Jon Quixote was There!: The Notorious Hitchhiker

There was a special Massive Hoverboat Flotilla tonight in honor of the 2006 Winter There Games. Apparently, it was a repeat of the June 2005 flotilla. My passengers at the start were Justin500, Dihtri, and TheChaz. qgon was promised the fourth seat, but he had internet connection problems and didn't get to join us until after the flotilla had ended. Like qgon, the flotilla got off to a shaky start with only myself and one other boat following Stungthumbz. Superbear had tried to use a club to create the group IM this time around and it totally backfired. The IM wound up crashing and most people were left in the dust as we departed for our trip around Comet Island. Boats slowly joined in formation as they caught up with the pack and soon we were flying in fashion!

As a special treat tonight, MissyJean logged in while we were waiting at the halfway point! I summoned her, she suited up, and joined us for most of the remaining stretch. It was good to have her riding in the flotilla again. It's a shame Buff wasn't there, though. It would have been nice to get the old crew back together.

We saw some really strange things on this flotilla, including (but not limited to) tiny pink one-man boats, invisible boats, deadly missiles hurled at us from boats' aft launcher tubes, and boats that spit avies out the rear as if they were exhaust!! Boy, I tell ya, it was a night of oddities.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. That is a grown avie riding the boat equivalent of a tricycle! And to port... there's... some... thing... on the wing... some.. THING... out there!

In addition to contending with such strange phenomena, this flotilla also included a deadly arsenal of feelium balls!! Sir! Klingons on the starboard bow! Scrape them off, Jim!!

Now, as if all that weren't enough, Justin chose tonight to begin his career as a stunt double. Somewhere along the way, he stated his desire to jump from my shuttle onto Geoschroy's helicopter. I, lacking the salted peanuts and in-flight movies my passengers required, was forced to find other means of entertainment. So, I obliged to Justin's request and brought my shuttle up alongside Geo's chopper. Suddenly, and without warning, Justin took a leap of faith!

After that first successful jump, there was no quenching his thirst for thrills. He took a few more test jumps onto Geo's chopper, then grew more daring and began leaping greater distances under more dangerous and unpredictable circumstances. On one occasion, he popped the glass without warning and leapt from my shuttle causing a sudden drop in cabin pressure! While we struggled to maintain control and avoid the myriad of boats surrounding us, Justin had already hopped skipped and jumped his way onto another boat! We had completely lost track of him! It took me quite some time to get my bearings and begin the search for my missing crewman. When I finally found him, you wouldn't believe what he was riding!

Knotty was in utter horror that he had picked up this.. this... HITCHHIKER!! He couldn't believe that someone would have the audacity to sit on HIS boat!! According to Dihtri, the worst part of it all was that Justin wasn't dressed accordingly! Where was his pink outfit?! But in all seriousness, the boat was so small that even the slightest imbalance could put it at risk of spiraling out of control and smashing into the blue concrete totally obliterating every last square pixel of material including the avies riding on it, given that our avies do not have parachutes! You know, we really should have parachutes.

Therian avies falling down, falling down, falling down...

Justin continued leaping from boat to boat, earning him the title "The Notorious Hitchhiker" among those who's seats he had temporarily commandeered. By the end of the event, I had chased him over what seemed like hundreds of miles trying to get him back! He finally ended up riding with Stellaflora who, like the others, was less than enthusiastic about having picked up a hitchhiker. He complained and complained and finally managed to ditch Justin in the middle of nowhere, where I dutifully retrieved him and continued on to land with the rest of the pack at the flotilla's conclusion.