Looking forward to tonight!
I forgot the sign 
so don’t forget to ask for the Adam’s group du du du du snap snap
If you haven’t met me yet, I’m short, have blonde hair, and am wearing a purple cotton tank top and a floral skirt.
If you haven’t met me yet, I’ll be dressed just like Zyada, except with darker hair.
If you haven’t net me, I too have dark hair. So, to avoid confusion with Aglarond, I won’t be dressed like Zyada. So, if you see someone with dark hair not dressed like Zyada, it’s either me or one of a few million other people.
Jim
I won’t be going but I’ll dress like zyada anyway…
I’ll post this down here and see if anybody notices. Probably not - there will be three threads started looking for this stuff. I’m sneaky.
First off, we had a great time, and all you Dallas losers who didn’t show up, shame on you. (Um, that’s not meant to imply the ones who showed up were also losers.)
The attendees were myself, of course, along with zyada, Aglarond, JimB, and Balance. One first timer!
We kept waiting for Sweetcan, but she never showed. Guess she’s just a tease.
I got there first and a little early, and got on the list as the Addam’s party. Then sat around till the others started showing up. They gave us a table in the corner alcove away from everyone else - they were smart. Even though we only had five people show up, we made enough noise for ten.
Once again I was drafted to take notes - apparently I’m the only one that knows how to operate a pen. Though we did have to scrounge up writing materials. Don’t think Olive Garden would have appreciated me using one of their nice cloth napkins.
First note goes to Aglarond - “Go ahead and write down ‘I’,m cool,’ so I don’t have to say it later.” Okay Aglarond, it’s written down.
I also had him clarify his name. It’s from the Simarrillion (Sp?). That would be why I didn’t recognize it.
The first thing that happened after getting seated was the waiter offered everyone a glass of wine. Aglarond and Balance took the offered sample, zyada took something different, JimB came in a little later and opted for a beer instead. I passed on the wine and went straight to a coke.
The food was excellent. And the service was great too. There ya go zyada, the curse has been broken.
The Picture Pages came up. They’re good, but some are having Geocities problems - with the javascript?
Discussing the need to get online, zyada made the profound observation: “Lord, the world has changed.”
Aglarond explained he doesn’t get a regular phone line, just uses his cell phone. Though he actually has one now for dial-up while waiting on a cable modem.
Then there was a long drawn out technical discussion between the phone people - Aglarond, Balance, and Zyada. Lots of tech talk about Ericsson (sp?), Lucent, and other phone company stuff. yawn
“God I hate NT.”
“NT is the Operating System with a Kick Me sign on its back.”
Next we talked about Italian meals, starting at noon and eating till 6, course after course after course. Zyada mentioned a West Texas dinner went the same, just with different foods.
That led to crawfish boils - how many pounds of crawfish do you boil at once? Balance mentioned trucking in 8 ft tall pots to boil them, and dipping them out with boats.
The food was great - everyone enjoyed it.
Balance remarked it was nice to have a group where he could indulge in obscure humor. That of course brought up a Monty Python reference.
Zyada said she was happy she could use words with more than 6 characters. Balance remarked “Notice she said ‘characters’ and not ‘letters’.”
She mentioned having used the word “Cantankerous” and getting a dirty look like she was being uppity.
I noticed during eating that my plate rattled. Wouldn’t sit level, and I finally had to shim it with a menu.
From snooty language, we obviously had to talk about religion next. Aglarond mentioned how Methodist ministers are on a rotation, and stay a couple years at a church, then move on.
There was a discussion on the various ways to take communion, and whether it’s called communion or “the Lord’s supper”. There’s the typical baptist grape juice and saltine bit, vs the tear a piece off the lump of bread and dip it in the bowl of wine version Aglarond mentioned.
Lots more discussion on differences in churches, like letting women be preachers, and allowing gay weddings. And separation of Church and State.
Aglarond confessed to being an official college dropout. He was supposed to be majoring in computer science, but was taking mostly physics classes before giving up.
The Arthurian legend came up, and variations on the tale.
That led to a discussion of swordsmanship. Japanese vs English, East meets West. The western style (exemplified most extremely by the Scottish) was huge swords and brute force. Hack away at each other until someone gets too tired and collapses. Vs. the Japanese style, all finesse and grace. Western has fencing, with lots of sword on sword, long drawn out battles. Japanese, they look at each other, move around sizing each other up, then one quick clash and somebody drops.
This prompted Aglarond to display his grand knowledge of the Mongolians - like they were all gay men, and Kubla screwed Genghis. (Insert comment here.)
Next cake a round of geek chat. (Aglarond insists that should be “Greek” chat. Uh huh.) And Aglarond’s chiseled Greek body. (I think he means “geek body”.)
Another witty Aglarond comment: “You don’t watch TV? You’re missing out on a lot… of crap.”
Dennis Leary came up, and his smoking bit. Balance and Aglarond did a simulteneous riff from the show.
Texas is the 42nd state when listed alphabetically. All you Doug Adams fans can smirk.
Math majors, lots of physics equations, more confusion. Polish/Russian teachers from hell. Mine was the guy who lectured from the front of the classroom in a quiet monotone with a thick accent and no pauses. Apparently so was Balance’s.
Okay, I’m running low on notes here. Aglarond finished up with “I’m full.” Always knows how to sum things up.
Balance’s last words: “I’ve always been fond of elastic.” Um, okay.
JimB remained quiet as usual.
We were there for 3 hrs, not quite the last ones in the restaurant. Aglarond startled us by announcing that he officially closed the contest. He was going to give $20 to the first person to mention “felching”, but we failed him. I think we deserve $20 for not mentioning felching. And squicking and queefing.
And we’re done.
I had almost as much fun reading your notes as I did at the original event!
Note: I’m the one having problems with the people pages, and I’ve found that if I’m patient and let the page load completely I don’t have the problem. Java’s giving my computer fits though - I should probably get a newer version of Netscape!
I made the observation about change in response to Aglarond’s comment that his apartment complex is getting T1 lines.
Seeing Balance and Aglarond to a comedy routine in tandem was a hoot.
Oh, and Aglarond spilled something on his floral skirt, so he was wearing slacks. I’m disappointed!
This is why you wind up taking notes, Irishman. ROTFLMAO–I had forgotten so much of what we said.
Input:
It’s Silmarillion. The Tolkien fans will understand, I’m sure. And my Polish professor was the one who threw away the book and used semi-bold Cyrillic variables. Can’t blame you for forgetting that–I’m still trying.
It was fun meeting you guys!
Next on Dallas Dope: Dennis Leary Tag Team!
Stay tuned!
You weren’t quite sneaky enough. I found you and I wasn’t even there. I’m so jealous! I may have to make a special trip to Texas, I just LOVE a man who can use a pen!
That’s it. I’m moving to Dallas. Or at least visiting so I can meet you wacky people.
I deny all knowledge of this so-called “meeting” they had. Especially the stuff about Kubla screwing Ghengis. If I had been there, however, I believe I would have recalled Irishman saying something along the lines of, “Ghengis was one sizzling hot piece of man-flesh.” Yeah, Irish, we saw how you conveniently left out that part. In his defence, though, Irish did drink a LOT of coke, which could have impaired his thinking. I’m convinced this was the case. I’m pretty sure that when not under the influence of soft drinks, Irish thinks Kubla was the cute one.
Irishman, you certainly do have a gift for notetaking. I was never able to do that. In classes I just listened carefully and could remember most of what was said. As I got older, however, I lost a lot of the recall ability. So, even though you only made slight mention, I do appreciate it. Now at least I know where I was on Friday night and what happened to the 20 dollars. I’ve been wondering about that all weekend.
Jim
Why do I always read about these a day or two after the fact?
-SS
HEY!!! Where are the notes from Houston? You mean I spent 4 hours with you guys (beatle and Irisman) and I don’t even get some kind of mention? Something like she was very sweet. Pleasant? Anything? LOL
Grace honey, you have to check the right thread.
HouDope: The Revenge?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=30001&pagenumber=2
See bottom of the second page. I left out the details because they don’t rate getting to hear all our fun. 
Balance - semi-bold Cyrillic characters. Of course I forgot something.
dragonlady - you’re welcome to join us anytime (remember I’m actually a Houston regular). I’ll keep the pen warm for ya’. (Note to self: maybe there is a benefit to being the scribe.) (Yeah, I know, there were a lot of other places I could have gone with that pen comment.)
Aglarond, I said, “Genghis caused an awful lot of anguish.” But I can see how you could have misheard.
SkySlash - you have to look for the threads that say “Attention Dallas Dopers!”
Sky - I thought I mailed you about the first party - did you not get it?