From: [email protected] Subject: Multiverse meet report for a.t.r-d Web page. FOR ANY INTERESTED PARTIES, A NICE REPORT ABOUT MULTIVERSE. November 24-26, 1995. 'Twas the night before Multiverse, and out on the street The Dwarfers had gathered for a pre-party meet... Six a.t.r-ders/listers met in Melbourne on Friday, ready for a night of wild, *wild* partying; SO, we had a meal and saw a movie. Ragers R Us. I turned up to the street corner gathering place to meet Alsion Campbell, Miffy Coghill, Jim Richards, James Churchill and Richard Boyle. The advantage was mine, all mine, as I knew at least what Jim, Miffy, Alsion and James looked like from their Web pictures. After I introduced myself and established that they hadn't really been looking for a skutter, we decided to move off in search of food, especially as Jim was becoming increasingly worried as to how long it would be before someone of lascivious intent might appear and ask how much for all six of us. The obligatory Indian restaurant search accomplished, we were ready to eat, perchance to taste. Alsion with her compulsion for order, insisted we sit boy-girl around the table, and we then proceeded to vindaloo and tikka and mourn/cheer the absence of our friend Sardy who we'd been teasing all week with our meet plans. Ha ha. Still, some people prefer to go to Queensland, rather than to Melbourne for Multiverse -- can't THINK why... ;-) Food done, we made haste to the cinema for Johnny Mnemonic. Second-saddest occurrence of the night: by accident, we sat in the cinema again in boy-girl order, and also in age order -- James (18), Miffy (19), Richard (21), Alsion (23), Jim (23) and me (28). This of course led to the *saddest* occurrence of the night, which was that Alsion actually *noticed* this, and took great pains to point it out to the rest of us. Well, what can we expect from someone who has trouble spelling her own name... ;-) Johnny Moronic was about that -- actually it was quite entertaining as far as it went though Keanu is definitely at his best in close-up and mouth SHUT. The best acting by far was by the player of the character of Jones...anyone seeing the movie will no doubt agree. And to save others the anguish of trying to figure out where they've seen Love Interest before, she was the older woman anthropology teacher that Brandon had an affair with in Beverly Hills 90210 (not that I watch that show every week without fail or anything like that, oh no no no). And of course a bloody fish reference in the movie, just to remind us that there's no escape from Nadine. All up the movie's worth a look, especially for the *drool* factor which is ten out of ten!!! After a brief stop at the Charles Dickens Tavern (English-style pub and site of many a Victorian Red Dwarf bender) for fuel in the form of fermented vegetable products, we exploded into Alsion's house and proceeded to try not to fall asleep in front of the TV. I had a copy of Smeg Outs for us to watch, and it was with some trepidation that I saw this precious tape of mine, which I'd paid $50 for (yes I've got more money than sense, and you can all assume -- correctly -- that I'm not a rich person), placed inside a video player that had to have a cooling fan directed onto it in case it decided to "do funny things". Happily, it survived, and we saw the Smeg Outs safely. Now, Alsion and I both thought we recognised a Face (else a doppelganger from a parallel universe) in the Dimension Jump footage -- someone also in the Forbidden Planet signing photo maybe? Come on, own up! We're curious people (that's true however you want to read it, innit?). Not too long after this I made my escape back to my own flat and left the others to It. For a precise definition of It, wait for the others' reports with bated breath! ;-) 'Twas the day of the party, a clear sunny morn Off I staggered to Multiverse, stifling a yawn... (Or several hundred yawns; two hours isn't enough sleep for me, what a wimp.) I met Miffy who was with someone called Daniel Schubert; I wondered where Richard had got to...perhaps there was a DNA modifier involved somewhere 'cos I never did see the two of them together... Anyways, about 150 dedicated Red Dwarf, Babylon 5 and Star Trek fans turned up for the Gazpacho Soup Day party (happy GSD everyone!). Lucky me got to sit at the entrance table and take money from people -- a dangerous job but somebody had to do it! The rest of the intrepid a.t.r-d group dragged themselves in mid-morning, and James immediately made a beeline for the RD merchandise table, threw lots of money at the vendor and turned himself into a walking badge collection. All in all, Multiverse was deemed a small but lively success; I think we're having one again next year so see you there (and this means YOU Nadine, NO excuses!). The video programme included stuff of the nature of Red Dwarf, X-Files, MST3K, Babylon 5 and even Lost In Space; something for everyone, even the biggest Dibbleys. James Churchill had a successful day, winning third prize in both the Mastermind competition *and* the Tongue Tied karaoke! Other events of the day included a costume competition, in which first and third places went to very fashionably-dressed Cats and second place was won by a rank outsider in the form of a very good Kerr Avon; and a Blankety-Blanks (science fiction style), which comprised of such gems as -- Q: (Mission Impossible) Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to BLANK. A: Castrate Wesley Crusher (another answer also involved Wesley- torture; but let's face it, it's what we *all* want to see). Q: Daleks are chasing you. They are screaming, "You will be obliterated! You will be exterminated! You will be BLANK!" A: Subjected to endless reruns of Earth 2 (faced with that, obliteration and extermination start to look like *damn* good options!). Our charity auction was a huge success, raising in excess of $800 for Amnesty International, and $300 for the Royal Children's Hospital. The top-price item of the day was a Red Dwarf Mystery Box which went to Jim Richards. I picked up a Gunmen Of The Apocalypse T-shirt (discontinued design) for $100 -- problem is I'm going to have to wear it sparingly 'cos for that price I might be too afraid to wash it! I must thank the other a.t.r-ders, who were barracking for me during my bidding, and even looking at pitching in some of their money for me if needed. Huggles, guys! :-) Of course there were some weird auction items... The complete cinema CD soundtrack to Star Trek: Generations went for $15 -- of course it's absolutely USELESS on a standard CD player, but if the purchaser ever buys his own cinema then he's in for a treat! And sad for Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster, but an "autographed" Maverick poster sold for three dollars with the assurance that the auctioneer rip it into three pieces, which he promptly did with great gusto! Lastly, obscure forms of currency came into play with the bidding for one item going thusly: "$25!" "Oh, shit!" "$27!" "You bitch!" "$30!" So, for anyone who's ever used the expression "It isn't worth shit!", we now know you were talking 26 Australian dollars! ;-) One person that none of you knows, but who deserves a mention, was our emcee Siggy, from Sydney. He's a funny guy and an aspiring stand-up comedian, so one day when he's famous you can say you heard of him here first! Or alternatively, if looking to blame someone for creating him, it was Hattie Hayridge! He met her at ComedyCon in Sydney last year and she encouraged his comedic inclinations. He especially got a big laugh with the following variation on the old "My dog has no nose!"-"How does he smell?"-"Terrible!" joke (now, use your imaginations) -- Siggy: "Ever notice how on Star Trek, Klingons never laugh? Ever? Makes you wonder what a Klingon stand-up comedian would be like, eh? [Puts on Lt. Worf voice and expression] My dog has no nose. I bit it off. That was a joke. You will laugh. NOW!" Had us ROFL! Er, what? Well...guess you had to be there... Anyways, that was it for Multiverse 1995. I had a great time, hope the others did too (not that I saw too much of them, having to WORK and all that -- hey, it's just so tragic when you have to get up much much earlier on a weekend than on a workday, even for such a worthy cause -- I'll need to read their reports to find out how their day went!). Another trip to the Charles Dickens Tavern, for tea and more fermented vegetable products...Alsion now worrying that my Fan Club friends think our a.t.r-d group is strange (I suppose she's got a point, having been told that the group seem like Tasmanians -- I can't even begin to guess at the reasoning behind this label!). I unfortunately had to leave at this point, regretfully declining Alsion's suggestion of a pub crawl around the Tavern (literally around the Tavern; there are Monopoly board street names on the walls which means never having to leave the pub and so no danger of waking up on Mimas as Emily Berkenstein, wearing a lady's pink crimplene hat and yellow fishing waders!). So while I was collapsing at home, Alsion, Miffy, Jim, James and Daniel moved on to other, wilder, drinking establishments, played air hockey, hijacked a bus, discovered gold in them thar hills and danced naked in the streets (or maybe not, I don't know 'cos I wasn't there so I'm just making something up until I get to read their reports of what really happened; bet it's not half as interesting as what I could invent though)... ;-) 'Twas the day after Multiverse; I'm lying abed With a cold in my chest and a pain in my head... Sunday for me was a bit of a no-brainer (usually I try and reserve those for workdays) 'cos I succumbed to my cold I'd been fighting all weekend. So I sat home and wallowed in illness and self-pity while the other a.t.r-ders wandered hither and thither around Melbourne doing touristy things and just getting up to general mischief. They did come around in the afternoon and we watched the Bottom episode with Robert Llewellyn and Lee Cornes in, and also Mac McDonald's 60 seconds of almost-fame in Aliens: Special Edition. Then I was wondering what was happening when I saw Jim apparently cosying up to Alsion -- well, he was just reading the Red Dwarf Log No. 1996 over her shoulder; no juice there! Then the guys said Toodly-pipski, Farewell and Amen (or words to that effect) and bogged off back to Austria. Actually they didn't, I was just checking to see if anyone's paying attention or has even bothered to read this far. If you have, congratulations. You win my gratitude, a fish earring that I can't stand, and a little box that goes "vzzt" (just what you've always wanted). So now I'm finished and I can't think how to sign off, so I'll just say same Dwarf time, same Dwarf channel for reports (I hope) from Miffy, Alsion and Jim (well they said they would, anyway); and here are a few utterances from us that just stuck in my mind... Alsion: [Who has got a watch, to Jim, who hasn't] So, you're just going to use me as a timepiece, are you? Jim: That'll do for a start! Me: If my T-shirt's too big I'll have to wear it as a nightie, and that'll be the closest I'll get to sleeping with Chris Barrie. Miffy: I like the idea of putting Chris Barrie on as I go to bed... (Hell, don't we all, eh Nadine?) Alsion: Sting's so cute. [Sigh] All these people I want to bonk and I'll never get the chance... Yep, rather worrying theme to those quotes... Quotes by permission, or if not then it's late, I'm tired, and I'm not responsible for my actions! So, thanks guys! Same time next year! Annette. :-) :-)
From: [email protected] (Jim Richards) Subject: Multiverse meet version 2 ... Date: 10 Jan 1996 14:03:35 +1100 'We came, we saw and we were disgusted' 'Welcome to hell' Comments from watching Red Dwarf USA ... Anyway, here is the report to end all reports ... version 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- M U L T I V E R S E 25th November, 1995, Gazpacho Soup Day ... Melbourne, land of soy milk and honey ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following report has been modified to exaggerate the funny bits. The real names of the characters have been changed, except for the really embarrassing bits, especially you James. And anyone else the authors could think of to pick on.. :-) But first, some warnings. Some of this is written in strine. Some footnotes have been added when the authors think the phrasing could be incomprehensible. here are also some instances of use of legal drugs. All those under age, avert thine eyes.. Friday, 23rd of November ... THE AIRPORT Hmm, well Mr Grumpy got on a plane and flew to Melbourne. The flight took 1 hour and 9 minutes which was interesting because the flight back took 52 minutes. And the flight down was running late, which is interesting because the flight back was running late as well. Perhaps there must have been a time hole effect or a while hole spewing out time to cause this. Once he arrived, he did find that neither Alsion or Miffy were waiting with anticipation for him to get off the plane. Nor where they at the luggage collection point. This was due to several reasons. 1. A lab meeting that went _40 minutes_ overtime (like how much can you talk about PCR??[1]) 2. People who kept phoning Alsion in the morning (Mr Grumpy, Miffy) when Alsion was trying to work so she _wouldn't_ be late.. :-) 3. Alsion forgot that 5pm Friday is peak hour traffic, specially when you're driving out of Melbourne towards Geelong.. oops.. Still, Miffy and Alsion did the maximum possible speed (about 40kph for a Datsun 200) and got there finally.. :-) They were in fact about 45 minutes late. So the stressed little Mr Grumpy searched all through his luggage to find Alsion's home and work number. It was in fact discovered sitting on his desk when he returned to work on the Monday. Anyway, Alsion was finally spotted and they went out to find Miffy, not knowing what she had gone to do ... that is, park the car or drive around endlessly waiting for Mr Grumpy and Alsion to return ... The bit I liked was Jim mixing up my street and suburb name when trying to look it up.. :-) From the airport it was to Alsion's home to drop the stuff and return to the train station to find James. And the last time Alsion saw her house mates for four days. Not bad, considering.. :-) THE TRAIN STATION And the journey thereto.. Back through the peak hour smog we went, battling the traffic and generally annoying people by doing lots of illegal things. Amongst the most annoying was stopping (while the traffic was moving) to take a picture of a broken down Mercedes :-) and doing a highly illegal U-turn in front of a tram. This was also dangerous, but hey, that's the way we live.. *tongue out of cheek..* Mr Grumpy and Alsion then left Miffy to park the car (a recurring theme this) while we ran off to find James.. The train carrying James, from it's 10 hour trip rolled onto platform 1 on time. Sort of. It was actually 5 minutes late.. :-) Well, close enough. Which is quite surprising when you think about it. Why can trains that roll around the Sydney system manage to be 10 minutes late for a 1 1/2 hour trip, but be on time for a 10 hour trip through two states of Australia and 980 kilometres? Because (a) they don't have to stop to let other trains go by and (b) the announcements for them are comprehensible and don't involve getting translators for the crew.. :-) Anyway, we found him easily enough. He was the one wearing the Red Dwarf badge. Something he never seemed to remove the whole weekend. A shame really, some of us wish he had ... And it was back to Alsion's place to drop more stuff off and then to the tram[2]. Now trams are a novelty to a Sydney person. But they were fun. Apparently waiting for a tram can be annoying, so in order to pass the time Alsion proceeded to inform us that to bring a tram along you just made the tram mating signal of 'ding, ding' over and over again. Well, Mr Grumpy did and lo and behold one came. Now the other thing about trams that were interesting was that a) They stop for you without having to signal for them, and b) the traffic must wait for them when dropping off or picking up passengers. Mr Grumpy was quite surprised at this ... MEETING THE OTHERS AT A STRANGE CORNER IN MELBOURNE Now, since Mr Grumpy doesn't know Melbourne all that well he entrusted his life and well being to the two tour guides of Alsion and Miffy. Down one street, around the next until a street corner with a distinctive shop was found. So distinctive that Mr Grumpy can no longer even remember the name of it ... It was King and Godfrees, a well known bottle shop on Lygon St. First of all, one of Alsion's friends Richard was there. And very hyper-active he was too. He'd just finished riding in the PUSH, a monthly event where lots of cyclists gang up on peak hour traffic and annoy the shit out of cars by making them stop even though the lights are green. The cars of course can't take revenge cos there are too many cyclists ... The we waited, and waited and waited ... finally Mr Grumpy noticed a person of the female sex on the other side of the road looking at the group rather oddly. It was mentioned to the rest of the group and it was voted upon that this must be El Skutto. It was also this time the we discovered that Alsion had never actually me El Skutto IRL before. As she approached she walked up to us and introduced herself as El Skutto. Which was really good as we would have been rather embarrassed if it was not her. It was funny that. Alsion only realised that she had no idea what Annette looked like when we arrived at the corner. After she came up and correctly identified all of us, Alsion realised that we were all (except Richard) wearing the same clothes as we had on in the Sydney meet photo. Scary - we seriously need to go shopping guys ... QUEUES AND VINDALOOS We proceeded to move towards a student food place that was rather full, and so after 20 minutes or so of waiting it was decided an Indian restaurant would be a better bet. Since there was one that we could drop into on the way to the Cinema, this was decided as a safe bet. Lucky that .. Out tour guide, Alsion had never been there before and only noticed it the day before.. Luckily it was empty. Well, empty enough for us to have a table. The only thing of note from dinner was that we sat in boy/girl order as requested by Mr Grumpy and that we didn't actually buy any booze before hand. So we risked a giraffe of house white wine. Or two ... We had a vindaloo in respect of Dave Lister, last human barely alive. Mind you it was quite hot and caused severe repercussions the next two days to Mr Grumpy's internal organs. It was a good vindaloo ... could have been hotter for some of the other hardy souls like Alsion ... After this, 4/6 of us were willing to forego the movie in order to go to the pub. Mr Grumpy and Richard, on the other hand, were becoming increasingly desperate to see the movie (didn't you like the wine, guys?) and so made us leave, after first paying of course! Mr Grumpy, as befits tradition, was put in charge of collecting the money and paying the nice guy who was running the place. Then off we headed into the city, only pausing briefly to replenish our cash stocks and gaze into the windows of MovieWorld and Minotaur.. JOHNNY MNEMONIC All of us had to unfill at this point, and sure enough, we all lost each other and had to spend part of the ads (almost the best part really) finding each other again, and then finding seats.. With out spoiling the film, one comment that was made was that Kenau Reves was good only up to the part where he opens his mouth. That is because in the first scene he is mostly naked. mm..Keanu..mmm :-) Anyway, Mr Grumpy made sure nether Alsion or El Skutto drooled too much during the movie, which of course had several fish references ... Although Alsion insists that both she and El Skutto were extremely restrained in their drooling.. GREAT BOOZE UP The bar we settled on, after walking for what seemed like an eternity through Melbourne was the one that the Melbourne dwarfers usually hang out at. Why, I don't know ... they just do ... Well, it's called the Charles Dickens, it has an english theme (funny that) and english type stuff. Fortunately it also has Bundaberg Rum.. Mr Grumpy and Alsion went to the bar to get some drinks. Now being a Sydney person, he did what he usually does and order 2 reds, one for James and one for himself. The bar maid goes to the end of the bar, and returns with two red wines[3]. Hmm, this thing called Victoria was going to take some getting used to. The other thing about drinking in Victoria is that they only have Midi's to drink from. None of these 425 mLs that everyone else can use. Sad, sad, sad is all Mr Grumpy can say ... Well what's even sadder is that Mr Grumpy was _still_ a Cadbury[4] even on the Midis!! HOME After the booze, we went back to Alsion's place. By this time the trams that went past her place had stopped running so we decided that we would cat one that went almost all the way, and we would only have two blocks to walk. Well, two blocks is what Alsion told us ... what she really meant was two tram stops. Which equates to about 5 blocks. And we are not talking about the small blocks you sometimes find around, but bloody huge ones ... anyway, we eventually made it back to Rennie street alive ... Although Alsion's comment about it was "Wimps.. they weren't _that_ big!!" RED DWARF, SMEG OUTS, THE CHICKEN SONG AND A DODGY VIDEO PLAYER Once settling down in front of the idiot box all of us, for this included Mr Grumpy, Alsion, El Skutto, Richard, Miffy and James ... we watched an episode of Red Dwarf ... We then watched El Skutto's new purchase of Smeg Outs which cost her $50, which was probably more then what the video player we were using cost[5]. It required a cooling fan in order to function properly[5]. To which El Skutto was rather concerned about her new purchase. It survived, well at least we think it did ... and then we watched Spitting Images which had Grant Naylor as writers and Chris Barrie doing voices. The most memorable part to come out of this was of course the Chicken Song. Which will not, and the author stresses this, repeat no matter how many chickens are held hold in the air or stuff deck chairs up our noses will it be repeated here ... At about 3am, it was decided that sleep would be a good idea, especially for Richard (who had already fallen asleep during SmegOuts - no mean feat considering how loudly we were laughing), for Miffy who had to pick up Daniel from Adelaide at some ungodly time in the morning, and of course for Skutto who was meant to be organising Multiverse in the morning.. so, at about 4.30am, after listening to all the nice birdies begin their days, we drifted off into slumberland.. Saturday 25th November, Gazpacho Soup Day PAINFULLY EARLY 6am ... now, we are talking early here ... considering Mr Grumpy didn't get to sleep until the birds started chirping for the new day, the alarm Miffy had set decided it was a good time to go off. And it did. In order to make sure Miffy was *really* awake, Mr Grumpy want over to where she was sleep and shook her a few times, well okay ... violently shook her until she pleaded for him to stop ... She then left to pick up Shu, her friend form Adelaide. He then went back to sleep. And of course Alsion, who was sleeping in a different room, was totally oblivious to this ... At around 8.30 Alsion woke up. When she managed next to focus her eyes enough to see the clock clearly it was 9am. Funny how it does that.. 9am!! that was when Multiverse started!!! We were missing it!!! She leapt from her bed, ran out and woke up Mr Grumpy and James. In record time we were dressed and standing at the tram stop.. ANOTHER TRAM TRIP Another tram trip into Melbourne Uni. Nothing interesting here. Not at all. Discussed SmegOuts. Still reckon there's someone in the DJ section who was in the photo.. please own up, Skutto and Alsion would really like to know.. MULTIVERSE: VIDS AND PRIZES AND AUCTION AND FOOD AND LOTS OF MONEY Well, we watched videos, like Red Dwarf USA (which was interesting) and some X-Files and Babylon 5. For quotes see above.. James and Miffy got up and were tongue tied. It was won by a guy named Ben. He was dressed in a nice green Rimmer costume that his Gran had made. Way cool. His mum and a south African exchange student were there too.. We spent money. (The most being by Mr Grumpy who paid $125 for the Red Dwarf mystery box) ... James bought all the Red Dwarf club badges and wore them ... all of them ... we heard jokes like: Klingon Stand Up Comedy "My dog has no nose. I bit it off. You _will_ laugh. Now." And that Start Trek:Voyager is really a large toilet seat in space. Merchandise was bought. James bought a Red Dwarf t-shirt, and admitted to the rest of us that it was the first item of clothing he had ever bought. James, you have a lot of living still to do ... Alsion got a Darth Vader T-shirt (there wasn't a heap of RD t-shirts, the ship didn't make it on time..). Men in leather[6].. how could she resist.. We had lunch at a pizza place on Lygon St (again), which is the main Italian eating street in Melbourne. It's also close to Melbourne Uni. So as expected it was a pizza place, which irked My Grumpy because Lactose (as in cheese) makes his head explode and cleaning up the mess isn't all that fun. For a better description have a look at http://www.niddk.nih.gov/LactoseIntolerance/LactoseIntolerance.html Like what were we going to have, Vietnamese? GOING HOME We went home. In Miffy's car, which was quite nice after a day of walking around and looking and eating and spending. Alsion went to work to look at her forskins in a petri dish ... Her experiment hadn't worked (The one about cloning?). D'oh!!![7] GOING OUT We went out for dinner to the pub we went to the night before where all the Dwarfers were eating. Upon which we ate some of the best pub food Mr Grumpy has had for a while ... well, since the last time he ate in a pub which was about 10 years ago ... which makes it when he was 13, which supposes he had rather good ID then ... The pub was fun. Unfortunately, owing to us having arrived so late (round 9pm) there were no seats left at the main table. This led to us forming our own little table, and being described as the Tasmanians.. Tom was nice to us and came over and talked lots. This was good, cos he and Skutto were the only two people we knew... at least by name, anyway.. Alsion suggested a pub crawl around the walls of the pub, which Ben's mum thought was an OK idea. Unfortunately, everyone else wanted to leave, so we just drank some more instead.. GETTING DRUNK We then proceeded on a very short pub crawl, consisting of about 2 pubs after the first ... although we did play some air hockey on rather sad looking air hockey tables ... and a car game as usual. But this time Mr Grumpy almost won both games except for the dastardly cheats who rammed him from behind and caused him to crash ... And his Blood Alcohol content had nothing to do with it!! Mr Grumpy lost both times, James won 2 races and Miffy won one.. In the pub (a Uni one) many deep and meaningful things were discussed the size of the beers in SA - "so in South Australia they have two sizes, large and larger..?" - you were referring to _beer glasses_ there weren't you Miffy? COMING HOME AGAIN We went home, just on the last tram ... and seemed to walk a lot more then the 2 block that Alsion promised. We also went via a bottle shop, and somehow managed to acquire 2 bottles of wine. Everybody whinged about the 2 tram stop stag..err walk. WATCHING MORE VIDEOS What did we watch here, my memory is very vague ... We watched Backwards. At this point, Daniel, who had only seen a limited amount of RD, went to sleep (probably due to 2hrs sleep on an all night bus the night before). He dreamt we were all speaking backwards. When he woke up (during Marooned) he couldn't talk to us cos we were 'talking funny'. Hm. The night ended at around 3am for most of us, with the two older members of the group finishing off the wine... :-) Sunday, 26th of November GETTING UP Well, after having read all that previous stuff, I'll condense this into a few, brief sentences ... *grin* nah.. We went to St Kilda. We had breakfast, walked around the market, had some more food, and shopped a bit more. Alsion thought showing extremely tired people around was fun. Sort of like "tourism for the brain dead". Most of us ate breakfast (Daniel was feeling a little seedy). We went up the 35th floor of the Rialto building to look out the toilet windows (due to a construction error they have one of the best views of Melbourne). We then phoned Skutto, who'd finally woken up and got directions on how to get to her place. Naturally then, having been provided with clear and concise directions, we all got lost. This led to the discovery that Pizza shops are a great directional aid - they know where streets are. After talking to people in 3 of them we finally made it.. We then went to El Skutto's place to watch some Bottom (the show, not Alsion's)[8] and then we ran out of time. So Miffy, James and Shu caught a Taxi back to Alsion's place and Alsion and Mr Grumpy caught the tram. Or something like that ... any way, we got James on the Train and Shu on the bus, eventually ... It was more of a comedy caper getting everyone in the right place at the right time ... like when Miffy, James and Shu raced off in a Taxi to Alsion place to get their stuff, Alsion realised that they didn't have a house key, not were her house mates home to meet them. Let alone the fact that Mr Grumpy had James' and Shu's camera and other stuff in his bag. Any way, that was solved by a stroke of luck when Miffy directed the Taxi driver back to where Mr Grumpy and Alsion were, which was a few blocks from where they started ... While Mr Grumpy and Alsion were walking off to get another taxi, we met Ben, his cool mum and the Exchange Student. Hi guys![9] Anyway, Mr Grumpy and Alsion arrived at the station literally as the train was beginning to pull out. Bye James.. Alsion, Mr Grumpy and Miffy then spent 30 minutes waiting for Daniel's coach to leave, while signing[10] at him through the windows. Some people (notably the guy sitting in front of Daniel) thought we were strange. Can't think why. Once Miffy, Mr Grumpy and Alsion got to the Airport ... about 3 minutes after the final check in time, it was discovered the plane was in fact about 20 minutes late. He also had his rather huge Mystery Box, which was a problem as it he was only allowed to carry one piece of luggage onto the plane and on in the Cargo. But the attendant was nice to him and let him put it on ... Thank God. Alsion didn't want to have to lug it to a post office. The plane ended up being around 40 minutes late.. so we got Maccas. had to happen sometime.. shame really ... Hmm, well Mr Grumpy got on a plane and flew to Sydney. The flight took 52 minutes minutes which was interesting because the flight down took 1 hour and 9 minutes. And the flight back was running late, which is interesting because the flight down was running late as well. Perhaps there must have been a time hole effect or a while hole spewing out time to cause this. Well, anyway ... he got back safely, which was also lucky since if he had been delayed any more he would have had to stay at Melbourne due to the Sydney Curfew. And he knows, the Melbourne Travelodge 'aint that much fun to stay in ... Alsion and Miffy watched the aeroplane fly away and then drove back to Alsion's place along the strangely deserted (10pm on a Sunday) freeway. Trip went much quicker (120kph..oops, I meant 100kph, really I did..:-)) Got home and watched the end of 4 Weddings and a Funeral. Slept. So that was Multiverse. We slept little, drank amounts which Alsion and most of the others are sure are over the recommended limit, and spent money like we had it. All in all it was fun, and for anyone who'll be around next year, come along! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alsion's footnotes [1] the answer to that is 2 hours and 10 minutes. PCR is polymerase chain reaction. It's a sciency thing, ignore it. I do. [2] Trams, for those of you who don't have them, are green and gold things which move in distinct directions along tracks. They usually hunt in packs (at least 3 going along in single file) and have several distinctive calls: ding ding (greeting/mating call), ding (are you aware that I am here/get out of the way you stupid pedestrian) and dingdingdingdingding (move _now_ cos I am gunna hit you/the light is green why aren't you moving?) [3] In NSW, 'reds' means Tooheys Red, a kind of beer. Here, no one drinks it cos it's disgusting (and from NSW:-)) [4] Cadburys make chocolate. They use the advertising slogan "with a glass and a half of full cream milk.." You can probably work out what I meant now, can't you? :-) [5] It's not my video. It's my house mates.. [6] Well, OK, vinyl. But he does have a gorgeous voice..:-) [7] Anyone thinking of doing a PhD, don't. Unless of course, you are a masochist. [8] OI!! Jim, do you have a fetish or something? :-) [9] Now you know why I mentioned them. They came down from Dubbo (about 1200km I think). Way cool family.. [10] As in making faces, trying to communicate, that kind of thing..