This was originally written for the TEST forums. Posting it here for public consumption.

Fleet Name: Atlanta Meetup
FC: Jaffinator
Doctrine: BOOZECATS
Formup: Jaff’s House
When: 8/31

Hi friends, we’re going to get together and go kill all booze and do things in Atlanta.  Stafford is going to snore and Herp is going to fanboy over an HBO actor, it’s going to be great.

:frogsiren: :frogsiren: :frogsiren: :frogsiren: :frogsiren: :frogsiren:
### Sent by Jaffinator to All-All ###

Part I: The Deployening

In the spring, I decided to host my own TEST meetup as I wasn’t able to attend TESTival. At the time, I thought we would focus on just TEST nerds, but a few weeks later decided it wasn’t a bad idea to have a bunch of TEST guys hanging out with carebears, Goons, PL and others – could make for a fun an interesting time. To that end, I decided to publicize it across Reddit and Eve Forums.

We started on Thursday night in Virginia Highlands, a nice part of town with lots of younger educated people. Our initial warp-in, Taco Mac, was cyno jammed to hell with small children and frat bros, so we took a gate over to Fontaine’s, an upscale seafood bar. We had six in fleet, including myself and Deteint from [SC00P], Herp McDerpinstan (who had cyno’d all the way from Miami to crash on my couch like a boss), and three guys from Greater Groon, Surely You’re Joking and Black Legion.

Most of the night revolved around discussion of Black Legion deploying to the south (though denied), Mittani’s RMT Empire and where Surely You’re Joking should go in nullsec. We then moved off to a dive bar where the fun continued. We lost the Groon adn BL bros there and ended up at a final bar, where a four-way Buck Hunting battle ensued. I lost quite badly.

Part II: Encountering CCP and taking back Fountain

On Friday, we awoke at the ass crack of dawn to get some McD’s and headed down to Cypress Street Pint and Plate, a local pub that serves incredible food and has a good beer selection. We arrived to meet a high-sec carebear, Deteint and a CCP guy. Pretty much everyone ended up ordering the burger that the pub is famous for – a premium patty with cheddar, bacon, Sweet Baby Ray’s, sauteed onions served on two doughnuts instead of a bun. It was awesome as usual.

About halfway through, a young man from Pandemic Legion showed up. He mentioned that he was in PL and a student, but after a while we were able to prod and determine that he is no other than Destoya, a member of the AT team that had flown in all but one match (so, a champion) and a double super pilot with four years experience playing Eve.

We had a good time and probed the CCP guy a bit for info about the office, etc. Eventually, we moved downtown where Herp, CCP Guy and I did some serious people watching at DragonCon. Lots of  incredible costumes, including one of the Kerbals Space Program duders.

I ended up needing to run home and let the dog out, but my corp mate Disco Pappotte showed up and hung out to join the people watching for a bit. I met the guys at Sweetwater, where Herp, Deteint, Disco, Yornic and I took a tour, looked at cute college girls, drank decent beer and took the shortest and hottest brewery tour in the industry.

From there, we moved to The Porter, one of this nation’s finest beer bars. There were many beers consumed between our party, which grew with a dude from FA, Planek from BL and one of Goon’s Skirmish FCs, Goldnova. Shit was talked and fun was had before we decided it was time to move to another bar. Upon arriving, we had a few drinks and were joined shortly thereafter by a member of one of the RvB corps who had left to make money in incursions.

The second bar had darts, so I told the two CFC nerds that I wanted to play them with Herp in a fight over Fountain. NOS and the CFC went back and forth, trading close-outs until we tied it up with two bullseyes left apiece. Just as we were about to give up and call it a tie, I said “let’s just go around one more time.” Naturally, Herp evolved into his final form and nailed a single-point bullseye, giving us the lead and the win. Fountain secured.

Everyone headed home and Stafford arrived late into the evening, crashing almost immediately and preparing for the morning’s 6VDT-esque event.

Part III: The Main Event

Herp, Stafford and I rose on the third day to the sounds of chirping and immediately caffeinated. We made our way to Decatur, home of our main event meetup and the CCP offices. Unfortunately, we got a spook when we arrived to find a huge book festival going on. Whoops. We hit up McD’s (who took three tries to make Herp’s black iced coffee and subsequently discouraged Stafford and I from ordering anything) and headed over to the Brick Store, Atlanta’s other premier beer bar. I walked in 30 minutes before they opened and asked for a place to situate 40+ nerdlingers. They gave us their entire upstairs Belgian bar – pretty awesome considering getting the private room requires a $500 minimum.

As people trickled in, I gave out name tags and collected raffle drawing cards. We had something like 40 dudes representing TEST, PL, EMP, BL, Goons, FA, RvB, BNI, Eve Radio, carebears, etc. CCP showed up with like 7 GMs and promptly presented me with a Raven model (which I eventually traded for one of the three TFI models they brought to give away, too) and a shitload of other stuff to give away, including:

26x 60-Day Time Codes
Eon Issues
Tee Shirts
Mouse Pads
Stickers

In addition, Blink gave me 5 Pirate Battleships, 6 PLEX and a ton of promo codes to give away. Once everyone was inside and situated, we drew for everything. With that many prizes and only 40 people, I’m pretty sure everyone walked away with two things. Pretty awesome. My personal haul was the TFI model, a Vindicator and a 26-day card.

The party died down after a few hours and the smaller group moved on to Mack McGee’s, CCP’s home bar, where things got messy and hilarious with existential conversation.

Finally, we headed downtown to observe this sights and sounds of DragonCon at the Georgia Aquarium. There was a lot of Herp and Stafford bitching about walking, but once we arrived we were treated to costumes, fish and Herp’s colorful commentary about everything and anything he saw.

We then took a half-mile cab ride that cost $25 and parked at the Hyatt Regency to do some more people watching, where Herp noticed Cutty from The Wire/Tyreese from The Walking Dead and stopped him for a picture.

Eventually, we tired out (but not before I SC00Ped the guy from Brave Newbies and the one previously in RvB) and headed back, reveling in a haul of $25+ worth of Taco Bell on the way.

Part IV: Yeah, we like (chicken and) waffles!

On Sunday, this happened:

After this, everyone headed home and the weekend came to a close.

TL;DR – Nerds got together, shit was given out, lots of booze consumed and asses observed.

P.S. This is going to be a monthly thing. It won’t ever be this crazy of a blowout but if you’re in driving distance, you should come to the next one. Join “Eve Atlanta” in game for more information.