DerekL - jolly old fellow...
if I forgot you, please feel free to kill me.
Ruminations:
Eating at Spiffy's (where the daily Bible verse was Solomon 5:29) on the way to Seattle was amusing. The old Christians kept looking at us funny. And we laughed at some guy with plastic hair. There was also much discussion regarding the correct past-tense form of "smite", which I think we decided was "smitten". Or "smote". Or something.
Noders are awesome. Seattle is awesome. We walked so much that my legs have literally stopped working now. We went to Sit 'n Spin for dinner, and tempers flared when WonkoDSane and I realized we had both ordered the SAME THING, and we had both given our name as "Wonko".
After that we converged in a parking lot to assign people to cars for transportation to Chez Weasel, and some young punk in a crap-ass Ford Thunderbird nearly ran over a middle-aged guy. The guy flipped him off, so the punk jumped out of his car and tried to pick a fight. We noders watched with great interest, as they were both about six feet away from us.
It ended with the guy walking away and the punk yelling incoherently after him, and I seem to remember WonkoDSane informing the punk that he was dumb (in slightly different words, of course), and then the punk got back into his car, mumbling something.
It almost turned into the first annual E2 rumble. That would have been fun.
Once at Chez Weasel, the webcam was set up and various activities began taking place. qousqous and Joyquality got to work making delicious sushi, while Pyrogenic put on a movie (But I'm a Cheerleader). Myself, WonkoDSane, flamingweasel, ideath, and I think maybe qousqous went to Fred Meyer to buy rubbing alcohol and tennis balls.
Upon our return, the tennis balls were soaked in the rubbing alcohol and lit on fire, and then WonkoDSane and ideath made valiant attempts to juggle them while we all laughed and secretly hoped they'd light an abandoned building on fire or something exciting like that.
Later, an expedition was sent to visit the Fremont Troll, but it stopped halfway there because we couldn't find ideath. After waiting for a while, a search party was dispatched, and a very drunk prole did the best to lead the rest of the group to the troll.
Meanwhile, Eat Poop You Cat was played at Chez Weasel, but I didn't get to finish because WonkoDSane called from the troll and begged me to come pick them up because they were all too drunk to move. After following directions and getting hopelessly lost, I drove around randomly for 20 minutes and somehow found the troll. Then, following directions from an even more drunk prole, we managed to get back to Chez Weasel.
It was 4am by then, and I decided I wanted my bed, so I bade farewell to the noders, ensured that those who rode up with me all had rides home, and rocketed back to Portland alone. I-5 is really awesome between 4 and 6 am. From now on, if I ever have to drive long distances, I will drive between 4 and 6 am. Also, I think the fact that I hadn't slept in 24 hours or so and that I was hopped up on Vivarin may have made the trip even more fun.
I highly recommend noder gatherings. Even though I will not be able to walk anymore for several days.
Afterthoughts:
On the trip up, dwyn (who was following my car) nearly rear-ended me so many times I lost count. Did I stop too fast, or was he tailgating? We'll never know.