@Tom:
What if the first part of the goldfish was about the fish the giants killed on the coast of Little Garden, and the fighting fish the dwarwes caught is the second part of his story. Then there were dragons I believe, the salamander they chased. That would be Vegapunk's dragons. I got the books closeby so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to go check it out, but I'll trust my lousy memory and say there was something about the shopkeeper of his local town. His dog was a cerberus. Could be totally wrong here though.
I think your right, the dragon & the Cerberus were shown in the flashbacks when he was saying goodbye to the boys, think its ch 40 or 41. I agree on the Goldfish lie coming true in two parts- Little Garden & Green Bit. I wanna look anyway since I can't remember what he said about one of the townsmen, do remember one calling Usopp 'apple thief' and Usopp said something to the boys…
EDIT= just checked, he called him the 'alien store owner'. XD So we WILL see the crew encounter aliens in the main story somehow someday! ... well Oda HAS shown them in the coverpages, from Enel's encounter with space pirates to a random cover of Sanji doing a sky watching while a flying saucer flies in the sky behind him. XD
@Arcadia080:
About the Usopp and the 8000 followers. I always thought it would be fun for something like this to happen.
Usopp - I have 8000 Followers.
Big bad - Big deal I have 50,000 followers.
Then suddenly 8000 Elbaf giants come bounding over a hill following Usopp into battle.
But 8000 Dwarfs is good too.
LOL I actually got an image of the giants coming of the ridge! I agree the 8000 dwarves would be good!