These are just some of the words and phrases that are being used right this minute to describe last night's post-Webby Awards bash held in a park atop San Francisco's Nob Hill. And they are cliches. So let's dispense with them quickly, because none of the gussied-up, punch drunk dotcommers in cowboy hats wandering through the maze of tents in Huntington Park last night was thinking, "Wow, George, isn't this such a glamorous, irreverent Hollywood-esque gala?" Even though such a statement was absolutely true.

The Webby Awards bash was a big-ass party squeezed into a glittering pair of fancy-pants. But if you were there, as I was, you'd know that the major topic of discussion was not about how big and neato it all was. No, what we wanted to know was, Where's the sushi? The quest for spicy tuna rolls took up much of my party evening.

But let's step back a moment, shall we? Because I had an existential moment inside that labyrinth of tents. To enter into the Webby Awards party was to lose all sense of place and time. Logically you knew you were outside, in a park, but the warmth of heat lamps, the projections on tent walls cut away at logic. You were in the party. You were in the Matrix. One tent led to another, at odd angles. Walk one way, and you were deposited onto a cold city street. Walk another, and there was a large spinning machine with what looked like feather boas and people were standing under it, touching it, I know not why.

Everyone seemed taken aback at the scale. Glassy-eyed, the attendees wandered aimlessly, bumping into one another, turning abruptly at the sight of a sign that said "Bar" or "Bathrooms." Were there celebrities there? Bill Gates? Sandra Bullock? Tina, Tina, Tina? That sexy Alan Cumming? Perhaps. I never managed to find the Press Room. But the beauty of the Webbys is you don't have to be a celebrity to act like one. Every kind of fashion performance was on display--from feathered hats to body glitter to men in boas and women wearing dresses that left less to the imagination than if they'd just shown up naked.

As I wandered, dazed and confused, through the chattering masses I realized I had transcended the laws of physics and had entered into a browser. Here, time and space collapse. Here, everything is in the present tense.

For the most part, people/sites are predictable. They dress sensibly--black cocktail dresses, suits (no ties; this is San Francisco, after all)--and talk about the party, who won, how to find the smoking room, e-commerce. I do a search for sushi. After several false leads, I arrive at the sushi table. An unambiguous message: Contact with that server could not be established. The sushi has been eaten. Link broken. Access denied.

Maybe I'll try Google.com, I think, and voila! There they are, a bunch of guys in oversized hockey shirts. In a chat room to my left a fabulous couple is discussing whether to indulge in drugs that evening. I run into several friends. There's Tiffany "Digital Diva" Shlain, dressed in one hell of a party dress; she's bombarded with users clamoring for her time, but her server does not crash. Must be Linux, I think.

Egads, it's my editor! Look busy! Look busy! Then, out of nowhere, comes CockyBastard.com, strutting around with dreadlocked pigtails and a coat apparently made out of white shag carpeting. What's this guy's deal? He's followed by a pack of chiseled-faced astronauts. Very strange.

And because it's the Web, I don't bat an eyelid. Interconnectivity has revealed but one universal human quality: our strangeness. Placed on the Internet for the world to see, we now know that people have all sorts of strange obsessions and oddball means of expressing themselves. They collect bizarre trinkets. They write erotic fiction based on ordinary TV characters. There's a man in sequined shirt singing show tunes behind every suburban facade. There's a man in a Speedo playing Ping-Pong in Turkey; like all of us, he longs for love.

And that is the only excuse for throwing an event so over-the-top for what is, after all, little more than an industry awards ceremony. The Web is a seemingly contradictory simultaneous celebration of our unique humanity and universal consciousness. And while that fact may have been lost on the attendees of last night's ceremony and bash, many of whom see the Internet as no more than a platform for their own self-aggrandizement, Shlain understood it well when she sagely chose H.G. Wells' novel "The Time Machine" as the evening's theme. People may dismiss Shlain as, merely, a master of hype, but she understands the medium far better than most of the messengers. She knows we can celebrate now, but true understanding of what it all means is decades and centuries into the future--and the past.

Sushiless and tired, I stepped out of the browser into the real world and headed home.