"There is nothing funnier than watching a group of introverts trying to pretend they are extroverts." - Mao Tse Sung

Herein is the true tale of what happened over RinkUnion 3: The Coasty is Toasty. Other RU3 reports that have already been posted are all the same: we did this thing, we went to see that thing, someone said something funny, Faux Pas was even hunkier than previously thought, and Stephen is gay. Possibly some of the reports used words like "l33t", "rule", and "rules". I don't know. I haven't read any of them as they weren't written by me. This is the RU3 report you have been waiting for. All others pale in comparison (aside from mentioning that whole hunky Faux Pas thing).

Last year, Sam's big idea of fun was to drive to lower Canada to look at a rock. This year, he thought we'd all like to go shopping at a tourist trap then to the beach, but not actually to the beach. Just to the grassy area that was sort of near the beach. We were all very bored and nobody had any fun -- plus we had to pay for all this -- so I guess it's up to me to make up blatant lies about the whole misadventure.

Oh, before I begin, I'm going to mention several attendees by real name, not by rinkname. So you won't see any lame fake-o made up names like Stephen, Cynthia, or Lynette here. I'll be using thier real names. Oh, and if I don't mention your name here it's because I thought you were extremely boring. Either that, or Sam has decided to remove certain passages from this report, like when I mentioned in the RU2 report that two people were dating. I mean, if you look over the RU2 report, you'll notice that it doesn't even look like we went to Loon Mountain. I swear, the original version of that was at least twice as long before Mister Massive Deletions assaulted the report. I've spoken to Sam, and he says that this time he'll be a little bit less protective of other people's secrets.

So we went to San Diego. The first thing we did was decide on where to go for dinner. This only took seventy-eight hours. People from the area (Stephen) weren't hungry yet. Everyone else from time zones that meant it was technically tomorrow or who had to actually drive to the San Diego area (everyone else) were. So we all went to a fish place and everyone had cheeseburgers.

I know, I know. "Hey! It's a place that serves really good seafood! Whoa -- burgers and fries! I simply must try this culinary delight for I shall never find such a meal back home!" Anyway, whatever.

You know, I don't think I'll go into a blow by blow account of what happened. You've probably read that already. Instead, I'll just list a few snippets of what happened and some observations of some fellow rinkies.

Let's talk about Nathan. He's reserved, a little bit shy, a little bit geeky. He actually injured himself when hugging Lynette goodbye. Okay, here's some advice that will guarentee instant coolness, Nathan. Whenever you're about to do something or say something, ask yourself "What Would Bruce Campbell Do?" This approach (and the slightly more advanced technique "What Would Christopher Walken Do?") will take you far, my boy. Soon, you'll start developing a manly, rugged chin and have hot chicks swarming all over you. Just remember: WWBCD? Get it tattooed on your arm. Chicks love enigmatic tattoos. And scars. Go wound yourself in a manly way.

Now I'm going to talk about Rebecca, to her dismay. No, no. She's pretty cool. Very intelligent, talented, and cute. I have a feeling that she thinks I'm a dirty old man. I don't know where she would have gotten that idea.

Andrea pronounces her name incorrectly. So she's walking around and picks up another monkey-related item because she made a typo a long time ago. When she's forty, I'm sure she's going to look around her house and wonder why she has these stuffed monkey dolls, monkey keychains, and letter openers with a sculpted monkey on the handle all because of ONE TYPO SHE MADE LIKE TWO DECADES AGO.

And now for the dirt that Sam hopefully won't delete. We were all surprised to find out that and were dating. I mean, it's ! Who would have ever thought? I just thought that and were just good friends and they get along rather well. But didn't even need to say that he was dating . After all, was all over for, like the entire weekend! It was almost as bad as how and were, if you can believe that! It's strange, all these people who have met at this lil' ol' website. Last time it was and -- this time it was and ! I expect next time, we'll hear about and getting together. I'm surprised that a make-out session wasn't on the schedule. Wow. and . I was floored.

Heidi was really cool to talk with. She purchased all this food and had to take off before we were able to eat it. "Establishing an alibi," I think is what she said. I'm really not certain what that meant, but by the time that the RinkUnion was over, Sam was DEAD.

Andrew (or possibly Andy) manned the grill. Although he did a good job, I have to wonder just what the heck we were thinking. Have you ever eaten British food? Despite being British, he did a really good job. Oh, and Andrew (or possibly Andy), I really don't drive that badly. Ask Jake, Darleen, Amy, Sarah, Eric, or Jake again.

I tried talking to Andy (or possibly Andrew) at several points during the convention about my upcoming AGLL game, but never succeeded in establishing a conversation with him because I'm not a computer.

Like last year, Matthew and Maryam were always together doing couple things, so I never really got to hang out with them until Maryam ate the breakfast sandwich that exploded and got egg yolk on everything and everyone within the sixty-meter blast radius, which pretty much meant that conversation was over. Oh well, maybe next time.

Dave showed up with Carrie, which was interesting. You see, we were all worried about her actually visiting Dave, thinking that perhaps Dave would have her chained up in his basement and build a Carrie robot to bring to San Diego. The Carrie robot was built rather well, I have to say. Dave got her to speak all funny like. However, if she really was a robot, that would mean that Dave is really, really smart, so I guess we can rule that out. Plus, he doesn't even have a basement.

Oh, and when she showed up, she hugged everyone but me. I'm going to chalk this up to "awe". She still owes me one.

Joanne (or JoAnne or Jo-Anne or Joeane or something similar) went swimming so far out into the ocean, I thought she was going to drown. But that's why they have lifeguards, so we just kept getting knocked over by waves and watched the riptide sweep her further and further out. Anyway, she's still alive.

Elly was a bit of an oddity. First of all, she was the only one of us who wasn't overweight, had acne, or had bad hair. The other strange thing about her is I called her voice mail and got something that said Layla wasn't there. No, no, no. It's Elly. She should get that corrected.

Next time, she should join in on the catfight.

Cynthia, whom I didn't get to hug farewell, and Lynette, whom I did like a bajillion times but they were more her attacking anyone nearby whilst on a sugar buzz, did a mock catfight. After it, Sam decided to grapple with Carrie, but would up getting the snot beat out of him. Not content to be merely humiliated by that, he then decided to be pummeled by his older brother. After that, Sam died.

Staci was totally walking behind me when someone grabbed my butt. I'll not mention my wife here just to make it look like Staci had grabby hands. I know, I'm shocked too.

I kept taking pictures of Amanda, but that was because every time I tried to, she would run and try to hide like she was in the Federal Witness Relocation Program. So now I have all these photos of a blurry red-head trying to get away from me. I think Rebecca was telling her about me.

Staci's tall. Freaky-tall. Remember in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the really really tall aliens came out of the mothership? She was like the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman without attacking and maybe just a little bit shorter. This came as a surprise. See, Ticia is normal sized, Stephanie is smaller, so I thought there would be a natural progression size-wise. Staci is supposed to be somewhere around three feet. Oh, and just so it doesn't look like I'm fixating on her height, she has a personality, too.

I didn't get much of a chance to hang out with Amy or Leen or Jake that much, despite walking the entire length of California to my car with them. The only other time I got a chance to talk with them, Jake was in the process of killing Sam, then Leen was standing watch over Sam who was dead, and Amy... Well, I think she was involved in Sam's death somehow.

Eric was there, having freshly mugged a businessman. He lugged around a briefcase and constantly reassured us it didn't contain a bomb. Sarah also kept saying the same thing. "It's not a bomb," she would say. "He's not trying to kill you all." Just the same, I wouldn't let him put it in my car's trunk. (And just so you know, Sam didn't die in a fiery explosion.)

Oh, and Ticia and Don brought along some kid. Nobody knew what that was all about.

Hmmm... I'm trying to remember if I've made fun of everybody.

Oh yeah! Darien was so lame, he didn't even show up.

Now for a break from the roll call, here's what happened in San Diego. First we almost were evicted from the hotel before Sam and Elly even showed up. You've read about that in countless other recaps of the RinkUnion, so I'll only mention some things that only a few people experienced.

So Heidi and I were walking back from the pool when we ran into the security guard who started talking to us about noise and things and Stephanie wandered by at that moment and Heidi took that to escape from the security guard's ramblings and Stephanie realized she was now Trapped, so she kept looking to me with a look that said "please help me" and we kept trying to get away but were subjected to tales of life in the Border Patrol, how soccer players aren't as rowdy as their parents, how it was his stairwell and his pool, and this one time he almost put the smackdown on this one guy, but I expect most of his work really centers around eating donuts. ("What's my word?" "Sprinkles!") Eventually we escaped.

We did morning stuff, playing the "gremlinn wins" game several times in several different forms. We went out to eat, blah blah blah. Then we did a little impromptu talent show. Lynette ate sugar for us and proceeded to bounce off the walls. It was cool. l33t, even. Tamara and I left to check in for her conference (which wasn't as relaxing as the RinkUnion thing) and there we ate a lot of free food. I attempted to get on RinkChat through the hotel's High Speed Internet On Your TV internet connection, which was basically a dumbed down version of WebTV, so it didn't refresh the chat frame. At the conference, I managed to access RinkChat and let everyone there know that they totally sucked because they weren't out here. Blah blah blah, went to an improv comedy show and a group of us hung out with one of the comedians as he related their planning for the long form improv that was based off of the Sinbad movie we all know and loathe.

So the next day, we went to what was basically a collection of souviner shops. Apparently, Stephen came up with a list of things to do in San Diego, crossed off the items that sounded "fun" or "exciting", and handed the list to Sam. So we eventually devolved into three groups which I sort of bounced between. The first group (the kissy group) included several couplehooded people plus one of the Andrews. They wandered around, trying to find something cool to do, then eventually left to go to a museum. Moments after they left, I found the really cool buildings in the tourist trap. There were two fine art galleries down there and they were way cool. As far as I can tell, I was the only person to actually see the cool buildings. The second group (the youth brigade) seemed to spend all their time in a magnet shop reading every single "wacky" magnet. I wandered over to the third group (the happy group) and hung out with them for a few minutes until Tamara showed up. Tamara and I ate at an indoor restaurant which served the exact same things that the food courtesque places served, but charged more.

After that, everyone drove to the beach but Amy, Leen, and Jake had to walk with me to the new hotel, where my car was. Although it was a long walk, we did go through a really nice area of town - the Gaslamp District. Then we drove something like five thousand miles to get to a beach that was two miles away. We arrived in time for me to turn around and go pick up Tamara. When we returned, I attempted to drown Cynthia, but it didn't work. I basically covered the rest: British person cooks food, a cool chick fight with mucho rolling around but not enough mud, Sam gets beaten up and died, and we drove back to the hotel.

Oh yeah, all the RinkChicks took many, many pictures of me with my pants down around my ankles.

There were a lot of people I really wanted to hang out with and talk to, but everyone wanted to hang out and talk to everyone, so I didn't get to talk with nearly as many people as I wanted to. I mean, all I think I got to say to Carrie was, "Stephen wants me to ask you to pronounce 'aluminum'." How lame is that? I only got to speak to Heidi a little bit when she arrived, as she had to leave while Tamara and I were checking into the new hotel. Leen! I didn't get to talk to her at all until we were on the forced march through the Gaslamp District. Rebecca was purposely avoiding me, shouting out "Bad Touch!" whenever I came by. I could never get to speak with Stephen or Stephanie, because they were always making out. Nor could I converse with Sarah and Eric, because they were always making out. Likewise, Matthew and Maryam were unavailable. As was this year's Mystery Couple.

Despite the weekend being too short, Tamara and I had a great time. We can't wait until the next RinkUnion. If you weren't there this time, you should come to the next one. If you're worried about being murdered or killed to death, remember -- only one person died this year! That's something like a 2% mortality rate over all three RUs so far!

-Faux "And if you don't show up, we'll make fun of you" Pas