TARCon 3: The Con Continues To Grow

If you've never been to one of these parties, the general idea is that when the first season of TAR was coming to an end, a couple of the New York forum posters suggested that finding a Manhattan bar where they could get together to watch the last episode. That was the way this started a year ago. This December, we basically took over an entire bar, and were visited by nineteen TAR3 racers, nineteen former racers, and Phil. Not only that, but according to almost every racer we talked to, we were able to rescue them from a truly abysmal CBS party. CBS had better watch out, or their party is going to become the equivalent of the prom at my high school, where nobody really cared about the prom, but everyone had fun at the after-prom party. What follows is a recap of the party, in traditional recap style, sort of as if it were an episode, despite the fact that it isn't an episode. It was a party. Yes, "Alli" of the recap is me. Yes, I am referring to myself in the third person. Yes, I am recapping myself. Yes, it is completely me-centric, because the things I was there for were the things I saw, if you get my meaning. Yes, some of the things like subtitles are imaginary, but everything else is true. If any of this seems odd to you, you'll just have to learn to cope.

Drunken careening cameramen dive down the stairs of what the little white subtitles tell us is Proof, a New York bar that is to be the location of TARcon 3: This Time, There's A Cover Charge! There are approximately forty thousand people in the downstairs section of the bar, or so it appears from the way they're crammed in. Back to back and belly to belly, as they say. Alli is seated on a bench against the wall right under the TV, and for some reason, she has a bunch of gifts. Considering that I suspect she's about to mooch drinks for about the six hours, it seems to me that she hardly needs gifts, but that's just me. She appears to have a Christmas stocking, a write-on/wipe-off board shaped like a television, and a stuffed donkey, among other things. If you watched last season's TARCon, you know that she got a stuffed white sheep, so it's quite the menagerie she's putting together. We get a close-up of the tin of cookies she's holding, and apparently, they are shaped like racers. Hee. There are naked twins and gingham-shirt twins. Hee, again. Lawtalkin' Guy comes over, plunks down, and drops an arm around her shoulder. "Whatcha drinkin', honey?" "Rum and coke," she says. BZZZZT. That is a seriously bad decision. She is going to get really hot and dusty in a room this crowded, and cocktails are going to make her way too drunk way too quickly. Rum is no thirst-quencher. While he's at the bar, she looks around at the little collection of presents on the table in front of her. "I'm going to cry, is what's going to happen," she says. "I'm going to cry." Oh, bring her her drink, or she's going to get really maudlin. Unsurprisingly, given the close quarters and attendant sweat, she peels off the black shirt she has over her sweater, leaving her in red, which wouldn't be funny, except that The Amazing Editors cut back to a sequence of her in her hotel room -- apparently getting ready for the party earlier -- saying to Dallas and KTyger, "I'm not wearing red again. No more red. I wore red last time, and I can't look at one more picture of myself wearing red." We see her emerge from the hotel room bathroom in a gray shirt under the same black button-down. She peers at herself in the mirror. "Eeew, too corporate." Now she comes out again in the red and black. "I wasn't feeling the gray," she mutters to her bored roommates, who are trapped with her like miners after a collapse. "I can't do gray. And this is just a little bit of red. I can stand a little bit of red." Oh, my God, just wear something already. We cut back to the party, where she has ditched the black shirt and is once again a loud blare of red, sticking out like a colorized fire hydrant in an Ansel Adams print. If she was going for "inconspicuous," she missed by about three miles. And a half.

Once she sucks down the rum and Coke, Alli gives up her seat and stands up, as if she's going somewhere. Of course, there is nowhere to go. She stands for about three minutes before abruptly getting shorter. It takes a minute to realize that she just took her shoes off. At a bar. Apparently the entire thing is now some kind of exercise in hepatitis acquisition. Moreover, there is another funny cut back to the hotel room earlier, where she is fussing over shoes. "There are these shoes" -- she holds up the ones she just took off -- "and there are these shoes," and she holds up a pair of black heels with pointy toes that probably would have killed her dead in about five minutes. Way to bring nothing but uncomfortable shoes, bonehead. At any rate, now she's barefoot, in among about a hundred and fifty people in big, heavy shoes. If she escapes with all her toes, I will be shocked.

Now we return to the party, where everyone is glued to the TV, because the show has started. There basically isn't room to blow your nose in the place, so the majority of the crowd is in standing-room-only mode for this two-hour TV show. Now that's dedication. A montage of shots shows everyone groaning every time Flo and Zach do anything, and yelling "YAAY!" every time they see Ken and Gerard.

During the montage, we pause during one of the harried waitress's visits to the table Alli is standing in front of. On this particular trip, she has brought a Corona to Zron, who has made the fatal mistake of standing right to Alli. As he pays the waitress, Alli makes a truly pathetic and sad whimpering noise. "What?" he says without looking at her as the waitress continues to maneuver around the mob. "The Corona?" Yet another pathetic noise. "Sort of," she says. He manages not to roll his eyes, although I'm not sure how. "Did you want one?" he says. "Sort of," she says. He orders another one. And then -- and seriously, you will not believe this -- he hands her the one he has. Ack! He rewarded the whining! Truly sad. As if this weren't enough, she brightens as she pushes the lime into the bottle. "Hey, did you see that?" she bubbles. "Mock the whining, but look how well it worked for me! I whined, and now I have a drink!" He turns and gives her The Eyeball Of Death, particularly directing it at his arm, which she is energetically whapping with joy. "I can stop hitting," she says simply, and takes a swig off the beer. Enabler! He totally should have smacked her.

Late in the show, the racers begin to arrive. A little clump of them, including Frank and Margarita, Brennan, Hillary, and Kevin and Drew show up at about 10:45. Wow, they didn't even make it through the episode at the CBS party. Must have sucked. They are greeted with applause and camera flashes, and as racers will be for the remainder of the night, they are nearly pinned to the stairs at first, so enthused is the crush to meet them.

As the show ends, Alli worms her way through the crowd in the direction of Frank, who is leaning on the wall opposite her. "My girl!" he says as she approaches. They hug. She certainly does know how to make her way to the big arms. "Frank, there is no God," she says, gesturing toward the screen, where Flo and Zach are celebrating their victory. "I don't give a fuck," Frank says forcefully. "I'm glad a woman won." Now he looks up at Teri and Ian crossing the finish line. "And I'm glad they came in second. YEEEAH!" Alli scrunches up her face unhappily. They talk a little more about women winning, and about the end of Frank's season. "It came down to traffic lights for you guys, didn't it?" she says. "Not even. It was the first cab we tried to get. He was like, 'I don't go to Queens.' And I said, 'I'll give you a hundred dollars.' 'Naw, I don't go to Queens.'" Bummer, huh?

Now she's back over by the table where she was before. She and Kevin spot each other, and he comes over. "Flo and Zach?" he says incredulously. "Are you fucking kidding me with that? Are you fucking kidding me with that?" "I know," she says. "You can quote me on that," he says. And then they exchange a little hug. ["Kevin worked even bluer in his comments to Sars a little while later." -- Bruckheimer]

A bit later, we see her again with Frank, standing against the opposite wall. Mr. Pseudostudent approaches and exchanges a greeting with Frank. "Mr. Pseudo is my secret boyfriend," Alli explains. Frank adopts a shocked expression. "I thought I was your secret boyfriend! Don't lie to these people," he says. "You know I'm your secret boyfriend." Loraxe approaches with her camera at around this time, as do a few other people, and there is quite a bit of posing. Pictures are taken of Alli and Frank with their hands on each other's chests, and then they offer up a good sloppy smooch. When the flash fails on the first one, they offer another. I wouldn't put it past Alli to have interfered with the flash by mental telepathy, because you must admit that worked out fairly well for her.

A buzz mutters through the crowd, and it becomes clear that a great injustice has been righted. Chris and Alex missed TARCon 2, you'll remember, because they were reportedly too drunk to be allowed out on their own only a few hours before they were due on The Early Show. I can't literally tell you that you hear Alli's brain make a "sproing" noise when they come in, but she certainly does appear to snap to attention. Certainly hope she's enjoying the shallow end. We see her chatting in a friendly manner with Alex about the number of TWoP usernames he has chewed up and spit out as a result of losing his various passwords. And then we see her sidling (and when I say "sidling" in this context, I am not kidding) in the direction of Chris. She appears to be attempting a friendly, unthreatening expression. The funny editors throw in a shot of her, again apparently taken from earlier in the evening, in which she is telling someone, quite matter-of-factly, "Chris? Hmm, I don't know. If he shows up, it's possible I might bite him on the neck." It's nice to see someone be that willing to serve up her dignity on crackers, isn't it? At any rate, she finally makes it over to him and introduces herself. There is a glimmer of recognition and a smirk. "Dude, what's up?" he says to her. "Dude, what's up?" she says back. HA! Did you see that? She was paralyzed. Repeated it right back. Tried to make it look like mockery, but it was lust. That wasn't even deer-in-the-headlights. That was deer-already-run-over-by-truck. That was right up there with "I carried a watermelon." If she were any less smooth, she would be a bag of broken glass. You can't blame her, of course, because quite honestly, he is...lovely. And tall. Chalk up another one who didn't come across on television adequately during his season. Zoiks.

Oh, hey, look! It's Mary and Peach! They didn't make it last time, either, so it's nice to see them. They work their way through the crowd. They are probably the best-decked-out women at this party, both lovely and quite glam. This is approximately what Alli says when she encounters them. "My gosh, everybody is so gorgeous and glamorous." Unfortunately, this apparently comes across as something akin to, "You'd never guess from how dumpy you looked on television," which I don't think is quite what she meant. "Well, the show really takes it out of you," Mary says warily. Aaaand it's another moment of grace.

Alli runs into Brennan in the middle of the room. They exchange a rather tired cheek-kiss. "How are you?" he asks her. "Uh, a little overwhelmed," she says as another anonymous elbow goes into her back. "Yeah," he says. "I was upstairs for...a while." ["Sars saw him up there, and when she first approached him, he had some serious Ray Combs Dead Eyes Action going on." -- Bruckheimer] For some reason, this encounter has the feeling of rickety old boxers discussing how much their old injuries bother them. I'm half-expecting her to say something like, "Man, I'm just not the same since I had to have my spleen removed." Incidentally, Brennan's hair continues getting taller by the year.

Fresh from that low-key encounter with Brennan, we now find our fearless recapper in the back of the bar, where she is...fighting with Kevin. Well, I suppose it wouldn't be a TARCon without fighting. There's a lot of yelling about phonies and picking people up and something something, and then he's got his big smirk on and is yelling something about playing a trump card, and she's protesting something about how "that was before I knew you" or something of that sort. It's hard to follow, because they both specialize in being loud without saying anything. He appears to be harassing her about someone named "Bob," and I don't even know who that is. I'm not sure she is either, because it makes her yell, "Irrelevant!" Furthermore, I can't imagine what he's talking about, when he says "trump card." At any rate, they continue yelling until such time as they abruptly stop yelling. And hug. Wha-huh? "I love you," he says into her ear. "Love you, too," she answers. Freaks. Now she's back over by the stairs, where she has run into mjmarble and TAR 1's Brenda, with whom you will recall she had a lovely chat at DinnerCon at the end of the first season. They seem to be discussing whether various racers will be putting in appearances. I'm not sure who's under discussion here, but whoever it is, it's causing Alli to make a "bring it on" gesture, which she really can't pull off in the best of circumstances, so it seems a little ill-advised. Oh, and look! She just mooched another Corona. Mooch!

And now for the comic relief of the evening, Alli is back over by her table when she locks eyes with the still-lovely and still-tall Oswald, who immediately drops his eyelids to deliver the full-on, no-holds-barred, not-suitable-for-children Oswaldian Pheromone Leer. This is the part where she's presumably glad she's already wearing red. When they meet up, he says, "Did you miss me?" "I did," she says. "Which part of me did you miss?" "Pretty much the whole thing," she says. Wow, bungled that one. "Pretty much the whole thing" is just about the lamest answer you could provide for that question. Almost anything else would be better, including several things she will probably think of later, such as, "Florida, as coincidence would have it."

Cut to Alli and Tramel, apparently in the middle of a conversation about -- you guessed it -- hats. Ugh. He explains that he brought his Tilley along on the race especially because he knew that the one way not to be overlooked was to bring your mockable hat. They have a chuckle over this, as it is her first confirmed onscreen shout-out. When he moves along to his fan, she gets a chance to talk to Talicia. They meet, they say hello. "You were always very kind to us," Talicia adds evenly. "Hey, you did great," Alli says. (Okay, we're about to move from "not smooth" to "possibly toxic as a conversationalist.") Talicia pauses and looks at her. "Well, no, we didn't, but that's nice of you." "Hey," Alli points out, fortunately sincere as well as attempting to bail her klutzy ass out yet again, "you got screwed by the WaveRunner." "Yes, we did," Talicia says. Good grief.

Shortly thereafter, she is over closer to the stairs that all of the racers have used for their entrances, when she looks over and sees the giddily happy Andrew standing between the cool-looking Heather and Eve. She goes over and shakes his hand. "Andrew, I'm Miss Alli," she says. "You're Miss Alli? Oh, it's so nice to meet you!" he says graciously. Andrew's smile? Is about forty times as powerful as the sun. No, really. "Oh, it's great to meet you, too," she says. Now, no one talks. Alli glances at Heather with a forced smile. Heather glances at Alli with a forced smile. Eve stares off in another direction. "Yeah. Anyway, I'm on my way upstairs," Alli says, and hops up the stairs, still in her stocking feet. Wow, that's a first. That's the first time she and a team have ever blown each other off. Eh, probably won't be the last.

Upstairs, she runs into Sars, who is standing in the entryway to the upstairs bar. They exchange a greeting, and chat a little about how crowded it is downstairs. Just then, who should ease by them but Flo. Flo! Dun dun dunnnn! She, of course, has no way of recognizing either of them, so she squeezes by into the upstairs bar. Just after her, here comes this guy in a NASCAR cap, looking more than a little overwhelmed, who turns out to be Drew. When they've passed, Alli and Sars exchange a silent look that says something like this: "Hmm." ["Well, maybe Alli's silent look said something like that. Sars's pulled an TV-MA rating." -- Bruckheimer]

Somehow, Alli winds up downstairs again, just inside the door, as Flo and Drew make their way into the room. In fact, she winds up standing sort of between them, in a crushing mob of people. Finding herself shoulder-to-shoulder with Flo, she introduces herself, but Flo is distracted, because Drew has just taken his hat off to reveal quite a case of hat-head, and this is making Flo very unhappy. She reaches across several people, like she's actually going to cram the hat back on his head, but he eventually does it himself, and Flo vanishes into the crowd. Now Drew is just in front of Alli, with his back to her. She's backed up to a table, with the backs of her knees against the edge, and they're literally front-to-back in this sea of people. Moreover, he's now having his picture taken, so he's trying to back up a little bit. Alli scoots backwards, with nowhere to go, staring at the back of his hat-head, which is about three inches from her nose. You can tell she's wondering whether this is an apt time to introduce herself. He scoots back a little more, and she leans back in turn, now pinned to the table. Finally, she extricates herself and makes her way into a little bit of open space, where she runs into a friendly face at last. "Drew just, like, body-slammed me into a table," she says. "How was that?" says the friendly face. She nods slowly. "Wasn't bad."

More mingling footage transitions us deeper into the party, at which point a murmur makes its way to Alli that >b>Ian and Teri are there. Her eyes widen. "Oh, this'll be interesting," she says. And then it is upon her. "Ian. Ian is, like, right there," says someone taller than she is who can see over the crowd. She looks over just as the crowd parts, and she and Ian look at each other. "Are you Miss Alli?" he asks her with a rush of energy. "Yes," she says. "I love you!" he yells, and steps to her, gathering her up in a giant hug. "Oh my gosh," she says over his shoulder, laughing, once again showing off that articulate poise she's been throwing around the room. "Thank you." Teri is soon there, too. "You're Miss Alli?" she says eagerly. Alli: "[Nod.]" They hug as well. Title of this scene: You Just Never Know.

Aw, look! It's Russell and Cyndi. If you read the forums, you know that Cyndi has become one of the most faithful and beloved question-answerers on the forums, so they get quite a stir of attention at the party. I'm sorry, they are just too nice to mock.

Ah, more TAR 2 refugees, coming to atone for missing their own party. Shola and Doyin are stunning in person, although -- like several of the guys -- a little shorter than you might expect from seeing them on TV. Alli catches up with them over by the stairs, late in the evening. Chris is there, too, so if you took her temperature, it would probably be a bit unnaturally inflated, but that's neither here nor there, I suppose. At any rate, she tells all three of them the tale of Blake calling her "a little shit" at the second party. She should send Blake a royalty check, because I suspect that was her favorite meet-a-racer story until Ian told her he loved her.

Jill and John Vito, for obvious reasons, get a royal reception from the minute they are spotted on the stairs. It might be more newsworthy to report that they look haggard, or unhappy, or that they're rude. Unfortunately for newsworthiness, they look gorgeous, and they act...just about the way you'd expect. Just inside the door, John Vito is handed a name tag that says, "HELLO MY NAME IS John Vito." He smooths it over his giant pec, and for some reason, this makes Alli giggle. I think the mooching is beginning to get to her. Just as she and Jill introduce themselves, John Vito leans down to talk to Jill. "There's a coat check over there. Let me have your coat." So she does. It appears that this is, shockingly enough, unchoreographed. "He is so nice," Alli bubbles to Jill. "He's always the perfect gentleman," Jill agrees simply. They move on to the topic of Jill's enthused face-plant. "How did you like seeing yourself wipe out on TV?" (There wasn't a more graceful way to say that? Good grief.) "Oh, that was so funny," Jill says. "When I hit the ground, I was telling myself, 'People are going to be watching you on TV going, "Get up! Get up!" so you better get up.'" Alli laughs. "It looked like it hurt." Jill: "Oh, it did. That hurt." Heh.

The potential for drama presents itself again as Aaron and Arianne make their way through the crowd. Aaron has let his hair get long and spiky, and Arianne has selected a sweater-jacket for the evening with fluffy feathery trim. Quite the picture they make. As Aaron goes by, Alli reaches out and grabs his sleeve. "Aaron, I'm Miss Alli." He narrows his eyes in a caricature of menace. "Miss Alli," he says. "It's an honor to meet you." They shake hands, the way James Bond sometimes shakes hands with people he knows are evil. You'll have to decide who's evil and who's James Bond. "It's an honor to meet you, too," he says. "It's wonderful to be here among all our enemies," he oozes comically. "Oh, there are only friends here," Alli assures him. Introduced to Arianne, Alli continues to impress by coming up with absolutely nothing to say except, "Wow," while fingering the trim of Arianne's jacket.

Later, we see Alli in the back of the bar, which is not a coincidence. She has come, it appears, in search of Drew, who she hears has settled himself somewhere back there and, legend already has it, is mightily amused by one of the party favors in the goodie bag, which is his very own copy of a postcard of the "Am I The Keeper Of My Brother's Butt?" naked picture of him and Derek that made its way into the TWoP consciousness before the show even aired, and never left it. I suspect Alli is more impressed by people who take that sort of thing in stride than by practically anything else, so it's not surprising that she goes back to try to find him and say hello. When she gets there, he is actually on the phone. Someone tells her that he is, in fact, on the phone with Derek. When he's off the phone, she insinuates herself into the little circle of people he's talking to, but doesn't say anything at first. He gives her an opening (hee) when he mentions how funny it was that so many people had so much to say about that picture. She admits to being partially responsible, and gestures sort of lamely at her nametag. What follows is a surprisingly normal, low-key conversation about the picture, and about how Derek inspired his namesake character in Zoolander, and about how it was strange that people were so put off by Derek screaming at him, because according to Drew, he (Drew) tends to be the one who gets his way. Incidentally, he, too, is a bit shorter than one might have guessed, not that it matters.

As Alli and Drew are finish up this chat, he is again surrounded by a little crowd. A tap on Alli's shoulder turns her around, and -- hey, it's Flo! They exchange a friendly greeting, and Flo starts to say, "I have to tell you this story." Still pretty much stuck in the gaggle of people hanging around Drew, Alli takes Flo's elbow and nudges her away from the horde. "I want to be able to hear this," Alli says, "so let's go over here." As they walk off, Flo reaches over and snags the beer right out of Drew's hand. He actually looks down at his empty hand for a minute with that look, like, "Didn't I just have a beer?" At any rate, the two women walk over and lean on the wall facing each other, yapping like a couple of girlfriends. Flo explains that an argument took place earlier in the day over whether "Alli" is pronounced like it rhymes with "valley," or like a boxer. Alli confirms that it rhymes with "valley." "That's what I thought," Flo says. Apparently, this gives her a point over Zach, who went the other way. Looking around the party, Flo says, "This really isn't as bad as I was afraid it was going to be." Alli shrugs. "These people," she says, "are generally wise to the fact that just showing up says something positive about you." "I'm the happiest girl in the world," Flo says with a shrug. "And that," she says, pointing at Zach, who has arrived and is standing only a few feet away, "is just the greatest guy I ever met." "He seems like a sweetheart," Alli agrees. "You know," Flo says, "when I wanted to go on this race, I told him, 'Come on this race with me, and you will not regret it. I'll get us on this show and I will get us across the finish line.'" She stops and thinks. "And, you know, I got us on the show, and he got us across the finish line, and that's what being a team means." Alli pauses, as if to absorb this. I'm not sure she entirely buys this theory, but it's better than some of the alternatives. Perhaps not wanting to get too deeply into it, she changes the subject. "That was you posting in your thread, right?" Alli says, wearing a dubious expression. "Yeah," Flo says ruefully. "That was a real low point. Drew had just gotten eliminated, and, you know..." Her voice trails off. She goes on to explain that it hasn't exactly been the most pleasant experience in the world, watching this particular footage of herself with people she's known for a long time, not to mention people she's just now getting to know. Alli nods. "I don't think it got really, really bad until, you know, the last three or four episodes," she says, and Flo nods. "Until then, I think people felt like whatever you were doing, it was working for you, so...it was really just the last few, where, you know..." "I know," Flo says with a nod.

Once this unexpected peace summit breaks up, Alli walks over to where Zach is standing. She manages to introduce herself without falling down or anything. "I have to tell you," Zach says, "I'm pumped to meet you. This is huge." "You should not be pumped to meet me," she points out. "You have half a million dollars." They laugh. Zach proceeds to likely earn himself a place in the hearts of both Miss Alli and Sars, who is also present for this conversation, by expressing concern over the health of TWoP. He asks how things are going, and Sars tells him -- for now, we're hanging in. But the asking? Is obviously pretty impressive. ["Equally impressive: that Sars managed to resist observing that half a mil buys a lot of stickers." -- Bruckheimer] There is some chat about his hair and his headbands, and Alli eventually says to him, "Those last few legs looked pretty rough." "They were," he says. "And they were...just as bad as they looked on TV?" "Yep," he says flatly. Fascinating.

Late in the evening, there is yet another buzz in the building. Phil has decided to pay a visit. This is probably the biggest news to circulate all evening, given the fact that Phil is widely regarded as quite the underutilized heartthrob in TWoP circles. Alli's original effort to go over and say hi is quite literally crushed by the crowd that is storming him, and she is forced to abandon this plan and head for the back of the bar again. A bit later, we see her standing back there, probably taking deep breaths for a whole variety of reasons, and then someone comes over and tells her that Phil wants to say hi and is leaving soon. As she goes out into the bar to find Phil, she runs into Sylvia, who is really friendly and really nice, and unfortunately gets a really well-intentioned brush-off. "I have to go do a thing," Alli says, once again displaying that education her parents paid good money for, "but I'm going to come right back." I have a feeling she will forget to go right back, given the tumultuous sequence of events. Again, oops.

Poor Phil's voice is pretty much dead by the time Alli gets to him. In fact, their entire conversation has to be done in yellow subtitles, because he leans over and hoarsely whispers into her ear. I suspect she thought that was okay, too. He explains that although he doesn't read the site, he appreciates all the support. They're having a very nice chat about support and what a good show it is and so forth, and then Loud Drunk Frank arrives, and proceeds to give a lengthy spiel about not only how great Phil was when he was on the Travel Channel, but how Phil has "a big giant set of balls." Wow, that conversation took a turn.

Probably the most eagerly-awaited contestants are Ken and Gerard, who of course get the big "YAAY!" on their way in. Alli works her way over to Ken pretty much as soon as she gets the chance. They exchange a little hug. "Hello, honey," he says to her. "I was mad you didn't win," she offers back. He laughs. And then they lean in like they're gossiping, so I don't think they want me to tell you about it.

A little later, we see the crowd quite literally part, and Gerard say, "Are you Miss Alli?" She says yes. Gerard gives her a mock I'm-not-worthy bow, which is of course completely ridiculous, because Gerard is the worthiest ever. "I love the recaps," he says simply to her. "Love them, love them, love them." Aww! And then it's all about logistics. How many times does she watch the episodes? Does she get paid? Doesn't she have a real job she could be doing? (Okay, not the last one.) She, on the other hand, still wants to discuss how wrong it is that they didn't win. "I was mad you didn't win," she says again. He shrugs. "We couldn't get a cab." As you would expect, he is warm and funny, and she calls him her "King of Wit." Is that anything like "Ambassador of Kwan"? Because if it is, how lame!

And now, in case you have missed what a good party it was, we are provided with a montage. Yay, a montage! While happy music plays, we see Chris and Alex lift raptorgirl right off her feet, entirely unexpectedly, to pose for a picture. An excited Dennis jumps up onto the bench along the wall with his video camera, grinning and taping Andrew's entrance and subsequent mobbing by fans. And there's Andrew again, dancing on the table. And Tramel's chicken dance. IvyB hands Flo her party favor (which was a bottle of jellybeans labeled "FloZach Prozac"), and Flo laughs. Miss Dona shows off the donkey piata with two Barbie dolls perched on top of it that she has made in honor of Heather and Eve. Talking, dancing, talking, talking, laughing, drinking. Drinking, talking.

You know, it's always a good party, and it looks like this was the best one yet. It's hard to imagine where it can possibly go from here. A baseball stadium?