Noded as idea, however this is not an entirely accurate reflection of what happened when an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician walked into a bar tonight.
There are two types of
half-nods (obviously), the up or down type. She gave me a down half-nod, Dan that is. I nodded, a half-nod back
in the other direction, and walked over to where she was sitting.
"Good, 'eh?" I nodded in the direction of four guys doing jazz improvisation near the door.
Dan stared at a revealingly dressed young blonde two tables over, "Mmm."
I rolled my eyes, "The Martinis."
"Oh. I was never a fan of that sort of stuff myself anyway." She look around at the crowd.
"Alan," I nodded, a down half-nod, to the other occupant of the table. He smiled, and handed me a piece of paper filled with his scribbled handwriting. I glanced it over, and handed it back with an eyebrow raised questioningly.
"You know I told you on Tuesday I found a bug in that hash map? It's weak for multiples of Pi."
Multiples of Pi... wait, what?
"Pi is not a real number, you cannot have multiples of it." Dan interjected.
"Donk," Alan playfully knocked her face with the side of his arm, adding the sound effect as he did so.
"So you know how to fix it?" I enquired.
"Yeah."
"Nice." I began to gaze around at the crowd that was slowly building. I rolled my eyes again and shudder, as I caught sight of an unnaturally blonde female who must have only been just eighteen. "Pls to get a shirt on, kthanx," I whispered to the others at my table, for her top consisted of no more than a bag made from fish net with arm and neck holes added.
"Want a drink?" Dan interrupted my scan of the crowd as she rose to refill her empty glass.
"Hmm?" I saw the glass in her hand, "Oh, sure, thanks." I didn't specify what I wanted. I noticed as she pushed her chair back that one of the front bolts of its folding mechanism was missing, and bent down for a closer inspection.
"You seriously think she's straight?"
"Whut?" I twisted my head to look up at Alan from under the table.
"Dan." He looked in the direction of the bar, "She always avoids the question."
"Hah," I shrugged. I had often wondered myself. "Who knows with girls." I pointed at Dan's chair, "That hinge is not straight." We both laughed. I'm glad to have mates to laugh with. Sometimes I get tired of glowering at the stupidity of humanity, and actually want to laugh.
"What happened to your hair?" Dan returned with two full glasses, one with exactly what I wanted, the other with whatever yellow liquid had been in her first one.
"Haha." My hair did look like I'd been playing with a Van de Graaf generator. "We now have a Safe Sword, and someone wiped the lube through my hair for lulz."
"Scooout," Alan shook his head.
"Aye-yi-yi," Dan just looked at me sadly.
I could have been LAN'ing tonight instead of coming here. I unbuttoned the pocket on the leg of my pants, and withdrew my N810. Alan produced his HTC something-or-other and Dan her iPhone as soon as I did so. The three of us were here, but we wanted to know what the rest of our group were doing. As three people simultaneously became un-away on IRC, I knew that more correctly, I could have been at Streetgeek tonight instead of here in this bar.
"Oh, Scout, how'd your relay go?" I'm not sure what made Alan suddenly think to ask.
"Health Sciences were on vitamin supplements, Chem Eng used steroids, Elec Eng had motorised roller blades, Mech Eng built stilts, Aerospace used rocket thrusters, the Arts guys were just busy admiring the track, and Maths probably still haven't worked out the shortest path around the track." We all laughed again. Some people said we had no sense of humor. "Nah, Health Science won. I wasn't as fast as in the time trials. Oh, and we forgot to get vuvuzelas for it."
"Haha, vuvuzelas, yes." Dan grinned.
"Dan, must you attempt to re-mix your drink?" I realised when she spoke that she was sitting there with a straw, carefully trying to mix all the foam back through her beer.
"Yes, I must," she looked offended that I had even asked, "Just as you must want to fix my chair. There's a bolt mi..."
Alan cut her off, "He already noticed while you were gone before."
I began sipping my drink, and glaring at a half a dozen or so teenage girls dancing next to our table, causing it to rock unsteadily. Some of them had clearly had too much to drink already. Alan, Dan and I chatted idly for half an hour or so more before she started. The chick, that is, and started singing. I didn't know The BeeGees counted as jazz? She may have been ok, I wasn't really sure. I think I'm possibly biased now after hearing one of our local singer-songwriters. I half wanted to dance, but I rarely dance in public. Instead I sang along. In the crowded bar, no one could hear me anyway, so I sang.
The cigarette smoke from outside began to irritate my eyes and nose, and I went and got another drink. "Apparently there's gonna be a heap of cops out tonight." I remarked when I got back. "Drunken brawls that've been breaking out are just too much for the bouncers." Alan and Dan nodded their agreement. I watched out the corner of my eye as Dan continued to look over every customer, regardless of gender, admiring their bodies. Not once did she look at someone's face. Weren't faces important? I shook my head. She must be feeling self-conscious about her weight too.
The night dragged on. I was getting bored now, and tired, very tired. My mind began to wander to incomprehensible threads of thought. One day I must find a partner to dance with, and just dance. If I had a partner, I'd dance in public and people would turn and watch in wonderment.