Bite me, Coldie. You owe me poster from the Amsterdam torture museum. First trip to the U.S. and you’re going to California? I got news for ya, most of America doesn’t consider California part of the United States. We’d rather have Canada than California. It’s kinda like France ain’t really part of Europe.
Sure, UncleBeer. Then it’s agreed. If you all don’t want us, we hardly need you. If we were an independent country, we’d be the fifth-wealthiest in the world. The rest of you bozos in the East (that’s everywhere, if you’re sitting where I’m sitting) are just dragging us down anyway.
Silver, you’re very right about that whole “crashing into the Bay” thing. I don’t know how many times I have flown into SFO, and it still freaks me out. Anyway, welcome to the Bay, and see you soon!
I won’t be online again before Friday, so just checking in to say thanks to Shayna for being so organised and I can’t wait to see you all. Yay!
Coldie, thank you so much for helping me try to keep a handle on the organizing. You are such a doll. And so diplomatic. 
I just phoned the restaurant to ask them at what point they will absolutely refuse to accomodate any more people. I told them we were at around 56-57 people right now and I wanted to have a finite number after which point we will have to say “I’m sorry, you can’t come, we’re all booked up.” He was kind enough to let us let the party grow to a maximum of 60 people.
As of right now we have 60 people for Saturday night. Therefore, I’m afraid to say that if your name isn’t on the list below already and you want to take part in the Saturday night activities, we’ll have to meet up with you after dinner.
The final, official attendee list for El Torito on Saturday night is:
[list=1]
[li]Anamorphic[/li][li]beatle[/li][li]boli[/li][li]Caldazar[/li][li]Coldfire[/li][li]Cowboy Greg[/li][li]& Hubby[/li][li]Dave Swaney[/li][li]Demo[/li][li]Diane[/li][li]domina[/li][li]Doobieous[/li][li]Esprix[/li][li]& guest[/li][li]Francesca[/li][li]& Mr. Fran[/li][li]Heloise[/li][li]Icarus[/li][li]jab1[/li][li]JavaMaven1[/li][li]JimB[/li][li]Joey Hemlock[/li][li]Johnny L.A.[/li][li]JustPlainBryan[/li][li]katiekilldare[/li][li]Kyla[/li][li]malkavia[/li][li]& guest[/li][li]& guest[/li][li]Manservant Hecubus[/li][li]Mauvaise[/li][li]Mercutio[/li][li]Monster104[/li][li]Nen[/li][li]Nymysys[/li][li]Padeye[/li][li]Phouka[/li][li]porcupine[/li][li]pricciar[/li][li]psycat[/li][li]quixotic78[/li][li]Sapphire Bullet[/li][li]Sassy[/li][li]Scotticher[/li][li]SeaDiver[/li][li]Shayna[/li][li]Silo - banned[/li][li]Silver Fire[/li][li]slackergirl[/li][li]Spiny Norman[/li][li]SPOOFE[/li][li]Strainger[/li][li]Sue Duhnym[/li][li]thinksnow[/li][li]Tretiak[/li][li]UncleBill[/li][li]warmgum[/li][li]weirddave[/li][li]Wicked Blue[/li][li]woodstockbirdybird [/list=1][/li]___________________
I really appreciate your consideration in avoiding stepping on my penis - Spiny Norman
[sym][sub][sup]©[/sup][/sub][/sym] Jeg elsker dig, Thomas [sym][sub][sup]©[/sup][/sub][/sym]
I probably won’t even be coming, but I thought I’d weigh in anyway regarding the issues with the El Torito: isn’t the reservation terribly early? It isn’t as though the restaurant is packed at that hour. And a reservation is merely a the restauarants guarantee of a table, it isn’t as though if more people show up and identify with the group they will * tell them to leave! * They are just saying that a table may not be availalable immediately.
Really, Coldie, I wouldn’t worry. As long as people are ordering food and alcohol, the restaurant will certainly be happy to accomodate. It’s only when people take up space for hours without buying anything or tipping properly that restaurants become unhappy.
I thought the last Dopefest at the El Torito was bad, but that’s going to be an awfully big table! :eek:
Esprix
Stoid, that’s nice in theory, but in reality this restaurant doesn’t even take reservations on the weekends and did us a HUGE favor by even allowing it in the first place, let alone for such a large group. And yes, we agreed to come a little early because of that - at 6:00PM.
But I don’t want to take advantage of their kindness in accomodating us by just showing up with 70 people when we only made a reservation for 50.
So I got him to agree to let us increase our party size to 60. I think that’s fair under the circumstances.
I hope no one’s feelings are hurt because we have to have a limit somewhere. Perhaps if there are any local Dopers who find themselves unable to make it, they’ll be courteous enough to post that here so we’ll know we have room for more, if anyone else does want to come.
I’m doing my best with organizing this thing and trying to accomodate everyone. I hope you’ll all bear with me and understand.
Woo hoo! I’m #1, I’m #1!
Well, alphabetically, anyway. I’ll take it anyway I can.
Shayna, thanks for all your hard work. Can’t wait to meet everyone!
Hey. I will be happy to give up my slot at El Torito to whoever needs it. I can get some dinner elsewhere, and meet up with everyone afterwards.
pat
Are Ruffian and DeathLlama still coming? I don’t see them on the list.
I’m off to make namebadges now.
Esprix
pricciar, you’re on the list, hon, so no worries. But thank you for offering - that was very thoughtful of you.
Esprix - Ruffian and DeathLlama are coming Friday night only, so no worries there, either. That’s why you don’t see them on the list - it’s just the list for Saturday night dinner. Anyone who wants to join us for any other activity throughout the weekend is more than welcome.
I’m also more than willing to give up my seat at the table(s). I’m fairly sure I won’t be eating dinner at the restaurant, nor do I drink, so I won’t be generating any money. I’ll be glad to meet up after
Let me know.
Damn you good, woman!
Esprix
I’ll give up mine, too. I’m not trying to step on toes one way or the other, truly, but if there are stragglers, I’d be honoured to sit over at the bar and greet my court as they arrive. 
Who eats when there’s booze around anyway?
Again, I’m NOT trying to make things more difficult, I just don’t want anyone to be discouraged from showing up, either.
I just want to suggest something about the dinner so everyone will be thinking about it.
Coming from a former waitress, can we please make sure we tip the servers well? When everyone is tossing money into a pile, oftentimes tips fall short.
I’m assuming that they’re basically going to give us a section of the restaurant and dedicate three servers to us. Because we’ll probably be there three of four hours, we’ll be there through the dinner rush and the servers taking care of us will most likely be sent home after they are done with our party. That means that they’ll possibly get some tables before us, but our tips will be the only money they make for the night.
They’ll add a tip to the tab, of course, but they will be running their asses off for us…think about how difficult it is to get 60 meals out at one time! I think we need to make sure that we go above and beyond the 15% gratuity here.
Unless they’re assholes, of course.
Sue, I wouldn’t think we would have to worry about tipping. Based on all the dopefests I’ve been to (especially the last one in California, and the last few in Chicago), the servers get tipped extremely well. Way above and beyond the standard that’s included in the bill, and they leave LOVING our group. I guess it never hurts to remind people, though.
Sue, the last time we had our dopefest at El Torito, they did an excellent job taking care of our party - that’s one of the reasons I thought of going there again. And when everyone was done throwing their money in, the server(s) ended up with at least a 25% tip. As I recall, we also “over” tipped at all our meals at SLOFest, too. So I’m sure we’ll be ok.
But you’re right - 60 people is a LOT of people to serve (last time we thought our group was big and we only had 23!). And they will be working their butts off for us, so it’s good to be mindful of making sure we tip them well.
And if your name’s on the list, knock it off with the giving up your seat thing. We aren’t trying to exclude anyone who’s already said they’re coming. It’s already Wednesday - 3 days before the event - and this party has been in the planning for over a month. If people really wanted to come, they’ve had plenty of opportunity to commit by now.
Shayna,
You have done a truly monumental job of organizing this event, kudos, kudos, kudos. That being said, don’t worry too much about this number of folks at dinner thing. Like Sue, I have years of experience in resturants and banquet halls. If this is not a pre ordered dinner ( like a banquet ), if 65 show up they’ll most likely just pull another table and 5 more chairs over, NBD.
See y’all Friday!
Put me, tentatively, on the list. I’ll plan to eat dinner somewhere else.
Heck, I live less than 10 miles from the Redondo Beach Fisherman’s Wharf; I used to work there.
Since I won’t need to go to that hotel (I’d probably only be able to come on Saturday), how do I get in touch?
Here’s my e-mail address if that will help: montgomerydou55@hotmail.com