So this weekend, Erin and I capped a long couple workweeks with a trip to Austin to see one of the Alamo Drafthouse‘s Rolling Roadshow events: the 10 Year Reunion Party for Dazed & Confused. Richard Linklater‘s 1993 film starred a big pile of folks who later became much more famous, including Parker Posey, Milla Jovovich, Joey Lauren Adams, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, and (of course) Matthew “Naked Bongos” McConaughey (not to mention somebody named Ben Affleck). Since it was such a big deal for them, all of the above (minus Jovovich and Affleck) attended, which was nice. We ha da great time, and (as she will tell you given half a chance), Erin got to shake McConaughey’s hand.

Now, this same weekend, the aformentioned Drafthouse was showing a fan film in its downtown location. This wasn’t just any fan film: it was a 6- or 7-year labor of love by three kids from south Mississippi with time on their hands and a perhaps-unhealthy obsession with Raiders of the Lost Ark. Over the course of, well, the bulk of their youth, Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and Chris Strompolis remade the 1981 film shot for shot using materials they could find and use, but also with astonishing fidelity to the original. Harry Knowles covers them here (and links to a trailer by Drafthouse maven Tim League), and the Austin Chronicle has more. That’s just pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

Here’s where it gets weird. Saturday, while waiting in line at the Dazed event, someone hollered at me. No surprise; I know lots of people in Austin. Of course, the person hollering wasn’t actually from Austin — she was Mrs. Eric Zala, of the Raiders-remake Zalas. But 11 years or more ago, way back at UA, she was my college girlfriend (see file photo from NoGators companion site). The world is very, very small, notwithstanding the distances from Tuscaloosa to Florida to Texas.

It was nice to see her, since I haven’t in about 10 years. It was nicer still to see she’s doing well, and that she’s ended up with somebody cool. They’re expecting, so we at NoGators want to with them luck. Erin and I were going to head back to the Alamo with them to see the midnight showing of Eric’s film, but, well, we’d been in the Austin sun all day, and by midnight the hotel became an unavoidable destination. I am, however, eagerly awaiting a Criterion DVD.