the past

i took my last two days of work off sick, as i had a cold, and played on the computer and stuff. in fact, i went into work on my last day but came home after two hours and a couple of blog posts.

that night i went with ed to see half man half biscuit who were very good (sorry this is a bit old now and i can't remember so well as i didn't blog it at the time). they brought on a cellist and percussion girls for 'it's cliched to be cynical at christmas. i was pissed off at first that we only got seated tickets - it was like watching a gig rather than being at a gig - but i was very glad of it because i got to sit down for the whole thing, and we did have a great view and it was my third gig in a week.

the next day i fled to macc, and then manchester, in an effort to get just the perfect presents. i was determined to buy tim a line 6 ux1, for birthday and christmas, but i had to go and have a think about it, and then it was too late - the train was going back to mac so i ended up getting him only a bottle of wine. (today however, this paid off, as he awoke on his birthday to find a toneport keyboard interface, a very sexy piece of hardware and software.)

christmas came and went, where i finished watching the first series of the kingdom - lars von trier is a very sick man. a nice quiet family christmas. et shitloads and walked it off.

the adventure began on the last friday of the year. i went to rugby to see laurence and his lovely parents, as he was on a visit over from kaneda. got in at a reasonable time, refried some pasta sauce, jammed, played trivial pursuits and it's rival quiz games, adn then got out the hero quest.. i took laurence and martin through the first quest of 'return of the witch king', with my best games master hat on, bullying and caressing the players in equal measure; we finished at 6 and collapsed into bed (except martin who had to walk home).

after tidying everything away the next morning/afternoon, we et cheesy sausagey oatcakes and went to london and things went fuzzy or maybe that's how i remember them. we watched jamie play zelda for a while. none of this is as interesting in retrospect as what';s been happening more recently, and i've no idea how it gets to new years eve so quickly, so i'll speed up. laurence and i went to a pub with a near-empty no-smoking room (that's something i'll miss come july) then went to bed and then it's seven o'clock the next day, and we're meeting corey and ross (or was it joss?) in the foyer of the british museum, which is as far as corey's ever been in. we had the same conversations about hotdog stands as we did in copenhagen, which was grounding, and then in our quest for grub ended up in maoz, as everywhere else was closed, because it was new year's eve, you fool. some nice veggie model archetypes on the menu, although i thought the lass with the chips looked a bit beefy though you can never tell. and then the other maoz outlet had different people on the menu! i wanna be a maoz veggie role model for a new generation of falafel kids.

so then we went to a big gay pub, and joined the london bear society. i caved in and played pool, and found out that if you simply hit the white in a straight line in the right direction, it will sink the desired ball. i never knew that. we hit camden and using my a-z and mobile phone, fawlked a zig-zag around the direct route 'til we found jasmine's.

given the quality kit on display, it's a shame there was no performance. a wierd night with a psuedo-roleplaying espionage game which some people took completely seriously and others totally ignored, leaving me heckling jasmine's boyfriend about how it was all predetermined (only because my clues were completely chod). i stopped drinking at some point because i was rediculously dunk, then started again on the ginger beer and whiskey. hooray for chocolates and candians.

leaving jasmine's at 6 or 7 in the morning, we walked in what we thought was the right direction in the rain until we found a tube station, i've no idea which one or what line it was on. four hours after getting to bed, i was being forcibly woken up in the bright sunlight of a new year (as if you could tell) by laurence and dragged to victoria. by the time we got to brighton the sun had gone in but never mind, it was still great. actually great. went round chris and rifa's and rach and robin's and everything was all right with the world.

brighton is good. brighton is a lovely town with a needlessly good concentration of better shops than anywhere else i've ever been. and it's got the sea, which is completely great, and planet india which is the best indian scran if only it were ever open. we did grubs for tea and dumb waiter for breakfast, and met steve from dave's comics - everything you could want from 24 hours in brighton. the journey back to london seemed superfast and we parted as we always do at victoria.

so that leaves us last tuesday.. tuesday i went over to ian and ruth's, which was another classic freeform jam, staying over and playing narcolepat on the central line at quarter past seven in the morning. friday i watched boys from brazil with dan (brilliant film, watch it but don't look up the plot on line if you can avoid it). saturday was games day/night; terrence, toby and ed came over for munchkin, power grid and more munchkin, then guitar hero. power grid was great, guitar hero i didn't find fun at all. toby is scarily good at it - if only he'd invested that time in learning on an actual guitar, which is more fun, i'd be impressed. sunday was nice and tidy.

all the photos (well the best, non-repetitive ones) are here