Dancing on the tables

So as I've mentioned, I spent the a while last month over in Seattle, working away studiously. I must admit however, that there was the odd night out drinking along the way. Every night, to be perfectly precise. I won't bore you with stories of under-dressed women dancing on the bar and riding bulls, nor will I draw out the mundane tale of the Scotch Whiskey vs Bourbon challenge.

Instead, I'm just going to tell you about one particular night. Thursday night. This will probably be a long post, but I promise it'll be worth it.

I've had this post written a while, but was waiting on the videos I reference below. Still no sign of them, but when I get them, I'll put them up too. Maybe.

Things started well, as per usual, with a small trip to the hotel bar of The Westin, where I was staying. Aside from having the slowest cocktail-making barman east of Finland, this was fairly unremarkable - although they did insist on ID'ing me every single time I went there (night after night), even when I was only buying a hot chocolate.


_{The Westin - I don't remember it looking quite so technicolor}

After that we jumped on a coach and headed off to the TechReady Party - which was hosted on the dockside, in a large warehouse. Given that the attendee list featured around 5000 men and two women, and that warehouses aren't famed for their heating or comfort, you could be excused for thinking this wouldn't be much of a party.

If you needed any more convincing, then looking at the 'map' given out at the start (four Space Zones (!!) ) would have been enough to send anyone of a weaker will packing. I stuck to it though, and made my way through to the karaoke section - to hear a fully international audience united in their love of butchering classic songs. You've not heard 'Smoke On The Water' 'till you've heard it in an odd Russian accent.

Once my ears had bled enough I headed on through to the Lunar..something...whatever - where the Randy Oxford Band were playing some of their own stuff, and hosting a jam night. There wasn't much I could play (no trumpet, keyboards far too quiet...) but I did feel it my Gallic duty to join in somehow, so I decided to have a crack at playing one of the lovely basses on stage - albeit, upside down, as they only had right handed basses. Some guys I was with were nice enough to take a video:

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[I'll add in the video when I get a copy, sorry folks]

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Now, videos when I'm sober are fair enough, in fact - they're encouraged. The problem is - just like the rest of the week, the alcohol was all free, and freely flowing. The difference this night though, was that a very nice waitress had latched herself onto our group.

At first, she brought us all a lovely fruity cocktail - which was very pleasing and tasty, and was consumed pretty quickly. As she offered us another one, one of the fellows I was with remarked "..but could you make it a bit stronger this time?". Everyone laughed, and she did so. Then she offered us another drink, and remembering the laughter he said the same again. And again. And again.

An hour, maybe two, passed, and the night was drawing to a close. The jam session had mostly ended (although a couple of stragglers were still up on stage with the main band) and anyway...I was a little too tipsy to play most instruments. There was however, one instrument I could still play - and it was one small enough that I could also indulge my itch to dance (with a 99:1 male/female ratio, they'd decided not to include a dancefloor):

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[I'll add in the video when I get a copy, sorry folks]

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At some point after this video was taken, one of the band was heard to state "Get on out there and get them going" to me. Naturally I took this to mean "Go and dance on the tables", which undoubtedly was a good idea in front of all of my peers and colleagues. Seemed to go down well anyway. Also, for the record - I did NOT kick that speaker off stage. It fell. And it was fine anyway.

At some further point the party ended. Or, everyone pretended it was over so I'd leave...either way - we got a coach back to the hotel. On the coach I got a phone call from my team-mates to tell me that they'd had enough, and were 'quitting' - so I thought to myself 'I suppose midnight's late enough...up at 7am tomorrow to see Bill Gates talk anyway'...and made my way up to my room, undressed, and got into bed.

Five seconds later, I got another phone call, which as far as I can best transcribe, went something like this:

"AAahf we lof gooo noawnaaa tohoooash ooo ahod a [and on]...Hello, sorry, I think he's a bit drunk. We're outside the Westin if you fancy coming out"

"Sure", I said, "wait there for me" - and got out of bed, got dressed and popped outside. They were nowhere to be found. I tried ringing the two guys I knew were out, got no reply, send texts, got no reply...and decided to give up again.

This time I got as far as the door to my room before my phone rang again - they were at a bar just around the corner. I popped along there where I met a bunch of Brits, and a Polish chap I'd met on my trip to Prague a few months back, who was also out drinking.

We had some more drinks, and eventually moved on to a bar which, eerily, had no discernible name. In there, our Polish friend hooked up with a lovely looking local with very nice breasts in the time it took me to order a drink and blink a couple of times. Someone called over to me:

"Hey, he works fast"

In no time they had their arms around one another, and were soon kissing and swapping various fluids at the bar. It wasn't long - mere minutes in fact - before they were polishing off their drinks and leaving together. I shouted over the bar to one of the fellows we were with:

"Bloody hell, she was keen"

The barman overheard this little exchange and looked towards the door with an amused grin on his face. He turned to us and said:

"He didn't just leave with him did he?"

"Him?"

"Yeah, that guy's been hanging around here for months, trying to pick up men"

Well, we tried to get out and save our Polish friend, but he was already long gone. I sent a text message...it may even have arrived in time. We didn't see him again that night - and he was reluctant to talk about it afterwards.


_{I don't have a picture (or memory) of the guy/girl, so here's an artist's impression.}

You might think that, with 2am (the time when Washington state shuts down) swiftly approaching, a 7pm start that evening and a 7am start the following morning, we'd take this experience as a cue to go home. If you think that, you're probably not British.

After some cajoling the barmen told us that they did know of one place we could go...a club that stayed open till 6am - perfect! And when we got there I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find a buzzing dancefloor, a well stocked bar, and plenty of women lounging around - some less dressed than others.

Well, we paid our $5, and entered - getting a lovely stamp that wouldn't wash off. After gravitating towards the women who looked lonely, and in need of some company, we popped over to the dancefloor. A short time stumbling around there left us thirsty, and so we gathered together and popped along to the bar, and ordered our various drinks.

The reason, it soon became apparent, that Washington closed down at 2am, was that no-one can serve alcohol after 2am. So we had five Red Bulls instead. Things got quite surreal after a while - with a club full of drunken people dancing away at 3.30/4am, all with soft drinks in their hands. I'll never forgot the girl slumped, semi-conscious at the bar, holding a glass of orange squash.

That Bill Gates speech the next day by the way? Great - although I wasn't really up for breakfast beforehand.