Moressouri

Gobb: The time had arrived for the first arrival for the Paradox meetup (aka "Paracon 2009"). Well, I suppose technically we were the first arrivals... well, actually DrWolf was the first arrival... ok the first arrival AFTER we got there. Right. Now that's sorted, it was time for us to pick up the lovely Spiff from the airport. Unfortunately, there were four of us who wanted to go, and only room in the car for three (plus Spiff) so one of us had to "take one for the team" as it were, or rather "ride the nobility wave" and stay home. The short straw was drawn by Lisa, who elected to stay behind and do exciting things like tidying up the kitchen a bit.

art_bohemia, DrWolf and I piled into the car and headed off to the airport. The ride itself was entertaining, but probably not worth describing, since it was really only funny if you were there (giggedy goo, ahwooo, free candy etc.) so let's just say it was "uneventful". We found Spiff hanging around the seedy end of the airport arrivals concourse, leapt out, blindfolded her, bundled her into the car and drove away. Ok, we didn't do that but we thought about it, and it probably would've been funny.

Now, Spiff is awesome. Not just a little bit awesome - a lot awesome. Spiff runs the Paradox Wiki (among other things) and we've known her for years. As with the other guys, finally getting to meet her was amazing. Spiff's from North Carolina, and has a southern drawl to die for. She's also surprisingly violent, and spent several days poking, prodding, kicking, hitting and biting us. Well, DrWolf and I anyway. Most of the rest of the group escaped relatively unscathed. Spiff also has a habit of... how can I put this... not lasting the full duration of any party, so when she decided to bet me that she'd be "the last one standing" I was more than happy to accept. Ok, it was only a nickel, but it's the principle of the thing.

SPIFFEH!

Actually, that reminds me. At some point in the afternoon, I bet Spiff a nickel for something else (I can't recall what). She didn't have a nickel, so she borrowed a quarter from Lisa, and asked me for change. It turns out that it was my quarter to begin with so... Spiff, you still owe me a nickel.

The rest of Friday afternoon was fairly relaxed, just hanging out, mellaxing and catching up with the gang. Over a few drinks. At some point, another couple of people we've known online through STC arrived - Barf_De_Bard (aka Silent) and his wife Betty Swoobs (fnarr! fnarr!) and increased the mirth and merriment. Both are terrific people and great to hang out with.

OK, I need to pause here and apologise to non-Paradox-players for all the silly names in this post. The names you're reading are obviously not real names - they're Paradox/KoL character names - but since I don't have anyone's permission to publish their real names in here, and I know some people are funny about that, I'm sticking to the character names. Bear with me. Just keep in mind that our friends aren't REALLY called "Betty Swoobs", "Spiff" or "Jesus" (who, by the way, utterly failed to turn my water into wine and is therefore clearly an impostor!)

I digress. Friday night, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar, where they serve some amazing food and some even more amazing drinks. Look, I'll be honest here: my recollection of Friday night is somewhat hazy, and my grasp of the details isn't great. I know I had a couple of serious cocktails (Bahama Mama and Long Island Iced Tea sound familiar) and I know that I resisted the temptation to take on the hot wing challenge (eat a ridiculous number of chicken wings in stupendously bum-burningly-hot sauce to win a prize). I also know that I convinced DrWolf to drink a Foster's beer and that someone took a photo of the empty can in front of me. Haha, very funny. No, I can't remember who did that, but whoever it was is clearly a comedic genius.

It's entirely possible that the person responsible was MasTechno, another Paradox player (Paracite) who came down to Missouri from Minnesota (and didn't I have hours of cheap fun trying to pronounce that with the right Minnesowtan accent!?) to join us for the weekend. Mas is also someone we've known for ages, and who's been a big contributor to Paradox over the past year or so. A great player, radio DJ and good guy to catch up with. Again, thanks for coming down, Mas!

MasTechno. He's from Minnesowta. Ah geez.

Let's see, what else can I remember from the restaurant? Oh, the wings I ate were seriously tasty - they have 14 different sauces ranging from mild (Sweet BBQ) to blow your head off (Blazin') and I chose the Mango Habanero sauce as per Grokly's recommendation. It's the third or fourth hottest, and very very tasty. Also, I remember discovering that it's NOT politically correct to say "Sup Nigga!?" to your white friends in a mixed-race bar. I made that (totally innocent) error, and suddenly had people looking vaguely nervous. And by "vaguely nervous" I mean "like we were about to get killed". My bad.

After dinner, we headed back to art & Grok's where, for some reason, DrWolf decided to bet me (yes, a nickel) that he could pick me up over his shoulders. Uh-huh. Fine. He did it, and I paid up.

Apparently, Kratar had something to prove, because he decided he was going to pick Wolf up to... I dunno, show us how it's done, or something. We decided NOT to break him, and instead let him demonstrate with Spiff.

Following these shenanigans, we headed over to Travoltus' house for some further hang-out time (read "Irish Car Bombs"). As I mentioned earlier, my recall of the evening isn't great - must be the jet lag. Here, have some random photos instead.

Unfortunately I didn't last long, and ended up heading inside for a little snooze on the sofa. Where I discovered Spiff ALREADY PASSED OUT ON THE SOFA, and proceeded to use her as a pillow while we had a nap for a couple of hours before heading back to art & Grok's house.

I don't even want to talk about the drive back, except to say that it's NOT a good idea, when driving, to remind passengers that their lives are in your hands, while simultaneously displaying "jazz hands" and looking behind you, grinning maniacally. Wolf, you know exactly what I mean.

I'm going to end this now, but I need to say one thing:

Spiff! You owe me TWO nickels!

Lisa: It's also worth noting that part of the mellaxing done that afternoon involved having Popeye's Chicken for lunch. Stu and I had been completely obsessed and were pointing out Popeye's places everywhere we went, the first of these was one we saw in New Orleans. This entire obsession is based on the movie Little Nicky where Popeye's is a favourite amongst the characters and is described as being freaking awesome as well as the shiznit. So ofcourse, we simply had to try some.

Gobb: Popeye's chicken is NOT freakin' awesome. Sure, it's good, but while it definitely has the shiz, it's missing the nit. Adam Sandler lied to us.

Oh yeah, and if anyone has any photos from Friday, especially before and during dinner, please pass them on. Apparently we didn't use the camera much, so there are big gaps everywhere.