5th Place

Yea, I got 5th place in the badminton tournament today.  Which is quite good seeing as I was like the youngest male to participate.  I have the award thingy right here next to me - it's going into my trophy cabinet (yea, I do have one of them... it's more like shelf though.  And there's not much room left...).  I was going to take a picture with the webcam but I couldn't be asked to plug it in.  Oh well.  It's kinda crappy cheap plastic anyway, what can you expect?

Anyway, it started with me playing men's doubles.  Which was alright.  Apart from the fact that the partner I played with was brought in at the LAST MINUTE.  Yea, we had hardly ever (if ever) played together before.  So as you can imagine, things didn't go all that well...

To make matters worse, we were put in one of the strongest groups.  It had the twins in (twins are hard to beat in doubles, they have telepathic connections and stuff), my uncle and his friend and two more strong people.  It could only have been worse if the two pros were in the group.  Yea, there was a pro there he plays in the national badminton league... DIVISION 1!  And he still wins in division 1!

As you can imagine, my face resembled this: :o.   While my brain was thinking this: 'OMFG!'

Well, anyway in doubles we didn't do to well.  So whatever.  You won't hear of the boring details.

Then came men's singles which I didn't sign up for.  The person who was the organiser dude came up to me and said: 'Your up next.'  WHAT?!  was what I was about to say.  But he left already.  Sly b*stard.

I did better in singles, despite going up against one of the twins.  They have really bad-ass smashes, and I mean bad-ass.  I guess he's not as good when he doesn't share that mind-bond-thing with his twin.  Trippy...

Anyway, I ended up in 5th place.  Which is rather good because, as I stated before, the people playing were generally a lot older and larger than myself.  I'm not sure who won the men's singles because I left but before I went I refereed the woman's doubles runner up match.  Best 2 out of 3 - and most of them, except the little girl, were sweating by the end of game 1.  Insane.  It turned out the team without the little girl won, not surprising to you perhaps, but it was one for me.   The little girl was like a badminton devil (younger version), the only reason the other team won because they kept on hitting it to her teammate - who, frankly, wasn't that good.  By the end of the 3 games, she wasn't sweating at all.  Yea, their team won the second game.

That's about it for the tournament.  Oh, and I got free food.  Sweet...

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Story, hurrah!  I'm tired so I'll keep it short and simple.

And I guess Gavin has fallen off the face of the earth again.  Tsk tsk, Gavin.  When will you ever learn?  Don't accept candy from strangers...

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Once we entered the large room we were granted by a relatively old man, who had lost some teeth and was losing his hair.  He looked like a guy who would be on Jerry Springer or Trisha about his mid-life crisis.

When he saw Hilda he immediately leaped forward and hugged her.  'Oh Hilda!  How long has it been?  Weeks?  Months?  It's hard to tell inside this place.'

'I see you've been busy.'  Hilda said.  Busy echoed throughout the room.  She pointed towards the middle of the room, there was a large thing cloaked under a rough blanket that had an assortment of holes in.

I looked round the room and in the left back corner to where I was standing was two other door, in the right back corner was a bunch of tools and desks.  In the far right corner there was another set of doors.  I couldn't see into the far left corner because of the large object covered by the blanket.

I couldn't resist anymore.  'What's that under the blanket?'

The man looked up and stopped hugging Hilda.  He spoke clearly, his kind tone gone from his voice.  'You'll find out eventually.  More importantly, where are your manners?'

I didn't expect that.  He's a mechanic type person after-all.  Just goes to show: You can't judge a book by it's cover.

'Oh I'm sorry.  I'm WJUK and here are my friends Gavin & Gimely.'

'Hey.'  Gavin said apathetically.

'Hullo, I'm Gimely by the way.'  The man leaned forward and stared right into Gimely's right eye.

'A penguin?!  I've only seen them in books, and they never said anything about them being able to talk!'

'Well, I'm special...'  The man was doing the sure-you-are nod.  As if he wasn't taking in anything that Gimely was saying, yet he had an aura around him that suggests he takes in every little detail and stores it efficiently and effectively in his brain.

'Very well then.  Since you've properly introduced yourselves and because I like you guys.  I present to you my latest creation.'  He started walking.

'Ahem.  Where are your manners?'  You have no idea how good that felt.

'Oh, I'm terribly sorry.  I'm Bob.'  Probably American.  'Nevermind that now.  Hurry.  You'll never believe your eyes at this.'

He stumbled over the white floor and over to the blanket covered object.

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What could be under there?

And more importantly... it's results day (and also the BBQ) in two days time!  YES, TWO DAYS TIME!