Without further ado, the Notes from the Ditch: T’anks for de mayo:
7:15–I arrived, late. I was mortified–I hate being late. It stems from a lifetime of walking into the middle of conversations (and there are few things more bewildering than walking into the middle of a Doper conversation). Several stunned looks were cast my way as my fellow Dopers noted my seemingly drastically shortened hair, so I had to pirouette to show them the newly installed ponytail. (This was met with an immediate challenge to repeat it on pointe, which I declined.)
I introduced myself to kookalouris and freyr while rjk explained Canadian rednecks to JimB (“They’re just like regular rednecks, but with a different accent.”) kook is duly warned that I will be noting any embarassing thing he may say, and am prone to taking quotes out of context.
beatle arrives, making it 11 Dopers in attendance–Cheffie, beatle, JimB, rjk, Zyada, freyr, psiekier, Aglarond, Palmyra, kookalouris and myself. beatle passed around the Dopefest sign-in sign. We discussed waiting for Grace before ordering, but decided against it (kook’s Revelation: “Oh, Grace is a person.” rjk and Zyada could not be reached for comment–it’s hard to comment with lips locked together anyway. 
7:23–<fanfare>Grace Arrives!</fanfare>
In fact, she arrived just as we were ordering, and placed her order before even selecting a seat (partially because of the game of musical chairs Jim started to ensure that she sat next to him. He’s fond of her tendency to laugh so hard that she winds up leaning on the person next to her. (So am I. 
)
Cheffie mentioned that Chef Jr. is still fascinated by the flashfingers trick, which prompted the inevitable “What’s that?” from kook. I demonstrated the trick, badly startling several tables of revelers (or at least diners). beatle comments that times have surely changed when one can freely display a little vial of white powder in a public place. The vials are passed around to the curious. (It seemed somehow appropriate at a Dopefest…)
7:30–Grace won’t flash, to general disappointment.
kook also failed to flash, to general relief. beatle and Jim both managed the trick on the first try.
Grace was sitting between Jim and beatle and mentioned an urge to crawl under the table. I’m pretty sure I caught both the guys giving her puppy-dog looks in response…
“Army of Darkness”, and our now-incessant references to it discussed. I explained (mainly to make psiekier froth with jealously) that I had spent the previous weekend adventuring in Oklahoma with Ash (not Bruce Campbell, unfortunately, but one of my IFGS buddies who does a credible imitation). Cheffie brought up the Ashisms in “Duke Nukem”, while Grace and I quoted our favorites.
7:35–Cheffie interrupts himself to explain to the waitress that we’re a support group for the entertainingly overeducated. I couldn’t make out what was going on at the other end of the table, but freyr fled down our way to talk to Grace (muttering about hitting someone with a Geritol bottle, I believe).
7:45–Websurfing at work discussed. Cheffie and kook both seem to do a lot of it. (Cheffie has the excuse of doing research, while kook is a lab assistant in a computer lab–aside from explaining to the clueless how to use a mouse for the thousandth time, he’s got a fair amount of time on his hands.) Cheffie’s been doing research for a plastic surgery piece, and claims to be concerned that someone might mistake the breast-enhancement before-and-after photos for porn. (Yah, right…tell us another one, Cheffie.) Cheffie noted that it’s harder to get away with reading web-comics than with most non-porn; they’re visible from farther away.
7:55–Lunatic fringe discussed. Cheffie mentioned that he once had a jacket with some on it. Judging from his description of the jacket, I could believe it. Suits dissed–everyone hates them and regards ties with scorn. Cheffie complained that he has to wear a suit with an arterial-blood red blazer to a convention once a year. He had trouble finding one (I can’t imagine why), and when he finally did order one over the phone, the poor English chap on the other end (yes, he had to order it from England–go figure) was dubious about anyone being willing to buy it. (“Sir, it is rather…bright.”)
kook related his Origin Story. OK, he told us where his screenname came from–essentially, it was the only relevant term that hadn’t yet been registered as a domain name. It refers, BTW, to a lighting tool used in movies produce various dappled light effects on actors’ faces–kind of like a specialized gobo. Spielberg likes 'em.
8:00–psiekier’s movie addiction has gotten out of hand–he announced that he wanted to see “Dude, Where’s My Car.” Poor guy…
Grace shared a “whoosh” that she was too embarassed to share in the appropriate thread…so I’ll just include it here. 
She had listened to “Straight from the Factory” by Clint Black, with all it’s “lock and key” and other unsubtle references, for 12 years–even owned a copy on CD–without ever noticing the sexual connotations.
Cheffie, while relating one of his Wendy’s stories to beatle and kook, provided the canonical list of “Three Things at Wendy’s that Feel Like a Donor Liver”: the 5 gallon mylar ketchup bag, the frosty mix pack, and the bag of spices for the chili. (The story, BTW, was about how the chili is made, and I’ll save it for a time when I really need to persuade people not to eat the stuff.)
8:30–Quotes Out of Context:
Palmyra: “I thought you didn’t get any.”
Me: “Story of my life…”
Fortunately, we were discussing silverware, as we were passing around birthday cake and forks.
freyr begs Zyada on bended knee…for another piece of cake.
Cheffie was disappointed with the DVD release of “Johnny Mnemonic”–there were no extras on the disc at all. We all expect more than that, at least out of SciFi DVDs. Grace is of the opinion that the “Wizard of Oz” DVD should have a second audio track with “Dark Side of the Moon” synced to it.
News Flash: psiekier actually hated a movie! Mark your calendars folks–in response to Cheffie’s comment that he had bought “Titan A.E.” on DVD, psiekier actually derided the movie.
8:45–Jim was in heaven–the (rather cute) waitress was leaning over him with her arms around his neck, talking to the gathering about jeans sizes–though I’m sure Jim doesn’t remember the topic. Lame “gym equipment” puns ran rampant for a few minutes. (Note to self: next time sit where the waitress can reach you. Your fellow Dopers can say whatever they like about balance beams, it won’t matter a bit.)
The cheesiness of 70’s gay porn movies somehow wandered into the conversation, being thoroughly mocked by freyr. The skankiness of the males in straight porn was mentioned tangentially–the theory was advanced that it’s the result of the general assumption that no one watching straight porn is looking at the men. (Ag: “There are men in it?”)
Hairstyles discussed. Cheffie described his stint as an antiElvis at an Elvis theme party (black outfit, etc). An actual Elvis impersonator showed up, but Cheffie avoided physical contact with him, thus saving the world from devastation. Highly technical discussions of the use of Cheffie and the impersonator as a power source for the Starship Graceland ensued.
Cheffie noted an interesting thing about the party: Elvis has become such an icon that when numerous people show up dressed for an Elvis theme, even though none of them look at all like each other, they are all instantly recognizable as “Elvis”. freyr confidently predicted that by the year 2079 there would be a mystery cult of Elvis. We examined the parallels between the Elvis legend and Christianity–presumably documented death, widespread belief in continued fleshly life after death, etc.
Ag to freyr: “I hear ‘dorsal ridge’, turn around, and see you humping the table.”
(Some comment by freyr had caused Cheffie to call him an insensitive prick. freyr vigorously defended the sensitivity of the referenced anatomical portions, and launched an impromptu mockery of JDT.)
The taste of armadillo meat was discussed, along with its nicknames (poor man’s pig, Hoover hogs). Ag and freyr discussedhunting and shooting armadillos, while I was visited by the enthralling vision (duly shared with the gathering) of freyr as Elmer Fudd, chasing a bouncing armadillo over hills…“Be vewy, vewy quiet…I’m hunting awmadiwwos.”
Ag: “But you don’t have to be quiet–they don’t hear well, and they’ll only run about four feet at a time, anyway.”
The “Hard Drinkin’ Lincoln” version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” lead me to mention hearing the Battlefield Band perform “Stairway to Heaven” on bagpipes. Cheffie dissed bagpipes, so Ag, freyr, and I defended them–although we had to admit that they were originally used in roughly their present form as a weapon of psychological warfare.
Ag dutifully supplied the octopus joke:
This guy walks into a bar carrying an octopus, and bets the bartender that the octopus can play any musical instrument he cares to name.
Well, the bartender supplied a flute, and sure enough, sweet, clear music began ringing out as soon as the octopus got it. So the bartender set the octopus at a piano, where it proceeded to pound out top-knotch ragtime. Finally, the bartender played his trump: he dug out an old set of bagpipes and handed them over.
After they watch the octopus wrestle silently with the instument for a few minutes, the bartender said, “Well, it looks like he can’t play that.”
“Play it, #*!!. As soon as he figures out how to get the pajamas off it, he’s gonna (&@% it!”
9:15–Palmyra was talking about popping joints and double-jointedness, specifically her hip joint. She either didn’t hear or ignored the requests for a demonstration.
Cheffie overheard a couple of guys talking while he was in the restroom:
“I would never date a waitress.”
“Why not?”
“They keep odd hours, they have small hands, and they smell like cabbage.”
“No, that’s carnies.”
He walked out wondering if it had been scripted.
Elevator incidents were discussed–Grace and her husband have each been trapped in stuck elevators (different times and places). Grace’s incident came first; the cops/maintenance/firemen/whoever asked her if they should call anyone for her. When they called her husband, he apparently considered the occasion so, well, Gracelike that he laughed about it. Grace thinks that Mr. Grace’s own incident was burning off the resultant karma. (BTW, she spent her time in the elevator sitting on the floor, writing checks for her bills.)
I related the occasion when a transmitter-induced badge failure left me stuck on the eighth floor of a building. I couldn’t call an elevator (badge lock), and some brilliant (and non-safety-compliant) soul had also put electronic locks on the stairwell doors. I found a maintenance door with a pickable lock and stepped off on top of the next passing elevator, then dropped through a hatch in the ceiling. This produced evidence that even in a crowded elevator, you can get a good 5 or 6 square feet to yourself. Feeling obligated to provide some explanation to my fellow passengers (in return for their courtesy), I reassured them as I stepped off at my floor that the alien almost certainly wouldn’t follow me through. I was surprised that there was a rush to exit the car…
Cheffie frequently used elevators as a place to practice his improv comedy, with the help of a friend he’d trained as a straight man (OK, get all the “Since when is he an authority on straight men” remarks out of your system). On one notable occasion, the following dialogue developed:
Cheffie, as the door opens: “…and I still had the knife in my hand, with blood all over it…”
Straight Man, picking up his cue: “Well, where was she?”
C: “Oh, she was in the bathtub.”
The conversation continued, with discussions of trying to get blood out of carpet (as opposed to off walls, which is easier), until they got off the elevator. I told Cheffie that it was cruel, because no one on the elevator got to hear how the story came out. I would probably have followed him to hear the rest of it, myself.
Ag’s story, perhaps inevitably, involved certain gaseous bodily emissions, produced innocently enough while he was the only one in the elevator…then the elevator stopped to pick up a passenger, who backed away with a horrified look on her face. I forget the reason, but I seem to recall Ag saying that he exited the car on his floor staggering, or clutching at the doorframe, or something, because I got a very clear mental image of him crawling out of the elevator as the first hints of the odor reached the people around him, resulting in a mass exodus.
Both Ag and I have jammed elevators before–he overloaded one with a server, while I managed to get an old manual (lever) controlled elevator stuck six inches deep into the basement floor. What can I say? It had lousy brakes.
9:30–Cheffie mentioned the inordinate number of pictures of Palmyra’s butt that were taken at the last gathering. He said that most of them were poorly composed, and that he would only post the best ones. (She was giving me an accusing look, but I denied responsibility. After all, I would have composed the pics better–practice makes perfect, after all. ) Suspicion also fell on Chef Jr. because of his burrowing tendencies.
Butts leading naturally to buttfloss, thongs were discussed. The consensus was that they are like getting the world’s worst wedgie without any of the benefits (whatever they may be) of underwear or swimsuits.
Speaking of the benefits of underwear, Ag reiterated his opinion that going commando to the doctor is a mistake. He also recounted the story to the new folks–but in the evening’s context, it sounded like the intro to a really cheesy porn sequence, causing Cheffie to burst into his fourth vocal rendition of the “Cheesy Porn Movie Theme” of the evening. I finally admitted that every time he did it, it sounded more like the theme from “Bonanza”. Meanwhile, Palmyra was quoting extensively and knowledgably from the alien-anal-probing episode of “Kids in the Hall”.
A mild argument over the feasibility of adding a bad saxophone track to the “Bonanza” theme led Cheffie to recall a midi he’d run across in which someone had merged the themes from “Star Wars” and “Superman”. He said it was pretty good, but received a number of dubious looks from the crowd.
No discussion of “Star Wars” parodies and modifications would be complete without “Troops”, and Ag and I got to explain the parody to freyr, who had never encountered it. I hope he can find a copy–I keep forgetting to burn mine to disc, so I can’t share it as much as I’d like.
9:45–“Barbarella” discussed–I suggested that everyone buy a copy, just to keep the humiliation fresh for Jane Fonda (whom I detest). psiekier, OTOH, finds the movie hilarious–he might actually watch a copy if he bought it. I’m not sure, but I think this tangent arose somehow from talking about a vacuum-bra breast enlargement system.
Ag wants a tank. I missed his motivation, but I submitted that it would be really cool to go down the middle of 2 lanes on the expressway with a cowcatcher blade on the front, flipping cars up on their sides to clear a lane. We talked about the top (official) speed of tanks, and a friend of mine who got a ticket for speeding in one once (this led naturally to the benefits of “tactical idle” when MPs park their jeep right behind the tank). We also talked about the recent resurgence of video clips of police chasing a guy in a stolen tank; according to Palmyra, the incident actually happened several years ago, but clips have been showing up a lot lately. Maybe it’s on some chase scene video?
Here endeth the notes. The party started breaking up around 10:00 or 10:15, I think, although little bunches of us stood around talking for some time as we slowly drifted towards the door.
I’m sorry I missed a lot that went on at the far end of the table–we really need to find a place with big round tables, so general conversation is easier. Even so, I had a great time, as always. It was particularly good to see Ag out and about again, and to meet some new friends.
Should I post a link to this in the “long posts bore me to tears” thread?