O O Ø O O O O
One Night At Usenix
Disclaimer: This did not happen on a Tuesday.
I'm sitting in the Usenix hotel lobby, hacking over Wavelan. String quartet Metallica covers are feeping from Mickey's laptop speakers. Niklas is unconscious across the table from us. Mickey and I are sharing a bottle of Scotch as we attempt to break the tree.
How did we get here?
We went on another "Quest for Beer" tonight. This is becoming a ritual whereby we walk rapidly in a direction our senses tell us must have a beer. As we get further and further from civilization, we query passing locals in friendly, foreign sounding ways.
“Where can we find beer?”
This usually results in the local walking even faster.
Occasionally, a local would point in the direction we were walking and say “I think there's one that way.” We would continue this little game until we either found a bar, or until we were told that all bars in the city closed an hour ago.
At this point, we were one for three.
Somehow, we had managed to convince a contingent of would-be drinking buddies that we knew where we were going. At one point, there were 18 people following us. No pressure, though. We had done this before. We were getting to be experts.
15 minutes elapsed.
We paused only once along the way, to admire an especially large rat that was crossing the street. “Nice Poodle” someone noted.
23 minutes later, the crowd behind us was getting nervous.
In an attempt to drive us off, they demanded ID.
At the 25 minutes mark, we came across a bar, which we promptly walked right past. Several moments of confusion ensued, while we debated whether to take the easy way out (enter the bar), or the more challenging one (find another bar). In the end, the dangerous nature of our rapidly approaching sobriety prevailed, and we decided to stop for the easy beer.
The bar wasn't one of Boston's friendliest. For some reason, the last thing they seemed to want to see was 22 drunken, thirsty idiots in their establishment. In an attempt to drive us off, they demanded ID.
That was dumb.
Rather than make their lives easier by simply giving us beers, or pretending to be closed, now they had to extract birthdate information from identification documents originating in at least 10 different countries. Needless to say, this didn't seem to help their moods.
Finally, orders were placed and we found ourselves in posession of two Guinni each. Two minutes to last call.
I told you we were getting good at this...
The beers were consumed, and when the bar staff finally ejected us from the premises, we had a brainstorm:
“Taxicabs!”
Three minutes and five dollars later, we were back at the hotel. Many crashed. Three of us and a bottle of scotch remained. Let the games begin! Break the tree!
Wait. Mickey's passed out in his chair. All attempts to rouse him have failed. Guess I'll leave him for the cleaning vultures and hope for the best. The sun is already up anyway.
Kjell Wooding
Tuesday, July
17,
2001
PD DIV
Originally blogged, June 29th, 5am.
An honorary Tuesday, in light of the quantity of beer consumed.