2009 Fumblers B Decathlon: Sunday

This was one of those mornings. Your head is pounding. Your stomach is turning. You're struck by a bout of dizziness as you step out of bed. You only remember little windows into last night; details are hazy, if not nonexistent. Clothes are strewn across the floor. Your wallet is nowhere to be found.* You find your friend's credit card in your pocket.** Your phone isn't working.***

*Honors for this went to Short. Hysterically, his phone alarm went off shortly after we woke up with the reminder, "Find your bloody wallet!"

**I reached into my pocket to find Leif's credit card. When I returned it to him, neither of us could remember why I would have had it.

***Short pulled this feat as well. Hey, did I previously mention that he blew a 0.312 BAC? I believe there may be a correlation between that and the havoc he brought upon himself.

Why did any of this happen? Ummmmm, I don't know? How about: Why do I drink, ever? Is it worth it? Should I ever drink again?

Yeah. This was one of those mornings.

Slowly -- painfully slowly -- we all congregated in one of the living rooms to debrief each other on the night's events. Gradually we began to connect the dots here and there. And, well, yeeeeaaahhhhh... I think a lot of us would've been happy for those dots to never be connected again. We did some stupid things.

Before getting to the last event, we revealed the results of the Treasure Hunt, which had been going on in the background throughout the entire weekend. Unfortunately for me, one of the other guys had found my cricket ball, which I had hidden in what I thought was a very safe location outside of the apartment. I hadn't found anyone else's balls (hmmmm, that sounds wrong), so I received zero points in the event. Fortunately, I had company, as four other people were also sans balls. (Still sounds wrong.)

With only one event to go, we did a quick subtotal so everyone knew what was at stake prior to receiving our last points. And it turned out that we had a race on both ends of the spectrum! Short had the lead, with 72 points, but Joe and his 62.5 points had a shot at overtaking him. (My 58 points, good for fifth place, put me just outside of contention.) And although Lam had a pathetic 31 points, there were three others who still had a mathematical shot to overtake (undertake?) him for last place. This was going to be exciting.

Event #10: Fumblers Lotto

What better way to end the Decathlon and decide our winner and loser than with a complete game of chance?

We all placed our cricket balls in a box. First ball pulled would receive one point, second would receive two points, yada, yada, yada. Last ball pulled would win the event and receive 12 points.

The first ball pulled that would impact first or last place was Short, at three points. However, his 9.5 point lead over Joe was so commanding that three points were just enough to clinch victory. And Joe wouldn't even make it a close finish, as his ball was next out, giving him only one more point than Shorty in the event.

As for those in contention of finishing in last, well, there were unfortunately no changes in the standings. Maz was very vocally dreading the possibility, and for a moment, it looked like it might happen, but it wasn't meant to be.

And with that, we were done! The Second Annual Fumblers B Decathlon had been completed.

In first place, with an impressive 75 points,* was Mr. Pete Short. His award? The very trophy, in all its random and lame glory, that he himself had selected earlier in the week! He immediately expressed regret for purchasing that trophy -- how's that for karma? -- although he gratefully posed for the picture to the left.

*Not sure why I think that that's impressive... this was the first time we've actually staged a ten-stage decathlon with 12 contestants. For example, the winner of our nine-stage decathlon last year, with 15 contestants, received 88 points. Was that impressive? I don't know.**

**How about this: Short scored 75 points out of a maximum 120 points possible. That's 62.5%. Last year's winner scored 88 out of a maximum 135 points possible. That's 65.2%. So maybe Short's score wasn't impressive? Maybe no one cares? Maybe I should stop talking?

Congratulations Pete Short, on a job... done.

And in last place, with a pathetic 38 points,* was Mr. Daniel Lam! His punishment? Scull a beer from our cricket trophy -- the very one to which I'd done an unspeakable thing only weeks earlier!** Look at him savor every drip of that beer.*** Yum!

*Maybe I'm not sure about calling Shorty's 75 points impressive, but I'm absolutely confident in assessing 38 points as pathetic. Seriously. That's really bad. 3.8 points per event??!? Come on.

**It should be noted that a few days after all of this, back in Sydney, Short and I revealed to the group that I had NOT, in fact, done the unspeakable thing that we had claimed. I guess I'll just share it with you: here's a link to the video.

Imagine watching that only up to the 1:08 mark, because that's all that we showed the guys before the weekend was over. And under the assumption that THAT'S what I had done, Lam had drunken out of the cup.

***Note that because of the cup's current state, broken in several places, Lam actually drank out of a hole on the bottom. Hey, sometimes you gotta improvise.

And how did I do? Well, thanks to a dominant showing in the Fumblers Lotto, I leapfrogged much of the competition and finished with 69 points... good for second place! That's quite the improvement over last year's sixth-place finish, so I was somewhat pleased with the result. But first place would've been great.

Wanna see the entire scorecard? Look no further than right here. Everything you could want to know about how anyone did in any of the events at your fingertips.

Without a doubt, the Decathlon was an unequivocal success. We were happy. But still hungover. The only prescription? HARRY'S!!!

Capping off the weekend at Harry's, we had our last, unforeseen adventure, which involved some chauvinism, a bit of racism and plenty of bewilderment. It's been over two weeks, and I still can't wrap my head completely around what happened. And even if I could, I'm fairly positive I couldn't adequately capture the moment, in all its absurdity, in words. So I'm not even gonna try to recap it here. Sorry.

We ate our pies -- Pie #4 for me was the chicken pie shown here -- and we departed Newcastle.

It was a great weekend. The Decathlon was an unequivocal success. It absolutely went to 11.

Throwin' some suspense-filled Kleinballs

I know you're just dying to get that last post on the Decathlon, to hear how it ended, right? It's been eating you up for the last few days, right? You've been compulsively checking for a new post every other hour, right?

Well, you're gonna have to wait until next week! MWAH-HA-HAAAAAA!!!

I moved to Australia just as the first season of Mad Men was going to air. And ever since then, I've been hearing nonstop from people in the US about how great -- how freaking amazing, how mind-blowing, how extraordinary, how G-R-E-A-T -- that show is. So imagine my delight when I found out the other month that it was coming to TV here. Finally I get to see what all the fuss is about! But six episodes in, well, I have to say that I'm having trouble getting into it. I really, really, really want to get into it, and I'm giving it every chance, even as my other friends are giving up on it. But it isn't hooking me; so far, I'd give the show a B-, at best. Someone please give me a reason to hang on.

If you had to sum up the vastness of our universe -- that concept and feeling that Contact captured so well -- in just a few pictures, I'd argue that this does the trick as well as anything I've ever seen. Just have a look. It will blow your mind. (Just be sure to enlarge the picture once it loads up on your screen.)

I love this picture:

I haven't linked to a Posnanski post in a while, so here you go. This is quintessential Posnanski: Quite skeptical that I'd have any interest in the piece as I started -- because honestly, who cares about some NASCAR writer from Charlotte? -- somewhere about halfway or two-thirds of the way through, I lost myself in it, as it really struck a chord. If I should ever repeatedly treat anyone as poorly as this guy treated Posnanski -- and I sincerely hope that never happens, but if it does -- then I can only wish that that person could still see past that, for who I really was, and write an obituary as sincere and heartfelt as this one.

In the words of a man who needs one-tenth the amount of words to convey the same thing as me, Kill the weekend. All of you.

2009 Fumblers B Decathlon: Saturday

I woke up on Saturday feeling as good as could possibly be expected. Hungover? Sure. But functional? Yeah, pretty much. And that's all I could wish for.

We all slowly got up, and miraculously, for a group that's notoriously slow at mobilizing, we were on our way by 10:30. This would be a big day, with most of the Decathlon's events taking place. So let's get to it!!

Event #3: Test Match Pokies

A holdover from last year, this is pretty much a game of luck. Put a dollar in a pokie (for the uninitiated, basically a slot machine), set the spins to one cent each, and hold down the spin button. First person to $2 receives top score, second person gets next highest, and so on. On the other side, first person to $0 receives lowest score, second person gets next lowest, and so on.

The first person to make it to one of these extremes did it at the high end, with $2. (As Shorty so simply put it: It takes at least 100 spins to get to $0. To get to $2, all it takes is one spin.) Then, the bleeding began, with one person after another bottoming out at $0.

I managed to tread water for a bit after this, and was actually the last person standing, thus earning 9 points. I think it's quite telling that of the 11 of us competing in this event, only two made it to $2. Everyone else lost their dollar.

Event #4: Mini Golf

Another holdover from last year, and it worked pretty much as you'd guess -- points awarded based on final scores.

The highlights here were our copious attempts to psych each other out and our quickly-established rule that you had to play the ball wherever it lied. And we took that rule as literally as possible, as several people managed to hit the ball off the course. This included my horribly errant first and second shots on the 13th hole that I somehow salvaged with miraculous third shot. Look at this beauty:

Don't bother asking how my ball got there in the first place. Just know that I finished with five for the hole. And a 44 for the course, which was good for 8 points in the event. (First place, by the way? That would be Joe, who did it in 32 strokes. That's 1.78 strokes per hole!!)

Event #5: RSLten30

Yet another holdover from last year. Back we went to the RSL, which features all sorts of gambling options, from pokies to keno to sports betting to electronic blackjack. The goal here is simple: over the course of 30 minutes, gamble $10 however you'd like. That could be 1000 one-cent spins on the pokies, that could be ten $1 keno bets, that could be a single $10 bet on some greyhounds.

I made a beeline for the electronic blackjack. It's what I played last year, it's what I'm comfortable with, it's what I know. I sat down, started playing $1 hands, and started winning. One simple hot streak later and I had myself over $60.

A final amount of $63.50 won me the event. Easily. In fact, the combined total of everyone else's money at the end of the event was $62.45. I beat the entire rest of group! Not only good times, not only a win in the event, but that's a cool profit of $53.50. First income I've had in over three months!

Event #6: Fumblers All-Rounder

A completely new event this year, and one that was pretty much entirely about cricket. This is a cricket trip after all, so we figured that it would only make sense to actually incorporate some, you know, cricket.

This was an obstacle course, with each person getting fully padded up in cricket gear and navigating the course as quickly as possible. Fastest time, including some deductions that could be achieved on the course, would win the event. The course went as follows:

• Spin around ten times.
• Do three runs.
• Bowl three balls at a target, with each hit of the target earning you a five second deduction.
• Crawl under some rope.
• Hit a ball as far as possible, with time deductions awarded based on distance hit.
• Throw a ball at a wicket from no closer than five meters.
• Time stops when wicket is hit.

This event turned out to be a highlight. And in case my description above doesn't make any sense, here's a video of Shorty taking on the course:

Including time deductions, the winning time was 52.1 seconds. I finished in 1:38.1, which was good for six points. Not great, but I'll take it.

At this point, we took a break, went back to our rooms, reenergized, and met an hour or two later for the award presentations and some more events before heading out for the night.

Event #7: Scarf & Scull

Adding a new twist to our sculling event from last year, the task for this event was simple: scull a beer and eat a Harry's meat pie as quickly as possible, in whatever order you prefer. Fastest time wins.

Going into the Decathlon, I knew this would be one of my weaker events. I came in dead last in the sculling event last year, finishing a single beer in a pathetic 40 seconds,* and over the last few years, I've become a pretty slow eater. A good combination for this event, that does not make.

*However, let it be known that had I not been taunted during last year's sculling event, which at multiple times forced me to laugh, I would have finished a good ten seconds faster. Which, ummmm, still would have placed me in last place. Anyway.

We drew our names out of a hat to determine order, and I unluckily came out first. So after some mental preparation time, I stood over the beer and pie. And the clock began.

Total time, sans glorious belch? 1:44.4. The bar had been set. I knew many would beat it. The real question was, how many wouldn't?

(And let the record show that that was Harry's Pie #2 for the weekend. Your basic beef pie.)

Shorty, he of the four second scull last year, took down the event this year in an impressive 47.9 seconds.

However, no one provided more theatrics than Lam, who caught us all off guard with his hysterically unorthodox approach.

In the end, I did better than expected, with three people taking longer than me! So I finished with four points on the event, which I was more than happy to take.

Event #8: Snellfinger

A classic from last year, this event again didn't disappoint. And like my blog post last year, I'm not even gonna try to explain this game. It's impossible to do so in words. But it's very easy to pick up, and once you get the hang of it, it's insanely fun and addictive.

I won this event and netted myself another cool 12 points. Things were looking up for ol' AK!

And with that, we were ready to head out for the night! We had a few more beers, killed a bottle of bourbon and departed the apartments to take on the last event of the day.

Event #9: BAC & Yak

What's more fun than being able to quantify exactly how drunk you are, right? Juvenile? Yes. Hilarious? YES.

We'd been drinking a lot by the time we made it to this event. And it absolutely showed in our scores, as we put those from last year to shame. First place? Shorty, with a 0.312!! Last year's winning score was a 0.253, and besides Shorty, two other people from this year topped it! I wasn't one of them, but ended up blowing a 0.205 -- nearly 50% higher than the 0.140 that I blew last year.

It should be noted that my 0.205 was good for seven points... which was exactly how many points I got in this event last year! Yup, this year, we were all 50% drunker.

Throughout the BAC & Yak, a few bouncers began to congregate around us, as they quickly understood that we may have had a bit too much to drink. And as soon as we were done with the event, they politely suggested that maybe we should leave. Which we were more than happy to do; our day's work for the Decathlon was done!

We headed to a different bar, which was actually the one that I was not-so-kindly thrown out of last November. I've held a grudge to this day, so when I was thrown out again this time -- although no physical abuse on this occasion -- I was more than happy to leave. That's when I ran into Shorty, who had also been asked to vacate the premises, and who was very clearly showing the effects of his 0.312. (For the record, here's a nice little chart of what you can expect to feel at different BACs. We ticked most of these boxes. Although for Shorty and his level in the 0.30-0.39 range, I guess not the "death possible" one.)

You know what comes next, right? Yup -- Harry's! That would be Pie #3, and this time, a Tiger Pie: a beef pie with mashed potato, mashed peas and gravy. My lord.

Everything else is a blur. We ran into a few more people. Shorty realized that he had lost his wallet. We eventually headed back to the apartments. And oh yeah, and we got some more chips on the way back.

Fantastic day. Everything went off without a hitch. Heck, I even viewed being thrown out of that last bar as a good thing! So I went to sleep content, ready to wrap it all up in the morning and crown a new winner of the Decathlon.

2009 Fumblers B Decathlon: Friday

Picking up where we left off, by Thursday night, planning was all in order for the Second Annual Fumblers B Decathlon. And early Friday afternoon, with a back seat fully stocked with cases of beer, Shorty and I left Sydney so that we could get up to Newcastle ahead of everyone else and take care of some preparations. We arrived around 4pm and checked into our two apartments. Like last year, they were amazing. And freaking HUGE.


For ten guys, we had two completely new apartments (the building just opened last month!), five rooms and five bathrooms. And to me, that latter point is the most impressive, because really, when you have ten guys in one place, having a ratio of one bathroom for every two guys is never a bad thing.

We got a DVD player from the front desk. We stocked the fridge with beer. We set up our two trophies: one for the cricket title* and one for the winner of the Decathlon.** And we waited for everyone else to arrive.

*Formally known as the Arthur Picking Cup, we had a bit of a mishap with the trophy on Thursday night. You see, many people have drunken from that cup. We all did it after our grand final. I'm assuming that prior teams have done the same. The problem, however, is that the cup clearly wasn't made for such a purpose. Because every time we poured beer into the cup, half of it would leak out the bottom.

Anyway, as I picked up the cup on Thursday night to set it by the front door of our apartment, it completely fell apart. The faux-wooden base, exhausted after being soaked with liquids for lord-knows-how-many-years, simply gave way and dropped to the ground. The cup itself split into two pieces. So it wasn't in the best of shape over the weekend, and it's still something we sorta kinda definitely need to address before we return it next year.

**The trophy, as you'll see in the below video, features some sort of a dancer holding out a top hat. Why? Well, it's funny. And makes no sense. No other reason. In fact, when Shorty went to the trophy store to purchase something for the winner, he went with no clear idea of what he wanted. The only criterion he had to meet was that it had to be random. SUPREMELY random. He did well. Although -- and I don't want to give too much away here -- he actually ended up doing TOO well.

A quick video tour of one of the apartments:

Over the next few hours, as we watched a rugby league test match between Australia and New Zealand, the rest of the group trickled in. And once we were all present, we sat everyone down, turned on the DVD player, and set the scene for the Decathlon with a video depicting myself doing some, ahem, unsavory "things" to the trophy on a drunken night a few weeks earlier. I don't want to get into specifics here, but let's just say that after seeing what I'd done, you wouldn't want to touch the trophy ever again. Or, say, drink from it. Which conveniently brings us to the punishment for the loser of the Decathlon! For on Sunday morning, the loser would have to scull a beer from the trophy. It wouldn't be pleasant, but I guess that's the point.

Finally, Shorty, Maz and I ran through the ten events from the Decathlon and explained the scoring: with up to 12 people competing, top score in each event would receive 12 points, bottom score would receive 1 point. There were some exceptions and other vagaries to be addressed, but that's the basic idea.

And then we headed off for our first night out and to begin accumulating our points! First up, the two weekend-long events: Treasure Hunt and Picking Up.

Event #1: Treasure Hunt

A new event to the Decathlon! For this, each member of the team received a cricket ball on which we wrote our name. And for the course of the weekend, it was our obligation to (a) protect our ball and (b) steal other people's balls. You didn't have to carry it on yourself the entire time -- in fact, that wouldn't have been a smart idea -- but if hidden, it had to be accessible within five minutes of the apartments.

At the end of the weekend you would receive three points if you still had your ball and one point each for anyone else's ball that you had.

Not much else to add at the moment, as we wouldn't know how everyone fared in this event until Sunday morning.

Event #2: Picking Up

This event didn't go so well. Not for me. Not for anyone, actually. Pretty sad.

We had a whole scoring system set up for different, ummmm, achievements accomplished, and a wingman system for the guys with girlfriends, but there's really no point in me breaking that all down. I'm just gonna let the scorecard -- I'll link to it in my last post on the Decathlon -- do the talking.

And as far as the Decathlon goes, that was it for the night. We actually returned to Fanny's, the same bar that we went to on Friday night last year, and it proved to be pretty much exactly as we remembered it. With one exception being that thanks to a new law here, every hour after midnight, we couldn't order alcohol from the bar for a ten minute window. Although based on my memory (or lack thereof) on the night, we were able to comfortably compensate for that during the other 50 minutes of each hour.

Making the trek back to the apartments later that night, I made my first trip to Harry's for the weekend, for Pie #1. This time around, it was a curry pie. As awesome as ever!! However, not being fully sated as I walked home, I stopped off at some random shop and got some piping hot chips with sweet chili sauce. Soooooooo good. Almost as good as ten minutes later, as my head hit my pillow and I entered a deep, dark slumber. There would be serious business to take care of tomorrow.

2009 Fumblers B Decathlon: It goes to 11!

Last year, we held the inaugural Fumblers B Decathlon during our end of season cricket trip. And going into that weekend, I was cautiously optimistic that we'd pull it off. We had our ten events -- some of which we put some real thought into, others which we seemingly tossed in to get to ten -- but I was far from convinced that it would be a success.

Apart from our failure to actually stage all ten events, however, last year's Decathlon met and exceeded all of my wildest expectations. If I was expecting a weekend that would register an 8 out of 10, that weekend was a 10 out of 10. It... was... awesome.

So for this year, the bar had been set. And it had been set high. No longer did we view the Decathlon as a few incidental activities during our end of season trip; this time around, it felt as though our end of season trip merely acted as a stage for the Decathlon. So yeah, expectations were fairly lofty, and we knew that we had our work cut out for us.

Several days removed from the Second Annual Fumblers B Decathlon, I can confidently say that we not only staged a weekend on par with last year's, but it actually was better than last year's. That's right: this weekend went to 11.

Planning started early this year. Maybe a month or so before the actual trip, Shorty, Maz and I revisited last year's competition, discussed what had and hadn't worked, and after some debate, we settled on our ten events. Some were carried over from last year with no changes. Some were modifications from last year. And some were new events altogether.

By the Thursday night before the trip, we had everything in order: manuals for the Decathlon (five pages long!), scorecards, a trophy for the winner, a punishment for the loser, and a couple of surprises. It was going to be good.

It was good. And I'll recap everything in this space over the next week.

Throwin' some internet-less Kleinballs

A tangent:*

I love the US. I'd count the ways here, but that would become quite the tangent off of this tangent. So for purposes of the point I'm going to make, suffice it to say that I love the US.

I love other countries as well. I love Australia. I love France. I love Israel. I've generally loved most countries that I've visited.

I love each of the above countries, and more, because they all have something unique to offer, something that you won't find anywhere else in the world. None of them are better than any of the others. They're all just different. This is a good thing.

As we all know, America doesn't exactly have the best standing in the international community at the moment. And while I'm merely one American living abroad who alone can't do much to change that, I'm cognizant of the fact that people may see me as an extension of my country, and therefore (generally) try to act appropriately. With this in mind, I try to avoid comparisons that favor the US, because I feel as though these may come across the wrong way, as if I'm perpetuating the arrogant, "ugly American" persona and can't appreciate what other cultures have to offer.

But then there's customer service in Australia versus in the US. I'm sorry. I've reached a tipping point and I just can't bite my tongue any longer. My lord. I know it's en vogue to complain about customer service no matter where you are -- and that includes in the US, where I've had many horrific customer service experiences -- but believe me when I say that customer service in the US is leaps and bounds better than in Australia. Let me repeat that, in caps: LEAPS AND BOUNDS.

My latest pain? The internet service provider that we use in my apartment. Let's skip over the fact that there's actually a limit on the data that we can download each month; that alone can get me going on another tangent off of this tangent. Instead, let's focus on what's happened now that my roommates and I have decided to upgrade our plan, from 10GB of data a month to 30GB. Because in order to do that, for some reason I still can't fully grasp or care to even try to explain here, our ISP has to shut down our internet for two weeks! Caps, again: THEY'VE SHUT IT DOWN! FOR TWO WEEKS!

For customers who are requesting an upgrade to their existing service, you'd think most companies would jump through hoop after hoop to provide the best service possible. Not these guys. Instead, to thank us for being loyal and giving us more business, we have the distinct pleasure of going without internet for two weeks.

*Not sure how I can start a post with a tangent -- seems to kinda counter the definition of a tangent -- but there you go. Anyway. Tangent over.

The whole point of the above was to provide an excuse for not posting recently. Sorry. You'll get over it. Until then, here are a few Kleinballs to keep you coming back for more.

ANZAC Day was last Saturday, and it was good. Went to The Local, a new pub in our neighborhood that specializes in microbreweries, and played some Two-up.* Won more bets than I lost! Had some really good beers, including a Sunshine Coast Dunkelweizen (a dark wheat beer) and a Holgate Temptress Choc Porter, both of which blew my mind. The dunkelweizen, because it's friggin' amazing. (I've recently been into wheat beers, and this was a nice twist that brought things to a new level for me.) And the porter, because, holy jebus, that thing tasted like a chocolate milkshake.

*Don't know what Two-up is? It's really simple: Everyone stands around a ring and places money on the outcome of some coins that will soon be flipped. So if you want to bet $10 on heads coming up, you hold up $10 and yell out, "Ten on heads!" If someone wants $10 on tails, they'll let you know and give you $10. (The person betting on heads always holds the money.) Then coins are flipped. If they come up heads, you keep the money. If it's tails, you fork it back over to the other person.

The game was popularized among Australian soldiers during World War I, and as ANZAC Day is a commemoration for the soldiers, it's one of two days each year during which Two-up is legal.

The "job" is going well. Haven't made, or come close, to a sale yet, but I feel like I'm providing some good value to the company. Not that "providing value" pays me anything. But still. I feel good about it. And who knows, if I'm good enough, maybe this little arrangement will change so that I get an actual salary!

Because I have this "job", which may result in some income, I'm extending my deadline to find a job -- no quotes on this one... I'm talking the real deal! -- until some later date that I haven't yet determined but should probably figure out soon. Maybe two weeks later? May 22? That sounds about right. We'll see.

When these offers become available, I think I'll just keep throwing them up here to encourage people to come visit: $640 round trip from LA to Sydney! $840 from New York!!! Honestly, people. That's just a stupid deal.

And this weekend is the end of season cricket trip to Newcastle! I'm ridiculously excited, for about 38 different reasons. Seriously, it's going to be epic. I'd say about 30 hours of planning has already gone into it. I'd share some details now but, well, there are quite a few surprises planned and I can't have anyone find out before the trip. But rest assured, a full recap will follow... whenever we get our damn internet back.