On Pubs, and the Crawling Thereof

11 Days. Not a terrible haitus, I suppose. Where was I? Oh yes, Pre-PAX dinner, then on to the pub crawl.

After a brief stop at the hotel to fetch my fluffy pink bathrobe (can't have a night of drinking and not bring your bathrobe), I met a several people at the Green Tortoise and we all hopped a ride on the SLUT (people will tell you it's the South Lake Union Streetcar and not a trolley, but we all know better) to get down to the Naval Reserve Building (I really love parenthetical statements, just so you know).

This year was my first year at the Pre-PAX dinner, and indeed my first year at any of the community events, and as such I was trying to fit as many of them in as humanly possible this time around. So I must say that after two full days of MMT shenanigans (and a non-PAX George Clinton concert thrown in for good measure), I was already starting to feel a tad weary. So as you can imagine, I was excited that the next stop on my whirlwind PAX adventure involved two of my very favorite activities: eating, and not moving.

The not moving portion of the evening came first, as after we funneled in and got our forum member badge holders, our sweet Pre-PAX Dinner Buttons, and a free bottle of Bawls, we spent a good amount of time sitting around, trading buttons, and geeking out in general.

Oh, and this happened:



Video artfully captured and mixed by our good friend arnonaut, hereafter known as the man. Keep in mind that there was no alcohol involved in this occurrence, only Bawls.

Bawls, and love.

It was at this point in the proceedings I decided that it was best to try and commemorate the accomplishment of gathering so many wonderful people in to one area by hopping up on the balcony and snapping a photo with the PAX pirate overlooking the dinner. As you can see by the blurry picture to the left, the photo was eventually taken, but not without...complications.

You see, there is a maleficent force for evil and also not-good in this world, and her name can be garnered from the terrified whispers of children: eye-shuh.

Whereas most normal people would have had their hearts warmed by such a gesture, on account of them having hearts and all, the rock solid and cold black void that eye-shuh substitutes for a heart was not amused. True to her Omegabat name, she snuck up behind me in pure silence (maybe she swung down from a gargoyle?), stole the pirate, and held it precariously over the edge.

Now, I don't have any pictures of this instance due to the fact that both of my hands were busy defending the very life of my swashbuckling plastic friend, but I'll see if I can't paint you a picture:

Two full-grown adults, he in a pink bathrobe and yellow tie, her in a goddamn cape, both draped in 1.5 inch wide circular buttons, struggling epically and wholeheartedly to decide the fate of a Playmobil plastic toy pirate while below a crowd of onlookers watches intently, several of them dressed as teenage wizards.

Goddammit, I love my friends.

And if anyone has any pictures (or video!) of this battle, I need that shit like a fat kid needs cake. By which I guess I mean it's not strictly necessary, but dammit I want some.

After eating delicious, delicious food from Skillet, people started separating into their various houses in preparation for the pub crawl that would finish everything off.

While I'm on the subject of Hogwarts houses and pink bathrobes (vaguely pictured to the right there), I'd like to mention another nugget of greatness that came from arno that night. Given that there were several of us who weren't officially in houses (although I was lending my dual support to both Hufflepuff and Slytherin in spirit), and that at least a couple of us were in bathrobes, it was decided that there needed to be a Big Lebowski/Animal House-esque washout house where all of the lazy drunkards and party animals go. Thus was born the Manatee house, affectionately also known as the "Dugong Dudes". Watch for us next year. We'll be the lazy ones.

I ended up starting the pub crawl off following Slytherin around, which may not have been the best choice due to the fact that our first stop on the crawl was at The Garage in Capitol Hill. Many of us suspect that this was a ploy instituted by AtlusParker, organizer of the pub crawl and, interestingly enough, Gryffindor head boy. This is because, while some of the house took cabs there, a majority of us decided to walk. And walk we did. An hour later (just in time to start heading to the next bar), we all showed up a panting, sweaty crowd to meet our more spendy comrades just in time to grab a quick drink (I think I had a whiskey sour?) and try to catch up with them at our next stop: The Chapel.

The Chapel gets its name from the fact that it looks like it is (and very well may be) a chapel ironically remodeled for the purpose of drunkenness and debauchery. We managed to meet up with at least part of the house there, grabbed some drinks, hang out, and head on over to Linda's, where we would be meeting up with Hufflepuff for our first challenge.

Now, Linda's knew we were coming (and indeed was nice enough to put a wizard-themed drink, the "Cherry Potter", on the menu), but even so, as 100 nerdy drunk people dressed as wizards descended on the quiet little pub, you could see a mixture of annoyance and honest-to-god fear in the eyes of the bouncer checking IDs. I got a Cherry Potter (how could I not?), and a White Russian to wash it down with. There were a bunch of people who had squatted at Linda's to watch the houses roll through, so I found them and hung out for a while.

After a while, I realized that none of my Slytherin brethren were around anymore, and must have headed out to the next stop already. The Hufflepuff crowd was still there, though, and I was in a yellow necktie, so I figured I'd follow them the rest of the night. They were leaving soon, so I hurried to the bar to settle up.

This is where my night started to get interesting. While I was waiting for my tab, some guy came up to me and asked exactly what all of the costumed drinking was about. I told him we were all in town for PAX, and that we were a ton of nerds on a bar crawl. He asked if he could tag along with us, and I said sure. What's the worst that could happen? So we left with Hufflepuff.

It turns out that tagging along with 'us' meant tagging along with me, and just me. I figured he would mingle, at least a little, but the fucker followed me around like a sick puppy. At one point I mentioned (to other people) that I didn't know exactly where I would be sleeping because DIMD, who's floor I was crashing on, hadn't come on the crawl and might have been asleep by then. Once we got back to the Chapel (because Hufflepuff was doing the same list of bars, backwards), he mentioned to me that he lived about ten minutes away, and if I needed to he had a couch I could crash on.

Think about that for a second. I refused on the grounds that I met him ten fucking minutes ago.

I grabbed a water (both because I was poor and probably needed to stop drinking anyway), and true to his modus operandi he proceeded to follow me around and grab a seat next to me, where he proceeded to talk my ear off about something he managed to make terribly uninteresting. Sitting there, ignoring him, and staring into my drink, I was hit with some sudden realizations:

1) I was cruising bars in Capitol Hill.
2) Some guy from the area wanted me to crash on his couch.
3) I was wearing a pink bathrobe.

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, I was on a terrible date with a gay man.

Now, I can't really say for certain whether or not he really was gay, because I never thought to ask as I found some reason to excuse myself and get the fuck out of there, but even if he wasn't he was annoying enough to make me want to leave and find Slytherin again. So that's what I did. Here are two authentic drunk text messages from that night, one to eye-shuh, one from:

Me: Off to hunt down Slytherin.
Her: Oh dear god. Please don't die or get raped.

While I managed to avoid doing either of those two things, I also managed to completely avoid finding Slytherin again, despite many repeated calls to Erica (BrokenAngel) to the effect of "what? where are you guys? I'm like right here, but I can't see you? Oh, the other Pine?"."

I did manage to find Gryffindor, though. Twice. And this cool piece of street graffiti.

Eventually during my drunken wanderings I managed to get enough of my bearings to realize that I was reasonably close to the Convention Center, and therefore to the hotel room I was going to be crashing on the floor of. I decided through a combination of exhaustion and finally sobering up a little that it was probably time to call it a night. I gave DIMD a call, and luckily he was still awake, and even more luckily he was about to watch Greaser's Palace, quite possibly the single greatest worst movie ever made. I highly reccommend it to anyone who can find a copy.

So next comes posting about actual, honest to God PAX. Maybe if I post daily I can finally catch up to the damn present?

See you all next time.