Part The First
Hey, wow, what a blast. I can't believe how cool everything was on Tuesday night.
I was originally only going to go along for one drink and then split, as bars, people, booze is really not my scene. But after FINALLY finding SimonC and Kalon (waving mobile phones in the air is really a good way to say, hey, we're over here you dumbass) and chatting to them for a bit, the rest of the people showed up. Couldn't exactly leave just then could I?
So anyways, there we all were, sitting round, talking about things I really have no recollection of, when this guy that worked for the pub comes round and asks if we want to be in the trivia competition. My thoughts on this were, heck, its better than sitting 'round doin jack all of nothin. Seems that everyone else felt something along these lines, as we all got up and tropped over to ther other end of the bar where the competition was about to start.
Well, we didn't win, but sure as heck gave em something to think about. Most of the questions were for "normal" people. I kept wondering out loud why they were not askin us questions about computers... damnit!
After winning a few rounds of drinks, scaring the guy that ran the comp into thinking Kalon was from the ATO, and being the loudest and coolest group there, the bar shut.
Booo! I hear you call. Hey, its cool I said, the Grand Hotel is 50m down the road, lets go there!
After 1/2 hour of being there, they shut too, so it was decided that the remainder of the group would head to the Underground Bar, for pool and merriment.
Much talk about e2 philosophy and why are we writing stuff into something that exists as a whim of a couple hoopy froods ensued, oh and we played pool too.
All too soon it was 4am and my eyes were closing involuntarily.
"Time to go home" I said while finding my shit and waking the hell up.
Upon arriving home at about 5:30ish, I had a shower, cooked brekky, and promptly fell asleep on the couch until I was rudely awakened by my flatmate smacking me round the head as he walked out the door to work. Needless to say, I was late for work and extremely tired all day.
Things I learned on Tuesday night are thus;
- SimonC is a mega cool hep cat, cos he shouted me a shitload of booze.
- I can actually have fun when going out somewhere social
- Everythingians are way more fun than a ferret down the trousers
- I still suck at pool
- I owe everyone a round of drinks
This has been an extremely compressed version of events that took place, but I can't remember correctly a lot of it. If the other people that attended ever show up online again (helloooo, guys, you're not dead are you?) they will hopefully fill in the gaps here.
Part The Second
Uhh well, what can I say? It went off without a hitch, I had a blast and met some nifty people.
At 8:30am I was woken by the phone ringing, I answered and it was my mum letting me know she arrived home safely the night before after dropping me off. I said, "OH SHIT!" and thanked her for waking me up. I was supposed to be up at the train station around 9am to go into the city with Russ (my friend I was bringing to the meet). Raced around the house getting a shower and dressed, along the way being scared out of my mind by Russ banging on the window and yelling at me for being late.
So we hop on a train and head to the city. I having remembered to download the address and phone number of Kam Fook's into my palm pilot was not tooo worried about getting there. I went to sms SimonC that we'd probably be a bit late and realised I didn't have his mobile # on me. Damnit!
Turns out it was ok in the end as Simon's mobile is on strike until further notice. We rocked up to Market City and I realised I didn't need my carefully typed up directions after all, as Kam Fook's has a GIANT sign sitting on the building saying, hey, we're over this way you boobs.
Inside at the doors to Kam Fook we hit our first snag, namely, how the hell do we find these guys if we can't ring em and do the wavey mobile phone dance? I stepped up to the plate by asking the waitress lady on the door if there was a group inside by the name of Everything2. All I recieved in return was a blank look (and perhaps a thought that I was slightly mad, how can there be everything... twice?). Lucky for me I was saved from being dragged away to the loony bin by sneff showing up and saying, hey, we're over this way...
How giant are these yum cha tables? Wow, and they have a nifty revolv-o thing in the middle so you can get access to allll the food.
So we sat and chatted for a while, introductions were made, I introduced Russ and he was christend "The man with no name".
Then, the food started coming. Seeing as me and Russ were on the aisle, we kept getting asked by the waitressessssesess if we wanted what they had on their carts. Seeing as I had nfi what I was looking at, I just asked, hey, do we want this stuff?. Invariably the answer was yes. My first taste of yum cha foodage was these dumpling things with beef stuff inside, they were soooo yum. Sweet on the outside, savoury on the inside. A plus for them was the fact that I didn't have to use chopsticks to eat em. I forget what I ate next, and after that, and after that, and after that.... you get the picture.
Sneff at one point asked the trolley lady that went by for some congee, which was a weird lookin bowl of white stuff. I was very hesitant about trying some but soon gave in and had a try.
OMG!!!
How yum is congee?!?! I really can dig this stuff. I think by that time everyone was getting full or something, as they weren't eating and just staring at me instead. Sorry guys, I was hungry! Besides, I was told 10am to 1pm for yum cha, and it was just barely 11:45, hrmph, bunch of quitters.
So anyways, it was decided that we were leaving. I tried one of those egg tart things that everyone was raving about, didn't find it that appealing actually.
Galaxy World is nifty. Had a game of Sega Rally Championship with Kalon, I recall him beating me. But only cos he's a sneaky bugger. After that it was a game of street luge, where I was vanquished again, but what a fun game, you get to smack people in the head as you zoom by them. Most entertaining. I floated around for a while checking out what everyone else was doing, before having a game of Point Blanc with Kalon, AGAIN being ass whipped. Kalon reckons he has spent many hours playing that game, and I believe him.
It was then decided that we should get a meet mascot by spending a lot of money and getting very little tickets. I preferred to dump my money into the machine that gave back more tokens, I managed to double my amount (woohoo!) by putting in three tokens at once. I think I confused the machine.
In short order we managed to amass the needed tickets to aquire the monkey. We were not allowed to spank it.
Dr Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil alex.tan can sure play one badass sniper, so we waited around for him to kill the president or whatever.
Then it was off for Booze! Everyone wandered off up the street to Bridie O'Reillys for some booze. I pretended to be lord of the manor and pose with the deer head up on the wall. All that was missing was a pipe and the tweed jacket.
The beer was good, though aparently I am uncouth for asking for a VB. Hrmph! VB rocks thank you very much. Though for my second drink I had something with a name I cannot recall, but tasted strange. A couple bourbon & cokes later + much talk and merriment, we set off to Zone3.
I must apologise to everyone in the Maxi Taxi for asking so many questions about where the hell we were, but I really had nfi. I get so lost in Sydney sometimes. Much like our driver, who had to stop numerous times and check his street directory.
Once at Zone3 I started comparing it to LaserForce, which I had already played numerous times before. Not too bad, a little more streamlined I guess. Just different.
Informed that we had to start playing straight away we were into it. I'd just like to say that Zone3's maze sucks ass. MDF walls, unpainted, and only very low. Plus it wasn't covered and was very bright, not much fun. Luckily they had a smallish dark area that was loads cooler.
I kicked everyones ass.
*Insert evil laugh here*
I feel really chuffed I did so well. I only got 3rd in the third game we played, but I blame that on the alcohol wearing off, the fact I was dog tired from running like a madman in the first two games, and people kept ganging up on me all the time. Did I mention Dr. Evil smacked me in the face with his gun? Only accidentally of course, we were stalking each other through the maze.
Taxi Drivers suck. we had to wait aaaaaaages for ours to turn up. We started to think that perhaps Kalon was doing his April Fools joke on us, but at last one showed.
More beer was consumed at Frigid. We also managed to make people leave the room 'cause they were scared of our geeky talk.
*Insert more evil laughter*
Black Velvets are weird. I don't know how else to describe them, but they are definetly something that everyone should try at least once in there life.
After talking for aaaages about various topics and consuming many schooners of pale and sparkling I came to conclude two things, 1) Coopers makes a damn fine beer, so Adelaide musn't be _that_ bad and 2) I was getting pretty damn hungry (so were the other guys).
Off to BBQ King!
This place was soooo cool! Walked in and sat down, there were waiters everywhere, we got some nifty chinese beer and proceeded to decide what to order. I wasn't too fussed on what we had as long as I could have some more congee. Ended up with Preserved Egg and Salted Pork congee, the waiter talked me into getting some pastry stick thingys that went down extremely well. Simon ordered some pork stuff, or as he was calling it, "Pok". Kalon got Singapore Noodles and sneff got... he got... I forget what he got. Nonetheless, we all had a bit of everyone elses, plus liberal amounts of rice (which was very yum with a pinch of salt and soy sauce on it).
We also got everyday soup, after our really hip waiter insisted we try it, and was shocked we hadn't had it before. It was ok, kinda bland, but not bad.
Sneff and I got to take a quick peek at a room out the back with hundreds of ducks hanging up. Very nifty to see, sneff also knows waaay too much about food, as he was explaining how they prepare the duck and stuff like that.
After that it was off to the train station, where I just managed to snag a train as it pulled into the platform. Got to talking to a scottish guy about stuff, he was coming home from work, after having not been home for three days, he reeked. Aparently he'd been out partying all weekend and stuff. Lucky bugger. Be careful all you aussie women, there's a mad scotsman loos in Pymble thats looking for his very own "Kylie".
So yes, managed to make it home by midnight, much earlier than Part the First, which is good.
Oh my GOD was I sore on Monday, Tuesday, and today (Wednesday) and I assume I will be aching for the rest of my natural days. Ugh!
No pain, no gain though, right?
Thanks once again to everyone for a bloody excellent day and one I won't forget in a looong time. I enjoyed meeting ya'll and I hope that we can make meeting up a semi regular occurance, even if it's just for Yum Cha!
Until next time, this is Freaek (The mad punner) signing off.