Newbie dinner on Friday night. Company picnic on Saturday. Bar (and almost cat fight) Saturday night. Pillaging the Apple store on Sunday morning (in about 20 minutes). w00t!

Newbie dinner? Yeah, actually, and it was good times… a woman in the MSN group runs an MSN Group (ironically?) that allows her to set these types of things up. Completely voluntary – both the organization and our attendance – it was a nice chance to meet some new employees from all over Microsoft. Twas fun, even if we did have to wear name tags at the place. heh!

The Microsoft company picnic is actually set up for two days each year, and people sign up for their day of choice: Saturday or Sunday. Greedy of my Sunday time (for chores), I rode up with Steve and his family to the farm where they have the picnic – a number of rolling green fields, surrounded by a few mountains foothills. Great view, great food, great time. Interesting things of note: it felt like how a town fair feels, if the entire town showed up at once. It was probably about the size (in head count) of an average Saturday at Riverside Park [in MA]. The ice cream line was at least twice as long as the beer line, the entire day.

Then the almost cat fight. The last couple of weekends I’ve taken up refuge in one of the bars that is close to my apartment. Close, as in, within stumbling distance. When I was staying in Seattle, the bar of choice was Kells. This new place is even closer – and it’s air conditioned and they have a small beer line, so yay for me.

Last night, there were two women and a guy sitting at the bar. The guy is a regular, I assume, as he knew everyone that came in, stayed in the corner, and acted like he was receiving court. Not in a bad way, mind you, but he seemed to know everyone. One of the women – a rather tall leathery type that spent too much time in the deep end of the peroxide pool – was playing darts with the other woman – sorta cute, good body, shorter than me, and with a bit of an attitude – while the regular dude watched.

<soapBox>

And nothing against the dying of hair, alright? But it’s 2004. The “I have Marilyn Monroe white blonde big hair” look is long since dead – especially when your eyebrows are blacker hair than mine. It’s just… trashy looking. Alright for an appointment with Springer, but c’mon… get some help.

</soapBox>

While the short girl is trying to shoot darts, she keeps looking to her left, where the rest of the place is sprawled out, away from the bar. She starts to make comments to the tall woman… something about “staring at me”. Me, being the nosey bastard that I am, look in that direction, and find an Asian guy that is looking in the direction of the dart board. Knowing how men act in bars – Asian has nothing to do with this, really – I figure he’s been leering at her the whole night. *shrug* It happens. Especially when you put yer rack on display for an entire bar… why the surprise from this?

A few more darts and now the tall woman starts to notice this and gets a little animated by it. Now they’re both waiting a beat or two, before throwing, to check if the guy is stilling looking at them. Then some more comments. Wait, what’s this? It’s not the Asian guy that’s near them – it’s some other woman further back in the place that has been eyeballing them! While I was figuring this out, the comments started to get loud: “What’s her fuckin’ problem? Why’s she looking at us? What – she thing the guys are going to like her and her Little House on the Prairie look? Men want real women!”

Now I gotta check out the Prairie chick, obviously. As tall as the blonde chick, and about the same age (late 30’s if I had to guess) and wearing a shirt and skirt… Ah – that explains the comment, even if the skirt is a polka-dot Wonder bread logo looking thing. And as I’m checking her out, it becomes obvious that she hears – and has been hearing – all of the comments from the bar…

The Prairie girl decides that she needs a beer. Up to the bar she goes, behind the dart throwing women. She gets a beer and as she walks back, the bottle blonde makes a comment to shortie. Prairie girl stops and asks, “Do you have some kind of a problem with me?” Bottle blonde turns and replies, “Yeah, you smell like tuna.”

I missed what Prairie’s retort was – I fell off my stool and had to stop watching them as I hopped back onto it. By then Prairie had returned to her friends by the pool table, acting all types of pissed off. The dart girls kept talking shit and throwing at the board, until they thought Prairie was going to return to the bar. Blondie turns to the bartender and says, “Hey – that chick over there… the one dressed like Minnie Mouse – she’s trying to start shit with us.” The bartender replies, “Um, oh?” “Yeah, look at her – she keeps looking at us, trying to start some trouble!” “Yea? Maybe because you told her she smells like tuna,” the bartender replies, continuing to rinse a glass. The blonde looks cowed for a moment, and says, “Oh… you heard that? Oh” and skulks back to the dart board.

Fifteen minutes later, both of the dart chicks had their bums planted in some guys over by one of the pool tables, wiggling to music. Prairie continued to play pool at her table. Not another word was spoken between the two groups, and the night moved on. Mighta been the beer, but I thought the whole episode was funny…

And now Apple is open – time to wear down the charge card some more!