An All-American Weekend Part 1

As far as weekends go, I've had the opportunity to experience the closest thing one can expect from a weekend that can only be best described as, well, Americano. Allow me to explain.

The post-hynoptist program was a frat party at a house best known as Sigma Chi. In an attempt to resemble sentience and display shades of intelligence, fraternity houses all over the US name themselves after Greek letters (e.g. Alpha Beta Gamma, Sigma Chi, Pi R Square). Unfortunately, this is ineffective, because nobody in the world really speaks Greek any more (hence the expression "You're speaking Greek to me"). Nevertheless, it is a reasonable system to distinguish one frat from another - to all intents and purposes they are otherwise carbon copies of each other. All frats are characterised by a bunch of guys who get drunk and impress their juniors by the fact that they are able to access alcohol even though they're below 21. This approach works because it also attracts the chicks below 21 who can't get access to alcohol and hence are willing to settle for the piss that is served at frat parties.

Having had the oh-so-wonderful luck to be brought along to a frat party (along with the folks from Bath University attached to the Commerce school), we made our way down to the Sigma Chi party, which can best be summarised by the paragraph above. In a nutshell, it was bloody boring. But in all fairness, this is the kind of thing you would expect of 18 year olds who have not been allowed to drink. So a frat party will end up with all the lasses wearing their best clubbing gear (there are no real clubs in Charlottesville anyway), all the lads trying to grab their hands on beer and some lass' ass (I like the way that rhymes) and people pairing up and having a good time making out. In fact, if you get lucky (or speak with a British twang), there's a reasonable possibility of you switching a number of partners in the same night. Yes, everything you've heard about lasses being impressed by British accents is true. No, seriously.

So being 24 and actually being able to understand that having a nice bottle of wine to share and a group of friends to chill is something to appreciate in life, is essentially, reason enough for me to never attend any more frat parties. While the flesh parade is most entertaining (visually, if nothing else), there's only so much boredom one can take.

The All-American weekend continued on Saturday with the first American football game of the season. American football often comes with a tradition called "tailgating" (actually I'm not sure if it's specific to the game or to Charlottesville or wot). Unlike the $#@!ing Singaporean taxi-drivers, tailgating in a fairly specific context refers to the practice of parking your car head in (everyone parks their car head in here), opening up your boot, setting up a table and just picnic-ing. This is the only activity that justifies having those ridiculous SUVs that you see everywhere on the roads. That, and trips to discount joints like Cosco to stock up on cartons and cartons and cartons of beer (that's actually not a joke - people really do this shit here, I swear).

Anyway, we did the bastardised version of tailgating today. With a game scheduled at 6, the 5 of us (Jem, Andrew, Alex, Jun and myself - I would explain who the hell they are but essentially, just 5 blokes preparing for an Americano football game is what you need to know) decided to head down at 4 to stock up on beer and food. This is when we got to know that Alex is an excessive-compulsive freak. Which begs the 2 questions: who the f**k is Alex and what makes him an excessive-compulsive freak?

Alex is a British bloke who's pretty much Americanised except for his accent. And if you've been to a frat party, you know that keeping that accent is a good idea. He goes by the last name Goodenough (no, seriously) and was Andrew's former roommate.

So what makes Alex excessive-compulsive?

Our first trip to the supermarket ended up with us trying to decide on beers. We eventually settled on getting 12 Corona's and trying this Boston brew called Samuel Adams (12 of those too). It's at this point that Alex goes, "Hey, we only have about 2 bottles for everyone, let's get some more". He merrily proceeds to get a 24-can box of Budweisers.

Now take a break and do the math. That's right, 24 divided by 5 isn't 2. Alex does realise this but does not return the beer. We end up with about 10 bottles/cans of beer for everyone.

Our second trip ends up at 5 Guys. This is a burger joint that's rated one of the best in the whole country. They have amazing burgers (pictures to come) - 2 patties with bacon and with ingredients from just about everything, based on your idea. This is Hamburger Heaven or Hell, depending on whether you're a fitness freak (like Jun) or a regular guy (like everybody else).

Since this entry is running a little long, what Alex did can be summarised in a nutshell as: he took an order that didn't belong to him (yes, thieving lil' bastard), went off with it, went back to Jem's place to eat the burgers, found out he had another one, and proceeded to finish his original burger and the additional one. All in 5 minutes.

Yes folks, HE FINISHED THE FUCKING BURGERS IN 5 MINUTES! (I could seriously use a picture at this point).

I'm gonna blog about American football and the rest of the All-American weekend separately, because this entry is rambling too much. Plus I seriously need to put down a picture of that burger for effect.