Just when you thought you were done with NEST drop, it's TIME FOR MY OFFICIAL NEST RECAP THREAD! Although I admit I was debating the reasons why after HDS decided I was taking too long and tried to DO MY JOB FOR ME and leave me with nothing but scattered repetitions and dick jokes to fall back on. But aft a week of intense introspection and 300+ "PICTURES NAO!" pms--half of which by Kaytee--I decided to bite the bullet and accept the competition. So, let's begin with the horse cocks...
THURSDAY-FRIDAY
NEST is slowly and thankfully beginning to look a lot like Christmas (minus the office secretary's topless party pina colata punch): it just keeps taking up more and more of the calendar for itself, starting earlier and ending later. This year, my first as official NEST chronicler, I decided to skip classes and show up on Thursday with everybody else. Seems like, however, everybody else had the same idea, and upon arriving on time and on schedule ahead of the thunderstorms and delays that afflicted everybody else, I showed up at the FABULOUS hotel to check in and drop off the 100lbs. of crap I'd been shlepping for 2,000 miles and spruce myself up before venturing out. As I arrived at the doors, there was a team of NEST attendees hanging outside smoking and talking, and as I approached, I recognized the tiniest member of them and jumped up and down screeching "IT'S! POCK-ET! ROB!" and was immediately rammed by the Maple-Leaf draped munchkin in one of his trademark full-body hugs.
Mozzarella's Revenge
I was so busy running around on Thursday that I neglected to eat; this is acceptable under NEST policy because Bella says to "feed your lees", she doesn't say shit about feeding the lers. Well that evening, pizza was served in 2 opportunities: once at the official greeting dinner, and second at midnight when we were all still up and hungry. I managed to miss both feeding occasions and I was pissed. But as the evening progressed, I changed my mind as everyone who had consumed the pizza began to feel under the weather. This malaise is what eventually led to the end of the evening as people started to go back to their rooms in discomfort. Tamia was so uncomfortable that she couldn't even make it back to her room and crashed in mine. I went downstairs and bought a $4 bottle of Pepto Bismol and she practically downed the whole thing before she passed out. Good thing that I had reserved a room with 2 beds. The next morning, I headed down for breakfast, where we had managed to completely commandeer the cafe....LLLLLLLLLLLLONG past closing. Slacker almost had to fight the little old lady who was in charge of clearing and cleaning the restaurant (she totally woulda beat his ass) and we were finally shooed out of there as lunch came around. The next morning there was a sign posted on the entrance lobby table telling all NEST group members the EXACT ending time of breakfast.
Les Ducques
The hotel had a lovely pond-like atmosphere complete with its own wildlife: two large Koi fish and two mallard ducks who basically ran the place. The more child-like members of the party *cough*Mondy*cough* were oft to try to approach them, but being East Coast ducks and accustomed to East Coast traffic, they would merely jump off the walk into the foliage and quack to themselves "Goddamn human tourists!" until the path was clear.
The Amn-Jhoti Porn Summit...Courtesy of Denny's
Around 1:00 AM on Thursday night, Bella had been thoroughly worked over by Snail and Natural and in an attempt to find a reprieve, appealed to our second-most basic appetites: food. By suggesting that we all go to Denny's we took leave of our sadistic responsibilities and piled into a grumpy ikaiyoo's car and proceeded to fall into another NEST tradition: getting the fuck lost en route to food. This time we trumped all other previous occurrences by getting lot in our own damn parking lot trying to locate the other car of followers going with us. We made it to an under-staffed Denny's that was not expecting us and waiting semi-patiently while they tried to take our orders. In the meantime, Bella began something she'd been wanting to do for a while now and get me and fellow porn connoisseur Jhoti on a long-winded ramble about our tastes. 45 minutes later, we were still talking about it and Skipadeedoodah had to switch seats with ikaiyoo because she finally couldn't take another minute about a subject she knew nothing about. Eventually the conversation drifted to long-winded table-involving topics of 90s rap and hip-hop music to random quotes from House Party movies ("Ooooh! You brought mama in d'ere! Now I gotta cut ya! Them's the ROOLES!"). Once again, however, I triumphed over Natural proving that I had less of a life than he did and knew more about movies. Never before has winning ever been so much a sign of losing.
Crystal...IN A DRESS! ONLY $9.95!
Crystal Light had a standing bet with Kered that if she dressed up in like a girl (i.e. a dress) then he would come dressed in a suit and be her prom date. Well, not to lose a bet, Crystal indeed came sporting a dress on Friday night to call Dirk at his bluff. Unfortunately, what she didn't anticipate was that when you reach Kered's age, the government automatically sends you three pair of fogey suits and one pair of plaid golf pants. He came down, corsage and all, and many pictures were taken. Incidentally, I was the first non-Team JoMandCassi member to see her in the white dress. SCORE!
Registration Nation
In our first experiment with adjusting to Obama's socialist economic policies, NEST registration operated out of the humbly proletarian setting of Lee's room. Coincidentally, within an hour you couldn't tell if the people were NESTees lining up to register or Soviet citizens waiting in line for toilet paper. Either way, the line was backed up almost to the lobby and the line became reunion center for everyone from NHLee and after as person after person squeed in uber-happiness upon seeing their long-lost friends. Of course, while Mammers09 and Sidrabalem were among the animated appearances, nothing could top the Mount Everest of bubbly: a teeny tiny teapot of fairydust named tklee88 (affectionately known as Katie) who is apparently incapable of not smiling, as she went to prove for the remaining 7 hours of the evening. Poor Lee was trapped in the registration room for 5 hours that night and would have been even longer had it not been for the dedicated assistance of Alchemy, Snail Shell, Spot Lady and Rupert; the inkjet printer was totally no help at all, and we'd like to offer negative thanks to it.
Famous Dave's Birthday BBQ Jhoti
Friday night dinner was broken up with an outing to Famous Dave's BBQ place where we all gorged on large platters of artery-clogging goodness. My appetite was whetted by attacking JPie in the backseat of Bride of Dracula and Starwolffe's car. Unfortunately the evening was slightly marred by an increasingly painful neck injury that Jhoti had accrued during the weekend without a chiropracter in sight. This put the scrumptious convert out of commission for most of the weekend (NEXT YEAR!), but she was still in high enough spirits to enjoy a lengthy neck massage from Rhino. Robace donned a bib. The highlight of the dinner was watching an unusually geeked out exuberant Snail snicker to himself singing "I'm going to he-ell, I'm going to he-ell". Apparently what he had done is told the staff that it was Skipadeedoodah's birthday, and they came out with a sparkler-candled cake to the facepalming Jersey. Cake was had by some and then we parted back to the hotel after a brief stopover at a grocery store to acquire the fluidic toiletries that TSA doesn't let you bring on a plane.
Incidentally, Jawsh, who is indeed going to Hell, brought back a piece of corn and gave it to Cassi upon returning. I was not there for that, but I heard about it.
This year at NEST I largely failed to perform my task as chronicler because everybody kept running up to me and saying "YOU JUST MISSED IT!" The worst of these offenses came in the form of a wet turtle. The segregation laws currently employed by the Federal government make smoking a typically discriminating practice, but at NEST, the cascading current of awesome collects cadres of characters outside to carouse and converse in spite of carcinogenic preferences. Such was the case with me, Rupert and Rui, along with Artoo on Friday night; while we spent the better part of a half-hour discussing foreign perceptions of American foreign policy and the folly of nationalistic ideology, I returned inside to find a toweled and more-than-slightly-damp Tortuga wandering the first floor and running up to me saying "YOU JUST MISSED IT!" I responded "What?!" and she told me: HDS was drafted into a threesome shower with Cassi, Jo, and Ginny. That's right: HDS...in the shower...with Ginny. Cassi. Jo. Buck-ass nekkid. While I was outside discussing politics...HDS...Ginny...Cassi...Jo. Buck-ass nekkid shower. I went outside and promptly beat Rupert to death with a hammer.
Which struck me as strange afterward because he was alive and well the next day. I blame reality.
SATURDAY
Thuperman ("Thanks fer athking!")
Due to a misunderstanding at NEST 2007, It's become a sort of impromptu tradition at NEST these past few years to inevitably attempt to upstage resident thespian Libertine during Newbie Orientation by mistaking him for a number of famous fictional bald characters in the middle of Q&A. This year I had nothing planned, but as the event loomed closer, a sudden burst of inspiration formed a plan. Frantically, I ran to ASU and asked for his Superman shirt, which he gave me and then had Aylajayne15 supply me with something red: a tank top. The short length of the garment demanded that i adopt something less masculine for something more fey and upon wetting my hair and twisting the bang into a makeshift curlicue, I awaited by the door for Libertine to finish speaking and then burst in wearing a Superman short, and sporting the tank top as a makeshift cape, spouting at the top of my voice: "NOT THO FATHT LUTHOR!" Well, as the newbies can attest, the room exploded, Libertine slid off track, and Bella dropped her head in her usual "somebody fonna git beat" expression. Barely missing a beat, Libertine countered "I've always loved your big [AS]S!" After inquiring what "nefariouth thchemeth" he was up to ("We're gonna fix your thpeetch impediment!"), I strutted out urging the newbies not listen to him, for he is evil. As I departed, Libertine commented "If he's so smart, why does he wear his underwear on the OUTSIDE?!"
While we were celebrating an appearance well done, Viper, the little shit (he iz tinay fer a man, oonly fahve fuut fahve I beeleev-ah) came out with great urgency and said "Run, he's coming out!" prompting me to high-tail it almost out of the hallway before I realized he was having me on. It's hard to say what my co-conspirator's found funnier.
Bella later kicked me in my ass. Not the last time a woman would do that this year either.
Kanadian Kidnapping
The first kidnapping is always the favorite because ever since the Mairead "Fuck This Noise, Man" Marathon Escape Attempt of '08
, grabbing a lee during the kidnapping introduction seminar has been a tradition (how we're gonna snag her again in following years has not yet been resolved), and this year it was Ticklejen's (now GirlWhoLovetobeTickledbutthatnameistoolongforthis), and this year, our friends from Down...Over...in the Great White North had elaborately (read: planned five minutes before) designed a special spectacle of sorts starring Snidely Whiplash (Libertine, natch) of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame. Led by Whiplash and his motley menagerie of menial migrant labor, they grabbed Jen in the orientation room and tied her to the table demanding the deed to her silver mine. However, good help is hard to find, especially if you go through the Montreal Labour Office; affirmative action item Mexican Pete was the most competent member of the motley crew--sorry, croue as they say up there in superfluous vowel country--and they began their vicious if inept means of extracting the information about the location to the deed of the silver mine and repeatedly turning down offers of Jen to take them back to her hotel room when suddenly, the Royal Canadian Mounted Snail Dudley Do-Right in full Canadian Mountie garb entered the scene sans theme music to thunderous applause. An appropriately dramatically taken aback Snidely Whiplash tried to bribe his way out of trouble, but our stalwart hero could not be deterred from his altruistic duty...until his shift ended a few seconds after. At which point his helpful nature was easily persuaded to assist the cause of evil.
Dinner & A Show
Because so many people were coming and going, I hung out in the lounge area trying to run into people (and then suing them for reckless perambulating) and missed the excellent classes in bondage that were going on--I will never be allowed to forget that I missed the "Knotty Bits"--and so I was unfortunately had little time to prepare for the talent show, in which I had agreed to participate. I printed out what pieces I had on my computer and ate dinner with Snail, Milagros, Lamashtu, Lil Rob, Ticklish 9s and his pixie girlfriend E and waited for the show to begin. Snail told a story, Sara (not Surrah) sang a Cole Porter song--undeterred by mechanical difficulties affecting the microphone--and then I was called upon by Rob earlier than I had wanted. Either way, I went up and did a clusterfuckity set than included new Mitch Hedberg jokes that Mitch Hedberg never wrote and the existential question of how Jesus took a piss in private. Despite my own hatred for my lack of preparation, the crowd seemed to like it and I sat back down waiting for the next show.
Unfortunately, I missed the stellar second-half of the show, beginning with the reputedly magnificent reading of Senor Jamie Firovante Bonaventura de la Torquemada's "The Tormentor" and concluding with the Max Speer Quintet's Far-Out Freestyle Fandango due to a bizarre acute opthalamic condition. Anyone who has ever met me will concur that I have no fear of public speaking (although I am terrified of death, which means I only skip out on Fear #1), but after finishing my "set" I sat down to go over my words again, and started to notice that all was not right: I was starting to get double vision and couldn't see straight...the sentences on the paper were starting to slide out of sync and I couldn't read for shit. Slightly panicking, I asked Snail to escort me out into the hall where we tried to find a way to get my head back on track. Minutes later, we'd concluded that whatever it was was too acute and asymptomatic to be anything dangerous, and Snail attributed it to stress of having been awake for nearly 2 days straight. he demanded in his typical no-nonsense way that I get some rest and give the cameras a rest for the evening. Just as I was beginning to reluctantly agree with him, Falcon came up to me from outside and said:
"Hey, Amn, K[arategirl]'s ready to try out the restraints in case you were interested."
God is a bastard. Leaving Snail to feel like the only sane man left on planet Earth, I tried to assure him that a good dose of endorphins might be the key to rebooting my system and I left for the room in question, where our re-enactment of The Exorcist was about to begin.
Amazon Women in the Room
A recurring theme this year was "Amn got his ass whupped by a girl," which apparently struck many as incredulous and hilarious, but as for me, has been a common occurrence since I was 6. The first occasion of this was on Friday night in the Canadian Embassy, also known as the room in the way far corner of the first floor, where they stashed the Canadian attendees far from their USD-paying cohorts. Among the occupants of the room were ASU, T9's & E, and Lil Rob and Lamashtu, a sweet-faced girl who normally looked like a stiff breeze would blow her over, but make no mistake! This girl haz a tuff! Somehow, the feisty little vixen got to sparring with knuckles with me and I, outweighing her by at least 188 lbs. decided that this nymph couldn't take me. It was at this point I should have considered that she wrastles a tiny Italian-Canadian human energy particle on a daily basis and that oversight worked against me as she took my ass to the floor and pinned me with her ass.
Of course, to the outside observer it looked like I lost, but from the underside viewer who had an ample view of her torso, I won the war if not lost the battle.
Well this trend continued after the dinner show and vision problems and I trudged upstairs to Sanhael & Karategirl's room where Avenger, Aylajayne and Falcon were already waiting, tying her to the king-sized bed with two sets of restraints per limb. I'll tell you something about Karategirl: this chick does not need karate, kung fu or any other martial arts...she can just fee fie foe fum her way over anybody any day of the week, and her stamina is unbelievable. She even outdid the legendary 4Pawz five-man toss of GLAT 2004. An aggressive fighty lee who doesn't take shit lying down (especially if you call her a "pussy") she flung us around like rodeo clowns as we tried in vain to grab one, just ONE body part down to work on. I however, discovered that her neck, like Mairead and Tamia and Irishgirl before her, is a +22 live wire spot, and by getting in there and blowing about 43 raspberries, the gregarious giant was shrieking like a banshee and tossing her whole body around to fling me off. SHE FAILED! So violent was her reaction to the attack, that Sanhael took out the room's Gideon Bible and began reading passages from it to quell the spirit in her. I did my part by getting my hands wet and flicking my hands at her saying "The power of Christ COMPELS you!" I left to get another tape, leaving my Sonicare in the hands of Falcon and leaving Avenger to mercilessly torment Aylajayne, only to return to find that the hotel had received a noise complaint and the fun had to stop.
Officially.
Unofficially, we plunked her in a chair in the living room and covered her mouth so she couldn't scream loud enough to draw attention. Afterward, she followed me out to the main floor where the parties were happening. Now, I unfortunately don't have any recollections or stories about the huge multi-room parties that went on because my dumb ass hadn't learned enough and the following story happened...
Karategirl: Better than Crack and Stronger (or So I'm Told)
Karategirl, having only been warmed up by her previous session--whereas the rest of us were near death--was up for another round. Now, reasonably I should have said "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" but unfortunately I had sacrificed the nourishing oxygen for the reasoning part of my brain for the raspberries I tortured her with earlier. However I wasn't worried, because as the prior day's experience had taught me--or led me to believe if we were being honest--, I wouldn't have to exert too much work to make her squeal. You have to understand, ALL DAY since she arrived, we'd been making this girl jump, twitch, giggle, spaz and flinch with little pokes and prods to any part of her body; we were all like
and like 
ALL FUCKING DAY! So I thought "Oh, I'll just do this to her and I won't have to work at all!"
WRONG! WRONG, MAN!
I took her back to my room and WITHOUT RESTRAINTS OR ASSISTANCE...tried to pwn a 6'3" amazon who could suplex the Rhino if she wanted. Well, needless to say, she kicked the shit outta me. And while everybody else was busy having fun at parties and eating and drinking and pwning pwnable girls, I was sweating buckets trying to pry her arms apart from her body just get my face in there--because I wasn't getting my hands in there when they're all wrapped up in hers trying to keep me away. After about an hour I was too tired to continue and seeing as how she was bored, we decided to watch a movie...well, since all the movies I brought were Blu-ray and the PS3 was in Rob's room, I had only one regular DVD: Jaws. So we sat and watched Jaws on my computer for about an hour until i realized "Wasn't I supposed to recover and pwn you?" so then began another 45 minute assault that resulted in an equally exhausted and no more successful Amn. 3 HOURS LATER, I emerge with scratches, bruises, oxygen deprivation, David Leisure hair and an exhausted Sonicare and trudge downstairs with onset acute arthritis and sore-ass arms and sit on the hater's couch with Bella, Slacker, Natural and some other person I can't remember waiting for the feeling to come back while the domestic disturbance happened. We stayed up all fucking night...and not without consequences.
SUNDAY - THE MAIN EVENT
The Dead Live! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Any gathering is an exercise in sleep deprivation, but at NEST, it becomes something of an endurance sport. Saturday night I didn't get to bed until 4:45 AM, and by then I was running on 5 hours of sleep over the last 48. Bella's bed was occupied by cuddling Jo and Ginny, so she crashed with me and both of us were asleep before our heads even hit the pillows. We were fucking dead to the world. So much so that Bella didn't even bother to wake up and go downstairs to get coffee let alone breakfast. I on the other had felt like a lead fucking weight. They could've screamed "HEY AMN! THEY'RE GIVING AWAY GOLD AND PUSSY OUTSIDE!" and I wouldn't have budged. I was dreaming an entire alternate season 6 of The Sopranos (which was pretty cool) when suddenly, the 2nd to last episode was interrupted by a knocking sound. Somebody was at my door! It was Sanhael and Karategirl, the only person who actually knew where my room was, and they had really worried looks on their faces as I opened the door. "Dude, are you okay?" And I was like, "Uh, yeah we were just sleeping." Then Sanhael said "Okay, the main event is about to start, so if you want to get down there..."
We fucking slept till NOON-THIRTY! And I coulda used another 6 hours too I can tell you that! On my way back to the bedroom, my phone rang. Avenger was on the other line asking if I was alright. Apparently everyone wondered where the fuck I was at breakfast and when I didn't show thought something was wrong. "Could you just walk out on the balcony so we can see you?!"
Well, Bella scooted back to her room, I hopped in the shower, got dressed and headed down to the main event, which was just starting (I missed the opening remarks if there were any) with both cameras running. Who should I run into as I got to the doors? KAYTEE! She opened the door just as I got to it and chirped "HI HUHNA!" and I followed her in.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the main event is a beautiful thing, especially when it's in one room where you can see everything going on! Karategirl was being tied to a rack seat to demonstrate the futility of bondage, while Ticklish 9s was in the X-frame and everybody else was making sport of...well, everybody else.
Bella is Pwned-ed
One of my favorite moments from the main event is the annual attempt to pwn Bella; a typical exercise in futility because once Bella dons her magic blindfold, her strength increases 10-fold and the attempts to restrain her become humorously academic. But this year we had her tied to a table with a ball gag and about 7 lers including Jo and Ginny all holding her down with HDS and ASU providing the meat of the power. This year, the combination seems to have worked as I whipped out my Sonicare and placed it on her worst spot and she screamed "I HAYTE YUH!" through the gag and tried in vain to throw everybody off. But they held her taught and worked her over without problem.
Butterflies & Katydids, but Mostly Chewed Up Little Kids
A little bird told me during the main event that this year's official mascot Kaetee wanted a session with yours truly; apparently, the neon pink and green warning flyers we posted everywhere suggesting the inherent foolishness of this idea did not deter her from formulating it. It seems lil Kaytay can't read; I blame the schools. The same bird also insisted (read: grabbed me by the balls and squeezed hard) that I be gentle with her and try to put her at ease. So tracking down the picayune pink pwnable powderpuff, I proffered my professional powers politely prompting her to perkily proclaim "YAY" and promptly peruse the palisade for a pair of p-...p-....chaperones. In this case, Surrah and Baldadonis. Heading to the 4th floor, we passed through the partition--STOP WITH THE ALLITERATIONS!--and set up shop in the next door room. Kaytay lied on the bed with Surrah and Baldy taking up audience positions in front of her, while I ran furiously downstairs to get a battery for my Mp3 player speaker. I stood on a chair in the main event room and bellowed "ATTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN-SHUN! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED...A double-A BATTERY!" I think I got one from Mel and plopped it in. Upstairs I ran (except for the elevator) and with drink glass and soda and battery in hand, set up my player and began the scene. I deliberately went for something comedic and ice breaking, so I figured gentle bad porn music would be perfect.
I found the song on YouTube, so feel free to play it while reading the below:
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Borrowing a page out of the Quagmire's Guide to Giggity-Giggity, I dramatically poured Kaetee a glass of soda and at down next to her, playing the faux gigolo to the best of my abilities. As I worked on finding her spots she tried fighting me with little Jo "rrrrrrrrr"s but that only prompted the appearance of Probey the Mechanic who tried looking all over for other spots with bad noisy joints. He was replaced by Dr. Sinjayangaloogalloo, acupressurist who set about "foinding und unvinding yohr shakaras oh yes verymuch please thank yoo". After about 5 minutes he was arrested by Mr. Doug McKinney of the Stereotype Regulations Office and replaced by BROOCE THE BEARDED AUSTRAYLIAN who set about teaching the studio audience "Hayw ta bayg a Kaitay! Whot ye gawta dew ees foind thas spowt ah'roun' 'ere an yews th' Sowniceh reyal propah loike!" I also pointed out that Kaetee's are susceptible to a phenomenon called "Edward Cullen/Light Touch Fetish", at which point her wide-grin happy face turned into an open-mouthed OMG happy face. Meanwhile, Surrah and Dave seemed inspired by the event and started trying to subtly pwn the other, but to no avail as the Kaytee rolled her way tired and we had to break it up.
Sarah later got pwned at the main event in the center truss. But she of course went on record that she "broke the Rhino."
The Turtle Relocation Program (a.k.a. KIDNAPPING!)
What would NEST be without an official NEST kidnapping? And this time, I GOT TO PARTICIPATE! You see, being the altruist that I am, I only dedicate my volunteer time to noble, worthy, planet saving causes, and one of the noblest of all is the Turtle Relocation Program, where we grab disoriented turtles and relocate them to their natural habitat...in this case, the center table of the main event room. After much scuttling around looking for all of our team, Andy led us to grab Tortuga from her chair in the hallway and cart her off to the main room, with her screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO! I JUST WANTED TO EAT MY SANDWICH AND HAVE MY COOKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" As we placed her on the table, Superman's nemesis SEX LUTHOR and his beautiful and equally evil Pussywoman--I MEAN CAT! CAT! PUSSYCAT!--clad partner in evil (decked out in beautifully homemade Catwoman-style costume but...like, way sexier because it had the...the bewbs on there and the...the...*BACK IN 5 MINUTES*...what was I talking about again? OH RIGHT! Complete with sound-barrier-breaking whip and cowl) lending her taloned talents, prmarily to the armpits (hee hee) appeared, looking for the location of the rare metal that can cut Superman's flesh...which was used once during his "supercision." Luthor used his genius to point out that we had bound her wrists with ankle cuffs and after a small adjustment, the entire team began to work on painlessly extracting the information she possessed (sound familiar?). The SECOND most well-dressed of our team was Alchemy as the Henchman of the Monarch (sans wings, damn TSA people) from The Venture Bros. This didn't go unnoticed to the Turtle: "I NEED A FLYSWATTERRRRRR!" Because the lesser henchmen (Me and EcEu) were providing security, I didn't get a chance to partake or get called upon...which sucks because I was in character. The recurring theme of the supervillain theater this year was that the villains could never afford good help so my carefully constructed character of a cheaply made Thailand robot henchman with Windows Vista installed only stood there clapping awkwardly every now and then. Ah well...its the dedication, not the glory right?
Jo Pwns Herself
Jo has a funny sort of 'leeness to her. Apparently the endorphin rush of being a lee gives her a delusional high that makes her mouth write checks her ass can't cash. While trying to pwn Mondy, Mondy called for (guess) her Daddy, the one, the only Max Speer. Ginny and Rhino decided that this pwnage was unfair and turned the tables on Jo, who then became the subject of interest for the legendary Maximillian. That was when the high got to her worst of all. Without thinking, she looked him dead in the eyes and shouted at the top of her lungs "YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS BILLY JOEL!" The air dropped out of the room and Rhino practically dropped Jo herself at this, and with a collective "OOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the crowd surged around her to watch the bemused Maximillian bring her down from Cloud 9 to Circle 9 with unbearable pwnage. In less than 15 seconds, Jo changed her mind, screeching "YOU'RE BETTER THAN BILLY JOEL!" and Max, maybe out of that strange random kindness that evildoers have, decided to let her go after that.
Distraction - The Home Game
Another new tradition at NEST is the annual Distraction Game. This is a game where two teams of lees separated by gender--The Brotherhood and the Sisterhood--take trivia questions spouted by Maximilian himself in a contest for victory and a cheese wheel. Of course, the only catch is that the contestants will be distracted by an incrementally increasing force during the question period. Guess what that distraction is? Yep, you guessed it: Frank Stallone. And just like every year, we all predict that the Cubs--I mean the Brotherhood--will fail yet again and the women will win. Now, usually, I place bets that the weakest link for the men's team is Baldadonis, but even the glass nerved Delicate Dave was no match for the now legendary imFAILer, who proceeded to break faster than a Cadbury egg in Al Sharpton's back pocket. But surprisingly, this time out, despite Lee's joining the Sisterhood (UNFAIR! I love it!) and working her magic, ImFAILer managed to answer the final question correctly and score a win for the Brotherhood. The Sisterhood immediately filed an appeal and someone in the audience called out: "Let's look at the replay!" referencing my camera.
"OH! NOW Y'ALL MUTHAFUCKA'S APPRECIATE ME!"
As punishment for losing (and for saying "Metallica sucks") the Sisterhood decided to take out their fail on a panic-stricken Mondy who immediately proceeded to futilely recant her previous proclamation pertaining to the quality of Metallica's music. Jo wasn't buying it.
Milagros Wins Yenny...Twice
I love Max in that totally platonic way, but the man has gone nuts on one or two occasions, and this one I was witness to. The man offered up in the raffle, A SIGNED COPY OF THE YENNY COMIC BOOK (from the days when she was still an underground figure) AUTOGRAPHED BY OZZY AND XODLIRV. While I screamed out "HE'S A MADMAN! A MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADMAN!" ticketholders eagerly awaited their numbers. Now interestingly enough, Milagros, who tends to win things in twos I noticed, already won the unsigned copy of the same issue. The number was called out and who should have th winning ticket? MILAGROS! Accepting his second prize, he sauntered up to the table, looked over the prizes and put his unsigned copy back on the table, leaving the comic to be offered again. After the event, when the equipment was being taken down, I went up to him and said "Mills...let me talk to you about money. Specifically what I have and what you can give me for it." With a smile he said "Nope."
CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURSES!
Musical Theater
One of these days, Libertine is gonna want to get paid for all the performing he does here. But regardless, this one he'd do for free. The final act of NEST main event is the Libertine demonstration, with his lovely wifey assistant KittenToes as the canvas of his art. This little bit of performance piece was in accompaniment to piano music, where he demonstrated his flair for timing using Kitten's ribs as keys. Although it paled n comparison to the legendary 2007 demonstration, it was no less hilarious as he pantomimed precisely and in a properly overtheatrical fashion to the notes of Mozart's Rollo Londo Turca, much to Kitten's giggling lack of amusement (see Notable Quotable below).
One lost moment from the main event is the Lee-Natural chase. Lee was testing out an X-Frame for height when Natural tried to goose her in the hips. Lee, not ticklish and ever the opportunist, decided to grab his hands and turn the tables on him (she does that y'know), and after finding a spot, sent him off to do the 100-yard dash in :09. Running like a linebacker on an NFL field with Lee in pursuit, Natural managed a coward's way out through the doors, leaving the rest of the room in stitches, but leaving me pissed off as my camera wasn't running at the time.
Final Nightly Games
As the event wound into memory and we were all left with the inevitability of tomorrow being the last day, we struggled to stay up as late as we could to stave off the coming dawn. I initially did it with another dumb-ass repeat: I tried tackling Karategirl yet again. Once again, I did my part, but she did more of hers and my wounded, scratched and Einstein-haired ass hobbled downstairs passing her off to Sanhael saying "She's YOUR problem now!" The two of them left for home at midnight and I was left downstairs with Krazie, Falcon, Runsoffstage (more on her soon), and Skippy. Well, Skippy's idea of passing the time was impression theater, thanks to me doing Informercial Man earlier in the day to capitalize on an idea that Rob had. And her impression of choice: Quint from Jaws, seeing as how she heard I could do it.
To her ever-shrieky amusement, I recited the entire Indianapolis speech from Jaws, and so delighted was she, that she demanded seeing the entire scene on DVD so I could recite with it. Sounds easy enough, but after bringing my laptop downstairs, we realized that the babbling brook of the lounge was too loud to overhear anything on my laptop even with the speakers at max. So we all headed up to my room to watch the scene where it was quiet. Runsoffstage plopped herself on my couch and Skippy took the chair. Afterwards, we all started jabbering, mostly making taunts at Runsoffstage while Skippy fell asleep in my chair. So what else are we gonna do? Falcon and I started poking and prodding the sleepy Swede much to our amusement and to her consternation. So determined was she to escape the poking that she turned traitor on Skippy and tried fluttering her fingers along her legs suggesting "Let's get Skippy." It didn't work.
After pwning Runsoffstage for about 25 minutes, Falcon had to take off so he could leave the hotel at 9, and the remaining three of us went back down the lounge. Skippy took up sleeping position on a couch while Runsoffstage tried to sit in a chair without passing out. A bubbly and not sleepy at all Chey came down and plopped down next to us while I, barely awake and ready to die, kept prodding at her soles. Eventually I learned that it was about 4:30 in the morning and had a long day of shlepping my shit back home that I finally went to bed.
MONDAY
Brunch Anyone?...Anyone?
The saddest part of NEST is the Monday morning goodbye breakfast, where we all get together one last time as a group and order expensive food for Andy to pay for, followed by copious crying. Well, unfortunately this one important aspect of NEST hadn't been planned and most people had eaten breakfast at the hotel or had to take early flights and buses out so we had to say goodbye to Jo, Falcon, Avenger & Aylajayne before brunch. On top of that, we all had to check out because the hotel didn't do extensions so I had to run upstairs and pack all my shit furiously so I could get to the restaurant and leave my bags where they'd be safe. So while half of the entire group went to the restaurant to eat, the others went home or stayed behind at the hotel. Understaffed and not expecting us, the wait crew worked vehemently to get our orders done on time, and for the most part they succeeded. After we all started paying our tabs, we started to congregate outside while I started to suffer the effects of exhaustion. Real exhaustion, not that 8-hours and I'm beat exhaustion. Unfortunately, it was raining outside, so I couldn't whip out my camera and photograph Sarah in a hoodie doing a little dance in the parking lot; for once she looked like a proper New York college-age hoodlum instead of the we-are-not-amused intelligentsia. Libertine gave KittenToes his jacket and the three of us trudged back to the hotel on foot, whilst the remaining crew piled into a big-ass rig and drive back. But vengeance was ours as the truck dove into a puddle in the parking lot, thus splashing the riders with rainwater and setting everything right with the world.
Gift-Wrapped Artoo
Sleeping 15 hours out if 120 will do things to you: sweat, puke, pass out sitting up so your friends can write "I HEART COCKZ" on your forehead in magic marker, but the one thing it will do is kill any enthusiasm you have for any responsibility whatsoever. Yet still, there I was, recording what I could and snapping photos, including one of Mr. & Mrs. Jamie and their newly arrived bundle of joy, NEST baby #...uh, I forget; strangely enough, this baby was endlessly amused by my face, and I wasn't even doing anything. I guess I just look that way. But we weren't done yet...ohohohoho NO.
After dropping my bags off in Libertine's room, I hightailed it to Bella's room where she was hauling Viper's lights for a shoot for her site. I walked in on Tickler Bart and Euphoricy who were waiting for the shoot to go down. The subject of today's shoot: Artoo. Great, 2 F/M shoots in one weekend! Meanwhile I got shut out of all the M/F and F/F shoots! Well, I had some fun because as Bella was tying up the Brit in shrink wrap, I had to keep the ever-eager Euphoricy from poking holes in the plastic before it was done. So I grabbed her, flung her on the bed, and started working her over, while she tried to distract me with foolish notions like "I have to help Bella with the plastic". I finally got to do whatI'd been wanting to do all weekend...hold Ginny helpless while I did the Joker Spiel "You wanna know how I got these scars?" She practically squealed her way out of my grip "DON'T DO THAT! EEEEEEE!"
The shoot went magnificently and watching Bella get domme with a guy was a rare sight indeed, and almost as amusing as watching Ginny and Cassi squee with each other while it was going on. Afterward, the sweaty and exhausted Artoo needed a drink,which I had in the form of a "bottuh wattah". Now...I've never drowned anybody before in my life, and I never planned on starting, but it's one thing to do it in general, but a WHOLE different kettle of fish to do it on dry land. I poured the water into his mouth gently, but it went down the wrong pipe, inciting an extremely violent coughing fit; and worst of all, my dumb ass hadn't bothered to unwrap him. Panicked and with Bella's help, we wrenched him up and flung the blindfold off him while slapping him on the back and ripping the plastic off of him so his diaphragm could move: "GETHIMUPGETHIMUPGETHIMUP!" Finally he dislodged the errant liquid and was fine, but the scare lingered for a while. At least, until he stood up and flung the sweaty plastic at Gin & Cassi, who, upon contact instantly reverted to their true emotional age: 5. "EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!" and scampered away to the corner of the room, wiping their hands on each other, while Bella flopped on her back with her legs kicking in the air with laughter.
Cassi then attacked Ginny on the bed while Artoo took a shower. T'was cute.
Final Moments
Well, after all was said and done, we all congregated in the lobby waiting for the hotel shuttles to...shuttle us off to the airport, and that was the longest I've ever seen smokers go out for cigarettes, as nobody was leaving anybody if they could help it. We spent most of the time consoling a distraught Cassi and a weepy Skippy, who now wearing a big orange sweater looked like a giant pumpkin (I now call her pumpkin, hee hee). Eventually, the shuttle came for Tamia, Ginny, Alchemy and co. and so I was the only one left behind with the local crew who could drive home. But ask not for whom teh shuttle calls, it calls for me, and I left the sad team behind en route to the airport. Upon arriving I immediately walked my ass to an entirely separate wing of the airport to get Dunkin Donuts: I ordered a whole 50 pack of munchkins--which I haven't had in over 10 years--and proceeded to pig out on them and pizza. I ran into Tamia and Alchemy waiting for their flight back home and after stopping to say hello hightailed it back to my plane.
Funnily enough, it wasn't until my flight home that there were delays, and none of them weather related. I fell asleep sitting up on both flights back and arrived at about 1 AM, having never been so happy to be so worn out ever.
MIXED NUTS
Let's Meet Ginny!
Euphoricy arrived Friday afternoon with Artoo in tow and was immediately engulfed by the walking hug factory that is Skipadeedoodah. The twig was then lifted off the ground and carried (because she only weighs 98lbs) around the lounge like a toy half the size of the child carrying it. After allowing Korastus and Kered to make their introductions, I gave the camera to EcEu-Jooles and walked over to Ginny, doing my usual Joker-Crashes-the-Wayne-Penthouse routine. She immediately covered her face with her shirt and began shaking all "get away!"-like, proving for once and for all that YES I AM SCARY...to SOMEONE.
Paul Blart, Hall Cop
We had a rather rotund security guard who Bella nicknamed Paul Blart after his visibly inept capabilities were demonstrated after a domestic disturbance concerning a woman and her boyfriend--mostly her slapping the shit out of him in the elevator--resulted in him accomplishing little more than walking off the doughnuts he ate for 2nd lunch.
Ma(irea)de In Sweden
Now, as we all sadly know, our poor NEST addict and super-S.A.M. Mairead couldn't make it this year, and we were all wondering how we would get by without her. Well, in an interesting turn of events, the sovereign nation of Sweden
sent her to us in the form of the adorable and equally shy Runsoffstage. Sporting one eye (the other covered by her Annie Hall hair), and an unmistakably matching set of quivering lips and flappy resisting hands (and an equally ticklish neck I might add), Runsoffstage reminded us so much of our Irish troublemaker that it was like she was already there...only if she had been we'd have had TWO of them! Awwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeesome! She spent a majority of the early weekend scrunched up on couches in Krazie's arms hiding her head and face behind pillows, but by Sunday night and Monday morning had come out of said shell long enough to get frequently attacked by yours truly and several others. Like Karategirl, it doesn't take much to make this Swede shiver, and always with each little poke you always got a hilarious response like "I am not liking this!" and "I hate this country!" Now, [Un?]fortunately, I didn't get to experience the full brunt of the Sanna Sidewinder, the powerful piston-leg kicks that threw off Krazie AND Rhino EACH! So when Falcon and Krazie decided to pwn her on the tall chair in the lounge, they lifted her legs up RIGHT IN FRONT OF MAH FACE! "OH SURE! AIM THE CANNONS RIGHT AT MY HEAD WHY DON'T YA!?"
Oh, I could pwn her all day. I wish I still could.
JOOLES RULES! Viper SUCKS!
I couldn't get through the weekend without Our Man in Amsterdam Jules! The photog and post-house man was an endless help when I needed a backup man and when I needed picture transfers after the event. I took a few photos for the PhotoPhobic Phour during the event, and in the interests of security, I set about to get them transferred off as soon as I could so they could get a disc with the photos on them. Jules took me to his room--where the Mammers fort (don't ask ME) lay--and we spent half an hour transferring the photos to their proper format. Everybody wound up getting them, although I had to tap Big John twice to help me find Max's room way at the other end of the hotel--where me, Drew, venray, Andy and Max all discussed Doctor Who for about 10 minutes (AWESOOOOOOOOOOME!). However, in the process of doing one thing, I missed out on the other. I was supposed to meet up with Viper 20 minutes after the event to shoot his NEST videos...well, half an hour is 10 minutes after innit? So when I showed up at he door with Jooles in tow, I gently knocked on the door that had a sign that said "DO NOT KNOCK!", and angry HDS answered the door and said "NOT YOU." and closed it in m'face. I was like "I'm SUPPOSED TO BE IN THERE!" Well I NEVAH! And off I toddled with Jules to the lounge where I met up with Karategirl...and then proceeded to get my ass kicked AGAIN!
The Kyootest Widdle Kupple!
It cannot be said of NEST that NESt is NEST without mentioning de kyootest widdle attendee of all: Iwishguwl! (translation: Irishgirl5). Iwishguwl is so kyoot you can't even tawk abowt hew wit' "r"s. This year she showed with her awesome beau Kretelis, the man who helped engineer a special Mission:Impossible style kidnapping with Avenger and a few others that she saw coming a mile away. And SHE WENT WITH IT ANYWAY AWWWWWWWWWWWW! I still missed it though and will beat Avenger for it next year.
Reunion
This year I was reunited with three former gathering buddies that i haven;t seen in about 4 years since MTP #11: Bagelfather, Natural Tickler, and ...oh shit I done fergot your name...BUT YOU WERE AWESOME! It'd been forever since I'd seen those guys at Sadira's party, which I unfortunately had not yet returned to because in a year full of gatherings I CAN'T GO TO THEM ALL! ARRRRRGH! I had to compete with Natural for being biggest troublemaker of the event, Bagel with being the most awesome geeky genius, and there was not enough time in the weekend to do all the kewl things we could do! The Evil League of Evil!
The Norelco Avenger
Avenger and Ayla came fresh from a pool outing on Thursday night and seeing Avenger without his shirt on was an exercise in landscaping studies. As we passed, a trio of teenagers was walking by and I couldn't help myself. It turned behind me and said "Dude, it's called Gilette, it's not expensive!" One of the trio practically fell over the walkway bridge while the others doubled over. "Three words! NOR-EL-CO!"
Awesome Newbies
The newbies get better and better every year and this year in particular was spectacular. This thread is already long enough so I'll mention those I haven't mentioned already here, although this paltry mention in no way indicates the incredible contribution they made this year: Lamashtu, The awesomely cute and shy Chey (GUEVARRA!), GOTH N SAE! Holy shit you guys are exactly the same looking and height as you are in the pictures! Mammers and Sidrablem, Korastus (a.k.a. Matthew McConaughey), Slacker & Kraziedawg, Rupert (holy shit did you do a lot!), NG02 (made of chocolate awesome and marshmallows), Melamine and Sassaxrah (Sassafrass! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!) and of course, KAITEE!
NOTABLE QUOTABLES (i.e. the Redundant Part of the Recap)
"I AM NOT A FUCKING PIANO!" - KittenToes during Demonstration
"It smells funny in there!" - Snail Shell during Thursday night Bella pwnage
"ATTEN-SHUN! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED....a double-A Battery!" - moi
"I am a French-Canadian who does not speak French!" - Lil Rob
"It feels good when Ted does it" - Artoo after CPR
"You're so gross!" - Skippy to Homer trying to lick her neck
"Give me a target."
"*weakly*Jhoti."
- Jawsh & Bella on Thursday night
""RUPERT! I told you to watch the bags! You were watching the BOYS again weren't you?"
- Me on numerous occasions
"EEEEEEEP!...I'm NOT gonna be a mouse!" - Fireguardian
"Get outta my vagina!" - Euphoricy to Tortuga
"You have to stop, you're going to break the hotel." - Artoo to Jo
"You know you still a cracker, right?" - NaturalTickler to me in the lounge
"YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS BILLY JOEL!" - Jo's last words to Max at the Main Event
"I NEED A FLYSWATTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" - Tortuga during kidnapping
"Gaaaaaaaaaaaay"/"Aaaaaaaaaaaaasss" - Runsoffstage repeatedly
"OW! The pillow BIT me!" - Kraziedog while sitting by the Sannapillow
For more awesome not listed here, please redirect to these locations:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=152374
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=152226
Apologies to anyone I didn't have room to mention: like DVNC, who is already too big to put in a 3 letter thread, so there.
THURSDAY-FRIDAY
NEST is slowly and thankfully beginning to look a lot like Christmas (minus the office secretary's topless party pina colata punch): it just keeps taking up more and more of the calendar for itself, starting earlier and ending later. This year, my first as official NEST chronicler, I decided to skip classes and show up on Thursday with everybody else. Seems like, however, everybody else had the same idea, and upon arriving on time and on schedule ahead of the thunderstorms and delays that afflicted everybody else, I showed up at the FABULOUS hotel to check in and drop off the 100lbs. of crap I'd been shlepping for 2,000 miles and spruce myself up before venturing out. As I arrived at the doors, there was a team of NEST attendees hanging outside smoking and talking, and as I approached, I recognized the tiniest member of them and jumped up and down screeching "IT'S! POCK-ET! ROB!" and was immediately rammed by the Maple-Leaf draped munchkin in one of his trademark full-body hugs.
Mozzarella's Revenge
I was so busy running around on Thursday that I neglected to eat; this is acceptable under NEST policy because Bella says to "feed your lees", she doesn't say shit about feeding the lers. Well that evening, pizza was served in 2 opportunities: once at the official greeting dinner, and second at midnight when we were all still up and hungry. I managed to miss both feeding occasions and I was pissed. But as the evening progressed, I changed my mind as everyone who had consumed the pizza began to feel under the weather. This malaise is what eventually led to the end of the evening as people started to go back to their rooms in discomfort. Tamia was so uncomfortable that she couldn't even make it back to her room and crashed in mine. I went downstairs and bought a $4 bottle of Pepto Bismol and she practically downed the whole thing before she passed out. Good thing that I had reserved a room with 2 beds. The next morning, I headed down for breakfast, where we had managed to completely commandeer the cafe....LLLLLLLLLLLLONG past closing. Slacker almost had to fight the little old lady who was in charge of clearing and cleaning the restaurant (she totally woulda beat his ass) and we were finally shooed out of there as lunch came around. The next morning there was a sign posted on the entrance lobby table telling all NEST group members the EXACT ending time of breakfast.
Les Ducques
The hotel had a lovely pond-like atmosphere complete with its own wildlife: two large Koi fish and two mallard ducks who basically ran the place. The more child-like members of the party *cough*Mondy*cough* were oft to try to approach them, but being East Coast ducks and accustomed to East Coast traffic, they would merely jump off the walk into the foliage and quack to themselves "Goddamn human tourists!" until the path was clear.
The Amn-Jhoti Porn Summit...Courtesy of Denny's
Around 1:00 AM on Thursday night, Bella had been thoroughly worked over by Snail and Natural and in an attempt to find a reprieve, appealed to our second-most basic appetites: food. By suggesting that we all go to Denny's we took leave of our sadistic responsibilities and piled into a grumpy ikaiyoo's car and proceeded to fall into another NEST tradition: getting the fuck lost en route to food. This time we trumped all other previous occurrences by getting lot in our own damn parking lot trying to locate the other car of followers going with us. We made it to an under-staffed Denny's that was not expecting us and waiting semi-patiently while they tried to take our orders. In the meantime, Bella began something she'd been wanting to do for a while now and get me and fellow porn connoisseur Jhoti on a long-winded ramble about our tastes. 45 minutes later, we were still talking about it and Skipadeedoodah had to switch seats with ikaiyoo because she finally couldn't take another minute about a subject she knew nothing about. Eventually the conversation drifted to long-winded table-involving topics of 90s rap and hip-hop music to random quotes from House Party movies ("Ooooh! You brought mama in d'ere! Now I gotta cut ya! Them's the ROOLES!"). Once again, however, I triumphed over Natural proving that I had less of a life than he did and knew more about movies. Never before has winning ever been so much a sign of losing.
Crystal...IN A DRESS! ONLY $9.95!
Crystal Light had a standing bet with Kered that if she dressed up in like a girl (i.e. a dress) then he would come dressed in a suit and be her prom date. Well, not to lose a bet, Crystal indeed came sporting a dress on Friday night to call Dirk at his bluff. Unfortunately, what she didn't anticipate was that when you reach Kered's age, the government automatically sends you three pair of fogey suits and one pair of plaid golf pants. He came down, corsage and all, and many pictures were taken. Incidentally, I was the first non-Team JoMandCassi member to see her in the white dress. SCORE!
Registration Nation
In our first experiment with adjusting to Obama's socialist economic policies, NEST registration operated out of the humbly proletarian setting of Lee's room. Coincidentally, within an hour you couldn't tell if the people were NESTees lining up to register or Soviet citizens waiting in line for toilet paper. Either way, the line was backed up almost to the lobby and the line became reunion center for everyone from NHLee and after as person after person squeed in uber-happiness upon seeing their long-lost friends. Of course, while Mammers09 and Sidrabalem were among the animated appearances, nothing could top the Mount Everest of bubbly: a teeny tiny teapot of fairydust named tklee88 (affectionately known as Katie) who is apparently incapable of not smiling, as she went to prove for the remaining 7 hours of the evening. Poor Lee was trapped in the registration room for 5 hours that night and would have been even longer had it not been for the dedicated assistance of Alchemy, Snail Shell, Spot Lady and Rupert; the inkjet printer was totally no help at all, and we'd like to offer negative thanks to it.
Famous Dave's Birthday BBQ Jhoti
Friday night dinner was broken up with an outing to Famous Dave's BBQ place where we all gorged on large platters of artery-clogging goodness. My appetite was whetted by attacking JPie in the backseat of Bride of Dracula and Starwolffe's car. Unfortunately the evening was slightly marred by an increasingly painful neck injury that Jhoti had accrued during the weekend without a chiropracter in sight. This put the scrumptious convert out of commission for most of the weekend (NEXT YEAR!), but she was still in high enough spirits to enjoy a lengthy neck massage from Rhino. Robace donned a bib. The highlight of the dinner was watching an unusually geeked out exuberant Snail snicker to himself singing "I'm going to he-ell, I'm going to he-ell". Apparently what he had done is told the staff that it was Skipadeedoodah's birthday, and they came out with a sparkler-candled cake to the facepalming Jersey. Cake was had by some and then we parted back to the hotel after a brief stopover at a grocery store to acquire the fluidic toiletries that TSA doesn't let you bring on a plane.
Incidentally, Jawsh, who is indeed going to Hell, brought back a piece of corn and gave it to Cassi upon returning. I was not there for that, but I heard about it.
This year at NEST I largely failed to perform my task as chronicler because everybody kept running up to me and saying "YOU JUST MISSED IT!" The worst of these offenses came in the form of a wet turtle. The segregation laws currently employed by the Federal government make smoking a typically discriminating practice, but at NEST, the cascading current of awesome collects cadres of characters outside to carouse and converse in spite of carcinogenic preferences. Such was the case with me, Rupert and Rui, along with Artoo on Friday night; while we spent the better part of a half-hour discussing foreign perceptions of American foreign policy and the folly of nationalistic ideology, I returned inside to find a toweled and more-than-slightly-damp Tortuga wandering the first floor and running up to me saying "YOU JUST MISSED IT!" I responded "What?!" and she told me: HDS was drafted into a threesome shower with Cassi, Jo, and Ginny. That's right: HDS...in the shower...with Ginny. Cassi. Jo. Buck-ass nekkid. While I was outside discussing politics...HDS...Ginny...Cassi...Jo. Buck-ass nekkid shower. I went outside and promptly beat Rupert to death with a hammer.
Which struck me as strange afterward because he was alive and well the next day. I blame reality.SATURDAY
Thuperman ("Thanks fer athking!")
Due to a misunderstanding at NEST 2007, It's become a sort of impromptu tradition at NEST these past few years to inevitably attempt to upstage resident thespian Libertine during Newbie Orientation by mistaking him for a number of famous fictional bald characters in the middle of Q&A. This year I had nothing planned, but as the event loomed closer, a sudden burst of inspiration formed a plan. Frantically, I ran to ASU and asked for his Superman shirt, which he gave me and then had Aylajayne15 supply me with something red: a tank top. The short length of the garment demanded that i adopt something less masculine for something more fey and upon wetting my hair and twisting the bang into a makeshift curlicue, I awaited by the door for Libertine to finish speaking and then burst in wearing a Superman short, and sporting the tank top as a makeshift cape, spouting at the top of my voice: "NOT THO FATHT LUTHOR!" Well, as the newbies can attest, the room exploded, Libertine slid off track, and Bella dropped her head in her usual "somebody fonna git beat" expression. Barely missing a beat, Libertine countered "I've always loved your big [AS]S!" After inquiring what "nefariouth thchemeth" he was up to ("We're gonna fix your thpeetch impediment!"), I strutted out urging the newbies not listen to him, for he is evil. As I departed, Libertine commented "If he's so smart, why does he wear his underwear on the OUTSIDE?!"
While we were celebrating an appearance well done, Viper, the little shit (he iz tinay fer a man, oonly fahve fuut fahve I beeleev-ah) came out with great urgency and said "Run, he's coming out!" prompting me to high-tail it almost out of the hallway before I realized he was having me on. It's hard to say what my co-conspirator's found funnier.
Bella later kicked me in my ass. Not the last time a woman would do that this year either.
Kanadian Kidnapping
The first kidnapping is always the favorite because ever since the Mairead "Fuck This Noise, Man" Marathon Escape Attempt of '08
, grabbing a lee during the kidnapping introduction seminar has been a tradition (how we're gonna snag her again in following years has not yet been resolved), and this year it was Ticklejen's (now GirlWhoLovetobeTickledbutthatnameistoolongforthis), and this year, our friends from Down...Over...in the Great White North had elaborately (read: planned five minutes before) designed a special spectacle of sorts starring Snidely Whiplash (Libertine, natch) of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame. Led by Whiplash and his motley menagerie of menial migrant labor, they grabbed Jen in the orientation room and tied her to the table demanding the deed to her silver mine. However, good help is hard to find, especially if you go through the Montreal Labour Office; affirmative action item Mexican Pete was the most competent member of the motley crew--sorry, croue as they say up there in superfluous vowel country--and they began their vicious if inept means of extracting the information about the location to the deed of the silver mine and repeatedly turning down offers of Jen to take them back to her hotel room when suddenly, the Royal Canadian Mounted Snail Dudley Do-Right in full Canadian Mountie garb entered the scene sans theme music to thunderous applause. An appropriately dramatically taken aback Snidely Whiplash tried to bribe his way out of trouble, but our stalwart hero could not be deterred from his altruistic duty...until his shift ended a few seconds after. At which point his helpful nature was easily persuaded to assist the cause of evil.Dinner & A Show
Because so many people were coming and going, I hung out in the lounge area trying to run into people (and then suing them for reckless perambulating) and missed the excellent classes in bondage that were going on--I will never be allowed to forget that I missed the "Knotty Bits"--and so I was unfortunately had little time to prepare for the talent show, in which I had agreed to participate. I printed out what pieces I had on my computer and ate dinner with Snail, Milagros, Lamashtu, Lil Rob, Ticklish 9s and his pixie girlfriend E and waited for the show to begin. Snail told a story, Sara (not Surrah) sang a Cole Porter song--undeterred by mechanical difficulties affecting the microphone--and then I was called upon by Rob earlier than I had wanted. Either way, I went up and did a clusterfuckity set than included new Mitch Hedberg jokes that Mitch Hedberg never wrote and the existential question of how Jesus took a piss in private. Despite my own hatred for my lack of preparation, the crowd seemed to like it and I sat back down waiting for the next show.
Unfortunately, I missed the stellar second-half of the show, beginning with the reputedly magnificent reading of Senor Jamie Firovante Bonaventura de la Torquemada's "The Tormentor" and concluding with the Max Speer Quintet's Far-Out Freestyle Fandango due to a bizarre acute opthalamic condition. Anyone who has ever met me will concur that I have no fear of public speaking (although I am terrified of death, which means I only skip out on Fear #1), but after finishing my "set" I sat down to go over my words again, and started to notice that all was not right: I was starting to get double vision and couldn't see straight...the sentences on the paper were starting to slide out of sync and I couldn't read for shit. Slightly panicking, I asked Snail to escort me out into the hall where we tried to find a way to get my head back on track. Minutes later, we'd concluded that whatever it was was too acute and asymptomatic to be anything dangerous, and Snail attributed it to stress of having been awake for nearly 2 days straight. he demanded in his typical no-nonsense way that I get some rest and give the cameras a rest for the evening. Just as I was beginning to reluctantly agree with him, Falcon came up to me from outside and said:
"Hey, Amn, K[arategirl]'s ready to try out the restraints in case you were interested."
God is a bastard. Leaving Snail to feel like the only sane man left on planet Earth, I tried to assure him that a good dose of endorphins might be the key to rebooting my system and I left for the room in question, where our re-enactment of The Exorcist was about to begin.
Amazon Women in the Room
A recurring theme this year was "Amn got his ass whupped by a girl," which apparently struck many as incredulous and hilarious, but as for me, has been a common occurrence since I was 6. The first occasion of this was on Friday night in the Canadian Embassy, also known as the room in the way far corner of the first floor, where they stashed the Canadian attendees far from their USD-paying cohorts. Among the occupants of the room were ASU, T9's & E, and Lil Rob and Lamashtu, a sweet-faced girl who normally looked like a stiff breeze would blow her over, but make no mistake! This girl haz a tuff! Somehow, the feisty little vixen got to sparring with knuckles with me and I, outweighing her by at least 188 lbs. decided that this nymph couldn't take me. It was at this point I should have considered that she wrastles a tiny Italian-Canadian human energy particle on a daily basis and that oversight worked against me as she took my ass to the floor and pinned me with her ass.
Of course, to the outside observer it looked like I lost, but from the underside viewer who had an ample view of her torso, I won the war if not lost the battle.Well this trend continued after the dinner show and vision problems and I trudged upstairs to Sanhael & Karategirl's room where Avenger, Aylajayne and Falcon were already waiting, tying her to the king-sized bed with two sets of restraints per limb. I'll tell you something about Karategirl: this chick does not need karate, kung fu or any other martial arts...she can just fee fie foe fum her way over anybody any day of the week, and her stamina is unbelievable. She even outdid the legendary 4Pawz five-man toss of GLAT 2004. An aggressive fighty lee who doesn't take shit lying down (especially if you call her a "pussy") she flung us around like rodeo clowns as we tried in vain to grab one, just ONE body part down to work on. I however, discovered that her neck, like Mairead and Tamia and Irishgirl before her, is a +22 live wire spot, and by getting in there and blowing about 43 raspberries, the gregarious giant was shrieking like a banshee and tossing her whole body around to fling me off. SHE FAILED! So violent was her reaction to the attack, that Sanhael took out the room's Gideon Bible and began reading passages from it to quell the spirit in her. I did my part by getting my hands wet and flicking my hands at her saying "The power of Christ COMPELS you!" I left to get another tape, leaving my Sonicare in the hands of Falcon and leaving Avenger to mercilessly torment Aylajayne, only to return to find that the hotel had received a noise complaint and the fun had to stop.
Officially.
Unofficially, we plunked her in a chair in the living room and covered her mouth so she couldn't scream loud enough to draw attention. Afterward, she followed me out to the main floor where the parties were happening. Now, I unfortunately don't have any recollections or stories about the huge multi-room parties that went on because my dumb ass hadn't learned enough and the following story happened...
Karategirl: Better than Crack and Stronger (or So I'm Told)
Karategirl, having only been warmed up by her previous session--whereas the rest of us were near death--was up for another round. Now, reasonably I should have said "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" but unfortunately I had sacrificed the nourishing oxygen for the reasoning part of my brain for the raspberries I tortured her with earlier. However I wasn't worried, because as the prior day's experience had taught me--or led me to believe if we were being honest--, I wouldn't have to exert too much work to make her squeal. You have to understand, ALL DAY since she arrived, we'd been making this girl jump, twitch, giggle, spaz and flinch with little pokes and prods to any part of her body; we were all like
and like ALL FUCKING DAY! So I thought "Oh, I'll just do this to her and I won't have to work at all!"WRONG! WRONG, MAN!
I took her back to my room and WITHOUT RESTRAINTS OR ASSISTANCE...tried to pwn a 6'3" amazon who could suplex the Rhino if she wanted. Well, needless to say, she kicked the shit outta me. And while everybody else was busy having fun at parties and eating and drinking and pwning pwnable girls, I was sweating buckets trying to pry her arms apart from her body just get my face in there--because I wasn't getting my hands in there when they're all wrapped up in hers trying to keep me away. After about an hour I was too tired to continue and seeing as how she was bored, we decided to watch a movie...well, since all the movies I brought were Blu-ray and the PS3 was in Rob's room, I had only one regular DVD: Jaws. So we sat and watched Jaws on my computer for about an hour until i realized "Wasn't I supposed to recover and pwn you?" so then began another 45 minute assault that resulted in an equally exhausted and no more successful Amn. 3 HOURS LATER, I emerge with scratches, bruises, oxygen deprivation, David Leisure hair and an exhausted Sonicare and trudge downstairs with onset acute arthritis and sore-ass arms and sit on the hater's couch with Bella, Slacker, Natural and some other person I can't remember waiting for the feeling to come back while the domestic disturbance happened. We stayed up all fucking night...and not without consequences.
SUNDAY - THE MAIN EVENT
The Dead Live! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Any gathering is an exercise in sleep deprivation, but at NEST, it becomes something of an endurance sport. Saturday night I didn't get to bed until 4:45 AM, and by then I was running on 5 hours of sleep over the last 48. Bella's bed was occupied by cuddling Jo and Ginny, so she crashed with me and both of us were asleep before our heads even hit the pillows. We were fucking dead to the world. So much so that Bella didn't even bother to wake up and go downstairs to get coffee let alone breakfast. I on the other had felt like a lead fucking weight. They could've screamed "HEY AMN! THEY'RE GIVING AWAY GOLD AND PUSSY OUTSIDE!" and I wouldn't have budged. I was dreaming an entire alternate season 6 of The Sopranos (which was pretty cool) when suddenly, the 2nd to last episode was interrupted by a knocking sound. Somebody was at my door! It was Sanhael and Karategirl, the only person who actually knew where my room was, and they had really worried looks on their faces as I opened the door. "Dude, are you okay?" And I was like, "Uh, yeah we were just sleeping." Then Sanhael said "Okay, the main event is about to start, so if you want to get down there..."
We fucking slept till NOON-THIRTY! And I coulda used another 6 hours too I can tell you that! On my way back to the bedroom, my phone rang. Avenger was on the other line asking if I was alright. Apparently everyone wondered where the fuck I was at breakfast and when I didn't show thought something was wrong. "Could you just walk out on the balcony so we can see you?!"
Well, Bella scooted back to her room, I hopped in the shower, got dressed and headed down to the main event, which was just starting (I missed the opening remarks if there were any) with both cameras running. Who should I run into as I got to the doors? KAYTEE! She opened the door just as I got to it and chirped "HI HUHNA!" and I followed her in.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the main event is a beautiful thing, especially when it's in one room where you can see everything going on! Karategirl was being tied to a rack seat to demonstrate the futility of bondage, while Ticklish 9s was in the X-frame and everybody else was making sport of...well, everybody else.
Bella is Pwned-ed
One of my favorite moments from the main event is the annual attempt to pwn Bella; a typical exercise in futility because once Bella dons her magic blindfold, her strength increases 10-fold and the attempts to restrain her become humorously academic. But this year we had her tied to a table with a ball gag and about 7 lers including Jo and Ginny all holding her down with HDS and ASU providing the meat of the power. This year, the combination seems to have worked as I whipped out my Sonicare and placed it on her worst spot and she screamed "I HAYTE YUH!" through the gag and tried in vain to throw everybody off. But they held her taught and worked her over without problem.
Butterflies & Katydids, but Mostly Chewed Up Little Kids
A little bird told me during the main event that this year's official mascot Kaetee wanted a session with yours truly; apparently, the neon pink and green warning flyers we posted everywhere suggesting the inherent foolishness of this idea did not deter her from formulating it. It seems lil Kaytay can't read; I blame the schools. The same bird also insisted (read: grabbed me by the balls and squeezed hard) that I be gentle with her and try to put her at ease. So tracking down the picayune pink pwnable powderpuff, I proffered my professional powers politely prompting her to perkily proclaim "YAY" and promptly peruse the palisade for a pair of p-...p-....chaperones. In this case, Surrah and Baldadonis. Heading to the 4th floor, we passed through the partition--STOP WITH THE ALLITERATIONS!--and set up shop in the next door room. Kaytay lied on the bed with Surrah and Baldy taking up audience positions in front of her, while I ran furiously downstairs to get a battery for my Mp3 player speaker. I stood on a chair in the main event room and bellowed "ATTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN-SHUN! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED...A double-A BATTERY!" I think I got one from Mel and plopped it in. Upstairs I ran (except for the elevator) and with drink glass and soda and battery in hand, set up my player and began the scene. I deliberately went for something comedic and ice breaking, so I figured gentle bad porn music would be perfect.
I found the song on YouTube, so feel free to play it while reading the below:
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Borrowing a page out of the Quagmire's Guide to Giggity-Giggity, I dramatically poured Kaetee a glass of soda and at down next to her, playing the faux gigolo to the best of my abilities. As I worked on finding her spots she tried fighting me with little Jo "rrrrrrrrr"s but that only prompted the appearance of Probey the Mechanic who tried looking all over for other spots with bad noisy joints. He was replaced by Dr. Sinjayangaloogalloo, acupressurist who set about "foinding und unvinding yohr shakaras oh yes verymuch please thank yoo". After about 5 minutes he was arrested by Mr. Doug McKinney of the Stereotype Regulations Office and replaced by BROOCE THE BEARDED AUSTRAYLIAN who set about teaching the studio audience "Hayw ta bayg a Kaitay! Whot ye gawta dew ees foind thas spowt ah'roun' 'ere an yews th' Sowniceh reyal propah loike!" I also pointed out that Kaetee's are susceptible to a phenomenon called "Edward Cullen/Light Touch Fetish", at which point her wide-grin happy face turned into an open-mouthed OMG happy face. Meanwhile, Surrah and Dave seemed inspired by the event and started trying to subtly pwn the other, but to no avail as the Kaytee rolled her way tired and we had to break it up.
Sarah later got pwned at the main event in the center truss. But she of course went on record that she "broke the Rhino."
The Turtle Relocation Program (a.k.a. KIDNAPPING!)
What would NEST be without an official NEST kidnapping? And this time, I GOT TO PARTICIPATE! You see, being the altruist that I am, I only dedicate my volunteer time to noble, worthy, planet saving causes, and one of the noblest of all is the Turtle Relocation Program, where we grab disoriented turtles and relocate them to their natural habitat...in this case, the center table of the main event room. After much scuttling around looking for all of our team, Andy led us to grab Tortuga from her chair in the hallway and cart her off to the main room, with her screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO! I JUST WANTED TO EAT MY SANDWICH AND HAVE MY COOKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" As we placed her on the table, Superman's nemesis SEX LUTHOR and his beautiful and equally evil Pussywoman--I MEAN CAT! CAT! PUSSYCAT!--clad partner in evil (decked out in beautifully homemade Catwoman-style costume but...like, way sexier because it had the...the bewbs on there and the...the...*BACK IN 5 MINUTES*...what was I talking about again? OH RIGHT! Complete with sound-barrier-breaking whip and cowl) lending her taloned talents, prmarily to the armpits (hee hee) appeared, looking for the location of the rare metal that can cut Superman's flesh...which was used once during his "supercision." Luthor used his genius to point out that we had bound her wrists with ankle cuffs and after a small adjustment, the entire team began to work on painlessly extracting the information she possessed (sound familiar?). The SECOND most well-dressed of our team was Alchemy as the Henchman of the Monarch (sans wings, damn TSA people) from The Venture Bros. This didn't go unnoticed to the Turtle: "I NEED A FLYSWATTERRRRRR!" Because the lesser henchmen (Me and EcEu) were providing security, I didn't get a chance to partake or get called upon...which sucks because I was in character. The recurring theme of the supervillain theater this year was that the villains could never afford good help so my carefully constructed character of a cheaply made Thailand robot henchman with Windows Vista installed only stood there clapping awkwardly every now and then. Ah well...its the dedication, not the glory right?
Jo Pwns Herself
Jo has a funny sort of 'leeness to her. Apparently the endorphin rush of being a lee gives her a delusional high that makes her mouth write checks her ass can't cash. While trying to pwn Mondy, Mondy called for (guess) her Daddy, the one, the only Max Speer. Ginny and Rhino decided that this pwnage was unfair and turned the tables on Jo, who then became the subject of interest for the legendary Maximillian. That was when the high got to her worst of all. Without thinking, she looked him dead in the eyes and shouted at the top of her lungs "YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS BILLY JOEL!" The air dropped out of the room and Rhino practically dropped Jo herself at this, and with a collective "OOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the crowd surged around her to watch the bemused Maximillian bring her down from Cloud 9 to Circle 9 with unbearable pwnage. In less than 15 seconds, Jo changed her mind, screeching "YOU'RE BETTER THAN BILLY JOEL!" and Max, maybe out of that strange random kindness that evildoers have, decided to let her go after that.
Distraction - The Home Game
Another new tradition at NEST is the annual Distraction Game. This is a game where two teams of lees separated by gender--The Brotherhood and the Sisterhood--take trivia questions spouted by Maximilian himself in a contest for victory and a cheese wheel. Of course, the only catch is that the contestants will be distracted by an incrementally increasing force during the question period. Guess what that distraction is? Yep, you guessed it: Frank Stallone. And just like every year, we all predict that the Cubs--I mean the Brotherhood--will fail yet again and the women will win. Now, usually, I place bets that the weakest link for the men's team is Baldadonis, but even the glass nerved Delicate Dave was no match for the now legendary imFAILer, who proceeded to break faster than a Cadbury egg in Al Sharpton's back pocket. But surprisingly, this time out, despite Lee's joining the Sisterhood (UNFAIR! I love it!) and working her magic, ImFAILer managed to answer the final question correctly and score a win for the Brotherhood. The Sisterhood immediately filed an appeal and someone in the audience called out: "Let's look at the replay!" referencing my camera.
"OH! NOW Y'ALL MUTHAFUCKA'S APPRECIATE ME!"
As punishment for losing (and for saying "Metallica sucks") the Sisterhood decided to take out their fail on a panic-stricken Mondy who immediately proceeded to futilely recant her previous proclamation pertaining to the quality of Metallica's music. Jo wasn't buying it.
Milagros Wins Yenny...Twice
I love Max in that totally platonic way, but the man has gone nuts on one or two occasions, and this one I was witness to. The man offered up in the raffle, A SIGNED COPY OF THE YENNY COMIC BOOK (from the days when she was still an underground figure) AUTOGRAPHED BY OZZY AND XODLIRV. While I screamed out "HE'S A MADMAN! A MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADMAN!" ticketholders eagerly awaited their numbers. Now interestingly enough, Milagros, who tends to win things in twos I noticed, already won the unsigned copy of the same issue. The number was called out and who should have th winning ticket? MILAGROS! Accepting his second prize, he sauntered up to the table, looked over the prizes and put his unsigned copy back on the table, leaving the comic to be offered again. After the event, when the equipment was being taken down, I went up to him and said "Mills...let me talk to you about money. Specifically what I have and what you can give me for it." With a smile he said "Nope."
CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURSES!
Musical Theater
One of these days, Libertine is gonna want to get paid for all the performing he does here. But regardless, this one he'd do for free. The final act of NEST main event is the Libertine demonstration, with his lovely wifey assistant KittenToes as the canvas of his art. This little bit of performance piece was in accompaniment to piano music, where he demonstrated his flair for timing using Kitten's ribs as keys. Although it paled n comparison to the legendary 2007 demonstration, it was no less hilarious as he pantomimed precisely and in a properly overtheatrical fashion to the notes of Mozart's Rollo Londo Turca, much to Kitten's giggling lack of amusement (see Notable Quotable below).
One lost moment from the main event is the Lee-Natural chase. Lee was testing out an X-Frame for height when Natural tried to goose her in the hips. Lee, not ticklish and ever the opportunist, decided to grab his hands and turn the tables on him (she does that y'know), and after finding a spot, sent him off to do the 100-yard dash in :09. Running like a linebacker on an NFL field with Lee in pursuit, Natural managed a coward's way out through the doors, leaving the rest of the room in stitches, but leaving me pissed off as my camera wasn't running at the time.
Final Nightly Games
As the event wound into memory and we were all left with the inevitability of tomorrow being the last day, we struggled to stay up as late as we could to stave off the coming dawn. I initially did it with another dumb-ass repeat: I tried tackling Karategirl yet again. Once again, I did my part, but she did more of hers and my wounded, scratched and Einstein-haired ass hobbled downstairs passing her off to Sanhael saying "She's YOUR problem now!" The two of them left for home at midnight and I was left downstairs with Krazie, Falcon, Runsoffstage (more on her soon), and Skippy. Well, Skippy's idea of passing the time was impression theater, thanks to me doing Informercial Man earlier in the day to capitalize on an idea that Rob had. And her impression of choice: Quint from Jaws, seeing as how she heard I could do it.
To her ever-shrieky amusement, I recited the entire Indianapolis speech from Jaws, and so delighted was she, that she demanded seeing the entire scene on DVD so I could recite with it. Sounds easy enough, but after bringing my laptop downstairs, we realized that the babbling brook of the lounge was too loud to overhear anything on my laptop even with the speakers at max. So we all headed up to my room to watch the scene where it was quiet. Runsoffstage plopped herself on my couch and Skippy took the chair. Afterwards, we all started jabbering, mostly making taunts at Runsoffstage while Skippy fell asleep in my chair. So what else are we gonna do? Falcon and I started poking and prodding the sleepy Swede much to our amusement and to her consternation. So determined was she to escape the poking that she turned traitor on Skippy and tried fluttering her fingers along her legs suggesting "Let's get Skippy." It didn't work.
After pwning Runsoffstage for about 25 minutes, Falcon had to take off so he could leave the hotel at 9, and the remaining three of us went back down the lounge. Skippy took up sleeping position on a couch while Runsoffstage tried to sit in a chair without passing out. A bubbly and not sleepy at all Chey came down and plopped down next to us while I, barely awake and ready to die, kept prodding at her soles. Eventually I learned that it was about 4:30 in the morning and had a long day of shlepping my shit back home that I finally went to bed.
MONDAY
Brunch Anyone?...Anyone?
The saddest part of NEST is the Monday morning goodbye breakfast, where we all get together one last time as a group and order expensive food for Andy to pay for, followed by copious crying. Well, unfortunately this one important aspect of NEST hadn't been planned and most people had eaten breakfast at the hotel or had to take early flights and buses out so we had to say goodbye to Jo, Falcon, Avenger & Aylajayne before brunch. On top of that, we all had to check out because the hotel didn't do extensions so I had to run upstairs and pack all my shit furiously so I could get to the restaurant and leave my bags where they'd be safe. So while half of the entire group went to the restaurant to eat, the others went home or stayed behind at the hotel. Understaffed and not expecting us, the wait crew worked vehemently to get our orders done on time, and for the most part they succeeded. After we all started paying our tabs, we started to congregate outside while I started to suffer the effects of exhaustion. Real exhaustion, not that 8-hours and I'm beat exhaustion. Unfortunately, it was raining outside, so I couldn't whip out my camera and photograph Sarah in a hoodie doing a little dance in the parking lot; for once she looked like a proper New York college-age hoodlum instead of the we-are-not-amused intelligentsia. Libertine gave KittenToes his jacket and the three of us trudged back to the hotel on foot, whilst the remaining crew piled into a big-ass rig and drive back. But vengeance was ours as the truck dove into a puddle in the parking lot, thus splashing the riders with rainwater and setting everything right with the world.
Gift-Wrapped Artoo
Sleeping 15 hours out if 120 will do things to you: sweat, puke, pass out sitting up so your friends can write "I HEART COCKZ" on your forehead in magic marker, but the one thing it will do is kill any enthusiasm you have for any responsibility whatsoever. Yet still, there I was, recording what I could and snapping photos, including one of Mr. & Mrs. Jamie and their newly arrived bundle of joy, NEST baby #...uh, I forget; strangely enough, this baby was endlessly amused by my face, and I wasn't even doing anything. I guess I just look that way. But we weren't done yet...ohohohoho NO.
After dropping my bags off in Libertine's room, I hightailed it to Bella's room where she was hauling Viper's lights for a shoot for her site. I walked in on Tickler Bart and Euphoricy who were waiting for the shoot to go down. The subject of today's shoot: Artoo. Great, 2 F/M shoots in one weekend! Meanwhile I got shut out of all the M/F and F/F shoots! Well, I had some fun because as Bella was tying up the Brit in shrink wrap, I had to keep the ever-eager Euphoricy from poking holes in the plastic before it was done. So I grabbed her, flung her on the bed, and started working her over, while she tried to distract me with foolish notions like "I have to help Bella with the plastic". I finally got to do whatI'd been wanting to do all weekend...hold Ginny helpless while I did the Joker Spiel "You wanna know how I got these scars?" She practically squealed her way out of my grip "DON'T DO THAT! EEEEEEE!"
The shoot went magnificently and watching Bella get domme with a guy was a rare sight indeed, and almost as amusing as watching Ginny and Cassi squee with each other while it was going on. Afterward, the sweaty and exhausted Artoo needed a drink,which I had in the form of a "bottuh wattah". Now...I've never drowned anybody before in my life, and I never planned on starting, but it's one thing to do it in general, but a WHOLE different kettle of fish to do it on dry land. I poured the water into his mouth gently, but it went down the wrong pipe, inciting an extremely violent coughing fit; and worst of all, my dumb ass hadn't bothered to unwrap him. Panicked and with Bella's help, we wrenched him up and flung the blindfold off him while slapping him on the back and ripping the plastic off of him so his diaphragm could move: "GETHIMUPGETHIMUPGETHIMUP!" Finally he dislodged the errant liquid and was fine, but the scare lingered for a while. At least, until he stood up and flung the sweaty plastic at Gin & Cassi, who, upon contact instantly reverted to their true emotional age: 5. "EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!" and scampered away to the corner of the room, wiping their hands on each other, while Bella flopped on her back with her legs kicking in the air with laughter.
Cassi then attacked Ginny on the bed while Artoo took a shower. T'was cute.
Final Moments
Well, after all was said and done, we all congregated in the lobby waiting for the hotel shuttles to...shuttle us off to the airport, and that was the longest I've ever seen smokers go out for cigarettes, as nobody was leaving anybody if they could help it. We spent most of the time consoling a distraught Cassi and a weepy Skippy, who now wearing a big orange sweater looked like a giant pumpkin (I now call her pumpkin, hee hee). Eventually, the shuttle came for Tamia, Ginny, Alchemy and co. and so I was the only one left behind with the local crew who could drive home. But ask not for whom teh shuttle calls, it calls for me, and I left the sad team behind en route to the airport. Upon arriving I immediately walked my ass to an entirely separate wing of the airport to get Dunkin Donuts: I ordered a whole 50 pack of munchkins--which I haven't had in over 10 years--and proceeded to pig out on them and pizza. I ran into Tamia and Alchemy waiting for their flight back home and after stopping to say hello hightailed it back to my plane.
Funnily enough, it wasn't until my flight home that there were delays, and none of them weather related. I fell asleep sitting up on both flights back and arrived at about 1 AM, having never been so happy to be so worn out ever.
MIXED NUTS
Let's Meet Ginny!
Euphoricy arrived Friday afternoon with Artoo in tow and was immediately engulfed by the walking hug factory that is Skipadeedoodah. The twig was then lifted off the ground and carried (because she only weighs 98lbs) around the lounge like a toy half the size of the child carrying it. After allowing Korastus and Kered to make their introductions, I gave the camera to EcEu-Jooles and walked over to Ginny, doing my usual Joker-Crashes-the-Wayne-Penthouse routine. She immediately covered her face with her shirt and began shaking all "get away!"-like, proving for once and for all that YES I AM SCARY...to SOMEONE.
Paul Blart, Hall Cop
We had a rather rotund security guard who Bella nicknamed Paul Blart after his visibly inept capabilities were demonstrated after a domestic disturbance concerning a woman and her boyfriend--mostly her slapping the shit out of him in the elevator--resulted in him accomplishing little more than walking off the doughnuts he ate for 2nd lunch.
Ma(irea)de In Sweden
Now, as we all sadly know, our poor NEST addict and super-S.A.M. Mairead couldn't make it this year, and we were all wondering how we would get by without her. Well, in an interesting turn of events, the sovereign nation of Sweden
sent her to us in the form of the adorable and equally shy Runsoffstage. Sporting one eye (the other covered by her Annie Hall hair), and an unmistakably matching set of quivering lips and flappy resisting hands (and an equally ticklish neck I might add), Runsoffstage reminded us so much of our Irish troublemaker that it was like she was already there...only if she had been we'd have had TWO of them! Awwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeesome! She spent a majority of the early weekend scrunched up on couches in Krazie's arms hiding her head and face behind pillows, but by Sunday night and Monday morning had come out of said shell long enough to get frequently attacked by yours truly and several others. Like Karategirl, it doesn't take much to make this Swede shiver, and always with each little poke you always got a hilarious response like "I am not liking this!" and "I hate this country!" Now, [Un?]fortunately, I didn't get to experience the full brunt of the Sanna Sidewinder, the powerful piston-leg kicks that threw off Krazie AND Rhino EACH! So when Falcon and Krazie decided to pwn her on the tall chair in the lounge, they lifted her legs up RIGHT IN FRONT OF MAH FACE! "OH SURE! AIM THE CANNONS RIGHT AT MY HEAD WHY DON'T YA!?"Oh, I could pwn her all day. I wish I still could.
JOOLES RULES! Viper SUCKS!
I couldn't get through the weekend without Our Man in Amsterdam Jules! The photog and post-house man was an endless help when I needed a backup man and when I needed picture transfers after the event. I took a few photos for the PhotoPhobic Phour during the event, and in the interests of security, I set about to get them transferred off as soon as I could so they could get a disc with the photos on them. Jules took me to his room--where the Mammers fort (don't ask ME) lay--and we spent half an hour transferring the photos to their proper format. Everybody wound up getting them, although I had to tap Big John twice to help me find Max's room way at the other end of the hotel--where me, Drew, venray, Andy and Max all discussed Doctor Who for about 10 minutes (AWESOOOOOOOOOOME!). However, in the process of doing one thing, I missed out on the other. I was supposed to meet up with Viper 20 minutes after the event to shoot his NEST videos...well, half an hour is 10 minutes after innit? So when I showed up at he door with Jooles in tow, I gently knocked on the door that had a sign that said "DO NOT KNOCK!", and angry HDS answered the door and said "NOT YOU." and closed it in m'face. I was like "I'm SUPPOSED TO BE IN THERE!" Well I NEVAH! And off I toddled with Jules to the lounge where I met up with Karategirl...and then proceeded to get my ass kicked AGAIN!
The Kyootest Widdle Kupple!
It cannot be said of NEST that NESt is NEST without mentioning de kyootest widdle attendee of all: Iwishguwl! (translation: Irishgirl5). Iwishguwl is so kyoot you can't even tawk abowt hew wit' "r"s. This year she showed with her awesome beau Kretelis, the man who helped engineer a special Mission:Impossible style kidnapping with Avenger and a few others that she saw coming a mile away. And SHE WENT WITH IT ANYWAY AWWWWWWWWWWWW! I still missed it though and will beat Avenger for it next year.
Reunion
This year I was reunited with three former gathering buddies that i haven;t seen in about 4 years since MTP #11: Bagelfather, Natural Tickler, and ...oh shit I done fergot your name...BUT YOU WERE AWESOME! It'd been forever since I'd seen those guys at Sadira's party, which I unfortunately had not yet returned to because in a year full of gatherings I CAN'T GO TO THEM ALL! ARRRRRGH! I had to compete with Natural for being biggest troublemaker of the event, Bagel with being the most awesome geeky genius, and there was not enough time in the weekend to do all the kewl things we could do! The Evil League of Evil!
The Norelco Avenger
Avenger and Ayla came fresh from a pool outing on Thursday night and seeing Avenger without his shirt on was an exercise in landscaping studies. As we passed, a trio of teenagers was walking by and I couldn't help myself. It turned behind me and said "Dude, it's called Gilette, it's not expensive!" One of the trio practically fell over the walkway bridge while the others doubled over. "Three words! NOR-EL-CO!"
Awesome Newbies
The newbies get better and better every year and this year in particular was spectacular. This thread is already long enough so I'll mention those I haven't mentioned already here, although this paltry mention in no way indicates the incredible contribution they made this year: Lamashtu, The awesomely cute and shy Chey (GUEVARRA!), GOTH N SAE! Holy shit you guys are exactly the same looking and height as you are in the pictures! Mammers and Sidrablem, Korastus (a.k.a. Matthew McConaughey), Slacker & Kraziedawg, Rupert (holy shit did you do a lot!), NG02 (made of chocolate awesome and marshmallows), Melamine and Sassaxrah (Sassafrass! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!) and of course, KAITEE!
NOTABLE QUOTABLES (i.e. the Redundant Part of the Recap)
"I AM NOT A FUCKING PIANO!" - KittenToes during Demonstration
"It smells funny in there!" - Snail Shell during Thursday night Bella pwnage
"ATTEN-SHUN! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED....a double-A Battery!" - moi
"I am a French-Canadian who does not speak French!" - Lil Rob
"It feels good when Ted does it" - Artoo after CPR
"You're so gross!" - Skippy to Homer trying to lick her neck
"Give me a target."
"*weakly*Jhoti."
- Jawsh & Bella on Thursday night
""RUPERT! I told you to watch the bags! You were watching the BOYS again weren't you?"
- Me on numerous occasions
"EEEEEEEP!...I'm NOT gonna be a mouse!" - Fireguardian
"Get outta my vagina!" - Euphoricy to Tortuga
"You have to stop, you're going to break the hotel." - Artoo to Jo
"You know you still a cracker, right?" - NaturalTickler to me in the lounge
"YOU'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS BILLY JOEL!" - Jo's last words to Max at the Main Event
"I NEED A FLYSWATTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" - Tortuga during kidnapping
"Gaaaaaaaaaaaay"/"Aaaaaaaaaaaaasss" - Runsoffstage repeatedly
"OW! The pillow BIT me!" - Kraziedog while sitting by the Sannapillow
For more awesome not listed here, please redirect to these locations:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=152374
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=152226
Apologies to anyone I didn't have room to mention: like DVNC, who is already too big to put in a 3 letter thread, so there.
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...NH is going to be round 2...and I expect you to NOT got easy on me.
