Oh the humanity

This weekend was Homecoming at Queen's, and once again I went and slept on Kevin's floor. I don't know what I'm going to do if he graduates and moves away, unless I get a job that will let me afford a hotel room. I'll worry about that later.

I went down on Friday just after noon. The train ride wasn't bad, and I listened to music the entire way. For whatever reason they didn't check our tickets until we were almost to Gananoque, so if I was going to Brockville I could have ridden for free. Too bad I wasn't going to Brockville.

I got in to Kingston around 2:30, and got in touch with Kevin. He told me he might be able to get his mother to pick me up, but not for a little while. I got on the bus and prepared for the long, twisting ride to campus. Route 2 now runs from the train station to downtown via the most winding, convoluted route I've ever seen a bus take. It's insane. I don't think it stayed on a street for any more than 2 stops, and it wound and weaved its way through every subdevelopment in the entire city. Eventually Kevin called me and told me to get off at St. Lawrence College, and they'd pick me up there. True to their word, they pulled in right behind the bus and we were off to the LCBO.

We reached an agreement for the purchasing of alcohol. Kevin would buy the beer at the LCBO, and I'd buy the beer in pubs and bars, up to the point at which we'd be even money-wise. It worked out pretty well, even though we only wound up drinking half of what we bought. Just too much else going on to finish it all, and neither of us can drink like we used to. Saying that makes me feel depressingly old.

Our LCBO tally:

• 2 6 packs of Vex for Kevin's housemate


• 1 6 pack of Big Rock Traditional Ale


• 1 6 pack of Big Rock Warthog Cream Ale


• 1 6 pack of Big Rock Grasshopper Wheat Ale


• 1 6 pack of Hoegaarten


• 2 bottles of Monty Python's Holy Grail


• Total: 26 bottles of beer, 12 bottles of fruity crap, $74

The Holy Grail (actually spelled with the Gr crossed out) was something we bought purely because of the bottle, and the name. The tagline claimed it was "Tempered over burning witches", and we honestly couldn't turn that down. We should have, because it was possibly the nastiest beer I've had in recent memory. Not as bad as Trois Pistoles, but close.

After getting the beer, we went out to get some dinner. We were going to go to Leonard cafeteria, but they weren't letting anybody in on cash, and Kev's meal plan only lets him get in. Dejected, we went to JJ's and made plans to meet Kev's brother there. He goes to Laurier but always seems to show up at Queen's whenever there's a party going on.

On the way there we took a walk up Aberdeen, to see it before the inevitable destruction it would endure on Saturday night. While there somebody saw the Senators patch on my jacket and proceded to tell me in no uncertain terms that they sucked, so I rationally informed him that he was the one who sucked. I'm not sure what he yelled at me after that, but it wasn't very nice, so I told him to respect his elders. We were out of earshot by that point, so I don't know if that shut him up or not.

I always wonder what it is about that patch that brings out every Leaf fan's internal asshole. Anywhere I go in it I get angry people yelling at me, and only rarely a note of encouragement from a fellow fan. Are the Leaf fans so fragile in their belief that they have to lash put at anyone showing support for another team? Does a rival make them feel so threatened that they have to try to destroy it, no matter what the cost?I really don't get it. If I see someone wearing a Leafs jersey, I don't see the need to yell at them. Steve wears a Leaf hat all the time, and I don't mention it. I might give my Leafy friends a verbal shot now and then when the Sens beat them, or when we're talking about hockey in general, but there's absolutely no reason to yell at people who support a different team. Can anyone give me some serious insight into what drives these people to anger?

Anyway, at JJ's we ate mass quantities of meat and poutine, got bothered by some drunk old guy, and then ran off to the Bands Centennial Reunion. This was the less formal version of the Centennial Gala in March, without dinner but also without a dress code or $100 admission charge. No free wine though. Good times were had by all, I caught up with old friends, talked to people I haven't seen in 5 years (most of whom remembered me despite only knowing me for a few months). There weren't really a lot of highlights, but it was a solid block of good times.

I meant to go to Mosie's kegger that night, but I got sidetracked by having beer at Kevin's place and the promise of DDR with Greg. There was beer and DDR, but Greg had gone out somewhere else and disappeared for the night. Regardless, we drank, danced, and watched Robot Chicken, showing it to Matt and Cat for the first time. It's tough to judge reactions, so I'll assume Matt loved it and Cat was deeply distrubed by it. Or at least moderately disturbed. Maybe.

As a sidenote, DDR isn't nearly as fun when you play it on a console. The floor pads they have for it don't stick to the floor, so the entire thing moves under you, making it impossible to stay centred. With the arcade game the dance pad is built in to the cabinet, so it's always where you expect it to be. I guess you could look down to see where the pad's moving, but then you'd miss at least a few steps, bringing disaster.

DDR has no right being as fun as it is.

After dancing ourselves into a paralytic coma (the beer helped too), everybody went to bed. I slept until a bit after 11, ate some Chunky soup, and then Kevin and I went off in search of a marching band. There was no sign of them on Union, which struck us both as a little odd. By our calculations they should have been going by right when we got there, and we needed to meet them to get tickets for a bunch of people, myself included. We dedcided to head back towards campus in case they were just running late, and ran into Greg and Jay outside of 204 Union, our old house. Well, Jay's old house, I only lived there for a summer. We found out the Bands had gone by about a half hour earlier, much to our shock and awe. We had a beer under the big tree, and I found a football ticket on the ground. I think a drunk frosh engineer dropped it, but he was nowhere in sight. Silly purple kid.

Ticket in hand, we walked to West Campus. Our friend Neil has an apartment on the 11th floor overlooking the stadium, so he was hosting a party for people who couldn't get tickets. Kev and I said we'd go up after the first quarter, and then at halftime we'd all go to the Ports. The plan worked out exactly like we said, after the first quarter we went up there, and after watching the halftime show (and the hundreds of engineers who rushed the field for no reason) we left.

The Ports was as busy as we expected. In addition to the regular Saturday crowd of sketchy townies, and the regular Homecoming crowd, there was also a large number of Bands alumni cluttering up the place. You don't go to a bar after every home game for 50 years without forming an attachment to the place, so just about every former Bandsie in Kingston was there. They had roped off a portion for the Bands to occupy whn they got there, and fitting everybody into the other half of the bar was a really tight fit.

Things went perfectly though. People had beer, the pipers played tunes, some people sang dirty songs, I hung out the window to talk to Boehmer (hanging out the window was new, but I always talk to Boehmer), and things got progressively drunker until the Bands burst forth from the back door in all their sweaty, kilted glory.

Hanging out and lots of drinking followed, the second years got their crests, the pipers and drummers played tunes, Hunkin flirted with girls many years younger than him, and I managed to get out of there without buying a drink for anyone except Kevin, evening up the tab in the process. Huzzah! Eventually Kevin, Boehmer, and I left to get some pizza, and we bid a fond farewell to the debauchery.

Boehmer didn't seem as amused by Robot Chicken as we expected, aside from the Voltron/You Got Served bit. (Voltron, represent!) We headed out to see how much of a madhouse Aberdeen was, and we got stopped by the police before we could even get onto the street. They looked worried, and I heard rumours of the riot squad being on call in case things got ugly. Since they were expecting things to turn bad, they got bad. Then they got worse.

I left well before it happened, but sometime in the evening a bunch of people flipped a car, stomped it to the ground, kicked it to pieces, and then lit it on fire. I don't know how long it took or who was involved, but it's sad affair. Kevin said it was the first time he'd ever felt ashamed to be a Queen's student, and I have to agree with him on that.

Apparently the mood of the crowd never felt happy, but was angry all night. I'm no expert on crowds, but I can tell the difference between a happy crowd and an angry one. A happy crowd can turn into an angry one without much provocation, but an angry crowd will only ever get angrier, until it becomes a mob. I have no idea of the crowd on Aberdeen turned into a mob, but I suspect it did, at least for a little while. People have been laying blame on the crowd and on the police for using bad crowd control methods, but I wasn't there so I can't comment.

Today was uneventful. We played some video games, got some coffee, walked among the ravaged remains of Aberdeen, and then went back to Kevin's place to play more games. A lot will be said about the mob and the destruction, but I already know that nothing will be said about the cleanup. Groups of students were out in the street sweeping up broken glass and garbage, seemingly of their own volition, taking responsibility for keeping their neighbourhood looking good. If that bit of responsibility gets washed aside in a sea of bad press, then I'll feel justified in taking the time to point it out. Residents of William St between University and Aberdeen are good people who care about their community, even if nobody else will recognize it.

After all that, I took a cab to the train station and came home. I didn't party quite as hard as I normally do, but I don't regret it. I felt good enough in the mornings, I didn't feel sick at any point during the festivities, and a lot of people remarked on how good I looked. I lost over 50 pounds since I left Queen's, and it really shows. The only real change I made was that I quit drinking, and it was funny to tell people that when I had a beer in my hands.

Next year's Homecoming could be a completely different animal. Something is going to change, and there's a chance Aberdeen could get completely barricaded off. If it does, the party will either go somewhere else or spread out. Which effect is better? I don't know, and someone else can figure that out. I'll be figuring out where I'm going stay, if I decide to go.

Anyone want to split a hotel room in 06?