day in Cleveland, I was musing about where to eat, when I found myself in front of "Cleveland's Best Pizza" again - Geraci's. I don't recall making the conscious decision to go here, and it is not exactly on the way home... but it seemed it was what the body required.

The place was packed and I was parked at a table that had around 3 inches from the tables on either side - this was a slightly expanded 6-top, accommodating 3 separate parties. I opened the iPad, and was launched into "demo mode" for everyone around me, including the owner of the restaurant, the waiter, and my four dinner companions.

On my right was a couple who were on their way back from visiting family in Wisconsin, on the way to Albany, and they're from Cleveland originally, so they always stop for food. This was their first visit to Geraci's and they were thrilled. The guy had been using Apples since the 1980s, so we compared pedigrees (you had that? I had this). The wife was the iMac user.

On my left was a pair of guys about my age were were clearly "on the spectrum" of autism: One was a hummer/mumbler who didn't engage with me directly, but chimed in "yeps" to agree with his friend, who was the talker. There the talk was about vintage TV shows, which started with how you get onto the web with the iPad, then his favorite website (TVshowsonDVD.com) then about the injustices of old shows in syndication on TVLand cutting out footage to allow for more ads, to the continuing and scandalous unavailability of the 1960s Batman shows in their entirety on DVD.

These guys were autograph hounds too, and had a story about meeting Frank Gorshin (the Riddler) as well as Mrs Kravitz from Bewitched (Must have been Sandra Gould from seasons 3-7, since Alice Pearce from seasons 1-2 died in the 1960s). In a 4 year period they went to LA and NYC 50 times for autograph conventions. They only like the old shows - the latest they liked was "One Day At a Time" - which they can't believe they've released only ONE season of on DVD???

Punctuated throughout, the restaurant owner kept siding up asking about how movies would work on the iPad... or can it do a spreadsheet.... how do you type on it.... etc. Every time, i did Steve Jobs proud with a full demo.

It didn't translate into a free meal, however. Just in case you were wondering. No, this was total public service geeking going on here.

And I loved it.