A bunch of Americans visit some Canadians, Day 2.(This page will take awhile to load). The Heroes of Might and Magic
When someone asks you to take a road trip and says they'll accomodate you with good bars and a comfortable tile floor to pass out on, as a rule of thumb, I usually never turn down the offer. Apparently, the rest of those attending had the same thoughts. So with that, we all decided to set aside a weekend to head up to the land of Monopoly Money to drink large portions of alcohol and share Tailoring stories with our friends from Darktide and UO. It was to be a time of great celebration. Little did we know. Rich, Joe, Jason, and I met here in Columbus prior to the trip to get our drink and snack on at the local Wendy's before the drive to foreign grounds. After a quite lengthy dining experience there, we took to the road for a pretty fast 8 hour drive. Upon arriving in Toronto at NH and Mettle's Hotel at around 3 A.M, we were greeted by Azile and Devestate who had been tailgating the parking lot with a cooler of beer in preparation for our arrival. After the usual stretching exercizes that come from too many hours in a car, we were handed ice cold bottles or cans (we were given a choice!) of beer. It was very reminiscent of something people do a lot in like, South Georgia. We'd been in Toronto for all of 3 seconds and we had already discovered redneck mannerisms had reached as far North as Canada. I knew right off the bat we were sure to have an eventful trip. Never being the type to turn down free beer (even if it was Labatt's) we all hung out in the parking lot until about 5 AM discussing our plans for world domination. Surprisingly enough, we discovered that we had no real plans other than to drink beer and check out some really tall building downtown. Upon pondering, you might think that's somewhat of an odd reason to drive for 8 hours, but I know it beat attending a convention and getting to stand in line to shake hands with a real life GM alongside people in wizards and warriors outfits. Some might disagree. But they're either fat or underage, so fuck them. We're much more juvenile than that.
Joe and I had taken up Bill on his offer for free room and board the first night, so Rich and Jason headed up to their room to check out the complimentary XXX channels, and we accompanied Bill to his (as we would soon discover) fat-ass condo to sleep and tell ghost stories with he, Icereaver and Stumpy. We awoke the next morning and took to the airport, where Azash had picked up Aztek, drank a few over-priced beers at the mini-bar there, and then headed to lunch downtown, where Rich would later threaten to kill and rape the waitress for looking at him in Canadian. What a bitch. I can't remember the name of the joint, but I do remember it was across the way from your everyday condom shack featured below.
As soon as we received our drinks, Joe decided it was time to call the old Ball and Chain like a good bitch should. We all ordered our food as is customary when eating out, and Bill over at Rich's table decided to get some polaroids of the action of our lunch in progress.
Somewhere along the line here soon after the above pictures were taken, the waitress did something stupid or something and Rich got pissed off and smacked her, but we didn't get any pictures of that for some reason. Us Americans aren't as quick with a camera I suppose. I got a huge ass Toronto version of a Philly Steak Sandwich (Vancouverry Steak Sandwich or something like that) and I ate it and it was good. That pretty much sums up our lunch. Not really any exciting details. We did some other interesting shit in town, boarded the local transit and headed to The Peel Pub, where our evening of inebriation would begin. The Peel Pub ended up being a prime spot for some College-style alcohol consumption. Drinking games were actually tolerated, and it had a laid-back atmosphere that actually screamed "get really hammered and worry about it in the morning." It wasn't your everyday Pub. It was Canadian. One of the first things we noted upon ordering our pitchers, were the enormous size of the beer pitchers. I mean these things were fucking huge, and a picture can't really do them justice. Compare a 32-oz. Champps flagon to your everyday dinner glass, and you'd have a comparison of these monsters to a normal pitcher.
We ordered 2 pitchers, and the night began. Casual drinking went out the window sometime after 20 minutes, and Bill, Dave and Craig introduced us to a drinking game called "Sink the Sub" which thankfully was not sexual in nature. This would then thrust us (and especially Craig, as explained later) into some serious hangover-inducing fun.
The objective of "Sink the Sub" was to place one of the smaller beer glasses alfoat in the gigantic pitcher. It'd sink about halfway down, leaving room for participants to poor some beer into the glass while trying not to sink it. When the glass sinks, corresponding poorer (loser, though technically they are the winner, since well, the objective is to drink) consumes the glass of beer like an over-sized shot. Essentially, the rule was the fuck over thy neighbor by leaving him with a glass about to sink. OK, you get the rules. It's doesn't really require scientific genius. Let's take a look at a typical round of the game.
After about an hour and a half of us Americans losing terribly to that gay sub game, it was time to break out with a game that seperated the Reds from the Blues. I proposed a favorite I learned at GA Tech from my brother that I was abused at in my extreme youth : Anchorman. Also known as "Quarters" I suppose in some areas of the globe. I am sure there are many variations. Anyway, the method which we played this game was as follows: 3 of us random good old American Boys would dominate the 3 Canadians - Craig, Bill, and Dave. Before the game begins, you choose an "Anchorman" for your opposing team, who is technically the one who gets to chug a pitcher of beer if the team loses. The objective is to alternate bouncing quarters into the pitcher, first team to land 3 quarters wins. The first 2 guys of the losing team drink as much as the beer from the pitcher as they can without the beer leaving their lips. The Anchorman has to take down what's left. This is pretty much the turning point in the evening where any chances of the Canadians waking up in the morning feeling fresh and cheery are obliterated. We'll get to that. First, let's have a shot.
Now for the games to begin. Shit talking commences. Canadian quarters bounce, catch a little air, fly off the table. American quarters bounce and splash. Dave winces. Shit talking commences by the Allied forces. Azile and Craig drink their share and hand it over to Dave, our lucky loser for round one. Let's take a look at the action.
Now for round two. Shit talking commences. Someone eats the last Nacho. American quarters arc and splash. Canadian quarters ring on the floor. Rich asks Bill if he's thirsty. Dave and Craig aren't, so Bill gets a good thirst quenching. Someone belches aloud. I think it was Dave.
Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy beer as much as the next schmoe, but consuming beer from a pitcher full of quarters after 2 other guys have mouthed it and after it's been sitting on a table for a good while isn't high up there on the USDA recommended daily allowance list. Losing at Anchorman kind of turns out to be a punishment rather than a good time for the poor fool who has to do the anchoring. Just ask Dave, who coincidentally gets to drink again after another game against us. As you can see from the following, he tends to lose a little bit of his tasty beverage onto his shirt, making for a great fashion statement. Shit talking commences.
After a few games of pitcher punishment, we went back to something a little less dangerous for awhile so as to make the most with our night before any of us ended up donating Nachos from earlier to the Peel Pub floor. Soon, however, we'd end up in a long gambling session in which I'd be the star, and Rich would be a smiling motherfucker.
Somehow or another, and I can't recollect why, perhaps due to my owning in Anchorman, Rich, Bill, Joe started betting against each other whether I'd hit or miss a pitcher with a quarter. I was happy to oblige them on their bet, and I ensured Rich (who was betting for me) that I'd make him some easy money. After all, what'd I have to lose, wasn't my money. Plus I was fucking on that night. Bill and Joe were betting against me, so I gavem both a good scolding for doubting my mad skills, and let a quarter fly. Splash was the sound. Rich gave me a good slap on the back followed by a little praising, then persisted on betting the 2 losers again. Joe and Bill tookem up on the bet once again. I remember looking at Joe (hurt by his doubt) and teling him he was a fucking idiot for betting against me. He should know better. Ah well, he told me I was full of shit. Splash. What do you know, just made Rich another 50 or so bucks richer. I gave Joe a friendly "I told you so, fuckbucket" and he decided to sit out on the next few bets like a good bitch. This betting back and forth between Rich and Bill continued, witht he stakes getting higher and higher. About 7 times in a row I ended up getting my hand ripped off by giving Rich a good old High Five. There was a whole lot of Canadian money ending up in his pocket that night. Let's take a look at a typical Rich/Bill leading up to this point:
Eventually, however, Rich and I would get a bit too cocky, and some money would finally go Bill's way. Bill introduced a shot that would be quite difficult : landing a quarter in a glass inside of the pitcher. At that point though, who cared. I was on a roll, so it was worth a try. We ordered a round of Kamikaze's in preparation for what was sure to be the greatest shot of the evening.
So with the end of the streak, the gambling session ended, and we went back to less stressful activity. We played another game of Anchorman, this final game with Will landing all 3 American quarters, and Craig sucking down the rest of the pitcher. At this point, Craig is in the state shown in the first picture of the big ass pitcher, which happened to be very, very, drunk. We'll touch on that later, when he would make himself the hero of the day. About this time, as I was scoping out the unusually high population of Oriental Canadian women in the bar, Joe spotted something worthy of his little Fujifilm camera, and like a good sumaritan, decided to make the rest of us aware of such things by pointing in the general direction of some ass in the line outside of the bar.
It was pretty late at the time, but this Peel Pub we were at seemed to be a big attraction to the locals. The line outside was retarded long. My theory is that these people had caught wind of the rumor that a group of famous hardcore massively multiplayer online gaming gamers were in the house, so they all wanted to catch a glimpse of us in all of our glory, to solidify their belief of our legendary existence. That or they wanted big ass pitchers of beer, but most likely the former. At this point, Joe and I wanted to take a breather, so we went outside to check out the long line and the asses within it, and get a breath of fresh carbon monoxide. I have no idea what was going on inside at this point in time, but I do remember Joe and I trying to get back inside and some big Yo-Yo wouldn't let us back in, which was somewhat understandable due to the extremely long line. However, after an hour of deliberation with the moron, we finally managed to get it through to him that well, we had about a 400 dollar and running tab inside, and if he really didn't want us to pay for the damned thing, then we'd be more than happy to sit our asses out here with full stomachs of free beer and nachos. After he conferred with his esteemed colleagues for awhile about this new information, he finally decided it was a good idea to let us back in. It was a smart move on his part. Either way, we picked up a new technique for getting out of a bar tab free, which we're sure to take advantage of in Canada on our next visit. We go back inside, sit and have some more drinks/conversation, and out of nowhere, these two gnarly chicks approach us and one of them (infuriated) starts bitching at Joe and asking him why so and so did something or another. I was clueless at this point about goings on, and Joe kind of shrugs and says "no clue" to the chicks who then storm off to get one of the big Yo-Yo's with a name tag. I ask Joe what the fuck that exchange was all about, and he informs me that about 30 seconds prior, while Craig was stumbling around, that he had up and decided to toss his beer all over the gnarly chick (thus her anger) and that he had no idea why Craig did such a thing, but that it was god damned funny. I guess Craig just figured he didn't want the rest of the beer, and he thought she might want it all over her. He was just being thoughtful. It didn't seem to bother Craig in the slightest, and he sat down and began smoking a cigarette like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
We related the story to the rest of the people at the table, and together it was decided that now was a good time to get the fuck out of the bar, which we did. We all threw the 500 and some odd dollar tab together, and split before anything else might get us into trouble. After getting outside, we sat down to contemplate the next step of our night on the stairs outside, next to some Korean guy. Craig, being a little out there, decided to befriend this guy in the only way he knew how, by muttering things to the guy like "Do you know Karate?" and "Can you teach me how to eat with chopsticks?" which amazingly enough landed us a new friend. He found us to be "funny guy." We sat and bullshat with him for awhile, and took a group photo to capture the magic of the evening.
We eventually made our way to the Subway to get back to Azile's, where we were subjected to homosexual and lesbian encouragement via the monitors, as well as other crazy Canadian shit.
To make a long story shorter, we all went back to Bill's where a few bright morons (me and Bill) came up with the idea of playing Poker for hours. Bill got his revenge on us all by completely dominating the table with some kind of innate super poker power. I think I coughed up like 80 bucks by night's end. It was Canadian, so it wasn't real money anyway, though. At one point during the poker game, Craig was noticed making strange noises while passed out on his back, and Bill realized he was about to puke upward and all over himself, or choke to death. So in an amazing carpet rescuing attempt, he managed to haul Craig outside to the balcony where he would then send a nice stream of foreign substance speeding to the shrubbery eighteen stories below. Craig didn't rememer this part the next day, but that's a whole 'nother story. Joe and I stumbled back to our hotel at 7 AM, ( two hours before Rich would come wake us up to begin day 3) and that pretty much concludes our Toronto trip, day 2. Days 3 and 4 were unfortunately not documented, as we had little film left and were too cheap to purchase more disposable Fujifilm cameras. Also unfortunate, was the absence of Icerazor and Stumpy, who had to work the next day so were not involved in this particular journey. Due to lack of film, we only have two pics of from our night out on Day 3, which well, doesn't say much for the good time we had.
All in all, I had a great time, and I know we all did. It was good to meet the Canadian side of our gaming regulars, and they all turned out to be just as cool out of game as expected. Would like to give Azile / Icerazor / Stumpy thanks for allowing us to shack at their pad for one of the nights, giving us a good tour of the town, and for showing us the advantages of Knowing our Blah Blah Blah. And of course special thanks to Rich, who per his usual, covered a lot of our drinking expenses with his anchorman winnings.
Disclaimer : This was the story of our trip through my eyes, and part or parts of this story are possibly probably in no way whatsoever facts, but things I made up about a trip we made 5 months prior to writing since I can't remember anything about it. However, these are indeed the facts of the trip, and no one can claim otherwise, so you can disregard this disclaimer. - Ron. |
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