- Rushing from work to get downtown to meet the team. -1
- Driving 6hrs to Montreal... +1
- ... in my own car. +1
- No need for left or right turn signals after crossing the border. +1
- Parking far away from hostel. -1
- Montreal style smoked meat at Chez Swartz's. +1
- Waking up at 5am for an 8am first race. -1
- Getting stuck with slow/heavy boats(1). -1
- Getting fucked over by race officials who recorded incorrect results. -1
- Interacting with black version of Rain Man at race HQ when filing complaint. -1
- Interacting with incompetent staff at race HQ, requiring the team to ask the same question three times and failing to recieve an answer three times. -1
- Realizing that the guy in charge of transporting official race results from the race tower to the printer at race HQ is using his position to print t-shirt sale posters for his girl instead of doing his job. -1
- Finding out that life jackets are optional in this festival. +1
- Kicking some ass on the second race and seeding into the Premiere Division. +1
- "Go on Lane 4. Come on. Cheer for Lane 4. Claps for everyone. Come on. Allons-y. Gah-yau. Cheers for everyone."(2) -1
- Hooking up. +1
- "Take autoroute Bonaventure... TRUST ME!" and ending up on the wrong highway going away from montreal on a long ass bridge across the St. Lawrence to the south shore.(4) -1
- Pissing off Andrea with my lack of signalling and running of lights. +1
- Having expensive steak dinner with wine. +1
- Walking back to the hostel faster than the cabs can drive. +1
- Boozing at night. +1
- Boozing all night until 3:30am. +1
- Breaking up. -1
- Waking up at 5:30am for a 9am first race of the day. -1
- 2:14.21 - our time for the first race of the day, qualifying us for the Premiere C Division. +1
- 2:14.20 - the time for the next fastest boat of that particular race. -1
- Being faster than the Komodo Dragons. +1
- The Mofo's figure out the heavier boat problem and protest. +1
- Their heat gets to re-race. -1
- Waiting hours for incompetent staff to post one set of race results. -1
- Dropping down to Premiere D Division. -1
- Tripping on yellow caution tape.(3) -1
- Coming in fourth place in Premiere D Division, making us the 22nd best team in the festival. +1
- No hardware. -1
- Sex wax for $3. +1
- Preboozing before hitting the clubs. +1
- Club Super Sexe. +1
- Clubbing with friends. +1
- Dancing with someone, for a change. +1
- Last call at 3am instead of 2am here in Toronto. +1
- Only 5 hours sleep before driving home, 7 hours total throughout weekend. -1
- Sharing a room with Andrea, who hates me so much. +1
- $42 Parking ticket for parking past 9:30am. -1
- St. Hubert for lunch. +1
- Driving 6 hours to Toronto. -1
- Regrettable Events. -1
- Going from buzzed/drunk to sober in 1 minute. -1
- Situation so FUBAR'ed that I couldn't enjoy the rest of the night. -1
- So emotionally disturbed that I couldn't even bring myself to booze anymore. -1
- Watching one of the funnest, tightest teams I've ever known fall apart in one night. -1
Net Score: -2
(1) = There were two different sets of dragonboats - a heavy set and a light set. Obviously this will result in a systematic error during time trials, where every other heat will recieve slower times, affecting the division placement. Why the fuck would you use two different sets of boats?
(2) = This was what the announcer said in a very emotionless monotonous voice in a heavy chinese accent during races to try and motivate the crowd and the racers.
(3) = Wires providing power to the sound systems on the stage were covered by black wood to reduce risk of tripping. Some people stubbed some toes and complained. Loose yellow 'Caution' tape was strung along the ground on top of the black wood, creating an even more serious tripping hazard.
(4) = The last time I trust Mike's directional advice in Montreal after clearly reading the sign that says 'Montreal - Centre-ville/Downtown,' and not taking that onramp like I'd originally intended.
I think I may have been better off if I had stayed at home this weekend. There was so much aggravation from the festival and the shit that went on this weekend that I want a refund on my stat holiday. First off, the festival was run like a made-in-china car. The race HQ staff completely switched off their brains and turned a good festival into a Mickey Mouse affair that could possibly have been worse then TIDBRF @ Centre Island. The Olympic Basin has what's needed to record results for olympic events, yet for some reason, the staff couldn't put the right numbers on a piece of paper and tack it on a board.
They were trying to use a wireless network to transfer the race results from the race tower to the laptop at race HQ, which uses the wireless network to print the race results. Apart from the obvious redundancy in that system, the organizers were having problems with the wireless network. It seems like the tower couldn't communicate with the laptop. The organizers speculated that it was the incredibly thick mass of people between the race HQ and the tower. Apart from being a moron, the organizer was too fucking stupid to think about the fact that the tower is about 30 feet above the ground, where the laptop is. That little fact aside, the tower is made from solid concrete and steel. Good luck beaming fuck all through that. I am convinced that it would have been faster to get someone with neat printing to handwrite the race results at the tower and deliver them to the race HQ. Instead, they decide to send a staff member back and forth from the race tower to the HQ with the laptop, manually copying the data. Of course, he doesn't do his job, and instead uses the laptop to create and print price lists for his friend's t-shirt stand.
And then there was Rain Man. Affirmative action in every sense of the expression. His mouth was agape constantly, as if he couldn't physically close it. The shit that came out of his stupid fucking head was beyond incompetent. When I went to race HQ to inquire about why race 7 and 8 had identical results for different team names, I couldn't seem to effectively communicate which race number our team was in. I told them that there was an issue with races 7 and 8, our team having raced in 8. They heard 6 and 7, and I was told that the issue with 6 and 7 had been rectified. I corrected them - race 8, 7 and 8! They wanted to hear 7, so that's what they heard. They called another organizer higher up and she gave me the situation on the correction for race 6 and 7. I explained my situation again from square 1. Rain man, who was there the whole time, then tells me that the results for race 7 and 8 had been posted half an hour ago, and that I should go check there. No fucking shit, you dickhead. How else would I have a problem with the race results if you didn't post them on the board? I just wanted to grab him and shake him until he went unconscious. Come back in 20 minutes. Fucking idiots. Later in the afternoon, after the Mofo's re-raced, the head organizer guy was trying to get the results printed. Rain man proceeds to start printing the entire day's results starting from the first race at 7am. This was after the staff already fucked up the same set of race results a bunch of times. Needless to say, the organizer blew about a dozen fuses and lost 3 years off the end of his life. I can totally understand. Surrounded by so much incompetence, there is no salvation but perhaps suicide.
I think i've acually lost from going on this weekend.
