2001-04-15 - 1:34 a.m.
#45: No Need for AAC Meeting (kinda) at My Place
Note to self: *sways* Too tired to think of something to say. Maybe tomorrow. Oh. You need to do your assignments. Okay, that's enough. Okay, despite the fact that I have just spent the last hour cleaning up the place and I want to collapse and sleep for a couple of hours till tomorrow when there is a possibility of an AAC Arcade outing; I just have to give this report on today's Hong Kong Action Marathon Day before I pass out.
Without a doubt that was one of the best AAC meets I've ever hosted at my place. Of course, it's the ONLY AAC meeting I've hosted at my place but.... Eh, it'd have been good anyway if it was the second one. ^_^ Plenty of trepidation right at the start as I waited for people to come, but soon the doorbell rang and who should pop in first but Michael! At exactly 11AM, no less. Then came in Chris (with a selection of three tapes, which we did not see in the end because they seemed a bit too MUCH on the cheesy side. ^^;;;), Fergus and Josh and we all settled down to watch our first video of the day: The episode of Batman Beyond I taped earlier this morning, guest starring the future version of Superman. Mainly because Fergus wanted to watch it and say how bad the character designs were. Then I showed Spiderman Unlimited until he admitted he was wrong. I love being in charge of the remote. I should host again just to be in charge of the remote. It is most fun being in charge of the remote. I am obsessed about being in charge of the remote. Can you tell?
Anyway after 20 minutes or so of that, and still nobody else turning up, we decided to watch Last Hero in China a Jet Li as Wong Fei Hong film. During this time of gravity defying stunts, lion and centipede dance battles and super villains who laugh way, way too much, Clara and Matt dribbled in through the door. Clara brought a couple of VCDs, from which was selected God of Cooking, which we played right after Jet Li did a bit of drunken boxing on the afore mentioned laughing supervillain. A lot of jokes flew over us poor non-cantonese speakers heads (well, except for two of us, Clara and Kunfei, who wandered in about this time, I think. O.o) but Stephen Chow was just generally excellent as a straight guy, and there were plenty of visual gags and takeoffs of other movies to make it entertaining. And then, of course, the final showdown between good and evil as chefs duel in a battle of cooking rarely seen outside of an episode of Iron Chef. Course, those chefs didn't have the assistance of "internal skills" to increase the temperature of the furnace, nor did they resort to the use of folding chairs to prove their superior martial arts cooking techniques.... Eheh.
After this, we watched a bit of a neat looking action/spy movie starring Ekin "Noodle" Cheng, also part of Claras VCD collection, but we had to stop several minutes in due to the fact that the subtitles kept slipping off the screen. That, and the people who kept standing up in the theatre and blocking the camcorder recording the film. Naughty pirated VCD. Bad. ^_^ So we threw in Mr. Vampire and that got quite a few laughs as we watched Chinese vampires hop menacingly towards their unsuspecting prey. Ah, that is such a classic comedy/vampire movie and I'm glad I got to show it. About the start of this the final of our late arrivals came a-knocking and it was Amy and James, completing out little group of 8 plus 1. That plus one being me of course, but 8 is a luckier number, so let's just say 8.
At the completion of Mr. Vampire and a general consensus that we needed to get out for walkies and possibly go for dinner, we piled into the three cars of people who had them and drove down to Meadowland Shopping Centre. However, most of the eating cafes in the mall were closed, and the only alternatives to dinner were a MacDonalds or several "formal" restaurants across the way. So through some strange general agreement we all decided to wander into Foodtown, the grocery store, and get some munchies to bring back home. This produced several minutes of confused wandering in which Michael procured a heated chicken in a bag (Which he left here, by the way. All 2/3rds of it. What am I supposed to do with this? O.o), Josh and Kunfei bought one fourpack of V, the energy drink, each and everybody bought god knows what else because I was a little confused as to why we were going to a grocery store to get dinner and was getting out of there as quick as possible. I was the unofficial leader of the night afterall. Mwahahaha. ^_^
We went straight over to Tai Ping Markets after this to peruse through their various chinese/japanese sweets and snacks where those of us proud and asian (KILL WHITEY! Just kidding, guys. ^_^;;; We know you outnumbered us at the meeting. FOR NOW! @_@) waxed nostalgia over various childhood foods and fatteners. Some of which I really didn't recognise, but chalk that up to my bad memory or something. O.o Anyway, after several more minutes more of wandering, we decided that that was enough of that, so we drove back up to my place. (And Amy and James apparently went off somewhere else to get duck and rice, explaining why they got back so late. I mean, apart from the possibility of getting lost, of course) And we dove into our respective goodies, seated out on the patio of my house overlooking Auckland City. There was plenty of food on the prepared snack table besides, and more came along in the form of hot hash brown nuggets and cocktail sausages. But watching Michael trying to chug back a glass of chocolate milk provided by Clara in under a second was interesting. O.o And there was Kunfei's instant curry mix in a bag which actually tasted not half bad. My mother was a little mortified by this instant cooking however, and told me that next time if people came, she'd try cooking her own curry for everyone. Hmmmm....
Anyway, it was about this time we had our first casualty. Clara had to leave early *sniffs. dabs eyes* and just when we were just getting into the swing of things too! Or something like that. ^_^;;;; And after watching a documentary on Hong Kong films, Film Without Bounds Kunfei had to leave to go and get blind stinking drunk. Prerequisite at 21st birthday parties, you know? O.o Which left 7 of us. 8 if you counted my mother who was in the house at the time. Ahem. Anyway, with the remaining group we watched our last film of the night, Once Upon a Time in China II starring Jet Li once again as Wong Fei Hong. More martial arts action than you could poke a stick at! Literally, as in the case of the final battle using ultra long bamboo canes. After this, we kinda collapsed for a while, satisfied at a full days viewing, and we only really saw 4 films today. And we didn't even get to see A Chinese Ghost Story II, which is a bit disappointing. Ah well, at least what we DID watch made everyone hopped up on martial arts violence. ^_^
The group kinda dissolved a bit at that point as we watched bits of Giant Robo and Teknoman and I gave an open invitation to see my room and vast anime video collection which everyone perused quite readily, several people walking away with large bundlefuls of stuff under their arms. We also had a few candid photos by Amy using Michaels "borrowed" digital camera, not only contorting our faces into strange and unusual positions for pictures, but even managing to create the illusion of summoning chi blasts with it (Michael HAS to post that photo of him about to "attack" Fergus. It looks too utterly cool not to post it. It's just a trick of the light and the flash reflecting off some stuff but WOW! Really neato cool). And after an hour and a half of this general discussion, everybody (meaning Amy, Chris, Fergus, James, Matt and Michael) went home at about 11PM and I cleaned up the mess and hurried here to type up this entry. Phew. Finally got all that down. May be a little bit disjointed, and I may have forgotten a few events but that's all what's freshly encoded into my memory.
Oh yes, and I've finally learned the pain of being the host and having to clean up afterwards. Fortunately my mother and I did a little bit of shopping for paper plates and napkins so that cut down the washing by a significant amount. Tiring, but fun. May want to do this again, but considering the distance my house is from everybody elses, maybe sometime LATER. ^_^ And maybe do a Giant Robo marathon this time, heh. And maybe have a little bit less food than want happened today. O.o My mother and I bought a bit too much for this event, I think. And then there are the cakes that everybody brought that ultimately didn't get eaten.... Argh, sorry Clara. Your delicious looking home made cake is now sitting complete and uncut in my fridge, and completely unindulged in. ^^;;; Many apologies to all. But at least we got extremely full... Which may or may not interfere with our sleep patterns for tonight. O.o Ah well. I know that I won't be starving any time soon with the leftovers.
And for those of you who didn't turn up, shame, shame on you! I hope this entry makes you feel all jealous and sad at what a fun time you missed! SHAME! ^_^ Anyway, should go unconscious now. Bye! And yay! This is my longest entry into my diary yet!
