Reba and Oliver – Bingeing on Awesomeness
Reba and Oliver
Reba and Oliver have been my most egregious omission as pizza guests. I knew Reba in college, and really like spending time with her and Oliver, although we never hang out as much as we should. They invited me to stuff, and while I always said “we should get pizza”, I didn’t really make it happen until recently.
They are both awesome. I went to college with Reba, who is a grad student in something related to neuroscience at UT. Oliver is a computer guy who works in IT at UT. But they’re both way more interesting than that.
I recently came across a pair of possum nipple warmers/pasties that had bought for Erin (she didn’t want them). I knew Reba would love them, and I was right. She’s like that. And Oliver hustled Dr. Dre! Seriously!
Oliver and his friend made an iPhone app and website called bandloop (incidentally, this video mocking iPhone users is HILARIOUS) that allows users to keep track of when their favorite bands come to town. Dr. Dre’s people made one afterward that did similar stuff, and then noticed Oliver’s app. Dr. Dre’s lawyers wrote Oliver and wanted $$$ for copyright violations, but when Oliver pointed out that his came first, he got Dre’s lawyers to pay HIM! For all Dr. Dre’s bluster about hustlin’ fools, he certainly got hustled by a guy whose mind isn’t on his money, and whose money isn’t on his mind. Sucka!
Oliver comes from New Haven, so he knows pizza. He was pretty excited about the clam pie, but we talked him out of it. We got a pizza with kalamata olives, broccoli, fried eggplant, garlic and tomatoes, with basil and anchovies on half. Reba and Oliver dutifully picked up the pitchers of beer, which were most appreciated.
They are devotees of Burning Man, Baconwood and other gatherings of the art, silliness, science, music and mayhem. They turned me on to Tornado Rider, the most crazy/ridiculous band ever, and they are personally friends with The Falcon himself.
Oliver and Reba are some of the few people I know in Austin who have moved from elsewhere and don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. They get very wistful when talking about SF, where they (and we) used to live. Reba is on the academic/research track, which means that her career will most likely take her to wherever the universities are hiring, which could as easily be Alabama as Seattle. They’ve sorta made their peace with that, and even though they complain about Austin, they don’t hate it.
Speaking of things they don’t hate: Home Slice Pizza. In fact, they love it. They are prone to binges of awesomeness, and this was one of them. Afterward, they came back to our apt to try some homebrews (my most recent batch is a ginger hibiscus saison) and to take our deep fryer, which we don’t use enough. I have a feeling that they’ll treat it better with more love and use than we did.
Cost: $27.50
Total this year: $1,171
