Chuck Norris does not love Raymond

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During the winter months we made a few trips away and went to a few shindigs. One was a meal and drinks ... loads of drinks, at Niamh and Paul's. They were a hard case Irish couple that Nic had met through her work. Instead of potatoes and Guinness which you'd expect from an Irish couple, it was a spicy curry and flaming sambuca shots. Any other memories of the night escape me for some strange reason.

Brenton, a mate of mine who I'd met working at both the Flames and at Skystone, his girlfriend Jenn, Nicola and I decided to go to Banff one weekend to catch up with Rick who'd offered to put us up. So we congregated at Brenton and Jenn's after work and made the trip out. As we arrived at Rick's place he was mopping frantically, he had decided to see whether pouring dish washing liquid into his dishwasher would work. It didnt, foam and water was everywhere. Once cleaned up, we headed out for a feed, we would have no doubt been served by an Aussie, they flock to Banff in winter. I didn't get food poisoning so they must be doing something right. Afterwards we headed back to Rick's for some drinking and searching for Chuck Norris quotes. My favourite: Chuck Norris does not believe in the periodic table, he only believes in the element of surprise.

We had planned to go ice fishing but because of inclement weather we banned that idea, instead hiring ice skates and heading down to the river which was well and truly frozen. Before we started Rick showed us a large spot on the ice that was a mixture of brown and red. He told us that a few weeks ago he'd been hungover and summoned all his energy to go and buy some drinks. He went for a large chocolate milk and a large cranberry juice. He then explained how he'd slipped and as he hit the deck both drinks exploded all over him and the ice. Rick would have to do with tap water that afternoon. The funniest part is that people crowd around the area hypothesing about what animal was mauled on this spot.

Who thinks I'd be good at ice skating? Anyone who said yes, then you are wrong, very wrong, I suck ... badly. What made things worse was that everyone else was awesome, especially Brenton who'd been bought up playing ice hockey. And then to add insult to injury a group of kids about 5 or 6 years old started hooning passed me, looking at me like I was retarded. In skating terms I guess I am. The only time I was ok was when there was a tail wind and I could just glide without moving my skates. I was happy to finish up and head back for drinks.

Rick decided it was a good day for trivia so he was playing title songs from movies and making us guess them. A good way to kill a few hours, and also a good way to impress Rick, whenever we got any he would go into a frenzy. This excitement was also evident when later on we started talking about current issues in the news. Rick is somewhat of an avid yet amateur debater when intoxicated. I'm not sure if he totally understands the concept of it though because he starts out debating one thing and then totally changes sides. It means he never loses but then again he never really wins. It's something you have to experience firsthand to grasp the bizarreness of it all. The only thing Rick is constant on is his hatred of being called Richard. I heard Chuck Norris tried to call him Richard once, it's the only fight Chuck Norris has ever lost.

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