Ye Olde bAAR: Closed

[Secret Master]

Upon hearing the reason for LD's good mood, the Secret Master gave LD a thoughtful look. Then he actually spoke when he realized the telepathy did not work on Canadians.

"Hey, if you have a hockey sock full of characters, does this mean that the latest incarnation of the Free Company will be stinkier than usual?"

Everyone at the table stopped what they were doing and look at Secret Master. MrT looked close to glaring. Shawng found himself leaving CM alone long enough to give the Secret Master a dirty look.

"Oh, come on, you know you were thinking it!"

LD just pushed a glass of the good stuff in front of him.

"Why don't you just drink up, Secret, before you put your other foot in your mouth."

He sniffed the glass, noting the aroma, and took LD's advice.

 

[Lord Durham]

As SM set the glass down LD explained, rather patiently, "A 'hockey-sock' is a Canuck expression meaning a lot. A 'hockey-sock' runs from foot to thigh, so it's quite large, much like your probiscus. With that he reached across and squeezed SM's false nose, eliciting a rather loud HONNNNKKKKKKK!!!!

As the laughter died down, LD looked about and asked, "Anyone know whatever became of Roland D?"

 

[Rictus]

"Dunno mate. Never heard of him." Rictus answered, LD swiveled 180 degrees to glare at the youngster.

"And you are?"

"Rictus."

"Didn't you have long hair?"

"Until about 30 minutes ago, yes. Now I've got a nice shiny, bald dome." To emphasis the point, he ran a hand over his freshy cut-short hair. "I'm going for the 'youth thug' look."

"You'll have to get rid of that pink tshirt then."

 

[Barkdreg]

The smelly drunk on the floor starts waving his hands.

'Look, Barkdreg want's to speak!'
the crowd goes silent, everybody watches Barkdreg
It was going to be the first time in months Barkdreg would speak.

pointing a grubby finger at Rictus he spoke
'Hey preciousss...BUUUURP... where did your pretty hairz go?'

 

[Norgesvenn]

Into the bAAR staggers the bAARtender. His eyes look like two small ponds of alcohol, his breath smells of German beer.

"What did I miss?"
"A shower?", LD replied.
"Apart from that?"
"A lot. Now where you've been?"
"Dunno. I didn't need a passport, so I can't check that for stamps. But I had to pay Euros...."
"Germany, perhaps?"
"Probably. Tried to do some research, but it seemed as if there was some sort of festival. And we had a stag party for one my mates. He bawled his eyes out when we showed up at his office and all..."
"What was the beer called?", asked Sytass.
"Holsten, I believe"
"Ah.... Hamburg?"
"That's it. Visited some awfully jolly places like 'Grosse Freiheit' and 'Reeperbahn'. Didn't see any rails, though. Except for in those cages where the girlies were kept..."


"Sure you can tend the bAAR today?"
"No, not really. I'm still more schlosched than your average wino"


Bloody hell... Hamburg's one of the nicest cities I've been to. And Germany really has a bum rap when it comes to the women. They were excellent. And the Germans are friendly.

Now I'd better get some sleep... I'm still drunk, for Christ's sake.

 

[Sorcerer]

Originally posted by Norgesvenn

And the Germans are friendly.

Who said anything else?

 

[unmerged(9422)]

Meiji-Tenno, who had mysteriously disappeared, walked into the bAAR, with torn apart clothes, looking in a terrible raggedy condition.

"What happened to you Meiji-Tenno?" Lord Durham asked, still staring cautiously at Storey's ring finger.

Meiji-Tenno didn't answer. He just went down at Midway in Gary Grisby's Pacific War . Meiji-Tenno groaned and went back to his computer, trying to win the Pacific... again..

Just then, Storey disappeared. Horsemen dressed in black charged into the bAAR, and grabbed the air where Storey once stood. The air screamed and the black riders disappeared. shawng1 returned with Storey later on, saying that the riders had brought them to the Netherlands, where a battle involving a wizard and a drarf had saved Storey.





Meiji-Tenno

 

[unmerged(4007)]

Shawng1 paid a visit to the bAAR and ordered a Guiness.

"So how's life as a manager?" The bAARtender asked.

"Ahh. The sweet sounds of cheering fans and happy board members. A couple players unhappy I gave them the quick axe. But it's better for both of us when we know they won't fit in, don't you think?"

"You obviously took a club where your wage bill was no concern, it would seem."

"Of course."

 

[Havard]

A man sat by the bAAR, deadly drunk.. stooping... his face down, mumbling to himself...

Norgesvenn, only just recovered from his trip to Germany, was back on duty silently walked over - eavesdropping...

- Damn software, damn PC... #"¤#@$! shitty piece of crap... two hours of work I say... then crash! £¤#%&! It would have been beautiful... battle-map of Bursa.. Oh! but no... £¤#%&!

Norgesvenn decided it was better to leave the poor man to himself. He turned silently away and moved towards the rack of glasses he had to polish.

- BARTENDER!

The drunkard shouted at Norgesvenn...

- Gimme another one of these, pointing at his glass. He was talking to the reflections in the mirror across the bar.
- Yeah! One of those! Suddenly his head smacked down in the bar - he was asleep...

Norgesvenn made signal to Peter Ebbesen. It was time to get him out here...

(Well, yeah... I was thinking of doings some maps for my next installment - When I was almost done the shitty program crashed on me... and had I remembered to save? )

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

"I'm a Crusader King", he shouted drunkenly as I dragged him out the door. Pathetic, really. With a mighty heave I sent him flying, barely missing my bear, who snapped hungrily at the low-flying man, but, alas, missed by a handspan. I will need to feed him somebody else.

The penwright who wrote the modding-bible cartwheeled through the air, and described a most excellent parabolic trajectory, ending in the gutter, the home of many fellow penwrights throughout the ages. Yup, I sent him home, free of charge all right. Heart of gold, that's me.

Now, I'll see if the bear can get a bite out of Eochaid, who still hasn't learned how to write my name. He'll remain standing outside the bAAR for a long time, if my will prevails.

It usually does.

 

[Eochaid]

Peter had unleashed his bear and the poor little thing was now attacking the all mighty Eochaid. Being a skilled fighter, he kicked the mammal's ass and the bear ended up in the gutter with the customer Peter EBBESEN had just kicked out of the bAAR.


" - Hey Peter, I know that my spelling is very poor, but that's because I can neither write nor read. I'm just faking. in fact I pay somebody to type what i say.

- Whatever. By the way, where the hell did you learn that thing you did to my bear?

- Meiji-Tenno taught me that. Told me it was koppo, an ancient samuraï martial art. In exchange for a few lessons, I just gave him a barrel of sake.

- Yeah well next time you throw my bear all over the place I'll go berserk, and that's an old danish trick I'll do for free.

- Ok. Pax bAArica, remember. The bAAR is an asylum, a land of peace. We cannot fight on this holy ground. But we'll meet another time, another place: there can only be one! And besides I'll help you get Baloo out of that gutter.

- The bear's name is not Baloo, but Olaf.

- Yeah, right. Like "Olaf" was a real name... duh

- I kid you not.

- Oh well, as you wish. Lets make piece over a nice (jumbo) bottle of vodka.

- Agreed."


PS: Got it right this time Peter EBBESEN?

 

[Prince Eugene]

May I ask what this place is?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

So I saw this new BUBba, Prince Eugene by name, standing forlorn in the doorway, peering into the bAAR, yet slightly scared of entering, and he asked, rather cautiously, what sort of place this might be.

And since I'm a friendly sort, I didn't rip out his arms for not reading the sign: The bAAR, and instead I explained to him:

Well, first and foremost, it is a place where the penwrights great and small, funny, serious, deranged, ahistoric, or eccentric, may hang out between writing. They can swap stories here, advertise good reading they have found in other AARs, or perhaps introduce new and worthy ideas of their own.

And they can get drunk. Notice Norgesvenn serving the hard stuff up there? He's the barkeep, and he's a Norwegian, and that's it, and that's that. You have been warned.

The barmaid is the Midnight Rose, an escapee from the Righteous BastAARds AAR, and if you do more than ogle her, you'll be thrown into the gutter or fed to my pet bear, assuming you aren't ripped to shreds by the other customers.

If you look around, you may notice other famous or infamous figures. Feel free to strike up a conversation with any of them.

And I, as you may have guessed by now, am Peter Ebbesen, the bouncer in the bAAR, and my job is to keep this place real quiet-like.

 

[Secret Master]

The Secret Master began to hum a bizarre tune. Perhaps it was the theme to the Twilight Zone, but no one would ever know. Within a few seconds, he stopped, noting he was not being nice and quiet-like. The sight of Olaf sitting beside Peter was enough to make him reconsider being loud or annoying.

Instead, he leaned over and whispered something to Lord Durham. Lord Durham looked strangely at him.

"Surely you can't be serious?"

"I am serious. And don't call me Shirely."

 

[Norgesvenn]

Cleaning up the bear dung was one of the more unpleasant activities the bAARtender had to do.

Norgesvenn did, however, thank every available God for it being The Midnight Rose and not any other character that had escaped "The Righteous BastAARds".

"Ah, Rictus... Apebe! Congratulations on your awards, pals. Well deserved if I may say so. Here, have some special Norwegian brew. It's called 'Aquavit'".

Norgesvenn poured the two a few shots of 'Aquavit'.

*splutter*
"What the!!"
"Mon Dieu!"

"What?!? You don't like it? It's lovely!"

"It most definitely isn't!"

Oh, well. Some people just don't know what they're missing out on...

 

[Apebe]

"Hey ! Everybody ! Free drinks at the bar on my account, 'cuz I have something to celebrate" said Apebe loudly as he entered the bAAR. That was obviously not the way to proceed, as a split second later he layed face to the ground with various foot prints on his back up to his head. 200 thirsty guys were at the bar shouting to get served first.
"Where the hell do they come from", thought Apebe as ha was trying to recover his mind, " never gonna get a glass of Talisker now" …
" yeah, I guess you will have another Aquavit", said Norgeswenn while he was heavely laughing.

 

[Sorcerer]

Sorcerer helped Apebe up from the floor. While he had footprints on his back, his front looked even worse.

'What is the cause for the celebration?' Sorcerer asked.

 

[Eochaid]

As he'd just got his free drink, Eochaid was coming back from the counter. Siping his wine, he overheard Sorcerer's question and immediatly joined the conversation.

" - What! Don't you know Apebe is one of the two writers of the week?

- No, I didn't check that thread for a while.

- Well you should my friend. Apebe, thanks for the drink. For myself I ordered a bottle of "Mouton-Cadet 1952."

Knowing just how expensive that bottle is, Apebe fainted and the people coming back from the bAAR trampled him once more. Yet Sorcerer helped him back on his feet. That guy really was nice. Unlike us lot of alcoholics

PS: Félicitations pour ta récompense. Enfin voici la France (ou devrais-je dire la Gaule --> Lutecia) représentée dans ce club fermé.

 

[Storey]

Storey heard someone say Mouton-Cadet 1952 and his taste buds went into overdrive. He would have been the first to the bar but he tripped over someone lying on the baar room floor. Picking himself up and dusting himself off he looked down at Apebe who was being helped up by Sorcerer.

"Damn funny place to take a nap Apebe. A man could get hurt like that."

Apebe started to say something but Storey held up his hand causing Apebe to pause. Storey’s ears started twitching as he heard the slight squeaking of the cork as it was being slowly pulled from the bottle. With the faint pop from the cork leaving the bottle much like an orchestra warming up before a concert he could smell the vineyard with its rows of old vines loaded with grapes waiting to be picked. He sniffed again and could tell that the morning sun had given it’s last sweet kiss on the grapes as they being pulled from the vines. The nose of the wine was floating on the air as someone waved the Mouton-Cadet over their head in celebration. As Apebe started to say something Storey waved his hand.

"Not now, I’ve got to run. There’s wine to drink and I have an empty glass. Ones a blessing and the others a curse."

Joe

 

[Eochaid]

Eochaid was happy to have someone enjoying a bottle of excellent wine with him. So I went over to Storey and offered him some from his own bottle . And so they went through twelve bottles between the two of them, and the only sound they heard before falling asleep on the stage in the corner of the bAAR was Apebe sobing. From what he said, some guys had ruined him by buying a lot of expensive wine. "Man, thought Eochaid, that's not a nice thing to do.

The next morning the two wine amateurs were awaken by the belly dancers warming up before their show. They'd been jobless for over a week, but know that MrT was back, they had to perform 24/7. The LibAARian was well-known for being a belly dance fan.

When Eochaid finally got on his feet, he painfuly walked out of the bAAR, said hi to Peter Ebbesen, scratched Olaf's back and started his walk of shame. The Sun was high in the sky, and boy, this was a great day.