Oblivion_party (what *did* we call oblivion_party 2?)

[jack]

Saturday was a massive four-way birthday party. First we met at the Mill to walk to Grantchester, and due to busing I was late, and nearly strode off down the river, before poking my head inside and seeing everyone else still drinking happily. With relatively small amount of faff we set off.

A disturbing man was cycling the other way, and ran striaght into the whole group of us. Perhaps we could have been prompter to let him past, but "look where you're going" doesn't really apply to people walking along a footpath from someone who cycles into them full speed. He crashed directly into Becky and both collapsed under their bikes, making close to dying twice, or maybe thrice, over. While still making cycling motions he then cursed everyone vehemently and kicked his way free.

It's always strange walking, since it allows unusually fluid conversations, so I chatted to just about everyone, though there were quite a few. At Grantchester we went to the Orchard and had tea and scones in a very civilised manner, and it barely rained until we were leaving.

We returned to the mill and dispersed (or disbursed) for last minute present/food buying, or changing into evening party clothes. I dashed to Townsend's and got a new cycle, together with free starwars bike bell, because I mentioned a friend with a birthday would think it so sweet :)

Finally mobile again I went home, changed to my pinkest shirt, and cycled to Oblivion. I got pretty drunk, but sensible enough to cycle carefully home, dismounting for awkward crossings, and enough to behave somewhat wantonly (sorry!) but without quite losing myself :)

I had shaved hair off, and it had reached the one-day strokey stage, which was a great hit. Well, several people laughed, but enough seemed to like it. It feels odd now, but in a couple of days I think is about perfect.

I chatted to lots of people, including some old friends I hadn't seen for a while, and spoke to new interesting people I'd seen about. Different geeks groups are intertwined with linkages like lianas through the rainforest.

There were even a few friends of Becky's from work and karate. Apart from Pip's parties and Becky's hikes, I so rarely meet people my friends know through different sorts of media than I knew them. Some fit right in, a couple seemed slightly shocked, if accepting, of the way everyone there was odd relative to 'normal' people -- the sanest conversation was about guppies. I felt (1) at times people like them here could have felt like people like me feel at parties where the main conversation is about football -- implying no criticism of either sort -- and (2) made me glad I do know people with whom I get on.

Of course, this was repeated when asked about the weekend this morning. Getting fairly drunk on saturday is fairly normal, but when I counted (a) men in supergirl outfits: 1 (b) conversations about aristotlean solids and the application of the offside rule to python: lots (c) people kissed: 4 (d) people in relationships kissed: 8 (e) blogging of party quotes: in real time (f) society comittee meetings: 1 (thankfully not poohsoc!) (g) etc I realised most of this might seem odd to the people I was relating it to and received editing.

Then on sunday... ok, separate post.

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

And I don't even need to get drunk to be as odd as that. ;-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. I don't know if other people were drunk :) Certainly it's a mark of inconsidtency in some way if you change what you do while drunk, though if you just do it more so, that's a pleasing use.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Well, I was only ever once drunk, and that was an accident (serve me right for drinking Scotch on St Patrick's Day - well, they had no Irish whiskey in the blessed place!). Apparently I talked about growing broccoli in buckets, and repeatedly stated in no uncertain terms that the chair of the council's education committee was totally unsuitable.

Not sure about the broccoli, but that certainly was what I thought of the Chair of Education...

[chess]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/oblivious_party/

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. I knew it was a pun of some sort, and that would be a bad idea... :) Thanks.

:( I see no-one did update it at all. Oh well.

[senji.livejournal.com]

Different geeks groups are intertwined with linkages like lianas through the rainforest.

Who is Liana? :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

There was distinctly no apostrophe! :)

(Did I spell that wrong?)

[simont]

(c) people kissed: 4 (d) people in relationships kissed: 8

I'm having trouble with these two. I can't think of any way to define your terms which doesn't end up with everyone who qualifies under (d) also qualifying under (c), so how you can get (d) > (c) perplexes me.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That was ironic, for in *describing* behavoiur many people would be wierded out by, I used inequality humour that ditto :)

Answer: I counted some people more than once :)

[simont]

Even then I had to think. Presumably you mean you counted someone more than once under (d) if they were in more than one relationship at the moment you kissed them?

(The other possibilities I can think of are that you were counting kisses in (d) but distinct people in (c), which seemed unlikely without an explicit indication; or that someone might legitimately be counted twice under (d) if you kissed them, then they dumped someone, then got together with someone else, and then you kissed them again. Which would be theoretically possible, although if that had happened four times at the same smallish party and I hadn't heard anything about any of them I'd be quite surprised! :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You're right. I possibly phrased it badly, "people in a relationship kissed" would be slightly more accurate, though not completely; I was using a sub-optimal counting stratgey because I thought doing so was funny.

if you kissed them, then they dumped someone, then got together with someone else, and then you kissed them again

If someone else was me, it would be a plausible sequence of events, but not four times in the same party! :) Another option would be someone nominally changing relationship status for humorous effects like this :)

Come to think of it, if someone were in more than one relationship, I perhaps could count subsets of the relationships rather than individual relationships, depending how you interpret 'relationship' -- that could raise the total to, um, 14 :)

[naath.livejournal.com]

And none of them were me...