Anticipating a weekend of epic proportions

The "one weekend trip a month" program took a hiatus in March. Which was fine. Forster, the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Day Weekend and Melbourne had taken their toll on me. But now, as discussed in my previous post, I've fallen into too much of a routine. And it stops now.

This afternoon, the cricket team and I head up to Newcastle, about two hours north of Sydney on the coast. For despite absolutely crapping the bed in the semi final a few weeks ago, we must celebrate the end of the season. And we must do so as grandly as possible. Thus the idea was hatched a few months ago for all 15 of us to head to Newcastle for a weekend full of debauchery and, uh... uhhhhhh... uhhhhhhhhh... yeah, no... yeah.* Just debauchery.

*I absolutely despise it when people pull the "yeah, no" in conversation. Yet I find myself doing it with alarming frequency. Drives me crazy.

And then a few things happened:

One. I read this Bill Simmons mailbag column a few weeks ago. Specifically, I read the fifth question from the bottom.

Two. In the early stages of planning for the weekend, someone proposed that we go go-kart racing.

Three. There's this establishment across the street from my friends' place (also about 20 feet* away from their bus stop right by our favorite Portuguese chicken restaurants!) called Ken's at Kensington. And it's a place where, well, just Google it. (I'm not even going to link to it.) Naturally -- to a certain degree, I think/hope -- these guys are curious about what goes on in there. Is it a lewd sex cavern, with moans seeping from behind every door? Or is it a classy establishment that caters to a higher standard? We just don't know. And last weekend, as we waited for a bus, it all came to a head as we decided that we had to get someone to go in. Is it childish? Yes. Moronic. You betcha. Completely immature? Abso-fricking-lutely.

*Are we all okay with me switching back to the English system of measurement??

But who among us will go in? How can we possibly select someone in egalitarian fashion?

And it all came together for me. Imagine the wheels spinning in my head as I go through this thought process: we're going on a weekend trip... I've read about a weekend trip recently... ah, the Simmons article... there was a competition involved as well... wait, we're already having some competition with go-karting... why not take that a step further... a full competition of ten events... to determine a loser! YES! THAT'S IT!!! It was a beautiful revelation.

And thus the Fumblers-B Newy Decathlon was born. (Fumblers-B is the name of the cricket team, and Newy is short for Newcastle.) Well, actually, the Fumblers-B Newy Pentathlon was first born, but this baby has snowballed into becoming a weekend long competition of ten events to determine who among us would go where no one would dare.

Settling on the various events was a bit of an ordeal. Many things to consider, most important of which was time constraints. So after dozens of emails back and forth this week, the following 10 events have been decided on:
1. Snellfinger
2. Go-karting
3. Mini golf
4. Speed poker
5. Who Wants to be a Millionaire board game
6. Pool tournament
7. RSLten30
8. Test match pokies
9. BAC and yack
10. Picking up

All 15 of us are ranked in each of these events, with first place receiving 15 points, second place receiving 14 points, third place receiving 13 points, and so on. Add up all scores at the end of the weekend, see who has the lowest score, and there you go! It's so brilliant it makes me want to cry. Then add on this spreadsheet that has been created, and the perfection of it all makes me want to weep until my tear ducts are dry.

The names of some of these events are self-explanatory, others aren't. But I'm going to hold off on any further description of each event for now because (a) I'd like to keep this post to less than a thousand words and (b) there's a good chance that we won't get to all of them or they'll simply change. So I'll save explanations of the events for any post-weekend wrap up in this space. And if all these activities go according to plan, trying to do a recap here may make my head explode. Or take a month to do.

It's going to be a good weekend.