Last night was Gus & Bobo’s engagement party. They held it in the function room at Davies. I think it went well. There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of speeches – Gus & Bobo both said a few words early on in the night, just before cutting the cake. Gus’ comments were good… basically, “thanks for coming, thanks for bringing cameras” – and yes, he was just at that moment blinded by a couple of paparazzi-style flashes – “enjoy, eat the cake, have a drink, have fun”. I can’t remember his exact words, but it was funny the way he said it. If only he’d been holding the cake knife while he ordered everyone to get pissed and have fun. ;)
There were a heck of a lot of people there. Bobo’s family, including aunts, as well as Gus’ parents and grandmother. I’m not sure I saw his dad – there was an older guy there that I guess could have been him, but he looked a lot younger than I would have expected. Anyway, aside from that there was of course a lot of the people I know, as well as all Gus’ friends and whatnot.
And I’ve just realised that Roxanne wasn’t there, and I never even thought to ask her if she wanted a lift down. Oh dear… I feel pretty terrible about that. I don’t know if she ever got the details – Bobo was lax with some of the invites; I pried the info out of her & Sarah, mostly… well shit.
I’ll have to call Roxanne in a minute and apologise. :(
But aside from that sudden realisation, things went great. I chatted a bit with Lisa, talking about the usual – work, and the never-ending quest for it. She’s got a few interviews next week, at least one of which she was really keen on, so I hope that goes well for her.
I also talked quite a bit with Sean, Sket’s boyfriend. He’s really cool – he was a bit shy or something the first few times I met him, but he’s a really nice guy, real easy going. He actually went to La Trobe in Bundoora back in 2003, although I don’t think we ever crossed paths. He lived up that way – just near Smorgy’s – for a while. We got talking about college, and the usual dirty little not-so-well-kept-secrets about what goes on. He was a little surprised with some of the stories I think, which really shouldn’t surprise me… some of the things that even innocent old me was aware of are just so typically college cliché… but you know, clichés come from somewhere. :)
Alco was also there. He’s hoping to get most Friday nights and Saturday mornings off base for the next few weeks – the first being last weekend, but I missed him then because of the late night after Darkzone. :/ He’s looking good – all fit and clean cut and everything – and seems to be pretty happy with the navy thus far. Ange has been talking to him on the phone each week since he started, and spreading the news out via email. Alco also sent out a big email this morning covering all the stuff he’s done to date on base. He’s down at Cerberus (or however it’s spelt) at the moment, for basic training… he’s supposed to be shipping out to a more permanent station in about five or six weeks, but that’s apparently a little up in the air at the moment. Still, I don’t think he minds either way; they started rifle training last week, so he’s as happy as. :D
It’s funny, because for some reason I thought he was up in N.S.W. somewhere. That he’s been a mere half an hour or so away the entire time (from Mt. Eliza, not Preston, obviously) is just weird. It seems so silly to not see someone for five weeks when they’re that close.
I think I’ve recruited Wig for paintball, too… I’ll have to see if the idea’s stuck still at J.D.’s on Monday. I’m going to start getting money off people now; time to get a booking and have it all sorted, before people get all funny and wishy-washy. Since there’ll be plenty of other people there at the same time as us – probably especially so now that they’ve just been featured on TV – I’d be quite happy with only half a dozen people. Whatever; it’s all good. :D
I also saw Laura again. Not Laura whom I lived with last year – she wasn’t there – or Mornington Laura – she was, but not the focus – but rather the Laura that I’d met only once a while back for Gus’ birthday party (25th?) at Ha’Penny’s. At least, we think that’s what it was. I didn’t recognise her all night until right at the end… she remembered my face, and as soon as she said her name again I remembered.
I can’t recall if I wrote about her before, but basically she was just someone I started talking to, and Sket saw the two of us chatting and couldn’t keep the surprise off her face – “oh my god Wade’s chatting up some chick!” were probably the words in her head. I wasn’t exactly… I was just happy to be talking to anyone, really – most of the people there were Gus’ friends that I didn’t know, and am not especially interersted in… yes, I did write about that night, now that I remember – they were the guys getting up to mischief in the AMC carpark. Hoorah.
Anyway, she’s now with a guy called Mark (I hope… pretty sure I’ve remembered that right) who seems really cool. He’s studying Computer Science – and his brother’s doing Electronic Engineering, as he kept reminding me; he seemed thrilled that I was doing a double degree with both :) – and he’s got a way better house than my old place at Cummins Lane, according to Bobo. She really embarrassed him – although he was definitely flattered – going on about how awesome his house was. She apparently knew his sister. Small world, eh? :)
Ah, and I also ran into Kate, Evan’s girlfriend, the I-know-more-about-Speed-than-you-do one from that same party a while back. She didn’t remember me at all, which is probably a good thing. I’m beginning to agree with the assessment from a few others – she’s weird. She’s really attractive and probably pretty clever, but she tended to walk around just making small pointed comments in that “I’m making a huge effort to be outgoing, but I really don’t know what I’m doing” way – I recognise it quickly because it’s my own thing, too. :) She got offended when I made the small-talk comment that she’d made a friend; the balloon she’d been carrying around all night. I have no idea what happened there.
She also tended to introduce herself thus: “Hi, I’m Kate, I’m smarter than most people”. If it was some kind of sarcasm or self-depreciation, her humour’s too dry for me to pick up. Odd.
Hmm… the cake was good. :) I hadn’t had dinner; I had figured I’d just nip next door or something if I needed a meal, but after scoffing down more than my fair share of M&M’s, plus some sandwiches, I survived. Also… I may have eaten the lion’s share of a family size chocolate block when I got to my mum’s… the drive down was a real #%*!@. :(
Anyway, the cake was good. :) Bobo & Gus made it together, I gather, and it turned out really well; fiendishly thick with delicious “it’s not icing!” icing – I’m not sure what it was, but Bobo insisted it wasn’t icing. Meh… if it looks like a duck…
Gus provided the music – a set of generic Logitech computer speakers [courtesy of Bobo’s dad] running off his iPod. I was amazed at how well that worked – the sound was great, and he either has really awesome all-round taste in music, or spent a lot of time making a playlist beforehand. I mean to say that, every song was good… whereas in my collection half of it is stuff that I wouldn’t normally listen to, but may on the odd occasion, or otherwise just don’t want to delete… I don’t like deleting things unless I actually dislike them… merely being stuff I don’t listen to isn’t good enough. :)
Anyway, I think it was a pretty cool way to run things. I definitely think it would be smarter for my dad to use an iPod or a computer to run the music at his 50th this year, rather than have a DJ fiddling with those thingamajigs.. you know, old fashioned things old people used to use back before they had electricity and the wheel and streets clear of lava… CD’s, that’s the ones. :P
The place was also decorated really well. Bobo apparently spent a lot of the day organising it, with help of course from friends and family. Still… it seems pretty bad to let the bride-and-groom-to-be organise their own party like that; they should be able to delegate everything to everyone else, make them do it. :)
So eventually we all got kicked out at about 1am, when the function room closed. The bar itself was of course still open and packed – they had a live band playing, as they do every Friday night, and quite a good one too – but most people from our group had already left, and of those that remained many had work and such today – even Bobo. :/ So, we all bid each other adieu and went home. I gave Alco a lift to Michael & Adele’s, where he stayed last night. It’s actually his old place where he was with Bronwyn, and then later Michael, before he went into the navy. It must be kinda weird to be staying with friends at what was your own place only two months ago.
I think I may have unnerved him a little bit… it was wet last night – apparently it rained while we were partying – and so the roads were slippery, and I slipped sideways going around the roundabout just near the library there in Frankston. I didn’t fishtail or anything, just could hear and feel the tires slipping. It didn’t bother me at all, but then I thought… hmm… I wonder if Alco thinks I’m a bad driver now. :D
So I took it way easy the rest of the way, just in case. I’ve never really worried too much about my car in terms of grip, even in the wet… I know that on dry roads I can’t actually accelerate fast enough to spin the wheels – I tried on the way down yesterday :) – so I’m pretty safe even from myself. But obviously I need to take it easier at times. I don’t think of myself as a bad driver, or a hoon – I never speed or drive recklessly – but I do know that I tend to corner fast… it didn’t take me long in driving to realise that you could probably go 20km/h above the speed limit the whole way and still not get there any sooner if you get that one damn car that takes forever to turn, or accelerate.
Gah, I’m so tired of people who brake ten minutes before there’s even a sign of an intersection… some random person yesterday actually slammed on the breaks with easily two car lengths of space in front of them… I stopped in enough time, but I wasn’t thrilled about it. It was bizarre.. they had been slowing down like normal, as you would if you were going to pull up behind the car in front, and then just decided they want to stop that much sooner. I don’t get it… I can only assume, if I give them the benefit of the doubt, that they’ve got some [very dangerous] mechanical problem with their brakes.
Anyway… that was one of many reasons why there was no chocolate left here at my mum’s within half an hour of me arriving. :/
So yeah. I think Bobo & Gus had a good time last night; I hope so at least. They’ve got lots of prezzies to open today, at least. :) And there weren’t any major incidents as these sort of events typically attract, so all in all I’d be pretty happy, if I were them.
Now we just have to start looking ahead ten years or so to their actual wedding… ;)
Ooh, also, Stef & Anton rocked up too. Accidentally, actually – they’d been told by Michael Martin (I think he’s the evil one) to meet him there, having no idea it was someone’s big event. But that was cool – it was good to see Anton again. And Stef actually sat down and apologised to me about last year, re. Laura. Apparently she & Laura no longer get on so well, so she’s not using the rose-tinted glasses anymore. Still, I never really had a problem with Stef… I knew she didn’t like me that much, but I never figured out why. Perhaps Laura was why. Makes sense, in hindsight… ah well.
So that was somewhat unexpected and refreshing. I rarely have people apologise to me for anything significant like that… it’d be better if I actually thought she had reason to apologise, but it’s nice nonetheless. :)
