Last Friday was Alco’s birthday (party, anyway… not sure when the actual day is). Ben & Sverre hosted a gathering at their place, which I went to… I was tossing up whether or not to go, but in the absence of a tangible reason not to, I relented. I think I figured that with Open Day on Sunday and whatnot, I’d not have much of a weekend otherwise. I’m glad I did – ’twas a good night. All the usuals were there, along with Bobo & Gus, Lisa and Angela.
It was a good night, filled with general chit chat, food, and so forth. There were several games of chess played, which quickly attracted big crowds… Gus & I started out, then he played Pauly after that, and on it went. The game between Ann-Marie and Tim (at least… I think it was Tim…) went for ages. Or maybe it was Michael. I don’t know.
It was somewhat disturbing the way many of guys disappeared at various points to Ben’s office, where they watched on another play Guild Wars and so forth. They’re rather obsessed with that game, and have been for many months now. I looked through a booklet of concept art they had, and it was actually quite good… someone spent a lot of time drawing all this. It had a fairly strong Lord of the Rings influence in many areas, I thought, although the others defended this. :)
It took me a while to find Ben’s place. I’d been there quite a few times before, but never driving; either walking or as a passenger. I knew it was off Cranbourne road somewhere, but started my search on the Frankston side of the freeway, which wasn’t right. I quickly realised that and rang Alco, who helped direct me further on. Once I got to the right street, I parked at what I thought was roughly the right place… I knew Ben had been working on the house and garden a lot lately, and I probably wouldn’t recognise it… so, just to be safe, I rang Alco. Who told me a number. A wrong number. Just as I was walking up the street, wondering what I was missing, Alco wandered out to issue a correction. :)
I think I ended up leaving at about 3am. I drove home to Preston, because I’d organised with Rob to play Axis & Allies at my place Saturday night, and I suspected he would want to come around earlier in the day to work on the project (he did :) ). I like doing that drive in the wee hours – it’s relatively quick and painless, without traffic and with the lights relatively predictable. I had average luck with the lights though, so it still took nearly an hour (from Ben’s place, not Mt. Eliza, so a good 10 minutes longer than ideal).
