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Since no one else has beat me to it.

Friday afternoon, Flea and I took a train into the city and a cab to the Seneca hotel next to the Hancock Tower. A rather nice hotel, especially for the price we were paying and the location. I am pleased to find out that we had real keys for our rooms instead of cards because I'm a Luddite like that. We got ourselves ready and killed time until 8:00pm dinner with some occassional text messages and stuff along the way.

At 8:00pm, we went down to the hotel restuarant, weaved past the cougars at the bar and found our party sequestered in the back part of the establishment. In attendence was Kastigir, Kao, Danalog, Mrs Danalog whose nickname I can't ever remember, Angsty, Twiz, myself, Flea, Smash, Nexa, Tare and Darkflame. DSD & Mr. DSD arrived soon after. Danalog appeared to be suffering from some form of wasting disease and we all pray that he receives treatment. Unfortunately, I sat far opposite of Darkflame and got to spend precious little time with her. Kao & Kastigir were mute. Smash and Nexa both forgot their respective significant others at the airport or something which presented quite a mystery for the Scooby Gang to solve. Tare is a wisp of a thing. Angsty has taller hair than most people I know. Twiz was simply taller than most people I know but was also malnourished. Smash, beyond his senile dementia when it comes to his significant others was also suffering from mange and had less hair than he did in Boston. All in all, it was like a sad African village except that we were all well fed and in the American midwest. DSD and I ate lampchops and they were yummy. We discussed things to do to Tricky for blowing us off.

A brief acknowledgement of Kastigir's generousity. He knows what he did and I thank him for it.

Speaking of generous people, Nobby called us at some point and eventually someone handed me a silver rectangle and told me that I should talk to it. I had no idea what in God's name it was, attempted to talk into it while holding it upside down, stared at it some more, tried it again and was finally rewarded by the voice of an angry Englishman yelling at me. I had no idea what in the fuck he was saying between the noise, the accent and the unfamiliar voice-sending technology and finally, being a couple drinks in the evening, decided that this wasn't going to go anywhere quickly and told DSD that it was for her.

Post dinner, we retired to Chateau Nexa and, for the first time in my short life, I spent over an hour in a hotel room with a bunch of loud drunk people and didn't spend any of that time convincing security personnel that we were indeed very, very contrite and would keep our voices down in the future. Darkflame was a powerful advocate for holding our next meeting in Vegas and was also shocked at Flea's expensive taste in booze. Danalog & Mrs Danalog totally yoinked the couch from Flea and I. Someday I'll get them back. Eventually Flea and I said "***** you guys and your lack of couches!" and went back to our bed. By all reports, others stayed a good bit longer.

The next morning, Flea and I ate breakfast at the hotel and met up with Tare, DSD/Sickabilly, Smash and Nexa and we headed off to the Chicago Art Institute. By which I mean that we stood in the rain and waited for a trolly then went to Millenium Park and then went to the Art Institute. We learned that some FBI guy raped the wife of some dude with a sign. We did not learned whether or not marks were left.

Oh, did I mention the rain? It's the Asylum Meeting Curse. Expect it to be 40F and raining in Vegas.

In the museum, Tare got to see some Impressionism, Nexa got to see some modern art, Flea got to see some Renaissance stuff and DSD got to see suits of armor and swords and pole-axes. About six times in fact but she seemed equally delighted each time we passed though. We made fun of the helm with no eye slits and talked about how useful it would be to have a shield with a gun sticking out of it. Later, the women were enthralled by tiny furniture proving that you're never to old to want a new dollhouse. At one point I totally put the moves on Tare.

Although they were not with us, Kastigir and Kao went to see the Air & Water show and, rumor has it, saw an F-22 Raptor. They said it sucked balls and they hope to never see another F-22 as long as they live. Honest.

After the cultural exhibit, we returned to the base of operations and went next door to the Hancock Tower to have a drink in the Signature Room and see the views. Sickabilly was very generous as well. We marvelled at the fact that Lake Michigan was, in fact, very large and then headed back to ready for dinner.

Dinner on Saturday night was to be at some Peruvian restaurant that I have no idea how to spell. We did have an address though and people got into cabs while Flea, Kastigir, Angsty, Kao and myself waited an ungodly long time for the valet to retrieve Kast's wheels. Another fine technological moment here -- Flea and I had decided that it might be helpful if we brought Flea's GPS from her car. It's a windshield mounted affair and is a couple generations old by this point but it does the job and we were feeling all clever for thinking to bring it. No sooner than we pull it from her bag when Kao and Angsty both pull out their cellphones and start giving satellite directions leaving Flea and I to feel like Australopithecus proudly showing off his pointy stick.

The Peruvian place was very yummy and we made Flea act as the liason between us and the waitstaff. Flea demanded that we try some South American witch's brew which tasted like sugary foam but came back later to punch you in the brain. DSD and I both ordered bunny rabbits and were both perplexed at the number of bones a damn rabbit has. Eventually we ate it with our hands as if it were fried chicken. Twiz ordered a bowl of soup he could swim in and then had dinner after that. Smash actually knew how to order in Spanish. We had more of the magic elixer. The final bill was eye popping, plus we paid in cash. It was a good weekend for the Chicago economy -- between Friday night's dinner and Saturday night's, we easily dropped well over a thousand bucks.

After dinner, the plan was to go back to the hotel and change and then met up to hit some club. What really happened was that each independent unit of our little gang went back to their room, felt brain-punched and fell unconscious. At 11:30pm, we decided to just hit the hotel bar again where we heard one of Satan's own lounge singers. Angsty, Danalog and Mrs Danalog went to some industrial club and we tried to guess what kind of music they play in a goth/industrial club. Smash, Nexa, DSD & Sickabilly all retired and Kast, Kao, Flea, myself and Twiz hung out in the lobby and discussed the shortcomings of everyone else on the forum. Eventually Angsty & Co returned and, as it turns out, all of our music guesses were correct.

On Sunday morning, Nexa hosted breakfast in her suite. Flea and Nexa made eggs and, um, more eggs and I destroyed some bacon in my own hotel room. I learned a few things from the experience such as "making bacon without paper towels is kind of a *****" and "the smoke detector in my hotel room doesn't work". People ******* about my crimes against pork but I noticed that the plate emptied all the same.

By this point folks started leaving for the airport where, as is my understanding, they are still. DSD, Sickabilly, Kastigir, Twiz and I went to the Field Museum of Natural History to see dinosaurs and mummies and dinosaur mummies. Flea fell in love with a stuffed tyrannosaur. DSD photographed everything that had even the slightest potential of making a decent avatar. Twiz and I discussed how to best 'rassel a raptor. The dinosaur kind, not the F-22. We learned all about Darwin and I lodged complaints about the lack of an Intelligent Design exhibit.

After the Field, that was about that. Twiz went off to reclaim his car, Flea and I grabbed our bags from DSD's room and we took off for the train. Flea and I had a swell time, it was great meeting all of you and I hope to see you all again next time we get together. Thanks for coming out here and saving me the airfare and delayed flights.

Edit: Reading, I can see a bajillion typos. I don't care. I'm tired.

Edited, Aug 19th 2007 10:38:14pm by Jophiel

I left out a shitload of details but I assume that some of the other 13 people can fill in their own bits.

I will say that, once again as in Boston, everyone was fun to be around and I didn't regret anyone's being there, just those who couldn't make it.

I just realized that by next year's gathering I'll have a little kidlet and won't make that, either.

Glad to hear you all had fun and that again it was cold and raining!

That's just an unexcusable abuse of pork, right there.

Sounds like there was quite a bit of drinking, sorry I missed that. So, Vegas next year? Sounds like a plan, but are there any single chicks who want to be revealed as my not-so-secret sweetheart? Are there any single chicks, period?





Samira?



Are you a chick?

That bacon looks like boiled *******. It doesn't look like it cooked enough to produce smoke that would disprove the functionality of a smoke detector.

Who the hell let you cook, anyways?

Sounds like you guys had fun!!

Well, if you post some pics, then I'll post the incredible story of what Nobby, BT, Nephtys, Thumb, Exo, Gbaji (), Debalic and some really really hot chicks got up too during the Alternative Allanois Week-end For Cool People Not Geeks.

To be fair, it's a wild guess, but I'm thinking it has a lot to do with *************

[quote=Atomicflea]To be fair, it's a wild guess, but I'm thinking it has a lot to do with *********************

It was that or the museum, so easy choice really.

Yep. What were the cool kids doing while the wrinklies were looking at art and fondling tare?

I suspect we can enjoy a few months of speculating about "DF's Missing Hours"

That's hawt.

So glad that you guys had a good time. Nexa, did you get the phone message I left on your hotel room's voicemail? I spoke with DF when she was either really tipsy or getting over her hangover and had a lovely conversation with Angsty. Hope you had a happy birthday Angsty!

Well, if you want to dispose of some crappy wow-related freebie for 13-year olds, there's one place that can't fail.

The =71 forum.

If only there was a way to see how far away you were from a colour change, maybe through a numerical evaluation of the distance seperating you from said colour change and through which the number of rating up needed could be calculated, or something...