Today, a few of us from the office went out to lunch at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant. We tossed various ingredients into our bowls and waited for the cook. Before he took our food and placed it on the doughnut-shaped stovetop, my friends from work told me about the big gong. “Since this is your first time here, you have to bang the gong!” they exclaimed. I shrugged, walked over to large, circular musical instrument, picked up the gong stick, and hit the gong a bit off-center. It made a really loud sound.

When the guy behind the counter finished roasting our chosen edibles on the large, flat ring of a metal stove, we walked over to the table selected for us by the hostess.

All four of us began eating as the waitress kept bringing glass after glass after glass filled with either water, tea, or ice cubes. It was rather amusing. Four people and something like twelve glasses full of stuff on the table.

We continued eating and couldn’t help but overhear a large crowd at the table directly behind us talk about topics which included: Linux, Debian, Red Hat, and digital music (mp3s and oggs). All four of us at the table silently grinned at each other as we ate our meals. I was quite a peculiar experience especially around the moment I heard the group talking about “Bluecurve”, the family of themes I designed for Red Hat.

We just wanted a nice, calm lunch, so we decided to talk mostly about things other than computers and work.

It was definitely a worthwhile meal full of nice conversations, good food, a loud gong, and some unexpected eavesdropping.