PS2 ControllerSo last night saw me pack my bags and hit the road to Bellville, where I stopped to enjoy a delicious cottage pie supper courtesy of my mom before loading Ryan into the car, making a quick pit-stop at Spar to pick up snacks and then jetting down the N1 to Karl’s place, where our scheduled night of FIFA on the big screen was about to take place.

The line-up for the evening consisted of the usual bunch. Myself and the ever “very serious about the game” Ryan versus the ever “quite serious about the game” Karl and the “couldn’t really be bothered but likes to play anyway” Jeremy, who promptly took over Karl’s flat much to the annoyance of Patricia who was trying to work on the PC thanks to the fact that Karl had ineptly arranged for her to be out on Monday night instead of last night – needlessly to say, there must obviously only be so much irritation or testosterone that she can handle because it wasn’t too long before she had organised a coffee date with Jeremy’s girlfriend and she was out of the flat faster than you could ask for a cup of tea.

Jeremy was last to arrive thanks to his involvement in a foreign documentary which saw him being interviewed alongside the legendary Desmond Tutu in Tutu’s very own offices, and it was decided pretty quickly (and unanimously) that that was a more than reasonable enough excuse for being late. Besides, none of us recognised him with his hair combed (very Emo style) anyway.

Pre-match worries had included Ryan moaning that the rest of the guys had better also bring snacks and Karl warning us about the fact that we would be playing FIFA stretched out in a 16:9 resolution on his widescreen wall of a TV, but after plugging in the PS2 and turning on the game, we quickly forgot about his dire words as the game looked pretty gorgeous to us – you’d have to be pretty anal to find something to complain about in my opinion. (Oh, and Jeremy did forget to bring snacks along. We were naturally not quite as forgiving for this more serious indiscretion of his)

As per usual there was the general chitchat and opening conversations before we got down to the serious business of getting Karl to make us coffee and serve the drinks, before finally settling down and opening the flood gates to soccer, goals and trash talk.

Despite the fact that none of us had played FIFA for ages, the games were actually pretty decent, with Karl and Jeremy even managing to pull two consecutive draws and a win all in quick succession, though these small triumphs of theirs were rather overwhelmed by some of our bigger margin drubbings of the two. Amazingly enough though, Karl managed to shock us quite a bit by actually playing for the win for a change – usually the guy just settles for a draw! :)

Of course, Ryan was playing flat out for the win, and I quickly got on his nerves by means of my constant chatting with Jeremy about all things political and economic, as what usually is the case whenever Mr Nell is in our midst. Nevertheless, despite my lack of concentration, I thought we did pretty well, particularly when we ended the night off by thrashing the JK team by six goals to one (or two – I don’t really keep track of their score).

I must say it was pretty good to do this FIFA get together once more – I’ve missed it to be honest, and I was kind of sad when Karl kicked us out of his abode around 22:30, citing the fact that he wants to get some sleep despite the fact that not a single one of us actually needed to go into the office today! (Jeremy is a full time cartoonist, Karl is working on his thesis from home, Ryan works from home and so do I. Heck, even Patricia works from home nowadays!)

So yes, it was damn fun as always and hopefully I can convince the guys to do it again – and hopefully convince Karl to host it once more as I really don’t feel like setting up the console in Ryan’s room next time we get together… :)

Oh, and apparently Chantelle had one of her best sleeps ever thanks to the fact that I opted to sleep over at my mom’s place in Bellville for the evening.

Just for that I don’t think I’m going to share the biscuits mom sent home with me then! :P