The Dark Knight

I guess that title has multiple meanings, what with the impending final sunset coming up in the next two weeks, but I'm thinking of it more in terms of my costume from last night. That's right...costume.

Friday was both my first night back bartending, as well as themed Medieval Night. Byron and I decided to dress up as knights, using beer cans to make the armour. I made mine out of Guinness cans, Byron made his out of the backside of the cans (so we were dark and white knights). I also added a helmet, lance and shield to my ensemble. The whole outfit was razor sharp, and took about 12 hours to make, including can filleting and taping, but not including the "collection" of cans :P No, I didn't drink them all, but we did make an attempt to do our part :) I can't believe that I'm posting this, but here is my suit, sans lance, which I made later that day.

We also decided to add something to the festivities while bartending. The current bar game is trying to throw a quarter across the bar to a small shot glass taped near the ceiling (wins you a free drink). I wanted to do something using the little plastic balls that you get inside of cans of Guinness (of which we were now in great supply). We were contemplating a catapult of some sort, to keep with the Medieval theme. Instead, Byron came up with the idea to make a Plinko style board. So, we got a sheet of plywood and got to work. We made a 20 x 20 grid of offset nails that is maybe the coolest thing I've ever created :) It took less time then I thought it would, with 2 hours dedicated to laying out the grid and only 30 minutes of teamwork to put in all 440 nails. We charged $0.50 to put a cup under one opening, up to 4 cups, and then you chose where to drop the ball from. Sure, "Ye Olde GAW-thic Plinko" isn't REALLY Medieval (we work in the GAW lab...get it?) but it was a hit.

Finally, the last event of the night was the costume judging. Now, it might not come across in the picture, but while we spent 12 hours on our costumes they looked like we spent about 15 minutes :) They were pretty ratty. So, little did I expect what happened....I managed to win King of Alert! I definitely took the costume off the second after the judging though. It's hard to serve and use a till when you can't touch your arms in front of your body. It also cut up the insides of my arms on the beer shrapnel. I DID wear the tin foil crown all night :)

It's been stormy since I got here, and no planes have been able to come in due to both mechanical and meteorological problems. We should get 2 in this week, although there are rumours starting to swirl even now that they might be delayed. Not that we're running out of food or anything...but some some things like milk are getting scant!

Talk to you all again soon,
Graham