crazybobbles

Oh yeah

Today was quite a disturbingly hectic day, so many things arranged and plan in the last minute. Kazzie spoke to me on msn and asked me if I wanted to go out and have Yo Sushi! with her and Stu. I originally was going to decline the offer since I was pretty tired from Regina Spektor gig and all, thought since Michelle was also inviting me to see We Are Physics at the buffalo bar as well I decided I might as well make the day of it and have a proper day out again.

Yo Sushi and a very late stu

Upon arriving fashionable late I met up with Kazzie and got a seat at Yo Sushi! We were still waiting for Stu to arrive so we just sat around and drank some green tea, I ordered some cold dishes so that they were immediately ready when Stu was about and Kazzie ordered a chicken yakisoba to eat. The wait was pretty long as I believe Stu was almost an hour late. We eventually got nice and cosy and ate our food, Kazzie promised Stu that if he came today she would eat a Salmon Nigiri so we ordered just that (I persuaded her to do it so I could have her nigiri if she couldn’t finish the other one off hehe). The dish arrived and kazzie actually kept her promise and ate the thing. Though it’s nothing for us (me, alice, inn, kev and loads others), it was quite remarkable that Kazzie did eat raw salmon when she didn’t like fish in general!

I ordered a salmon skin hand roll, a tamago nigiri and a beef ramen which kept the bill nice and small (should of got a rainbow combo to be honest). I mentioned the gig I was going and Kazzie and Stu were pretty much up for it, we were then contemplating what to do between the gig and after Yo Sushi! After paying the bill and leaving victoria we headed off to the Apple store in Regent Street to have a look at the new ipods as well as perv at the iMacs. Stu did some research and found out that imax were showing Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix in a hour and a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Harry Potter! The difference was that it was at the imax (one of the biggest screens in the UK) and the last battle scene was in 3D! I think the idea of watching it all in 3D was too much to miss so we went to waterloo to pay imax a visit.

mmm Dumbledore in 3d

We were given large specs at imax and were able to buy decent tickets to the show and all. We were also able to catch a few 3d trailers to really enjoy the 3d experience, it was amazing! Things were popping out right in front of you and stuff, it just made us desperate to see what 3d harry potter had to offer!

The film was amazing, if you exclude hermione’s moving eyebrows, kazzie’s constant giggling about them, the large number of discrepancies from the film and the book and the fact that our seats were slightly to the left. The 3d bit however was flawless, it was amazing watching it all in 3d. The best bit was when Dumbledore was fighting Voldermort. Stu laughed at Dumbledore’s whipping wand technique and I was just gormless when the the glass at the ministry of magic shattered. It was all pretty jaw dropping when it was in 3d.

We are Physics! Did they goto the imax too?

After the film we decided to head off to the buffalo bar at Highbury Islington station. Stu decided that he was tired after watching Dumbledore in 3d so we left us at Euston. Kazzie brought her dslr camera so we were ready to take some lovely photos of the band at it. We met up with Michelle (who was with Caff) and headed to the venue to go check out the band. They were pretty amazing, really reminded me of Polysics as they were really jumpy and fun to watch. Photo taking was slightly tedious since the lighting was inconsistent and all. However with the help of flash I was able to take a few decent shots. The guitarist was wearing 3d specs which led me to believe that they might have went to see Harry Potter too haha.

After the gig there was also another band playing but due to time we had to leave at 11pm, was a shame since I wouldn’t mind watching them myself (they’re headling and all). But yeah, the venue was pretty far away from where I lived so it was best to call it a night instead of risking taking a painful night bus back home!

Back in London I was going to go see Regina Spektor in the Royal Festival Hall. It was going to be a fun event since Regina Spektor photos always gurantee’d photos on explore as well as the fact that Royal Festival Hall having the most amazing lightings (see my Howling Bells photos). I was going on my own since nobody I know wants to come with me (they either don’t like Regina Spektor or don’t live in London). So yeah, last time I went I was on my own so it wasn’t too bad watching the gig by yourself, plus I was hoping to pop into the photo pit and take photos so I would have only annoyed the person I was with.

Once in the venue I was panicing, the seats I bought were pretty far from the stage, I really couldn’t do much at my distance so taking photos sitting down was NOT an option haha. The second problem was the fact that there was someone asking to see photo passes in the photo pit, last time I went they didn’t check so I was pretty nervous in how I could get into the pit and take photos.

Eventually everything worked out, not only was I able to simply sneak into the photo pit with everyone else (the guy asking for passes wasn’t there when Regina was playing), I was also able to sit a lot closer to the stage because there were a few no showers and taking up one seat was pretty easy! The gig was amazing, I was able to take a lot of nice photos and sit back and enjoy the rest of the gig after the photo pit session. Enjoy the photos

The above photo is disturbingly sharp

At the end I was able to get a bit of the set list, it was quite a funny story since other people wanted it and the setlist itself was kind of torned apart since people were snatching it and all, I was the true owner of it since the set list did land next to me but it was torn and of no use. I wasn’t bothered on a torn up set list but hey, it’s still a set list so i just casually shoved it in my back pocket. The guy to my right who wanted the set list was swearing like a twat. I really didn’t like him since he was the reason why the set list was torn. Right after leaving the venue he actually had the balls to steal my setlist from my backpocket when i was busy looking at my photos. I didn’t bother chasing him since the set list was torn and it simply wasn’t worth the effort, however I did enjoy watching him run like a girl, scared that i would deck him one haha.

Ever since Alice arrived back from France we were going to arrange some time to meet up and all, though since I was occupied every other Friday, it meant that I had to work my times to visit Alice around the schedule and all. We were able to have a quick Monday to Thursday visit which was fun. I met Will (Alice’s eldest brother) during my visit and got to go to Temujin once again. I was also able to have a quick meal with kev at Lucky Dragon (we had loads of yum yum dim sum and kev got some soup and beef fried rice (crazy portions though)) and at the end I was able to accompany Alice to get her A Level results (which were awesome, she got all A’s). That little visit was short but nonetheless significant. One thing that neither of us knew was going to happen was that me and Kev were going to buy tickets to Leeds Festival for the Friday date to see Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails (and in my case, see Alice and tell her Happy Birthday).

Visiting Burley Park

As well as spending time with Alice, I had also booked time to go visit my brother since I was only going to Leeds Festival for the day whilst Alice was going for the entire weekend with her friends. So once Alice was all packed up and ready to head to Leeds festival with her friends, I had to bid her farewell for the day and head off to my brothers place to stay. I was to set off from Huddersfield to Burley Park to meet up with my brother (who was currently doing a bit of shopping).

Once meeting up with him I went to his den to check out the state of it (they’ve recently moved houses and now live in a cosy house with a spare guest room which I was going to be staying in). His house was definitely a lot nicer than the previous one. I’ve noticed that he’s got a few new toys to play with, including a Silverburst Les Paul guitar, his POD XT Live and his bloody Mac Book Pro. There wasn’t much to do at his place though, I luckily brought my Wii over to play around with (otherwise it would have been boring) and he got to have a go at it and test out on whether he’d want to buy one afterwards. I also had a go on his Mac Book Pro, it was pretty awesome, however the problem was that all he did on it was browse the internet. Any £300 laptop PC could do that! I thought it was quite a waste to just buy it for the purpose of browsing the internet. I was expecting him to use photoshop or making music via Garageband or Logic, but noo. Just browsing.

Food wasn’t too exciting, lots of oven baked food haha, I wasn’t use to it to be fair, I talked about restaurants he liked going to and he mentioned a place called Red Chilli which was a proper fancy Chinese Restaurant. At some point he was going to show why Red Chilli was an awesome place and all. I told him about Lucky Dragon but he didn’t seem to like the idea about it and thought it was too much of a Takeaway kind of restaurant. Later on my brother had guests and all so I slowly but surely went back to my room to play with my laptop. I did socialise a bit with them but I’m getting the feeling that they’d prefer their own company and all. Anyway, I had Leeds festival to look forward to and all.

Arriving at Leeds Festival

Arriving there was nice, managed to pop by at kev’s place for a bit before heading off to Leeds, originally I was going to have a quick trip to Wokmania and stock up on food but turns out Wokmania wasn’t opened yet so I changed the plan and bought some meal deal lunch at Boots. I knew the importance of food during festivals so I made sure I was nice and full during the day so a decent lunch was required, wasn’t too bothered about dinner since we were all (kev, inn and me) planning on getting a curry after the festival. Inn was going to drive us to the site so once I met up with kev it was a matter of waiting for inn to arrive. After a quick banter at kev’s place we headed off to the festival. Inn was familiar with the route so it wasn’t a painful journey and all.

The trek back to the car

Once there we parked ourselves at the Brown parking overflow place, Inn managed to take down some landmarks to remember where we were and all. The trek to the site was a pretty long one, there was a lot of moaning involved of a trek that seemed like forever, we eventually got there and got our wristbands. I phoned alice and told her to come and meet us. We got into the venue ok (smuggled my DSLR camera as well as a daddio telezoom lens!) and met up with Alice. As I was trying to take photos of the ferris wheel I discover that I had forgot to put my battery in my camera! ARGH! Luckily inn had her DSLR in her car so me and Alice (alice was being ultra nice) had a lovely trek back to the car to retrieve her battery and all. Kev also wanted his Ribena back too and I also wanted to leave my top in the car too. It wasn’t too painful of a trek since I was with Alice and all, finding the car was a pain though. Had to rely on Inn texting us about landmarks and stuff. Eventually we found it and were able to head back to meet up with inn and kev who didn’t really see much since we were gone.

He who must not be named

I wasn’t bothered about who we saw before Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins so I pretty much saw whatever everyone in the group saw (think that was the same case with Alice and Inn) so kev pretty much led us around places to see random bands. We saw the Cancer Bats purely because their name had the word “Cancer” in it. We also saw a bit of the Maccabees which was fun, another band which vividly stands out in my experience that day was the band “The Dwarves”. We had no idea what they were like but we had a look anyway. Lets say theres a lot of nakedness. A lot of nakedness. The guitarist, “He who must not be named” was all kinds of naked. Well thats a lie, he did wear a mask haha. It was quite a sight haha, especially when he got up on the amps and started to pleasure himself in front of the crowd (thank god his…thing.. was shy). There was also the bassist who was dressed up as a priest who spent most of the gig with a bass amp fault. It was funny watching them try and fix it and then half way through the singer went “I don’t need bass!” haha. So yeah, pretty random.

Revenge of the Refried Beans

After that we decided to go to the main stage to check out Fall Out Boy and the other bands after them (Kev wanted to see Fall Out Boy). We weren’t really paying attention to Fall Out Boy and spent the time eating our lunch and all. I was surprised that I managed to smuggle my bottle of Innocent Smoothie into the venue and all, it went down well with my all day breakfast sandwich. After fall out boy kev wanted to go and buy a taco (grande) since he was feeling hungry. I advised him that tacos weren’t exactly the best food you’d eat in a festival, he was asking for some proper bowl movements and all, and this is what he got.

After Fall Out Boy came Lostprophets, we began to make our way to the front of the main stage since the rest of the bands we wanted to see were on the Main Stage. We manage to catch a quick glimpse of Kate Nash playing in some random tent as well as the all important trip to the toilet for kev after his taco grande. Lostprophets were fun, they mentioned about how little UK bands were playing tonight as well as getting a proper mosh pit going. I managed to take one decent photo of the lead singer which was good.

Nine inch nails and Smashing Pumpkins

I’ll keep this short (photos will occupy the rest of the post), after Lostprophets we began making our way to the front, the crowd were pretty tame so around the time Nine Inch Nails started we were pretty near the front, and when Smashing Pumpkins started, we were practically in front for it.

Nine Inch Nails were amazing tonight, they did play quite a lot of Year Zero songs as well as do an all synth stage to play a few synth exclusive songs (Me, I’m Not for example) I was really happy that they played Sin tonight as well, they ended with Head Like a Hole and Hurt. The Smashing Pumpkins were just as amazing, though only Billy and Jimmy were left in the band, they still did a pretty good job with their old stuff. Tonight Tonight was probably the best song from their set. I wasn’t too keen on how they went a bit too riff wanky at every song, just picture all their songs extended with big 5 minute instrumentals. Heavy Metal Machine was disturbingly long :/. Anyway, here’s some photos of the gig, I was really happy of the outcome since I was really far away from the stage.

Alice’s birthday and the trip back home

After the festival we exited the festival and went to Alice’s campsite for a bit, we were hoping to celebrate her birthday for a bit as well as have some cookies haha. The time spent there also meant that we wouldn’t have too much of a problem exiting the place since it was pretty packed with people leaving the place and all. After a nice chat and all, me kev and inn left the festival site and headed straight back to kev’s place, we were initially going to find a curry house to eat in but we were too late, everything was closed and all so our only hope was to order a takeaway at kev’s place. Once at kev’s place we decided to download the new episode of The IT crowd and watch it whilst we ate. I ordered a chicken madras, inn ordered a korma whilst kev ordered a lamb balti. Twas a yummy meal, though it was pretty hot stuff the madras (glad I didn’t get vindaloo). After consuming our dinner and watching the IT crowd we pretty much called it a night and went to sleep.

Back to Burley Park and Lucky Dragon action

Kev had already informed us that he had relatives visiting so we had to pretty much leave the place at around 11 odd. We cleared up the living room and stayed at kev’s room for a bit surfing around the muse board and all, once things got boring we decided to head off. I needed to head back to my brother’s place first to unload my stuff and have a nice shower before going back to Leeds for a meal with inn (she wanted Yo Sushi!). After a quick trip to Burley Park and a quick shower we headed to Leeds uni to park the car and head for Yo Sushi! However, along the way I managed to persuade inn that Yo Sushi! wasn’t really a good idea and that Lucky Dragon was the place to be. I finally managed to persuade inn to go and so we headed to Lucky Dragon and had a lovely dim sum meal. I knew what I was going to order since I already had that dim sum lunch with kev and alice. Inn on the other hand was a bit indecisive. The best bit was when we were issued Chinese menu’s and inn couldn’t read it at all. I helped order the with little help of the menu and managed to get a pretty decent dim sum set. The bill came out pretty nice, we only paid about £6 each and was pretty full from it all so it was pretty amazing. Afterwards we went to hunt for a present for Alice, I managed to get her a nice pair of earrings that were the invisibility stars in Mario. The next task was getting a nice box, card and stuff to stuff the box in, we managed to get some cotton balls in Boots for 39p so score! Once all that was done I said my goodbyes to inn as she headed back to kev’s place because she forgot her sleeping bag. The rest of the day was spent at my brother’s place, it was pretty boring, only got interesting the next day.

Red Chilli

The next day my brother proposed that we all went to Red Chilli to have a lovely meal. I immediately agreed since I was getting pretty bored in the house. We booked a table and headed off around 8pm odd. Once there I immediately saw why my brother liked Red Chilli, the place was pretty classy! Not only that, the food was more unique and old fashioned compared to your bog standard chinese restaurants. My brother was initially going to order the “True Love” dinner set which was £26 per head. I however persuaded everyone to get some duck instead since duck is always nice as well as the fact that most set menu’s aren’t exactly cheaper than when you order a la carte. We ordered some seafood soup, scallops (I didn’t get any though :() , half a duck and 3 dishes for main course (chicken with some spicy dip, some seafood dish and softshell crab). I was amazed at how cheap the soft shell crab was! The duck was amazing and everything else was lush! I was really impressed with the place and preferred it over Lucky Dragon (for meals anyway, they dont do Dim Sum here). The bill came to about £75 odd which wasn’t bad for a party of 5. Will definitely pay Red Chilli a visit when I’m out about in Leeds (and when I have money haha).

Reunited with Alice

After a lovely meal at Red Chilli the night before I went back to Huddersfield where I met up with Alice, apparently the people around her campsite went a bit crazy so Alice and her friends decided to get a lift from one of their parent’s and sleep in the comfort of a house rather then raving festival go’ers armed with lighters and other flammable objects. I met up with a very tired Alice at Huddersfield where we got a lift back to her place from her mum, Alice was absolutely tired from the festival but nonetheless glad to see me again :). Afterwards the remaining days were spent with Alice at her place watching films and recelebrating her birthday with the rest of her family. It was a pretty hectic and fun week. I left on the 30th and had another Yo Sushi! Meal.

Stephie had planned ages ago to see Silverchair at Brixton academy, she had bought me a ticket to see them (which was very nice of her) and inn and kev were joining in on the action to go see them. So yeah, we pretty much get a meetup going on, and since Stephie doesnt come down London that often we were going to make a lovely weekend out of it.

Meeting Up and getting some grub

People were arriving at weird times and all. Kev was only joining us later on so we were going to meet up with him at some point. I spent most of the morning lounging about at home since Stephie was staying in a hotel near Fulham Broadway, this meant that travelling was awfully easy to her place (since Fulham Broadway and Southfields are pretty close to each other). I eventually leave the house with all my stuff (including several Yo Sushi! Rainbow vouchers and my dslr camera for taking photos of the gig) and went to fulham broadway to meet up with Stephie. I did leave pretty late since I managed to meet up with inn at the station instead of meeting Stephie first. We took the bus to Stephie hotel since Stephie was too lazy to come out and meet us (tut tut). Upon arriving the hotel room we soon discover that Stephie actually had a double bed and single for the room she booked. It was pretty nice since me, Inn and kev were hoping to sleep there (though I’m more there for show since I could easily pop back to my place hehe). We had a quick friendly banter and soon afterwards we were heading off to meet up with kev. Around the time of meeting up with kev I soon discover that I have left my Yo Sushi! vouchers in Stephie’s room so our plan on having Yo Sushi! today was slightly foiled. Trying to be sneaky I persuaded everyone to goto Nando’s in Brixton instead since it’s so close to the venue which makes it a more relaxing experience. Inn complained for a bit since she had her heart set on Yo Sushi that day but we all agreed that Nando’s was more convenient as well as me telling her I’d get her a chicken using my loyalty card.

Once in Nando’s (we’re now in Brixton) we ordered our food (wings for me I believe). Twas quite a lovely meal and Inn didn’t seem to mind having the free chicken (well she hardly paid a penny for her meal haha). Me and Stephie quickly popped round to the venue to pick up her tickets she booked and after having some Tetris battles and bantering we went straight into the venue (slightly late since we weren’t too keen on the support). We found out that Michelle and Caff were actually coming to Silverchair too so I contacted them to see if we could meet up with them inside the venue and all.

The dangerous Wheat Free Soya Sauce

We eventually left Nando’s and headed into the venue to catch Silverchair. I was once again able to smuggle my DSLR camera into the venue, this was however a close one since the guy was able to actually feel the camera in my bag. He was quite determined to find the source of what I was hiding however I told him that it was just padding. He did give the bag a proper search but failed to find the camera. After getting passed the guards we discover that kev was having problems getting in. The guy who was searching for my bag was now pretty pissed and was getting more arsey than ever. He found kev’s Wheat-Free soya sauce he had in his bag and was going to confiscate it since it could be used as a weapon, he demonstrated how it could be used as a weapon by holding it from the neck and pretending to hit kev on the head with it hehe. Eventually they let kev through on the condition that he put the bag in the cloakroom. Was quite an embarrassing moment for kev as he joined us shamefully to watch the gig hehe.

The gig was fun, Silverchair weren’t that bad though I didn’t know many songs from them so it wasn’t as fun as it could have been. We met up with Michelle and Caff during the gig and eventually I also departed the crowd and went to take photos of the band. A lot of squeezing in was involved and eventually I had a lovely spot for photo taking. Quite a nice evening, ended with some glorious Tropicana drinking. We went back to Stephie’s place and enjoyed some Tetris’ing and TV. Stephie got quite addicted to Phoenix Wright as she borrowed kev’s DS Lite to play with it.

Yo Sushi and Somerset House

Though there was a Yo Sushi in Fulham Broadway, we were hoping to have the rainbow combo in Victoria so we could meet up with Wincy as well as Lindsy. I took a quick detour back home before meeting everyone back at Fulham Broadway station! and heading to Victoria. Once there we lounged around at Wetherspoons for a bit to wait for other people arrive, once everyone was there we went straight to Yo Sushi! and got tuck into the Rainbow combo action. Food was lovely once again though I pretty much ordered the same food since I’ve got my combo down to a science. Afterwards we did some lounging about in Leicester Square since Stephie and co needed to do something else whilst I was going to the somerset house to watch 2001 Space Odessy. I eventually left everyone and they went and saw a comedy event which sounded pretty awesome.

Somerset House was pretty amazing. I’ve been there last year to see a double bill and this year I was watching 2001: Space Odessy in the daddio screen! Jason and Rachel were slightly late and I came to the venue slightly unprepared. All I had was some food bought from the newsagent, a towel brought from the venue and a very thin shirt (it got really cold near the end :(). When Jason and Rachel arrived we had a fun time playing a bit of Tetris and Mario Kart. I let them double team me at Tetris DS which was fun but I won most of the time.

The film was pretty amazing, last time I saw it I fell asleep near the beginning since it was far too long and dragged on for a bit. This time I finally got to watch the intense parts of the film involving the computer rebelling against the people. I took the train back to Wimbledon with Jason and Rachel and went back to Fulham to see the rest of the gang. I told inn to buy me some food since I was pretty hungry after that film, she kindly got me a sandwich and some rice cakes, twas pretty yummy. More Tetris action for the rest of the evening and Stephie also completes the second case in Phoenix Wright. Bless her.

Random park strolling and GBK

The final day left and we decided to go to stroll in Hyde Park whilst Stephie went to meet her Uncle for a bit. We went passed some Jewish Festival and lounged around the Princess Dianna Memorial place (was a fancy fountain place) and got our feet wet. More tetris DS’ing involved and eventually we met up with Stephie again and went to GBK in Soho for some burger action. This was the first time kev and inn had tried the burgers at GBK so they were quite excited for it. Kev ordered a bunless burger since he couldn’t eat wheat, I ordered milkshake too and had a classic burger. It was all yummy and nice. Kev eventually left us all to go back to Leeds and we soon left GBK to do some random internet browsing and eventually heading back to the hotel room. That was pretty much it. I packed up and went back home (which was disturbingly quick hehe).

A lovely weekend filled with loads of nice things to eat and all.