Ladies and gentlemen, noders and ninjas...

If You Cross Your Eyes, It Looks Like Vegas: The Aftermath of a Jersey Shore Noder Gathering


MY NAME IS GUS, AND I CAME IN ON THE BUS!

Cast of Characters in order of appearance: THE PLOT: Friday, March 22, 2002

Chris-O and I ran a whole bunch of errands in the morning and afternoon, and cooked up a storm (Oh, and some Port Guinness Roast Beef, roasted potatoes and salad) in the evening whilst waiting for cahla, randir, and Indra363 to arrive at our apartment. They finally got here at 12.30 am, and we fed them, and then we sat around for a while. Chris-O and cahla were on IRC, and when dann came on, she said, "hey, dann, come on down". So he said, "Okay", and made a 5-hour trip at 3 am just 'cause he could and 'cause he RAWKS. And then, we went to bed. Well, the rest of us went to bed; Indra363 was already out on the couch.

Saturday, March 23, 2002

So we got up at 8.30 to find a new inhabitant on our floor; poor dann didn't even have a pillow, so we gave him one of ours. We showered, had tea and orange juice and salt water taffy, and then I finally decided to make breakfast. I still have scars from frying 2 pounds of bacon (fucking fat spatter). Plus, we had pancakes and strawberries and real maple syrup. Phyllis Stein, QXZ, and Walter came along about 11.30 and got in on the pancake action. We piled mountains of dishes in the sink and headed out at 12.30 for our destination, convoying down the Parkway to the Atlantic City Expressway, and then to the Resorts for parking purposes.

We walked down the Boardwalk to Steel Pier, expecting to find people waiting for us; czeano, nocodeforparanoia, Chiisuta, perdedor, thefez, and beigs were all supposed to be meeting us at 2 (it being 2.30, we figured they'd be there by then). czeano and nocode were there, but no one else; beigs was apparently still on the "ghetto bus from Chinatown", and would meet us later, and the others had taken a wrong turn and got lost in Absecon. So we wandered onto the pier and found go-karts; we bought tickets and 6 of us (cahla, QXZ, Walter, Phyllis Stein, Chris-O, and myself) drove around in circles for a while. I got passed by everyone but Chris-O, I think.

We went back out to the Boardwalk, and we waited around, and suddenly, someone took a picture of us! It was perdedor, that fiend! He'd found us, but in the meantime, he'd lost Chiisuta and thefez. It being cold and windy, we moved into the Casbah at the Taj Mahal and finally met up with the missing parties. Being 3.30 already, tt was decided that cheap food and cheaper booze was needed to be found, and besides, we needed to hit up the foody souvenir shops before they closed. So we stopped by James' salt water taffy shop for chocolate-covered salt water taffy and fudge, accumulated beigs, and then we found Irish Pub (no the, no a, just Irish Pub), which had cheap food and cheap beer.

So we piled 15 people into three tables at Irish Pub, where food, drinks, and lots of cigarettes were consumed by all. nocode and Chiisuta did carbombs. Indra363 had a gin and tonic made with Sprite instead of tonic water. randir chugged a Guinness as the result of a challenge from cahla. LOTS of alcohol was consumed, notably by cahla, thefez, and czeano, as well as those already mentioned. While in there, some guy decided that he liked QXZ's coat so much that he needed to give him a business card that said only Chal No Body. People are strange.

We headed back toward the Taj Mahal around 5.30, where czeano and beigs split off to do some gambling while the rest of us walked on the beach and under Steel Pier. (beigs informs me that though he had the opportunity to play poker with some pretty illustrious people, he didn't win. But at least he had fun.) On the way to the Taj Mahal, as we were walking up to the Boardwalk, a very drunk man walked by us headed the other way, and yelling out:

MY NAME IS GUS, AND I CAME IN ON THE BUS!
We watched him go chase a bus, and then went back to our meandering. We violated some statues, and then we wandered under the pier and stomped on some shells and lit a few special cigarettes and took a whole lot of awesome pictures of the water and people and stomped-on shells. By the time we headed back to the Taj, it was pretty dark and chilly, so we gambled for a little while (I won $2, Chris-O won $3, nocode won a disproportionate amount for only popping a few quarters, and Walter won $25 on one quarter but then blew most of it continuing to play (have we learned NOTHING?! :) ); everyone else broke even or lost). A few of us played a little skeeball (czeano had the highest score), and we all met up, only to split up again when Chris-O and I had to go register the hotel rooms.

So Chris-O, Walter, and dann piled into the front seat of our car, while Phyllis Stein, QXZ and I slid into the back seat, and we tried to make our way to Absecon to get to the hotel. We drove around the island of Atlantic City for a while, finally found the right road, finally found a place to turn around to go the right way, and passed the hotel before finding out that it was our hotel. So an hour and a half after we left, we finally got to check into the hotel. We checked out our two rooms, and the smoke detector was beeping in one of the rooms (thankfully it stopped before we piled in for the night). So we returned (a much easier trip) to the casino, wandered down the Boardwalk again (QXZ and Walter wanted to go to Caesar's Palace, but we never made it that far), did a little more yardwork, watched some very eerie birds fly overhead, and went for cheap souvenirs (okay, the 99 cent store was TOO cheap) and Boardwalk food (funnel cake, gyros, pizza, that sort of thing). And all of a sudden, it was 11.30, and we decided to head back to the hotel for the night. Most of us had no trouble getting out, but czeano, nocode and perdedor (who was driving czeano's car) got stuck in Sugar Ray traffic and took a few minutes to get out. So we finally got to the hotel by 12ish, and the 7 occupants of room 31 claimed to be so exhausted/partially hung over/feeling "special" that they went to sleep pretty quickly; the 7 occupants of room 32 stayed up to look at pictures for a little bit while cahla moved pictures to her laptop, and then went to sleep around 1 am.

Sunday, March 24, 2002

Those of us who had beds were rather to excessively most of the night; those who slept on the floor froze. The heaters were mounted midway up the wall, and the floors were carpeting over concrete. The heat wasn't working in room 31, so they were really cold; room 32 had a whole lotta heat, so we were REALLY hot, at least in the bed. The bathroom, though, was refreshingly FREEZING FUCKING COLD. So we woke up, performed morning ablutions (cahla and Indra363 even bravely the pit-like and pit-shaped shower), and headed to Denny's for breakfast.

Mmmmm, breakfast. The ultimate cure for the common hangover. The people at the Denny's were really nice; while we were waiting, they gave Chiisuta a cup of coffee, they hooked us up with two tables (one in smoking, one in non-smoking), they fed us, and when we left, they gave dann an iced-tea refill in a to-go cup.

So at this point, we decided we were done with Atlantic City (most of it was reduced to rubble because of us anyway), so we said our goodbyes to the Southerners of our group, czeano and nocode, and headed back to Matawan for some alternative entertainment.

We got back to Matawan, took the short tour of Beautiful Downtown Matawan, and went to check out an abandoned train bridge that Chris had found a few weeks earlier. On the way there, QXZ found a nifty sign that says "WE HAVE KEROSENE" lying on the ground in front of an oil company that he thought was closed, but as it turns out, it might not be. Oops. At the train bridge, there were lots of lovely gaps and rotted ties, not to mention the fact that it was a 30-to-50-foot drop at times, so it was an interesting challenge for some of us. fez, dann, cahla, randir, and perdedor made it across easily (some of them crossed several times, even); QXZ, Walter, Chiisuta, Phyllis Stein and I took a little more time. Indra363 stayed behind, and Chris-O went down under the bridge and laughed at us. I'm proud to say that I was the LAST ONE ACROSS THE BRIDGE. perdedor and fez found a second level about 20 feet up, and cahla and randir found a one-plank-wide pathway about 6 feet up. Some yardwork was done down there, and then cahla found an old aluminum Budweiser sign that was really muddy, but looked like it would clean up to be really nifty.

So we trekked home and sat out back and looked at Lake Matawan while cahla cleaned her sign off. We later found out that the back of the sign was spray-painted with TRIPIE TAG TEAM, whatever that means. The sign sat outside and dried while we headed in for beverages. Chris-O and I decided it was time to tackle the dishes, so I started washing while he did some food preparations with the assistance of sous-chef randir. Phyllis Stein, QXZ, and Walter needed to leave around then, so we all said our goodbyes to them, and they headed home. A little while later, I'd filled the dishrack, and needed to have some dishes dried so I could finish. Luckily, thefez walked in and demanded to be put to work.

THEFEZ DRIED MY DISHES.

Dishes were done, food was heated (leftovers), and in the meantime, Indra363 and dann said their goodbyes and headed back to Boston. cahla, randir, Chiisuta, perdedor, thefez, Chris-O and I had dinner (leftover roast beef open-face sandwiches, leftover potatoes, and salad), lit the hookah, and sat around for a while longer. Oh, and after dinner, cahla and randir did some of our dishes, too. Man, noders washed dishes FOR me. That was awesome. Somewhere about 6 pm, the remaining fed and happy few bid us farewell and began the trek back to their respective homes.

Final Thoughts

  • Noder gatherings rock.
  • dann is a mad crazy driver, and he ROCKS.
  • I always want cahla in any convoy I'm in.
  • Going under piers rocks. So does stomping in massive shell beds.
  • Ribbed is really only for her pleasure; it doesn't really do it for men. (Too much information, you!)
  • Abandoned train bridges RAWK.
  • "Where's fez?"
  • MY NAME IS GUS, I CAME IN ON THE BUS!
  • Do NOT sleep on the floor in a motel with cement floors. Better yet, don't go to the Economy Motel in Absecon.
  • Far too many noders are unfairly cute. I plead the Fifth as far as names.
  • Casinos sing.

Visual Evidence
  • Chris-O's: http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/jrminga/ac.html
  • perdedor's: http://www.goatcam.net/blorp/index.php?path=e2%2Fatlanticcity&comments=1&skeme=
  • cahla's: http://www1.coe.neu.edu/~carla/atlantic_city/
  • czeano's: http://www.sincerelust.com/~czeano/ac/

those of you who want to add more, /msg me or Chris-O; alternately, email one of us, or as a last resort, put it in your scratch pad and have a friendly editor (like dann) or god (like thefez) add it to this writeup (we're both level 3, so we can't see scratchpads.)

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