Patio Wars ][, part the first

So there I was, at a party with (mainly) adults, discussing Wittgenstein and sipping blender drinks, like a grown man. And it was good. The conversation was ribald and titillatingly, punctuated with quaffs of chilly delight and Count Chocula. It was Sinclair and Kim's (sorta) annual summer party. It all started back in the 60s, er 90s...

There I was, in university for the first time. Through a weird set of circumstances I met Kim during frosh week. One of my good friends from highschool was in her frosh group and I was hanging out with someone who had known Kim since they were but wee children, frolicking in the barren Scarberian wasteland. Time past and found myself married and living in London (Ontario, Canada) again. My sister and her good friend Janet were telling me about this neat couple they met and how they were both optometrists named Kim and Sinclair. And so I came to realize that Kim and Sinclair had infiltrated my small corner of the Greater Strathroy Area, er, homeland. Place I knew the best.

Eventually, bored with their work-a-day lives, Kim and Sinclair invited me and my wife to a gathering of blenders. Eager to help inject my own special loudness and beverage consumption I readily agreed. And so Patio Wars, with its DJ and patio speakers driven with lamp cord, was invoked.

It was a good night. I almost didn't make it out in one piece, but I managed to struggle my way to the car and my wife drove me home. The fog lifted a few days later, but I was happy in that I made it through most of the night in one piece and, after a few phone calls, that my host was okay as well. All in all a good time. There was mead, but a startling lack of Russian vodka.

Now, being the present day (and I don't mean Christmas), there was a call for a new round of blender drinks in a new location. For Kim and Sinclair had another child and a new abode (and commode - several of those actually) which knew not the joy of warring patios. This time I was determined that there would be no vodka gap. Armed with a bottle of Stolichnya with which to warm the house, we arrived. What a wonderful house - very interesting layout. The back yard dropped steeply off into what was some kind of minor bush-like-substance. Trees and mosquitoes and everything. The patio was ample and made of large squares of what I can only assume must be stone or enormous stale Triscuts (I can't be sure). The floors inside were "covered with such hard wood" (yes it is a Futurama reference - bonus no-prize if you can name the episode, or at least describe it. Triple no-reward points if you can tell me what the initial bank balance was).

And so things began, as most of these things do, with a call for Sinclair to fire up the blender again. Next time, I'll deluge you with yet more details from... PATIO WARS ][!

And there was no philosophy. Really.