Dallas Meet - Jan ??th, 1996
These are links to some photos from the Dallas. All are in JPEG format. They are all single
downloadable image files exept here where you will find them
all as inline graphics on one page.
From: Techno-Goddess
Subject: Dallas Meet Report ...finally...
The Dallas Meet...day 1
On the bright and sunny Saturday afternoon of January 6th, following a
morning blizzard in the Plano/Dallas area, a group of rather motly
characters decended upon the modest yellow-brick home of Sami, Jenny
and Emily. This was the beginning of a 2 day Red Dwarf adventure.
Kevin and Lynn were the first to arrive. Lynn was looking a bit frazzled
due to Kev's penchant for placing her side of the car in the path of parked
trucks then avoiding collision at the last millisecond when Kev heard pitiful
squeeks erupting from her trachea. Of course this made Lynn re-evaluate
navigational responses like "Follow that truck" and " Eek! Pick a lane!"
But Kev assured Lynn that eventually he would get the hang of driving on
the "wrong" side of the car and Lynn never gave it another thought...till the
next truck came along...
Shortly thereafter Bob arrived from the Houston area, JJFlash toddled in
from Ft. Worth, Brian teleported in wearing a London Jets Zero Gee t-shirt
that made Lynn green with envy. ;^)
A host of other folks were there as well...They were either friends of
Sami's or they happened to see a lot of cars out side and thought, "Gee!
This looks like a cool party to crash." And it was!
At first everyone was at a loss...then tasty beverages were passed out and
everyone began to get into a comfy "wibble mode" which only can be
described as "very comfy wibble mode" as the day progressed. Lynn and
Jenny wantered off to the kitchen to wibble about theatre while everyone
else wibbled about whatever they were wibbling about - most likely boring
puter stuff. Then after a couple of tasty beverages we all began to watch
Season 5, followed by Smeg-ups, Smeg-outs and Craig Charles Live from
Earth. During this we all feasted on a delightful assortment of foodstuff
and Jenny's most infamous vindaloo. Listy would have been proud of
Jenny's culinary skills using curry and green leafy things...
Soon everyone was comfortably pished, rubbing full tummies and happily
wibbling about Red Dwarf and related Dwarfy type of stories...Then Sami
introduced us to his Mr. Flibble (which he said belonged to his daughter,
Emily). Lynn and Mr. Flibble proceeded to entertain the gang and the
toddlers between * Fire & Water shots.
*Fire & Water is a tasty beverage consisting of Jack Daniels whiskey and
water which is consumed from an hour-glass shaped beverage container
(hand blown in Lynchburg, Tennessee near the Jack Daniels distillery). It
is designed to shoot the liquid fire down the connoiseur's throat. This
beverage is related to the pan-galactic gargle blaster (or summin like that)
because it make one really stupid really fast.
Fortunately the attendees were of the "brilliant" sort when it involved
"alchohol" so Lynn only had do demonstrate the etiquette of drinking Fire
& Water once. Soon, most everyone was partaking in this ritual brain
demolition. Of course, as stated earlier, they tend to make one act really
stupid really fast and there were no exception since we all demonstrated
our "etiquette" several times.
As folks started to leave, it was decided that we should all meet again on
Sunday (since most of us would still be in the area)...so those of us who
were hotel bound (Lynn, Kevin, and JJ) decided to get closer to our hotels
(within crawlin distance) and continue the meet at Bennegan's. And we
did.
The Dallas Meet...day 2
Day 2 began with a spectacular morning of sleeping late. Then we all met
again at Sami's to squeeze into his vehicle for trip to the local TexMex
restaurant for a bit of brekky. TexMex is the nearest equivelent to beer
milkshakes and curry flavoured corn flakes that is to be found in America.
Afterwards, we settled in comfortably for a ride to the Dallas City proper
on an expedition to a certain grassy knoll. But before exploring the grassy
knoll Sami suggested that we "clear" our heads a bit by having a little
drinky in the highest pub in Dallas. This "pub" was quite unusual, in that, it
sat high atop cement pillars that seemed to sway in the winds crossing the
great plains (and that was before the little drinks)! The Pub also spun on
its axis in exactly the same way that a pub should not!
Having experienced 1 complete revolution and a galactic choccy flavoured
alchoholic beverage, we decended the spire and trod off into the sea of
cement in search of a grassy knoll. We found it! As you might have
guessed, we proceeded with complete abandon to shout "DUCK!" Then
we asked passing strangers to take piccies of us all acting quite insane,
shouting that four letter word over and over and cowering from the
imagined hail of gunfire! Then we recovered our senses and actually
toured the 6th Floor Museum at the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
Later we decided it was time for a "real" pub crawl so Sami drove us over
to the west end where we began hopping from pub to pub because it was
too bloody cold to crawl. In the first pub, a place called the "Hub" which
was in fact a brewery, we sat in the center of the room where the guys
swapped football stories and the woman who took our piccies on the
grassy knoll grabbed Lynn from behind offing to take more piccies, causing
Lynn to jump higher than Cat could have ever managed to pounce.
From there we hopped over to the Croc & Roc where we indulged in
slurping red and green slime through straws (an American tradition
involving rum and jello). And there are some rather embarassing piccies
from that episode as well. In keeping with our hopping tradition, our next
stop was a whole new world. It was called Planet Hollywood and it had to
be another world...I cannot imagine anyplace on earth that has a life-size
Sylvester Stallone dangling precariously from the ceiling wearing nothing
but (you're not gonna believe this) a merkin! Yes! It's true!
Finally, after a gruelingly wild bobsled ride through the frozen tundra (a
flight simulator sort of thingy) that would have given the Jamaican Bobsled
team a great giggle, we landed in a place called Hooters...and yes there
were plenty of them. We then hopped back to earth and Sami's vehicle
which he put on autopilot for the return journey. The next thing that
happened was sort of fuzzy but it involved a lot of turns and a stop to
retreive the one thing that would make the evening complete. Yes folks,
we knew it had been a great meet when we arrived back at Sami's house
with a traffic cone!
From: [email protected] (Reketrebn [Kevin F. Quinn])
Subject: Re: Dallas Meet Report ...finally...
Techno-Goddess ([email protected]) said,
in message <[email protected]>:
> Kevin and Lynn were the first to arrive. Lynn was looking a bit frazzled
> due to Kev's penchant for placing her side of the car in the path of parked
> trucks then avoiding collision at the last millisecond when Kev heard pitiful
> squeeks erupting from her trachea. Of course this made Lynn re-evaluate
> navigational responses like "Follow that truck" and " Eek! Pick a lane!"
Heh - driving in Texas is really easy, everyone - following trucks
always works. Doesn't matter where you want to go, the truck in
front of you is almost always going there too, so you just follow
it... Works every time - really!
In my defence of the "Pick a lane" phenomenon - my excuse is that
although driving on the wrong side of the road is easy enough, the
unexpected bit is to keep the lane markings in the right place :)
Putting them a foot or so to the right of you when driving tends
to un-nerve your passenger somewhat...
> while everyone else wibbled about whatever they were wibbling
> about - most likely boring puter stuff.
Huh! Slander. Or libel - whichever ;) Well, OK so we might have
talked about 'pooters just a teensy-weensy little bit ;)
> Lynn and Mr. Flibble proceeded to entertain the gang and the
> toddlers between * Fire & Water shots.
Now therein lies a tale - what Lynn fails to mention ;), is that
at one point she did sneak off to the loo, thinking we wouldn't
notice, with Mr Flibble. Now Mr Flibble had an automatic
extending tongue - I wouldn't like to guess what went on in there,
but she had a strangely satisfied grin on her face when she
returned. So did Mr Flibble, come to think of it...
> I cannot imagine anyplace on earth that has a life-size
> Sylvester Stallone dangling precariously from the ceiling wearing nothing
> but (you're not gonna believe this) a merkin! Yes! It's true!
You also wouldn't believe the amount of effort it took to pry Lynn
away from underneath the naked Stallone...
> Yes folks, we knew it had been a great meet when we arrived back at
> Sami's house with a traffic cone!
What we need to know, is where the cone is now - let us all know,
Sami :)
'twas a great meet, and a wonderful introduction for myself to the
USA - on top of all that, whilst there was 3-4 feet of snow in New
York, and no doubt it was many degrees below freezing in the UK,
in Texas it was 65-70 degrees! (fahrenheit). Yeah - that's the
sort of winter I like ;)
Piccies of various episodes will be made available soon - Sami
must have loads, and JJ has the ones of the Croc-and-Roc alcoholic
jelly episode. I'll be scanning a pile in as soon as I have a
free moment, probably sometime next week.
From: [email protected] (Sami Mikhail)
Subject: Re: Dallas Meet Report ...finally...
So everyone can rest easier: The traffic cone is still in the back of the
Suburban! (Nothing like carrying evidence around!) The fun part is that Jenny
drives it around! (I can just see her trying to explain that one: You see
officer, it's my husband and his friends from the newsgroup. A Newsgroup? Well
that's a -- a gathering of like minded individuals, sharing an interest in a
particular topic, on the Internet. Oh they all belong to the Red Dwarf group.
No sir, those are not dimmunitive communist anarchists! Honest! Red Dwarf:
That's that comedy Science Fiction show they used to show on PBS. You know
PBS, the Public Broadcast Stations? KERA? Two channels down from the Monster
Truck Pull Station? Yes that's the one. Yes, they do show more than cooking
shows on that. Hmmm? The Internet? Look Just give me a ticket, OK?)
Anyway, Some Editorial comments about the meet
After the initial bit of ackwardness, stemming from the fact that the lot of
us could not think straight without a keyboard in front of us, once things got
warmed up, it was amazing to me how well everyone got along. It was like the
summer of love man... Oh sorry, drifted off there.
The surprising thing, to me, was that the average height of the attendees was
just shy of 6 feet! Other than Bob and Lynn, almost everyone was right about
in the 5'10" to 6'1" range - With Brian A at least 6'4"!. When you see the
pics, keep in mind that I'm 6' - that'll give you an idea of what I'm talking
about. (Oh: I'm the scarry looking character with the scraggly beard.) So:
Does RD fandom impart height, of Vice-Versa?)
Re: The meet in General: I hereby claim, on behalf of the Dallas Meet Crowd,
the title of "First meet with a Red Dwarf Character actually present"! Mr.
Flibble's appearance, Emily's opinion on the topic notwithstanding, took a lot
of creative coordination with his agents and managers!!
Re: The Vindaloo. You will be glad to know that the EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency (A US governmental agency)) has finally lifted the
"Dangerous Chemical Hazards Site" ban on our house. I'm not saying it was hot,
but there was not a clogged sinus in the neighborhood!
Some clarifications:
The Fire and Water shots: The missing piece is the graphic element there.
Think about Whiskey and Coke, or Sprite Shooting at great speeds down your
Gullet, imagine what your reactions would be as a) the fizz from the Soda hit
you and b) the alcohol punch then waylais you. Yes, there was dire need for a
spooch towel!
The spinning Pub is the Restaurant/bar at the top of Reunion Tower, one of the
most prominent land marks in Dallas. (Also, according to someone the most
fallic. You'll have to find a picture of it for yourself. Try a Web Search.)
The Glacier run thingy: Ever seen a Flight Simulator Trainer? The Full motion
cabin jobs? The ones they train pilots in? That's what we're talking about
here. Instead it's a simulation of a Monster Military Snow Mobile Attack
vehicle kinda thing belting down a Glacier track at >200 mph. Note: This was
after much pubing, drinking and eating (or eating/drinking in the case of the
now infamous Jello shots. (Which are made with Everclear BTW, not rum.)) There
were no spewing incidents, but that was only by the Grace of God!
And I do NOT drive faster than the Glacier run, I don't care what anyone says!
(That BMW should've just moved out the way is all.)
