Quiz Nite

(Written as part of the Force the Door blog: http://forcethedoor.blogspot.com.au/)
.
Cas

Quiz Nite
Attended 15th April 2010

Admittedly the account of this riveting (cough) night may be a little blurry thanks to the amount of alcohol I consumed. So here it goes…

We had organized a team of experts for the night. They were the best and brightest in their chosen fields. This team would be an unyielding force of mental prowess, brilliant and most importantly, quick witted.
None of those people were available so we signed up a table for the usual crew.

The function was held at a pub which put me at an instant handicap. Alcohol and my brain vary rarely cooperate. We ordered our food and drink before the first round started and wolfed the lot down (drinks especially). We wanted the table clear and ready before the first question was asked. Of course we didn’t factor Daisy into that plan. Daisy is the sloooowwweest eater in the world. Yes, I am serious. We are considering inviting the Guinness World Record judges to witness this fact.  So we had a team of 4 and 1 playing with her food when the host for the evening arrived.

He was… unique. He started the session by telling us “a funny story that happened on the way over”. It wasn’t funny. He gave the vague impression of a washed up Vegas lounge singer who was forced into hosting quiz nites to support his gambling habit – only he was in his early 20s. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Amanda was off on a tirade about not wanting to here his life story and asking the damn questions. This was going to be painful. Time for another wine.

We had 2 rounds of 40 questions and they ranged from “Name 5 US states that end in S?”  (easy) through to “What are the 3 grooming rules that must be adhered to in a Judo contest?” (WTF?). By the 8th question (each question was repeated 3 times so we’re talking 4 hours later) I was unwittingly sabotaging the team by screaming the first thought that entered my head when the question was asked. Thankfully more than half of the answers I offered where totally wrong. Then I preempted the audio snippet offered after the question “Which 80’s male vocalist sang this song?”.
“RICK ASTLEY!” I screamed before the host could hit play.
I got it right. My hidden psychic quiz nite power must be sharpening, time for another wine.
By the end of round 1 we were coming second. One point off of the winning position. We could taste it, victory was ours. Time for another wine.

Round 2 started with “Name 5 countries that start with the letter U?”,.. ummm?
The questions got harder as the night went on, I became unhinged, time for another wine.
By the end of the second round my euphoric self appreciative confidence in my general knowledge had slowly been crushed. I was pouting. Time for another wine.
The rest of the team had to carry me mentally. I had nothing, was spent. Luckily we had a guy and girl on our team who weren’t going to give up without a fight. The rest of the team could recall “goodbye” in three languages, decipher the Elle MacPherson anagram and even knew the names of 5 navel vessels from somewhere uninteresting. I wasn’t exactly pulling my weight. Daisy was still eating, time for another wine.

At the end of the round we handed in our sheet. We were one point behind the winning team. I could see by the look in my team mates eyes that we may not have gained that extra point needed to knock the other team from their perch. But hey, second place is better than last. The points were tallied up and the teams read out.
First place… not us.
Second place… not us. (Ok, ok, don’t panic, third is good)
Third place… not us. (Gulp)
Fourth place… all the other teams, including us.
WHAT!?! We were bunched into the “fourth place” category which was really the loser pool. They don’t even bother handing out medals for fourth place. What the hell happened? We were one point off first?
Time for another wine.

After that, it all became a bit hazy, I pouted and went home. I don’t believe this will be my new hobby. I don’t think I could handle the pressure and quite frankly I obviously don’t have the mental capacity to hold the vast amount of general knowledge needed to become a quiz champion.  Maybe bingo is more my scene. Matching the numbers and screaming the answers is more my thing. As long as they don’t serve alcohol I should be right.

Mandy

I’m with Cas, quiz nights are definitely fun as an every now and then type of thing, not something we want to subscribe too though, plus it is very hard quizzing with other Alpha type personalities.  We all spent the majority of the time arguing and I spent a lot of it justifying to Cas that I wasn’t angry as in her drunken state she was mistaking my sarcasm at the Vegas lounge singer as anger, ha ha.

But it was fun and you realize just how unknowledgable you really are. So yes Bingo next, I just hope my brain extends to the numerous shapes you need to make of numbers, cause shit I can't be shown up by an 80 year old.

Chocolate cooking class

(Written as part of the Force the Door blog: http://forcethedoor.blogspot.com.au/)
.
Cas

Chocolat!
Attempted on the 8th April 2010

I am a stranger in the kitchen. A stranger and a danger. A majority of the food I "create" comes in two flavours. Raw or Burnt. I excel at burnt.
We decided to attend a cooking class which centered around our favourite obsession, chocolate.
The write up centered the theme around Chocolat! the movie. There were delicate morsels of velvety loveliness to make and we were going to learn how to make them in 3 hours. Hoorah!

So we turn up - in usual fashion we are an hour early, either early or late, never on time - and I am bitterly disappointed to find there's no Johnny Depp in this Chocolat! session. It's a group of people we don’t know so naturally I am nervous. So nervous I tell the whole group about my hideous disaster the week before when I attempted to make Rocky Road and burnt a bucket of chocolate to a fine ashy powder (I told you I excel at burnt). Why? Why don't I have the reflexes to cram the words back into my mouth before they spew all over the unsuspecting folk?
We were divided into teams and given a set of recipes. Gorgeous things like Frangelico truffles, Fallen Chocolate Heaven Cake, Chocolate Pots of melted gooey yumminess, Chocolate Banoffi Pavalova, etc.
My story meant that Amanda and I were given the "Chocolate Muffin" recipe. Yep, the instructor had me pegged the moment I walked in. No need to melt, separate, skim or whisk any delicate ingredients, nope it was flour, butter, choc chips and milk for me.

My muffin experience has always been of the shake-and-bake kind so I was completely stumped at the first ingredient. The recipe said to add all the dry ingredients to a bowl. We had to fend for ourselves, hunting through the kitchen to find out instruments of disaster and the soon to be cremated ingredients. I then had to ask the instructor "Do I have to sift the flour?". She looked at me like I had a crayon up my nose.

Well, that was it. Amanda was off, she was laughing at my complete lack of confidence. You see I thought a cooking class would be a sit-there-and-watch-someone-else-do-it kind of deal where you learn from a master and feel enlighten by the whole experience. This however was an Ikea style cooking class. It was a here's-the-instructions-there's-the-kitchen kind of deal with an added bonus of "by the way, everyone will sit down and eat what you have massacred at the end".

I was terrified. Not to mention the group we were with seemed like breezy, confident "foodies". They were folding and whisking and laughing and being carefree and wonderful. I was completely lost and only making muffins. Then there were issues with the trays, patty-pans, and the levels that I filled them (less is more I found out). But surprisingly, they turned out alright. Who would have thought there would be an idiot proof muffin recipe?

The class sat and drank and ate the chocolate morsels at the end of the session. We swapped information on how we made each item. I embellished the "I pressed the button on the mixer" story as much as I could but hey, they were muffins, not rocket science.

By the end of the class I was fully chocolated out! Death by chocolate could be an actual occurrence I am sure. Sooooo much chocolate.

So is there a budding chocolatier in me?
Hell no. I may try another cooking class but I will have to bring reinforcements and an asbestos suit.

Mandy

I love cooking so this was one challenge I was really excited to partake in, I immediately felt comfortable from the moment we walked in but Cas on the other hand was super nervous.  She first gave this away when she couldn’t work out how to open the front door – it was a standard door - strange I know ha ha

Everyone was really nice and the experience was good however I’d like to be thrown in the deep end with more challenging recipes, so if I can persuade Cas to come along to another class somewhere, minus the reinforcements and asbestos jacket and hone in on those cooking skills of hers that I’m sure are there somewhere, maybe her family and friends will actually get an edible Christmas gift this year

Ice Skating

(Written as part of the Force the Door blog: http://forcethedoor.blogspot.com.au/)

Cas

Ice Skating – As in, totally uncoordinated on a cold wet surface
This was actually attempted on the 28th March 2010.

Yes, ice skating. We decided to try something completely juvenile for our first adventure and completely juvenile it was. I had vigorously celebrated a wedding the night before so as you can image there was a fair bit of balance impairment going on.
So Amanda and I decided to meet a 4pm at the designated ice arena.  Dread.

What do you wear when you go ice skating? Bring a jacket, don’t bring a jacket? Wear extra padded underwear? (Do they even make that?).
So we enter all giggles and nerves.
Double dread… we are crashing a pre-pubescent birthday party.
Great, I could see it playing out ahead of me. Two of the oldest people there clinging to the rails in sheer panic while we are being lapped by giggling gangly acne riddled smart arses.  We were going to suffer. However we had promised each other we would do this, so we bravely strolled up to the counter and ordered 2 adult tickets… cough.
We were brave, we opened the frosty glass doors and fought the cold air (I knew I should have bought a jacket) making our way to the skate rental counter.
Then we did a u-turn and got a coffee at the cafeteria.

Time for a pep talk.
No, no-one will be staring at us.
No, we won’t fall over and break anything, be it bones or giggling pre-teens.
No, we would not back down.
We abandon the coffee (which by the way was too hot for even Satan to consume) and we head back to skate hire counter. The 6 year old boys behind the counter dubiously gave us our skates. I think the panic stricken stuck-on smile was making us look like mass murderers who stalk kid’s parties at ice arenas.

After 5 minutes of trying to work out how the damn things went on (why can’t skates have laces anymore, is it really that hard to learn how to tie a shoelace?). We were ready to roll, literally. Amanda and I were well pleased with ourselves when we worked out we could stand in them. Nice. Good start. Feeling confident now.
That confidence completely vanished the moment Amanda put her foot on the ice as two things simultaneously happened. A) she screamed, loudly. B) she bent forward, backward then forward again and gripped the low wall with the tenacity of a terrier on a chew toy.
Crap! I was next. I had been ice skating when I was a teen (probably at a birthday party) surely I could remember something, like falling of a bike huh? I followed Amanda’s lead and stepped on. I was ‘OK’, it was going to be ‘OK’.
Amanda on the other hand, not so good.

Amanda made 1 panic stricken lap around the rink. To her credit she had NEVER done anything like this before and she laughed the whole way. There was a chorus of “I want my $17 back!” and “This is not fun, how can this be fun!” and I am sure the kiddies learnt a few choice words today.
We laughed so hard I thought I was going to wet myself. After the first lap Amanda stepped out and “rested”. I gave her another pep talk and we decided to go again. By the end of the hour and a half we had circled the rink 3 times, with many rest stops. Children had become accustom to Amanda asking them to move from the edge of the rink as she was unwilling to let go of the ledge. By the time the third lap was completed the pre-teens were giving us a wide berth. I don’t think the screaming helped.

So what did we learn from the experience? Absolutely nothing.
Only that ice skates leave bruises and gangly pre-teens are fearless and swan-like on the ice.

It was fun though. We will have to try with a large group, safety in numbers and all that jazz.

The funniest moment was after when we ended up at a food court which happened to be holding a karaoke competition?!?!? We had coffee and listen to a few 70’s classics being sung by 50 plus year olds who really should have washed their t-shirts. It wasn’t until “My boogie shoes” was being wrenched out of the speakers that Amanda turned to me, she was reading the auto cue, and said “I always thought the words to this song were ‘I’m gonna put on my, my, my, my picka choo, who’s looking at you?”*

I think karaoke may have to be added to the list.

Next on the agenda is a chocolate making class. We have tried juvenile and crazy (kind of) and now we are going for gorgeous and gourmet.

*If you need to find the correct words to the song (and you’re not alone) look up “My boogie shoes” by KC and the Sunshine Band.

Amanda

Ha ha very fun Cas, now to my take on the afternoon

It was as hard as I thought it would be, I am as shit at it as I thought I would be but it was actually kinda fun and I know if I had to do it again I would be able to let go of the rail for more than 2 seconds, ha!