Okay, not really. We ate better than the firemen of yore.

Last nite was my old friend Edgar’s birthday dinner at Engine Co. No. 28, which is an authentic Los Angeles firehouse station turned restaurant. The food is pretty good, classic American like burgers, meatloaf, grilled salmon, sandwiches. The spicy corn chowder was great. However, the atmosphere of the restaurant was surprisingly upscale. Altho they didn’t appear to have a dress code as most people wore jeans, the ambiance was more formal, less fun. They did have an authentic brass fire pole toward the back of the restaurant, however. Mr. W, who had read up on the restaurant beforehand, informed me that the place was built to house horse-drawn fire engines, altho by the time they had finished building, the motorized trucks had come into vogue so the garage never actually had horses in it.

Throughout the evening, people pulled out their various digital cameras to take photos of the restaurant, food and 20 guests. Edgar’s cousin, next to me, took Edgar’s camera so that he and his girlfriend could be in some of the shots. She noted the slowness of the LCD display, and then said, “Oh, no wonder, it’s only a 200” (whatever the model number was). Edgar said, “I know, I know, I gotta get a better one.” His cousin then said, “I shouldn’t talk, I’m still using one of these,” and pulled from her purse one of the larger digital cameras with the lens that you can rotate perpendicular to the camera to change the direction of the lens, such that you can look at the display when you take your own picture. Everyone jumped in to make fun of how archaic her camera is. Edgar yelled from the next table, “What is that, a 2 megapixel?” Everyone laughed.

Technology snobs are funny to watch and listen to.