This weekend, I belatedly celebrated my birthday. The Amazing Flatmate was back briefly from her job out of town and I wanted to celebrate with her. So, rather than throw the do on my actual birthday, I waited a week.
Friday night, a gaggle of friends and I headed out to dinner and then, then, we went out for some crazy fun!
It was so much fun, guys. SO. MUCH. FUN.
I cannot explain to you just how incredibly fun this is. You kind of have to experience it for yourself.
Our group was fairly sizeable, and we were enough to split into two teams - Team Shot in the Dark, and Team Sherwood. I'll let you guess which team I was on. Here's a clue:

Anywho, the warm up round was merely a 'steal the other players' round. The goal was to shoot a person on the other team. This magical arrow would then make the player turn on their former team, cross the safety zone in the middle and fight for the opposition. Team Shot in the Dark won that one, but since it was only the warm up round, it didn't count for points.
We played six games after that, each a variation on the same theme - eliminate other players, or hit all five central targets, to win.
My favourite game had to be "Medic". In this game, instead of catching arrows or hitting a central target to return eliminated players to the field, we had a medic. With only a small, buckler-sized shield to ward off the arrows and no way to return fire, the medic ran the field "healing" injured archers so they can again join the fray. This was the final game of the night.
Tied at two all, Team Shot in the Dark pulled through by eliminating all five central targets... and quickly, too! In fact, that round was so fast, we played Medic again. This time, Team Sherwood won by eliminating the other team.
We ended the night three points a piece.
No friendships were lost, as my Kung Fu brother Jon noted.
This was such a great night. It was such a blast. I couldn't stop smiling after I went home. I grinned like an idiot as I watched some YouTube in the hopes that I could calm my blood a bit and sleep. I chuckled idiotically to myself in the shower. I smiled up at the ceiling for hours after all the lights were out, trying to sleep, too giddy and fully of adrenaline to nod off.
The games ended at midnight. It took two hours for me to stop smiling.
Archery Games is looking to start a league come January. I'm intensely interested in joining, though my already demanding schedule may make that impossible. Martial arts training four nights a week makes scheduling difficult. That said, I'm willing to give up one night a week to do this, and will make it work on the weekends.
In fact, I'm so enamoured with this, that I've decided I'll be going at least once a month (more if the league thing works out), starting in January (December is just too damned busy to schedule a game). I think I can spare roughly $30.00 once a month to play.
If you're in the Ottawa area, I highly, highly recommend giving this a go. Just do it. It was wonderful fun! Thanks to everyone who came out to play with me on Friday, and especially thanks to Archery Games for providing such an awesome, fun evening. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate surviving another year!
And now I must spend some time actually working.
Ciao!