hi sb! remember me? it's chris... the guy with the incredibly unpronounceable screen name.

sorry i've neglected you lately, but life's left little room for toy-nerdery this past year, and it's about to get a lot worse...
if any of you follow my instagram, you know i spent the last week in shanghai. what you may NOT know is that i'll be
moving there soon. as in by the end of march soon. it's been a relatively quick development... it all began right after
thanksgiving, so right about 2 months to getting the green light to make everything happen.

if anyone's up for it, we could try to get a cask outing together before i take off..s smoque is DEFINITELY on my bucket
list of places to go while i still can. so chime in, let's see if we can pull something off.

cheers!

sssss-Ben-icks. Easy!

I'm down for a gathering!


Smoque sounds grand. I love Shanghai, wonderful city!

Let's do this!




PS also I believe it's pronounced /ʃnəpps/ but what do I know.

if you what to get all phoenetical, it's closest to "is ben hicks"... but i digress. =p

"BEN HICKS!"

I pronounce it "Schnebbs."

Congrats on the move, the Instagram photos have been pretty incredible!

Schwebbs!

Schwawanka!

Schmeil!

we must meet up

Holy moly! Big move, man. I hear Shanghai is where all the action is. Good luck on the move.

"schnebbs" for me as well. one syllable, clearly.

If someone wants to take the lead of this unruly group and get us altogether before Chris heads to China please let me know. Would love to come out for a CASK night!

I'll see what Chris is up to and and what his schedule looks like, and I'll starting trying to get a group together!

I completely spaced on this. Life's been rough out here.

I trust SmilingIdiot's ability to organize this, he always does great.

Okay, I've been talking (well, texting...) with Chris and this is what we've been able to put together. Please let me know if this works for you all.

Sunday, March 8th at around 2:30-3:00pm, we will have the CASK Smoque BBQ lunch/early dinner. Chris mentioned in the earlier post that this is on his Chicago bucket-list (and I'm always down for their beef brisket) so this seems a logical choice. Feel free to bring new toy acquisitions for Show N Tell! It is also BYOB, so we can pre-game for...

Sunday, March 8th at around 5:30-6:00pm, Chris is having a "Farewell" gathering at Long Room the same evening as our Smoque run, so we can swing by there after we have our fill of BBQ and drink ourselves silly. While this is not exclusively a CASK event, all CASK members are welcome to come out and celebrate sbbenhcs's new adventure!

Hopefully, everyone can make it to both events, but feel free to join us at either one if your time is limited.

UPDATE! of course since this isn't my show and i get my information second-hand from the head office... the long room thing is happening on
saturday the 7th, NOT sunday the 8th. now one of two things can happen: we move smoque to saturday and proceed as planned, or we keep
church and state (or CASK and non toy-nerds) separate and keep smoque on sunday. it makes no difference to me, but we are looking at the
possibility of having roost carolina kitchen or honey butter fried chicken cater our party on saturday evening... meaning my smoque intake may
be slightly adjusted to accommodate the oncoming layer of booze and fried chicken. hell, i just sold myself on the idea! let's move everything to
saturday the 7th!

Either works for me and since I live around the corner from smoque any day is a good day for great bbq.

I'm in.

I am also right around the corner from Smoque

ah, crap! I am going to be in San Francisco that weekend. I completely got my dates mixed up and I'm just realizing that this very moment.

Okay, so far, only sbbenhcs, magillagorilla and I are listed as in for Smoque...anyone else want in on this action?

i'll be there at 2:30 tomorrow, regardless! =p
the full-fledged celebration kicks off around 6:30 at the long room (1612 w irving park rd, near the corner of irving park and ashland), which gives us some time to do our smoque thing, and then i can get back to the apartment in time to run out and grab some food for the party. i'll aslo put in a call to kirby, see if he'll be able to make either of our shindigs.

mmm... smoque...

I texted smiling idiot about meeting earlier but never heard back. ;(

My flight is at 3. So if you guys are meeting around 12 for some preparing I'm in. Otherwise I will be there in spirit.

Best of travels s-be-be-nks!!!