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10月13日 Department Day and Pigfest: A WeekendMuch fun was had this weekend, starting Friday with our quasi-annual work blowout, the Department Day.
The afternoon started, as is traditional, with a series of work-related presentations and discussions that I can't tell you about and would only bore you if I did anyway, so I'm going to do you a favour and just skip them. Special thanks go to The Taj and The Poh for making our table one of the greatest contributers to discussions, mainly of things that could not be repeated to anybody but were instead muttered under the breath, or written on a piece of paper after the pen was stolen from me, only to be scribbled out five seconds later for fear that someone might see. I can only assume that the things written there were portents and prophecies of some Lovecraftian doom and The Taj was protecting our sanity by destroying them and we should all thank him.
Sanity was in short supply by the time we finally called a halt to the talk and began with the feasting process, anyway.
The food was pretty nice, although by no means the best Cantina West can offer. When you go for buffet, though, I think you have to surrender high-quality for mid-quality in the name of high-quantity, and that was pretty much how it went. Burritos and burritoes later, I was completely stuffed and most people had moved on to coffee and cake. I wasn't interested in that so much, and had another fifteen chicken wings instead (not wrapped in a burrito). Coronas were also duly served, which was a very welcome treat in these troubled times. I believe various people at our table (our table was graced by Mr. Farenheit, Gerry and Heli, as well as the aforementioned Taj and Poh) also had themselves some wine.
The Taj had apparently given up on caring about his co-workers, something many might argue he had never started to do in the first place, but I remember quite clearly a number of times in the past when he would decide not to drink but still order his share from the bar staff so his table-mates could enjoy it. I don't think I'll get any argument, even from the man himself, if I say this is one of the only reasons you'd want The Taj at a table with you in the first place.
Gerry told us a lovely story following The Taj's insistence that the mood be brought down. I won't splash it around here, but a certain amount of love triangulation and stabbing was involved. I think the conclusion we reached was that stabbing was bad - although earlier on, while we were waiting for The Taj to actually arrive and contemplating how grumpy he was going to be after having been forced to work overtime at <confidential material edited>, it was pretty funny. The only thing that could have made it funnier would have been if Steve Irwin had been there to poke a stick at him and then pick him up and swing him around by the neck. Or try to.
I don't know what time it was, but it was probably around seven o'clock in the evening when the Tampere people began to get edgy and the old game of Where The Fuck Are We Going Next began. This is a game at which we excel due to long practice. Also, the drinks had dried up and not many people were interested in my lukewarm Minttu (I give and I give for these people), so we made our way to the Pullman Bar. The Tampere team wanted somewhere close to the railway station because most of them were going home at eight o'clock, so we did the best we could and actually found a bar inside the railway station.
We promptly moved in with a force of about thirty or forty people, and took over one corner for the glory of Lionbridge. Tuija W and the freshly-returned Sari T alarmed nearby patrons with their screaming as they let off steam, and this managed to clear a few more tables for us. It still wasn't enough to get all the 'bridgers in one place, though, so Tuomas, Heikki, Hanna, Verna, Juho, Taija and a bunch of others found themselves a niche in the opposite corner of the bar. Essentially, we dominated.
Here's a small part of our crowd, busy dominating. After a little while, the Tampere folks left (except for Mikko, who has lost none of his staying power) and this freed up a bit of space on the couches. The group on the other side of the bar did not come to join us, however, in spite of our invitations.
Drinking continued to ensue. Discussion varied from advanced hair care and drunken bus drivers to chicken fingers (chickens don't even have fingers, but somehow, after the enormous pile of burritos and chicken wings I'd had already eaten, the picture on the menu managed to tempt me) and - at least I seem to recall this being a topic - the bizarre Mormon-Catholic sex rules in that awful Twilight series. Although I think this might have been another one Gerry was telling us about at dinner. Yeah, that's right. I mean, not that Anne Rice's vampires were exactly mad butch hornbags always out on the pull or anything, but at least they weren't teenagers.
Everyone loves Mopho Cake, the newest addition to the Lionbridge Paparazzi Corps. Long story. Eventually, I wandered over to the other side of the bar to see for myself what the rest of the crew were doing. I asked them if they wanted to come over and join the rest of us, and they countered by asking if I wanted to join them, so we could compare conversation topics. I was unable to come up with a sufficient answer to this, and besides they were talking about God, so I decided to give it a shot. Once again discussion began to ramble, from my Dilemma of Faith anecdote into the far deeper waters of Bill and Ted philosophy (is not the moral of the New Testament, after all, be excellent to each other [and party on] ?), then back to my ilves-eating anecdote (those of you who expressed doubt as to whether the ilves lives in Estonia can stop worrying, it does ... although arguably the one I ate doesn't, not anymore), followed by Tuomas's assertion that the blue whale has one-ton testicles.
I'm not sure whether anyone really wanted to disagree with him on that, or if so why. But I suppose it must be true, even if it has nothing much to do with God (beyond the possible fact that He designed the blue whale, and must have been overcompensating for some really small-gonaded animal at the time). We continued to talk about any number of things, while Salmari and Minttu and various other drinks flowed freely. I remembered I'd left a cider over at my other seat, but it was a bad cider anyway and I didn't go back to get it for a while. Mr. Farenheit left to go - of all places - to a restaurant, where I hope he ate hearty. The Taj and The Poh left as well, but stayed a respectable amount of time. Gerry also left, having to drive at an ungodly hour of Saturday morning.
Sari came by to see if we wanted to join them on the other side of the bar, and then stayed when we invited her to join us. Conversation went on degenerating, although where it could go from piano-sized whale balls is a matter of some uncertainty. Conversation at the other camp had gone on to cars and cannabis, but the general feeling at our table was that sex and rock and roll were the major players in the Triforce of awesome. Also, Heikki K related a couple of anecdotes about his ... was it uncle? Grandfather? ... anyway, ask him about his shooting habits. And then ask Heikki about his umbrellas.
Eventually, most of the people in the other camp decided to leave, and Verna also decided it was time to go (but didn't know where), so we all stood up and milled around for a while. I went back for my cider, but a mouthful reminded me that it was bad cider so I left it where it was. Heikki and I decided nobody was going anywhere, so sat back down, and then everyone decided to go somewhere. We piled out of the door and down the stairs and out into the railway station.
What followed was one of the more surreal pub-crawls I've ever been on. We went through at least a couple of pubs - and I can't say I actually remember walking along any streets in between - without actually stopping to drink anything. In one pub I seem to recall seeing Tomi K, and in another we realised Antti Pa (The Pas?) had been left behind smoking on the pavement. By which I mean smoking a cigarette, not that he had burned up on re-entry or something. I ran back to bring him through just as the rest of the crowd vanished out the back door, and we were on the move again.
We finally fetched up at a bar where we found a table and chairs, and we had Baby Guinnii and I had another cider and a Tequila Motherfucker in honour of absent friends. Discussion continued, along with a certain amount of Man Boob Appreciation.
Tuomas may believe he can feel a lump. I'm just not going anywhere near this. Also pictured: Tequila Motherfucker. At this point I seem to recall it was Hanna, Heli, Tuomas, Mikko, Antti Pa ... who else? Wendy, in fact I'm pretty sure she outlasted the rest of us, on a technicality. I have it on good authority that the rest of them wandered back to her place in the wee small hours, and made the usual mess. I was sure there were one or two others. Must have been. Anyway, the usual crowd of Stayers, I would say. Tuomas got me another cider and this one was much nicer than the other one I'd left behind. I finally decided that missing the eight, nine and ten o'clock buses (and blaming these incidents on Tuomas, and why not?) was enough, and I should probably get the eleven o'clock bus if I wanted to be in any condition to play the pipes the next day. So I did, and I was.
After getting home and having a bit of a snooze, it was around midday and I was just about ready to face the world when Freddo came around with his electric guitar and amplifier. This, combined with bagpipes, is a great hangover cure. We practiced for all of about an hour and a half, then called it a day - until that night, when we would be performing before an audience of in-laws and their closest friends.
Yes, it was the other quasi-annual event of the season, the Palokas Family "Eat Something We Shot" Party, where wild boar on the spit was on the menu. It all went fine, since I wasn't hugely willing to drink excessively before we played and then afterwards it was just too late and I was feeling a sad thirty-something wreck. The food was nothing short of awesome. I was ready to eat again by this stage, and I wanted one of the boar's legs although they somehow evaded me. Very disappointing.
Games abounded, like the pig-themed quiz and the much-contested Pin the Tail on the Wild Boar game, and home-made booze also abounded. The lemon schnapps was a bit too fiery for me, so I substituted Minttu after a couple of glasses. Schnapps songs, of course, also abounded. But that's what you get for partying with Swedish Finns.
Janica, Bella, food and booze and pig-themed decorations. After a little while Freddo and I decided to get it over with, everyone piled outside and we went up onto the balcony to serenade the entire village - if not the entire Vantaa region - with a bagpipe-guitar duet of Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave, which in my opinion sounded pretty good. It's been a long time since I played vs. a guitar, and by his own admission it was probably about as long since Freddo practiced at all. Although actually, since I last played in a pub around 1998 or 1999, maybe not. But still, it was grand. Next time, we're totally going to play Paranoid. We stayed until about midnight, maybe a bit earlier, then got a lift home with some kind fellow guests. It might have been fun to stay a bit longer, as conversation was once again drifting into interesting territory (Muslims and religion and - in the words of one gentleman - shooting everybody who believed in anything), but I'd had my fill of that from the night before so was happy enough to leave before it came to blows. I was also being slowly pushed into the role of Drinks Fetching Bitch (after one unsuccessful attempt to pour Minttu into a glass instead of wine, which resulted in Janica's uncle wearing a big splash of Minttu and probably wondering in the morning why he was all sticky), and it's always good to get out of that whenever you spot it. The rest of the weekend was fairly tame. Nothing much to report. In fact, thanks to the generally consistent use of lonkero and trace elements of beer, schnapps and Minttu, I wasn't even hungover on Sunday. Wasn't exactly up for cutting wodd, of course, but heck. Maybe today I will be. 引用通告此日志的引用通告 URL 是： http://thehatstand.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!BBDB7D93AD3950E5!578.trak 引用此项的网络日志
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