She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean…

I’ve done quite a few interesting things in the past three days, with only the one major side effect; I’ve lost my voice. So if you needed to call me, for whatever reason, you’d be far better off with an email, unless you like croaking…
On the plus side, and in no particular order, over the last weekend, I have:

• Broken a Jet boat, and been stranded near a floating bus stop.
• Been on a plane piloted by a Hobbit. Well, that’s the only conclusion I can come to, given two clues: A rather bumpy landing (Hobbits would have trouble reaching all the controls) and the fact that his name was announced as (and I swear I’m not making this up) as Stumpy Longbottom.
• Drunk my own body weight in Bourbon & Coke. Apparently so much (in a group of fellow journalists) that the bar ran dry. I’m blaming APC’s Dan Chiappini for all of this, and I suspect he’s blaming me.
• Discovered that otherwise ordinary T-shirts have a gender. I wonder how they procreate?
• Made a complete and utter fool of myself by tumbling off a chair sideways. In the middle of a press briefing. Before anyone (myself included) had touched a single fermented drop of anything.
• Won rather resolutely in a not-always-friendly game of Poker. On an all-in, last hand of the night gamble. Which I won on the River. Given my usual run of luck in such things, I’m not sure how I pulled that one off.

Just in case I get accusations of being some kind of workshy scrounger, I’d also point out that I’ve gone to product sessions, chatted to printer company representatives and generated plenty of story ideas and future story pitches in the midst of all of this. Sometimes, as with the chair incident, right in the middle of it. It’s all in the name of the career, folks.
So what led to this particular set of consequences? Well, those of you who like visual clues can click here to figure it all out.