...Tupshin arrived and hailed Ounree, who I'd not identified in the people already at the bar. We started in on the pitcher of cider and the shop talk commenced. JD and Teshi showed up. My phone rang. I automatically answered it in Japanese with my internet name. It was someone from the place I'd emailed this morning. They will call back, as then was not a good time to talk. It is a prospect! Hooray!
We moved to a larger, brighter table near the pool tables. Shop talk continued to commence. Stacey arrived. At some point I produced the riding crop. I produced the box of chocolate covered orange sticks. (I do not think we actually got off shop talk for more than two minutes at a time during the whole evening, so let's just take that as a given.)
The shop talk turned in the direction of something that a bugfix was in for, but not pushed; Stacey was curious about it. This resulted in Tupshin setting up his phone to allow my netbook to connect, and Stacey poking about at things just a bit. Hilarity did not ensue as much as we anticipated, in part because images from LJ were not loading.
Expected Parts of the Internet arrived, and mocked the choice of drinks. Mark and Janine arrived. Scott arrived, and my faceblindness struck again. Tupshin went to go play pinball. Mark and I had a small Rock Band moment. We got onto our second pitcher of cider, as the Expected Parts of the Internet tasted it and found it good (in the absence of the usual brand of beer). JD and Teshi had a Long Island Iced Tea. Everyone got carded, including Tupshin, much to Tupshin's general profanity. Mark had Guinness. I explained some of my gmail tagging to Expected Parts of the Internet; JD shared horse macros. It was only 10-something, but the Expected Parts of the Internet were drunk and felt like it was 2 in the morning. I mentioned the LOLviagra.
I had brought my riding crop. It made the rounds and was used as an instrument of whackity. D&D is generally Dungeons & Dragons, not Dominance & Discipline. Mark and Tupshin are clearly twins separated at birth. Dwell showed up. Eventually there was a round of Irish cream in Guinness, which was hilarity. (Ounree wanted to refuse on principle.) Five people did that; I was not among them. Some of them declared it nasty. Some of them, whose names will not be attributed to their quote, declared it like "Hot buttered mouth sex from Bubba".
Dwell bought a round of vodka. I wound up sipping a shot of vodka halfway and then drinking the rest as a shot, and somewhat later doing the second one as a shot. (By this time, people were starting to turn down more alcohol because morning was coming all too soon.) Tupshin coaxed JD into "becoming a man" and drinking vodka shots properly. I reminisced about that time at Shawn's place where there were the four shots of Jack and then I realized that I was walking to the outhouse in the winter in Alaska naked except for my boots and found that this was very hilarious. The tip flew off my riding crop and got lost somewhere; both JD and Tupshin dived under the table to try and find it (not at the same time). It is Not Done to stick the remainder of the riding crop down the pants cleavage of the guy under the table, just saying.
People started trickling home (some people had already left before others arrived). JD and I stole each other's seats a lot. Tales were told. Toasts were made. I still have no idea how much cider I drank, but it was a lot. Someone came around selling (cold, cheese) pizza, and we decided this was a REALLY GOOD IDEA, so we had some. Dwell got a pitcher of coke. JD and I started giving Tupshin a backrub. Expected Portions of the Internet got embroiled in some epic key-grabbing. We eventually headed on our respective ways. JD was pretty fucked-up; by this time I was nearly sober (but still immensely silly). We wandered in a BARTward direction.
Weirdly enough, the usual platform was out of service, so the train came on the other one. Freaky! It felt all kinds of wrong. We had good BART timing. We disembarked at Daly City, and I got JD home all safe and sound, then arrived home myself.
*Details regarding the necessity of this gathering are possibly not forthcoming, and salient portions of the narrative have been omitted to reduce it to its socializing elements.
Crossposted.
