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.

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.

Chillaxing in the Hunter and Port

We are back!

Sam, Sarah and I had a great five days --one in the Hunter Valley and four in Port Macquarie -- doing our best to "chillax" (as Sarah liked to deem it) 24/7. There was our wine tour with a crazy guide, hydro golf, St. Patty's Day celebrations at Finnian's, hanging out at the lighthouse, going to the koala hospital and, of course, getting in plenty of beach time.

The trip back yesterday featured a trip to Harry's in Newcastle because, well, it was on the way. And what trip to Australia is complete without some beautiful meat pies from Harry's?

Back in Sydney, we picked up Robert from the airport this morning and hit up the sights during the day, with the beautiful sun beating down on us. Tonight is gonna feature pizzas at The Australian Heritage Hotel with some of Australia's finest local meats: kangaroo, salt water crocodile and emu.

More to follow (including pictures?) next week.

And... we're back at it

Another weekend has come and gone. And although it's not like I went back to work on Monday, I'm still lamenting its passing. For it was a good one.

As prefaced here last week, Friday was our friend Jez's buck's night up in Newcastle. With the theme being red, Short, Maz, Yogi and I procured some hideous, bright red wigs to go along with our red shirts. Really, they couldn't have been more awful/perfect. Here are a few shots to illustrate:




Anyway, as I said in my last post, while I didn't know what we'd be up to at the party, I was positive that we'd (a) stop at Harry's and (b) get up to some shenanigans. Well... hmmmm. The first one very unfortunately didn't happen. And the second one? Well, I'm still not sure. It was very fun -- don't get me wrong -- but many of Jez's friends up in Newcastle are very religious. A ridiculous bachelor party* full of tomfoolery this does not allow for. But still. It was good.

*I did a very quick search on why it's called a bachelor party in the US and buck's night in Australia, and this is the best I could come up with... at least without consuming too much of my precious time. Other names around the world apparently include stag party, stag night, stag do and bull's party. Whatever.

HOWEVER, I found the Wikipedia entry on bachelor party/buck's night to be quite amusing. Especially the section on Australia. Consider: "The groom's mates often, after heavy drinking, subject the groom to various humiliations, sometimes in public. These often include leaving him tied naked to a pole or placing him on an airplane to a remote location. It has also been quite common to start the humiliation at the beginning of the night by dressing the buck up as a female or making him wear a 'mankini'."

Tying the groom naked to a pole? Placing him on a plane to a remote location??!? Making him wear a mankini???!??!?! HILARIOUS!! Clearly I did not experience your "typical" Australian buck's night. That is, of course, assuming the description on Wikipedia is accurate. Which it always is.

Saturday was a wash. Big time. Quite hung over, we drove back to Sydney and then did nothing. It was fantastic.

Sunday was Tropfest, the largest short film festival in the world. Broadcast simultaneously in open-air settings in each of the capital cities, it features 16 short films. The movies started at 7:30pm, but a few of us got down to the Domain (located next to the Botanical Gardens) by 3pm to get a good spot, soak up the sun and get our picnic on. It was good.

And now it's the week. Back to the job hunt.

Going back to Newy

By my count, I've made the two-hour drive north to Newcastle three times since I moved to Sydney nearly a year and a half ago. The first time was for a very quick car tour with Jez, after our weekend in Forster. Then I came back for the infamous Fumblers-B Newy Decathlon (chronicled here, here and here). And the last time... well, I don't believe I ever recapped the horrific events of that fateful Saturday night here, but it involved myself, a bouncer, some shoving, and a torn shirt. I'm still emotionally scarred from the incident, so that's about as much as I'm willing to share at the moment.

Anyway. Late tomorrow morning, I'm going back to Newy for a fourth time. And this time, it's for Jez's buck's night (better known in the US as a bachelor party*). I have no idea what's planned, but we've been told that there will be plenty of alcohol, to bring a spare change of clothes and that the theme is red.** What I do know is that (a) our car will be making the obligatory mecca to Harry's beforehand and (b) there will be shenanigans. And no, I'm not talking about the restaurant with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks.

*I'm actually not sure why it's called a buck's night. I should probably look that up. Same goes for hen nights, aka bachelorette parties. I'm sure it's all on Wikipedia or something, but our Internet's being shitty right now, so I really couldn't be bothered.

**This is due to Jez's very red hair. On our way up there, we'll be stopping at some shops to find some ridiculous, red outfits. As far as I'm concerned, the more ridiculous, the better.

Recap (and pictures?) to follow next week? I'm Ron Burgundy?

Newy pictures and the Hawkesbury

Can you believe it, but almost eight months into Australia and I've just posted my first pictures on this World Wide Interweb thing. So enjoy! A few select ones are below, with the rest located here and here.

My sworn enemy and I in a brief moment of reconciliation.

No, no, no, guys... it's AK All Day.

The longest 40 seconds you've ever experienced.

They're laughing with me... or at least that's what keep on telling myself at night so that I can fall asleep.

This was taken in an elevator. Three seconds later, we all plummeted to our... well, I'm writing this now, so we ended up fine.

Rockin' it out with Shorty.

The establishment that shut down my arteries for the weekend. God bless it.

Thumper returneth.

And now I'm off to spend the weekend on a houseboat with nine others on the Hawkesbury River! I'm going to freeze my ass off, this much I know. Besides that? Well, probably some booze.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 3

The conclusion!

SUNDAY: Bringin' It Home

Nothing easy like a Sunday morning today.* We pack up and meet up with the other boys whose apartment is, yes, a three minute walk away from Harry's. So for our healthy and nutritious breakfast, I down pie number three.** By now, they're absolutely disgusting. But so good.

*In fact, I'd argue that most Sunday mornings are note easy. Lionel's on his own there.

**For those keeping score at home, the pies were, in order: (1) The Tiger (beef pie with mashed potatoes, mashed peas and gravy), (2) Chilli Pie and (3) Bacon & Cheese Pie. I went with the Bacon & Cheese Pie on this morning because, well, that's kind of appropriate for breakfast, right?

As we all silently eat, lost in each of our hung over heads, Maz, Shorty and I head off to add up all the scores. And with only one more event to go, we find it's fairly close, with about five or six people -- including myself -- still in contention for victory. So we head back to the group, announce the subtotals and get to the final event:

9. Fumblers Lotto – The simplest of them all. We have 16 pieces of paper in a hat, all labeled with a number between 0 and 15. Everyone draws, from the person currently in last up to the leader. I get a 3. Crap. As far as contending for the title goes, that's the nail in the coffin for me.

After it's all said and done, Tom Rodgers holds on to first place and wins the Inaugural Fumblers-B Decathlon! Congrats to Tomothy for the victory, and congrats to us all for a fantastic event. For those keeping score at home, here are the final standings.

Before I move on, however, a few notes are in order:

1) Maz pleasantly shocked me by getting an actual trophy to present to the winner of the event. And there it is on the left. How cool is that??!? If I were to win that, I'd actually display it with pride. Then again, maybe that's just because I was so close to it. Maybe Tom's already tossed it in the trash. Who knows.

2) For the mathematically inclined, you may have noticed that our decathlon -- which, by definition, has ten events -- only featured nine events. We had initially planned on ten, but when someone forgot to bring their Who Wants To Be A Millionaire board game, we lost an event* and decided that instead of coming up with something else, it would be quite appropriate for a group of underachievers such as Fumblers-B to compete in a nine-event decathlon.

*In retrospect, this may have been a good thing.

3) Finally, and most disappointingly, it was determined earlier in the event that the loser would in fact not have to go into Ken's at Kensington. Which was a brutal blow to the integrity of the entire event. But enough of the boys put up a fuss that we canned the stipulation that the last place finisher go in and instead decided that if anyone finished the decathlon with under 20 points (a woeful and pitifully low number that you'd actually have to try to get under), only then would someone have to go in. And since the person in last place finished with 44 points, well, the mystery of Ken's will continue.

And with that, we split up, got into our cars and headed back to Sydney. For our weekend was over. Or so we thought...

Driving back, we spotted a car in front of us that looked a lot like one of the other guys' cars. And just as we were trying to make out if it was actually his car or not, a large dildo emerged from the passenger window, and began to wave wildly around. And we burst. Because that would unmistakably be Thumper Smith under the guidance and care of Matt Lisle.

God, I don't even know where to begin with Matt or Thumper. Let's see. I guess I can first say that Matt -- or Lisle, as we call him -- is crazy. Certifiably insane. It's seemingly his goal in life to make everyone in a ten foot radius feel uncomfortable. And he does this to great effect, which often leads to hilarity, embarrassment and terror, all rolled into one. And Thumper? Well, he's a dildo. A big, foot-long dildo that's probably a good six inches in circumference. So with your very brief knowledge of Matt, it probably comes as no surprise that he and Thumper often travel together, with the sole intention of producing awkward situations.

Anyway, there's Matt waving Thumper around, which we first thought he was doing because he knew we were driving behind him. And it was absolutely hilarious. But then we noticed that he was only waving Thumper around when his car passed someone on the sidewalk! So he wasn't doing this for us -- he was waving this dildo around at other people! Which of course made us laugh harder. After a few minutes witnessing this spectacle, we finally pulled up alongside the car, and saw Matt with Thumper in one hand and a bullhorn in the other! That's right -- not only was he waving this dildo at people, he's been yelling at people with the bullhorn! My God, he's crazy.

Of course, now that Matt knew we were seeing this as well, he had to up the ante. So he started to get all crazy for and was jerking Thumper off and even tried to toss him into our car at a red light. And this continued. For all two hours home. My God.

Yes. That was a weekend.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 2

We left off here. And now we continue on Saturday night, as we pregamed at the apartment before the big night out.

5. Snellfinger – Ahhhhhh, the Snellfinger. First introduced to me when Shorty came to New York in 2005, the game is ridiculously easy to learn and play but impossible to explain. So I won't. All you have to know is that it involves everyone's index finger, a little bit of luck and an awful concoction, which in our case turned out to be two parts rum, two parts vodka and one part Coke. Last man remaining has to drink said concoction. Fortunately, I finished around the middle of the pack with eight points and was never too close to having to drink that ghastly drink. (The guy who did? He didn't make it past 10pm that night.)

6. Scull – They call it sculling, Americans call it chugging. Easy enough, right? We went around the room, everyone had their shot against the clock and then we were all ranked. Fastest time was somewhere in the four second range. Slowest time? That would be yours truly, somewhere in the forty second range. Going in, I knew this would be my weakest event and it absolutely was by a long shot. Not that I actually took forty seconds to actually consume the beer, mind you. For at about the 20 second mark, when it was painfully apparent that I was going to take longer to scull this beer than your average Super Bowl commercial runs, Shorty and Maz took it upon themselves to do all they could to make me laugh. Without their influence? I could have easily gotten into the 30 second range... and still finished in dead last. Good times.

7. BAC & Yack – The event I'd been waiting 25 months to participate in. Literally. First concocted 12,045 miles away in Montreal on an impromptu weekend trip with Dave, Robert and Regan, we found (what was to us) this novelty of a breathalyzer earlier in the day and determined that we would come back to it later to see who was the drunkest. But after a night of trying to incite Quebecois separatist fervor, going to the worst strip club ever in a town renowned for its strip clubs and choking down some sort of an excuse for pizza, we forgot all about it. And I've regretted it ever since, often lamenting with Robert. Fortunately, in the lead up to the Decathlon, Robert reminded me of the contest and I happily submitted the idea to Maz and Shorty (the three of us formed the Decathlon Executive Committee), who loved it and quickly adopted the event.

Cut to later Saturday night. We get to the place where we'll be spending the rest of the night, pay a $10 cover and then... no breathalyzer!!! We were crushed until, well, there was a breathalyzer. So we excitedly gathered everyone (not an easy feat when 14 guys are scattered in a two-story bar) and we all blew. The lowest BAC? 0.072. (Still under the legal limit to drive!) The highest? 0.253. And I blew a 0.140, which I was very disappointed in at the time* but was still somehow good for seven points.

*What have I come to that I'm disappointed with not being drunk enough? Is this my life??!? Ah, whatever... it was a contest. Plus it wasn't even midnight yet! I probably got into the 20s by the end of the night.

8. Picking up – This was a weekend-long event. And the goal was a simple and universal one: pick up. No need to translate any wacky Aussie lingo here. Originally, the idea was to rank everyone based on a mix of success and good stories, but by the time Sunday rolled around and we had to actually rank 14 guys on a very loose and undefined set of criteria, Maz, Shorty and myself -- all just a tad on the hungover side -- gave up and simply awarded five points per hook up. Which resulted in almost the entire group accumulating five points -- including yours truly -- but leaving Shorty on top with ten. No surprises here; this is what Shorty does best. I submit the accompanying picture as photographic evidence of this.

On the way home, I was conned into walking fifteen minutes in the wrong direction all in the name of going to Harry's. My fury and bewilderment quickly turned into pleasure as I scarfed down pie number two on the weekend. And then as we walked another 20 minutes back to the apartment, the rage came back in full force. Unfortunately, there were no pissed off women screaming at us from a hotel window to berate this time.

As I slept away my rage, Sunday morning dawned. And not only would it bring the end of the Decathlon and the crowning of a champion, but also one of the stranger and funnier things I've ever witnessed. We'll wrap this up by this weekend at the latest. I promise.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 1

So. That was a weekend.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to put it into proper perspective for quite some time, but let's see what I can do here.

FRIDAY: The Precursor

Off work by 4, on the road by 4:30, in possession of road soda by 4:31, into Newcastle by 7. We check into our apartment, and it's MASSIVE. ("Massive" as in we didn't know what to do with all the space. "Massive" as in I'm not sure what the designers knew what to do with it either; there was just random open space that served no discernable purpose. "Massive" as in there were a seemingly endless amount of balconies, including one that we didn't even find until the last day.) We cab it over to the other apartment that the rest of the group is staying in, get some Harry's meat pies* for dinner, watch some Rugby League for a bit, run through the rules of the Decathlon and we're off. After a short stint at one bar, we end up at Fanny's. Fanny's is a madhouse. Just one of those wild clubs where everyone is having slightly more fun than normal.** So we do as well. Sometime around 3 or 4 or 5, I head off with Yogi, who thinks it's a great idea to walk back to the apartment. Except that it takes FOREVER. So I bitch most of the way. Fortunately, we're also able to entertain ourselves by pissing off a woman in a hotel and belting -- nay, screaching -- out "Roxanne." Excellent times.

*You may remember my search for Harry's meat pies back in September. There are two locations in Sydney , but it took a trip to Newcastle for me to finally make it there. And I'd be grossly lying if I said this was the only time during the trip that I went. Grossly.

**If Fanny's were an amplifier, it would absolutely go to 11.

SATURDAY: The Main Event

Up by 9, and I probably could blow a 0.153 on a breathalyzer. But there's no time for surrendering myself at the local police station, because we have the Inaugural Fumblers-B Newy Decathlon! And I'm psyched. Beyond psyched. For what started out as a random brain fart with some friends had turned into a well-planned, full-day affair, with spreadsheets, timetables and everything. So let's get to it!

1. Test match pokies – For those who don't know, a "pokie" is Aussie lingo for a slot machine. So for our first event, we marched on down to the local RSL*, each claimed a seat in front of a one cent machine, placed a dollar in and held down the "Bet" button. First person to two dollars got 15 points, second person got 14 and so on. On the other end, first person to zero dollars got zero points, second person got 1 and so on. After a certain amount of time, we simply ranked anyone else still in the game. Me? With one hand on the "Bet" button and the other scarfing down one of the best bacon and egg sandwiches I've ever had,** I quickly began losing money. But after being on the verge of zeroing out and flirting with single digits, I somehow rallied and stayed in the game long enough to end up with nine points. And it wasn't lost on me that nine is my lucky number. It was going to be a good day.

*Don't worry about what this stands for. All you have to know is that an RSL generally caters to old people, has cheap food and drinks and, yes, offers multiple forms of gambling (i.e., pokies, sports book, keno, etc.). Although no table games. Needless to say, we spent much of our day here.

**I'm not sure exactly where it would rank, but I can promise you that even if it's second, it's far, far, FAR away from Bui's.

2. Go-karting – The competition here was simple enough, as the track we went to recorded everyone's fastest lap times. So although most of us were probably still over the legal limit to drive, we ran around in circles like maniacs for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, with the track being wet due to some rain the night before (at least this was our excuse), people were constantly spinning out and I'm not sure we ever had a clean lap. Regardless, we finished, got our results and I finished with ten points. Looking respectable so far!

3. Mini golf – A hundred feet away from go-karting sat mini golf. So that was an easy transition. We split up into four groups and played through one of the most shocking courses ever. It was like the dude who designed the course ran out of ideas after four holes and just repeated every hole from there on out. And I'm pretty sure the artificial turf hadn't been replaced since Gough Whitlam was in office.* But we battled through the conditions, and as I put together a nice string of 2s on the front nine, I began to set my sights on taking this event. For as the undisputed pitch and putt champion of the world, I should be able to take down a bunch of hungover yokels, right? And shortly thereafter, I fell apart on a hole, finished with an 8, thus ruining any chances I had. Although I still ended up with a respectable ten on the event, thus giving me 29 of a possible 45 in the first three events. Not horrible.

*Obscure reference to Australian-culture-that-zero-people-in-America-will-get alert!

I should also note that it was somewhere in here, in transit to our next event, that Maz and I began to scream at anyone from the car window, "GO THE KNIGHTS!" The Nights, of course (or not "of course" at all, no one in the US would know this), being the Rugby League team from Newcastle. Strangely, not one person reacted to this and instead gave us the most bewildered stares ever. Even the people working at Energy Australia Stadium, home of the Knights and the location of the go-karting and mini golf, didn't seem to care.

Quick break for lunch back at the RSL. Noodles with dodgy chicken and satay sauce. (Fortunately, the chicken looked dodgier than it tasted and never came back to haunt me. Yet.)

4. RSLten30 – Pretty simple rules, actually. You have $10 to gamble in any way you'd like over the course of 30 minutes. At the end of the half hour, everyone's ranked based on how much money they have. At this point, I had developed quite the nasty headache, so I just plopped down at an automated blackjack game and lost myself in it for 25 minutes. Betting only $1 hands, I was up by $7 or $8 at one point and then came back to Earth, finishing with $5.50. This would turn out to be enough money to finish fourth in the group and get 12 points. (Yes, that's right -- I lost $4.50 and finished fourth! In fact, I'd say three or four people had lost all their money within about three minutes. And at the end of the half hour, eight of us had lost all their money, thus netting them all zero points! The lesson, as always? Don't gamble.)

This concluded the day portion of the Decathlon and we headed back to the apartments. The weak slept, and ended up receiving some serious points deductions for showing up for the next event late. The strong drank. We reconvened in the late afternoon and kicked off the festivities with the cricket presentations. I could go into detail here, but let's face it: for all you in the US, no one cares about that. (In fact, I doubt anyone has made it this far.) Suffice it to say people were honored, people were made fun of and people were forced to drink.

And I'm going to finish Volume 1 here, mostly because I'd like to post something on the trip this week. And with a four day work week (thank yoooouuuu Anzac Day!), this is my last chance. Because Friday will be consumed with shovelling Anzac Biscuits down my throat and playing Two-up. So here you are. The thrilling conclusion to come early next week.

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.