Halloween Hijinks

OK, so here's the full Saturday rundown:

1: Wake up, go apple picking with the DC members. This was very cool - totally not something you get to do everyday. There was something sweet ab out eating an apple that was so fresh off the tree it still had leaves on it. It was also very cold, so the hot cider helped out a lot. Plus, I managed to kick Jen's ass when she challenged me to a pick-off. Doubles, bitch!

2: Food, nap. I wasn't feeling to out of it, so I read.

3: Random games with Jill, Jen, Franky and Richard, including Would You Rather? It turns out, given the chance, we'd all rather live to be 80 and never have been in AIESEC rather than have been an AIESECer but died at 23. Go figure.

4: Jen gets costume, we decide to suit up and go on an alcohol run. I find great pleasure in getting a less girly drink (vodka-Red Bull, the patron drink of the UK student) than Jen, who went with a cheap, low carb, fizzy, apple thing.

5: Franky, Jen and I randomly go on a random monument tour (still in costume), hitting up the Lincoln, Korean War, FDR and WWII memorials. There are many small children out; none of them are in costume.

6: No-Holds Barred Never Have I Ever. What happens in the DC house, stays in the DC house!

7: Time to leave; I try to strawpedo/shotgun a bottle of the aforementioned appley stuff. It doesn't work, so I end up chugging half a bottle of ice-cold fiz. Mmm.

8: Ruthy's AIESEC party. Jen gives me a bright pink drink, tells me to drink half. I refuse. She asks again. I refuse. She asks again, I chug the whole thing. Then she says she made it really strong. Shots upstairs at Michelle's. We're off!

9: En Route to M Street to meet up with Jill and her posse, the drunk dialling begins afresh after previous efforts to Jim and Connie. The girl from Sconnie would prove to be a repeat target during the night.

10: First bar; very swish. Apparent we're not really dressed to make it a long stay. Desperate for the bathroom, have to wait ages outside the gents before a tall Asian girl dressed in a goldilocks-style dress comes out. Check I'm outside the gents; proceed.

11: Prolonged Jill-searching/wandering; pose for photos, get denied entry to bars (what's the matter? My pink EU driver's license not good enough for you.

12: Find Jill - in the Ritz-Carlton. I turn to Jen: "There are only two people her in costume... and I'm one of them!"

In fairness, Jill's Asian Bird Flu costume was awesome, but detachable - the only way Jen and I were getting out of costume would involve the police. But by that point we really didn't care too much, so more drinking dancing and drunk-dialling ensued. Although actually I didn't drink any more - Jen bought me a straight diet coke which I refused to drink as I was certain I could taste vodka in it. Took me about 2 hours to finish it.

13: Leave the hotel, get in a cab. Jen drunk-dials Jill (whom we left 15 seconds ago), I try and figure out what language the driver is speaking (not a chance).

14: Arrive back at the AIESEC house, give cab a 100% tip (hey, it was easier that way).

15: Jen heads to Ruthy's place, I fall asleep in costume.

That was quite a day. Ironically I woke up at about 8am and couldn't get back to bed, so I read some more (I started and finished the latest Harry Potter book over the weekend). Pictures (stolen from Jen) to come soon, hope y'all had a good halloween too!

Halloween I-Spy

Can you spot all these costumes over the weekend?

- Knight with armour made of of beer cases
- Burger King (from the adverts)
- Naughty cat
- Naughty nurse
- Naughty [something not usually considered naughty]
- Drunk guy in drag
- Some hilarious guy with one of those "This is my costume!" t-shirts
- 80's cartoons (Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters etc, double points for Transformers)
- Something AIESEC related

I'll be in DC, handcuffed to Jen as part of our convict costumes (hey, there are definately worse ways to spend the weekend). Pictures to come soon...

Happy Halloween everyone!

Bears, Copperfield and Anti-Bacterial Soap

Going to the taping of the Colbert Report last night was a lot of fun. Large amounts of waiting, to be sure - we got there at 6pm, got in at 7:30 and the show started taping at 8:45, but it was definately worth the wait. Jill had forgetten all about it and was still at home in her PJs when we called her, which was kind of funny. The warm-up guy was good, and Colbert himself seemed really happy with what was going on. Big props to Jim for getting us the tickets (hopefully next time he can go too!). Next job - tickets for the Daily Show...

Bonus quote: "This is a really good song to get high to." (Nata, when Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower started playing on the PA system)

Also:

Nata, Jill, Paul and I are going to the Colbert Report tonight! I saw a couple of the shows from last week and it looked great. I have to see the Daily Show sometime, too...

The Weekend of Jill

...And a very fine weekend it was. Got started Thursday with the mini-Nomadlife gathering on the East side; a novel experience as I was finally able to match faces to blogs and meet some of the online community, Dody included. I headed out to New Jersey to see some family for a night before coming back on Saturday, which included Team America drinking games with Jill, Jen and Francis (in town from AI), before heading out to a "Bulgarian Cultural Center" downtown. It was basically a bar with random foreign music, belly-dancing and strange hidden camera shows playing on the TVs. Very eclectic, but a lot of fun. Got back home at around 4am, which is always a good sign.

Sunday was very lazy and yesterday was pretty quiet with most of the office out at the BoD meeting, but we met up with everyone afterwards for drinks, celebrating the fact that it was, finally, Jill's birthday for reals. I left the group at about 9pm but from what I hear the night only got more... well, alcoholic. In a bad way. Two words: Horseradish Vodka. *shudder*

I hadn't had anything to eat since lunch, apart from some fruit, so I had two drinks and I was good to go. I went home and was in bed by about 10:30pm. Some would say I'm a pansy, but fortunately all those people are very quiet this morning...

Caption Competition!

DC Oct 2005 178
Originally uploaded by Chris Pflaumer.

OK, kind of a test for this Flickr thang... Here's a photo from DC this weekend. That's me down the bottom, that's the Washington Monument in the middle. Witty types with thinly veiled sexual innuendos that they feel would be relevant to the photo, comment away.

GunsBeerAmericaFreedom!

The DC RoKS was an awesome weekend, I hope everyone that was there got a lot out of everything that went on. Riley and the OC did a fantastic job, especially in fundraising enough food to feed an army (and still have enough left the next morning for after-party cold pizza). The party back at the AIESEC house was also a good time, especially chillin' out back with Arnaub, Chris Bowman and fruit-flavoured hooka.

Javier, Nata and I went for a walk the next morning and saw some sights; if Javier sends them on and I work out how to use Flickr then you'll see some monument-style photo ops here soon.

Raising the Bar

After a few evenings spent tinkering around in iTunes and on Amazon.com, I now have the album covers of the majority of my music uploaded onto my iPod, including the oprettas I was in during college.

When an AIESEC dance plays, the AIESEC logo pops up.

Y'know, sometimes I debate whether being a great big nerd is really for me; then I go do shit like this.

iTunes is very cool though, especially the store - although that one is a dangerous fucker (you have to put your card details in when you sign up, meaning you can have new music in about 20 seconds - what chance do I have?). I know I'm gonna end up getting a couple of albums tonight, and its gonna be awesome. I've even drawn up a list of albums I need to get.

Once again: Dork.

Coming soon: The iPod that flys and cleans the dishes!

Is it me or do new iPods just fall outta Steve Jobs' ass every few weeks?

It looks very cool - how could a jet black iPod not? - but I don't regret picking up my iPod Color a month or so ago. It's the same reason why I'm avoiding getting something videogame-like for the morning commute; that should be a time for reading, be it a newspaper, book or something else. Lord know I shouldn't watch any more TV. Like I said, it is very cool though - I'll wait until my iPod goes kaput and then upgrade to whatever the latest iThingy is, which by that point will probably come in some form of mecha. Now that would be awesome.

Seafood-Induced Coma

Gaaaaaaah. Lunch at an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet is quite an experience... Gaah.

Doing anything this New Year's Eve?

And before I forget:

WSC 2006 is in Dayton, Ohio!

You know you want to. December 30th-January 5th - the only reason to be in Dayton this New Year's.

Filling the void with Old Navy and Dodgeball

It has felt for a little while now that there's something not quite there with me; not like a gaping chasm in my life that leaves me nihilistic and withdrawn or anything, but just some little something that's bugging me. Not 100% what it is, either; I have ideas about what it might be, but nothing certain (what is, nowadays?). A good first step (discounting the minor retail therapy I had earlier in the week) will be to do more outside of work - while I have plans for the next five weekends, it'd still be a good thing to research, most likely some kind of casual sports league a la Jen's Tag Football and Jill's Softball, or something else active that interests me.

The happy hour Jill, Farid and I went to last night was a lot of fun; we were joined by AIESECers young and old, including Brodie from AI who's in town for a UN thang. Took us about 30 minutes to find the place, but well worth it for the company. Everything's super-hectic with all the RoKS stuff going on, but we're as ready as we'll ever be - to everyone heading to Illinois this weekend, have a great time!

In the interests of multi-culturalism, albeit, tardy multiculturalism: Ramadan Kareem and a happy Rosh Hashanah to all concerned!

Oooh, that's cold

A random thought from fixing up my iTunes library:

Reach by S Club 7 holds a special place in AIESEC. It is a song so cheesy, so cringe-inducing, that even AIESEC has shunned it. Grown men who have learnt moves to the most random and dodgy of all Euro-Pop in the name of AIESEC still go "ummm not so much" when those first sunny chords blast out of the speakers.

It was the second AIESEC dance I learnt and remains one of the more amusing memories of my first AIESEC conference. So to those who shun, I say don't hate - participate.

Even if it is when no-one is looking.