I met up with everyone at Victoria, they decided to go sushi it so yeah. I said hello to everyone and tried shaking everyone’s hand. I showed off my new york hat and gave people some “Kisses” chocolate. The meal was pretty nice and then we went to get Stu’s ticket at National Express, I ended up doing it on the phone but nonetheless we got stu out of the door haha. We then went to Covent Garden and checked out some boring street performer as well as cyber candy. I got people to take the stairs since it was quite a gruelling walk!

Afterwards we went to funland, that was.. fun, we had some bumper car action and I did some DDR’ing. Afterwards we went back to Victoria to meet up with stu and have some nando’s action. I took some photos here and there and tried to abuse the 50mm lens.

After meeting up with Stu we went to find the nando’s, I used my google maps app on my phone to locate it but the problem was finding out where we were in the first place, eventually we got there and found out it was packed and it might take 20-30 minutes for a table to be ready, we went to the pub next door to chill out and scream at passers by, eventually we get our seats at Nando’s and had a lovely meal, I ordered two jugs of sangria to treat everyone. We played a few games of “I never” and abused my nando’s loyalty card to get some extra chicken. The meetup was quite fun and ended at Wetherspoons. Max kept playing with his new compact Canon camera bless. I got back home and had an epic sleep! ready for work!

After work I took the train from Charring Cross to Canterbury West where Stu and Inn were there to pick me up. They had already spent the night there and had Xmas dinner ready, the previously mentioned that they WILL get a xmas turkey cooked to cheer up Karis’ gloomy xmas. They all decided to wait for me to arrive before eating (which was nice of them!) and once the party was all ready, we were ready to party. I was curious as to why the turkey was so tiny when I saw it but wasn’t really in the mood to question it (was more in the mood to eat tbh). Once at the table I made sure everyone was following strict table manners and regulations to ensure we had a formal and respectable dinner. I was quite impressed that they managed to prepare a pretty beefy amount of things to go with the “turkey”, they had the chandberry sauce, sweetcorn, peas, gravy and even pigs in a blanket. We managed to take turns with toasting the new year and Inn made me be the last person to give the toast to really sum everything up, I turned my toast to a business meeting agenda and yeah, lovely toast. I was also able to do my usual bit of asking how was everyone’s days. Stu managed to shock Karis some more by popping out of the living room dressed as Santa, we all god Karis presents and everything (mine was pretty impromptu but I got her something in the end). She seemed pretty chuff, but not because of that too…

It appears that Karis was able to find love in the meetup. Michael (Originalboywonder on the museboard) was at the meetup and before I arrived they managed to “hookup” (OH YEAH! haha) so yeah, this is where it gets interesting, we all took turns to tease the hell out of her. Including an extended long game of “I never” as well as that game where they stick names on your head and you have to guess who they are. It was pretty fun of an evening. New Years eve was celebrated with some lovely paper burning, I can’t remember what I wrote so yeah…

When the clock struck 12 we let loose some party poppers and drank some super cheap champagne (took a LONG time to open). We then played a few “t00ns” on Stu’s laptop and raved for a bit. The night fizzled down with everyone going to bed with me and Inn going online via mobile and ds lite respectively. I slept on the hallway since every room was taken, which was fine since I could sleep anywhere (including the stairs), I could have slept in the living room but Karis and Michael were there… I took the essence of the sofas and made a lovely mattress to sleep with. Later on the evening I kept getting woken up by Ste snoring at a disturbingly high decibel, I tried recording it on my phone but sadly it didn’t pick it up too well

The next day began with me waking up nice and early and having a lovely shower. I played some soothing classical music to wake everyone up which was quite hilarious, inn found it funny this time instead of enraged since the music was fucking awesome haha. I was glad I didn’t sleep in the living room either because the next day it had a very strong stench of crotch smell, and like what Stu said, “it’s only nice when you’re smelling your own crotch”. We thought the best breakfast would be a trip to Nando’s haha. I had already had nando’s with Alice but what the hell, nothing else nice in Canterbury haha. Karis got a bit antisocial at times with Michael and it was pretty hilarious watching them not being able to sit next to each other haha (young love and all that). After eating more chicken we all parted ways, I was dropped off at some train crossing and had to walk to the station in the rain, the train left a few minutes before I arrived so I had to wait an entire hour for the next train and spend another hour and a bit on the train (thank god I was able to phone alice for the entire journey!). All in all a good way to start the new year.

I don’t like making resolutions so I’m simply going with the flow. Life is awesome at the moment so I’ll just stick to what I have.

I’m not sure how we spent our evening and morning but I believe we did have an amazing breakfast! We bought everything we needed to make the perfect full english breakfast and got delayed for the actual event that Max and Aino organised. I believe we did quite a fair bit of smash brothering too which made us disturbingly late, no worries though since we’re the host I guess *shrugs*. Passing Brent Cross I was able to smuggle myself a black DS Lite for Stu whilst Karis and Inn were able to distract Stu for a bit.

We arrived at Regent Street pretty late and finally found everyone, we then headed to a very packed Oxford Street finding the restaurant. We were going to have tapas at a place called La Tasca. Quite a fair amount of people were about which was fun and we had a lovely seat booked and all.

The meal was alright, paella was just wet rice and bits of stuff however we did order a fair amount of stuff and in the end, the bill was a joke. It came to £200+ and people were simply gobsmacked by it, it was rather awkward for people, especially when some were refusing to pay any more. Me and Alice decided to save the day by pitching in the rest so everyone was able to pay the bill and avoid embarrassment. But boy Max and Aino aren’t planning any meetups in the future. Tapas is a 2 person event, not suitable for orgies.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Alice, we met up with Jason and Rachel and had some yum yum dim sum at Royal China, I chose this place because Jason and Rachel previously took me to “Ping Pong” to have dim sum when I told them that Royal China is a nicer place and do a wider range of dim sum. So yeah, it was a pretty epic meal at a far less scary price (especially when Jason and Rachel could afford it all hehe). I was very pissed off that we didn’t get free oranges! They usually do it so

We went into the Natural Cafe to sit around and chat for the rest of the day, Jason got me an orange to eat hehe. Was always nice seeing Jason and Rachel, Alice got on well with them too so it was all good We then called it a night and that was that day.

The day after I had to go work and Alice had to return back up north, we said our farewells at Monument and that was the weekend. Lesson of the day, don’t get tapas. Stick with a golden crispy fucking duck haha.

After a hard and gruelling interview day I felt pretty happy with the results and went to see Inn, Stuart and Karis at Brent Cross since they were heading off to Stockholm the day after. I went to a KFC prior to meeting them outside hendon central station. Karis and Inn were picking me up whilst Stu was slightly late and all. We had some food (at Burger King and Yo sushi) and eventually met up with Stu and basically did a bit of shopping, checked out the new ipod touch and went to Luton airport to exchange some money.

Now the last line was a bit hectic since I’ve never been to an airport before, the worse bit was that I wasn’t travelling the day after so I was just going for company and all and BOY was it a horrible journey! I suppose it was horrible since we went there and found out that they dont exchange Swedish monday there since there’s not departures to Sweden in the airport! Grr! I kept telling them about how I’ll eventually start looking for cufflinks if I get my job so I had a quick gander at the cufflinks store haha. Once all of that was done we eventually went back to Kazzie’s place and headed off to pick up kev. It was a quick swop of people but meh! I wanted to go home, I was far too tired from all the interviews, I had my phone interview inside Karis’ car when we were driving to Brent Cross which was funny (especially when moments before the interview I told them two that at any minute I was going to get a phone interview haha). So yeah, a tiring day with interviews (and random trips to airports) but hopefully I get a job offer and all (which I do haha, damn me writing this AFTER getting the job)

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!

Arriving at Stu’s place

Canterbury was fun. I was heading there for Stu’s housewarming party. I had only received a lovely package from Alice containing Harry Potter books that I was keen on start reading. For the hosuewarming party I pretty much brought the bare essentials. I knew we were going to the seaside but I decided against in bringing anything swim worthy like. Simply not my kind of thing haha. After a painful journey down to Canterbury (tube messed up which meant I had to take a different route and barely manage to get to the National Express coach).

I was to arrive on Friday night, though Inn Kazzie Christy and Stu were already there I was forced to go on Friday due to the fact that I have begun signing on haha (deary me). I was actually glad I didn’t go on Thursday since it sounded like a pretty hectic girly night in. Inn was petrified by the stuff people were doing (mainly involving watching high school musical and singing to some girly pop songs). Stu’s house was pretty decent for a student (sorry had to) house. I saw some really ungodly looking chocolate cake that looked like a brown frisbee as well as Kazzie’s silly spyro the dragon plush doll. We were waiting for Blee and Sarah to arrive before we got the party started.

4 Whole chickens

We wanted to buy some food to cook and consume so once they arrived (which they did) we immediately went shopping at the local 24 hour ASDA. As well as buying food for that night we also purchased some lovely BBQ food for the next day. At ASDA we manage to get some pretty awesome precooked BBQ chicken in the ready to eat section. Now here’s the best bit, they were only 70p! (odd) . You’ve got to love reduced items. We decided to buy 4 which would definitely be enough to feed a group of 6 meat eaters (Blee = Veggie).

Once back at stu’s place we unpacked and prepared the food for consuming. We didn’t really have much to serve the chicken with but we made do with beans and some chips. We made this meal pretty formal which meant everyone was wearing ties for the occasion. I ensured that the evening remained formal by applying some table formalities I learnt from Alice’s place hehe. As well as saying grace for the occasion, having a toast with our glasses, we also engaged in some typical table banter which involved me asking everyone how their day was.

The rest of the evening was spent playing the game “I never” as well as playing some hardcore video games. A lot of singster was involved tonight as well as a tedious game of Buzz to test our music trivial knowledge. I didn’t do too well I must say :(. The evening was spent playing a lot of Tetris DS as well as bantering whilst other people went to sleep. Tomorrow we were going to go to the seaside and have a BBQ, yum hehe.

Seaside and BBQ

I’m not particularly keen on seasides, they’re a bit boring for my liking You either get baked or get f**ked. I spent most of the time under the parasol. Not much to do, though it did seem like Kazzie was doing quite a lot of stuff that day including digging a big hole, buying a blow up raft and getting lost at sea (and then saved), getting buried inside her hole she dug up and almost suffocating inside it and other random bits and bobs. I pretty much sat around eating Kettle chips and chicken sandwiches prepared with shredded chicken we had last night. Seasside was however a cool place for taking photos, quite a lot of fun things you could do with sand and all.

After some crazy seaside action we decided to head off back to Stu’s place for some food since everyone was hungry. We were making sure we left early enough to avoid traffic as well as come back with enough time to actually get some BBQ action going.

The BBQ was pretty awesome, it was student BBQ so quite a lot of econo food was used, though I managed to get some hot and spicy wings involved (marinated in nando’s sauce typically). The burgers were probably the best in the bbq, especially with Nando’s BBQ sauce (yum yum). Sausages once again spat like crazy which meant we were to leave them last. It was pretty horrific to say the least, but eventually they were cooked and eaten. The bbq was alright but definitely not the best I’m afraid. We had loads of other food ready for tomorrow and we were keen on making it a proper full english breakfast. Since we bought a BBQ for stu we were able to BBQ the breakfast too.

The rest of the evening was spent playing the wii, a lot of Big Brain Academy was involved, we were split into teams and did brain quizes and sprints (seeing who answered all 24 questions first). The game was pretty intense and usually my team won hehe. The rest of the evening was spent playing an eye bleeding game of Mario Striker. I had recently bought that (so recent that it arrived yesterday). This game became pretty addictive for it’s mole killing features. The evening was pretty ace and eventually things settled down and it was back to some more sleeping.

BBQ Breakfast and Goodbyes

The morning after was a pretty awesome one. I was up nice and early followed by Blee (though I believe she might have woke up earlier than me (who knows)). We immediately got the BBQ going and started cooking the food up since people were generally lazy anyway. Blee did a pretty awesome job in cooking her food in the BBQ as well as helping me out to cook our food for the BBQ, I did all bits and bobs and slowly people began to wake up and helped out with the breakfast making. I took a sly route in terms of cooking so many sausages by simply precooking most of the stuff in the oven and then giving them a nice BBQ glaze. This was actually the slyer way to BBQ food, especially when theres quite a lot of food involved and not much cooking life in the charcoal.

Eventually the food was all ready and breakfast was served. It included loads of lovely bacon, sausages, hash browns, fried egg (me and inn got one since we prefer that to scrambled), scrambled egg, toast, beans, chicken wings (we had loads spare!) and some celebration juice (though that’s mainly for me and inn). The BBQ breakfast was quite a success and we had a lovely toast and all.

After breakfast we had a go at Mario Striker again (for quite a long time) and pretty much called it a day after that. We slowly began packing up stuff and all left Stu’s, Inn drove me and Kazzie back to Kazzie’s place where I got yet another lift to Watford Station via Kazzie’s mum and went back home. It was a pretty awesome house warming party, though parties involving the wii and BBQ’s are generally awesome (unless you have shit wii games and make shit BBQs).

After waking up we were STRAIGHT AT IT with super smash brothers. yet again it was a two on one situation. It was particularly funny how stu just jumped STRAIGHT out of bed and went straight into gaming mode. It was proper intense, I got a glass of tropicana to drink whilst playing (was good shit, woke me up like a motherbiatch).

Kazzie and adam were pretty astonished to see us at it STILL. Adam did join in for one bit and surprisingly won the game by beating me. Of course, one has to remember that I was playing against adam and popey (dunno if inn was there, i think a computer was playing too) So i had to kill off 10 or 15 peeps out of the 5 lives I had. The end was annoying because i actually landed on a bomb which is why he won. Now he’s all smug about it. I think they were all starting to get smug at it, but not until they started giving me one on one matches where I showed them who’s boss haha. With stu i managed to kill him with just one life (didnt lose one), with adam I only got hit 5 times whilst he managed to lose all 5 lives.

Inn played a bit more too and then eventually it was time to pack it in and all. We were all up and ready to start packing things up and tidying things so that we didnt trash up kazzie’s house and all. I was in a tantrum trying to find my lens cap haha. Adam recalled seeing it somewhere but then kazzie was far too lazy/not bothered to help me find it (grr). Eventually I gave up on the idea of finding it and just started to pack things up. Kazzie brought my some rice cakes that she forgot to show me last night. I managed to munch a few down that time haha.

Anyway, after all the packing up, pissing about with kazzies 55-200mm lens, (taking photos of her cat haha), we were heading back to London for some more meetup action. I had a wii, and a dslr camera to take care of which meant I had to split up with everyone to go home, have a bath and meetup with them all.

This time kazzie decided to drive us to a decent station this time, Brent Cross station. Adam managed to lead us to the wrong station and got us a bit lost and all. Was tedious but at least we didnt have to take the watford route and all. The whole journey was painless and I managed to get home quite quickly and all.

This is where I lounge about for a bit, surf the web, take a bath, charge as much battery as I can, and get changed into a new attire, this time I was sporting some stripey green top.

Everyone else was partying it up at funland whilst I was getting ready and all. I left at about 3pm but was informed that they’ll be in nando’s so theres no point in me going to funland anymore :(. So yeah, quick travel to nando’s

Everyone met up, popey, inn, kazzie and adam all arrived late due to the fact that people were far too tired and lazy to wake up early and get to the damn place. people mingled but apparently they were all bored until I arrived haha (kidding).

I got straight into business and ordered some nando’s. The waitress was weird, her name was Serena and she seemed to be a trainee at nando’s, during my order she was complaining about being tired and was frustrated when we’d order things AFTER she has taken the order. Kev wanted to tap her.

After ordering food I got nice and comfty with the likes of kev and co and got down to the crazy array of challenges

Tetris challenge
Not exactly a challenge but we had 5 ds’s going playing tetris ds, was pretty fun. I managed to kick everyones arse at it haha. People were clueless about the items option and better yet, kev (the second best player there) is a nobody in my books haha (22-1). haha thats pretty harsh, but you know, I have played it for a long time haha.

Wasabi challenge
hm, I went to yo sushi to get some sushi and wasabi to do the wasabi challenge (was very successful the previous day and it ACTUALLY has some levels of difficulty and all!)
So yeah, ordered 4 maki cucumber rolls and 2 salmon nigri. I asked the crowd who wanted to participate and got the 6 people i needed (next time i’ll buy more haha). The participants were:
Me, Mona, Kev, Adam, Abbey and Aino.

I managed to ooze out as much wasabi goodness out of the 4 wasabi satchets I ordered. Me and mona picked the salmon nigris and we all ate the sushi at the same time. The best bit was the aftermath, cameras going wild whilst we take photos of everyone’s reaction to the sushi.

It was explosive. Me, Mona (and apparently kev) were cool with it, Mona still being the true winner since she actually ENJOYS the wasabi haha. The other two went running away like little 6 year old pubescent girls as the wasabi started to hit their noses, causing them to either spit it out or just cry in their nose.

Salmiakki challenge
This was the highly random and unpopular challenge made by aino haha. She made a few participants eat some of her random sweets and stuff. I managed to dig them into my nando’s chicken and eat it some time later when i was eating my chicken haha. Uhm…. yeah, the wasabi one was better haha.

Mona’s “I’ve never” game
Mona managed to do a quick game with everyone which involved revealing stuff people have or have not done. I won’t explain the rules since its tedious and confused kev but yeah. This game we get to discover hardcore muse fans, and other forms of muse board mind games. The game got a bit tiring since it was suppose to involve people drinking whenever they have done that particular thing, but uhm. we stood up each time and it ended up being too tiring to play haha (kev moaned).

The concoction game
A very spontaneous game I made up on the spot when people were trying hard to find a game to play haha. Rules were to pour stuff into a glass, and drink it, the next person then adds something else into the glass and drinks it, and yeah, its just a test of who dares to continue to drink it.
All sorts of stuff were added, including; salmiakki crap, salad leaf, peri peri sauce (extra hot), olive oil, ketchup, chips, coke, PEPPER! cheap nando’s mayonaise sprinkled with peri peri spice and all sorts of shit haha.

It became pretty vile, and then I wagered £5 for someone to drink the glass of vile. Abbey was brave enough to accept the challege and drank the whole damn glass (well, ALMOST). It wasn’t a good sight haha, she went to the toilet to puke it all back out haha. She was definitely brave for doing it and i felt slightly guilty for making the bet haha (though i was hoping someone manly like kev or chizzleface to actually accept the challenge (panzies))

Nando’s chicken wing challenge
This was meant to be the main challenge that everyone planned to have but it didnt happen, people started leaving too quickly and the other challenges were crazy enough, this meant I didnt get any free extra hot wings to eat off people
Other bits and bobs in nando’s
Nowt much really, michelle and caff later on joined us all but sat on another table and drank red wine, Michelle got a bit tipsy from it all bless her. Meanwhile back in our table, some truth or dare questions were asked, quite alot of table slamming and phoenix wright style pointing were made

Alot of greasy chicken was consumed. Well the annoying thing was that I couldnt eat my food in peace without people playing that damn “I never” game haha.

The waitress, “serena” was a bit arsey haha, i tried to dare her to get someone to drink that glass of vile for a pound haha.
We stole some nando’s cocksticks on our way out mwahahah, now I have two haha.

Randomness outside
After nando’s a few people left and we were wondering around for stuff to do. We eventually went to play DDR where kazzie wanted to challenge me into a game of DDR.
Played a few songs and it was fun. Wincy tried the other DDR like game made by konami, it required the use of your hands to dance as well. Its not as funky as the one you see in funland where people try to make something cool out of their hands by doing alot of unneccessary bits and bobs but yeah.

Kev and strippers
We were walking down soho where kev was trying to find some gash, he did go into a “friendly society” which was apparently a nice bar instead of strip club. A few strip club ladies wanted to entice kev to go in, we even got a 3 for £10 deal going on but we eventually passed haha

Pub
We eventually went to a nice pub called Ben’s Crotch (Croutch, whatever). And settled in for a bit of ds lite action, well lite and phat, wincy had let us down by still owning a crappy ds phat haha (though she bought a lite later on). Anyway, games that were played were mario kart and good old tetris. With mario kart I managed to win the first two races and then came second for the other two. It appears that some fucker kept throwing red shells at me so I couldnt overtake kev. Twas pretty unfair but meh, least i didnt lose to him haha.

We also played tetris, whoever played me kept going “shit, wtf?!?” as I pounded them with multiple tetri, it was only at the last game where kev suggestion slightly tipsy michelle to distract me whilst I was playing. I was groped senseless during the battle and lost to kev of all people eurgh haha.

We had some more banter, and finally the goodbyes and all. Loads of man hugs, girl hugs and banter near the end.
This was where me, michelle and caff said our goodbyes as we went to see Howling Bells live. That will be on another entry since its a gig of its own and all.

I’ll keep everything in summary form since most of the day can be found on Inn’s blog (she’s pretty much summarised the events in her own account).

Anyway, this 2 day muser meetup was planned ever since Mona (muser) was coming down to London from Sweden. We have organised a small gathering which somehow snowballed into a massive muser meetup involving nando’s, ds lites and dslr cameras. Sooner or later when I bought the wii, the wii became another main attraction for the meetup. Kazzie managed to persuade her mum to hold a small party for a few of us to play wii as well as have a bbq. This wasn’t part of the meetup but something me, stu, inn kazzie (and adam later on) wanted to do. Me, inn and stu were big fans of smash brothers melee and we were excited in getting that going and having dangerous battles all night long.

Anyway, thats a bit of the history to the meetup. The main meetup itself starts now.

Plan was, 1pm meetup, eat wasabi sushi, lounge about in some coffee shop and have a nice banter (followed by our own little wii party). Thats the plan in its most innocent form, one must remember that muser meetups NEVER Go as plan, its usually filled with late comers, lost souls and over doing something to a point that timekeeping is impossible (not to mention sleep).

Everyone met up at Victoria station at 1pm. I had several errands to do, first I had to pick up my howling bells ticket at the Royal Mail delivery office, then I had to pick up my memory card from B for my camera since she gave it back to me without the memory card. This pretty much delayed my arrival at Victoria to about 2pm. In a way, it was good since nothing was done anyway, we were still waiting for people, the group didnt have a clue where to go and sit and Kazzie and Adam were going to arrive 30 minutes later. When I arrived I immediately said my usual hellos, and just fucked off to a Yo Sushi for some made to order yakisoba. People were just waiting there and seeing that it was just going to be waiting at Victoria in the cold, I’d rather pop into a Yo Sushi and get some action before I do a Wasabi meal.

More people turned up then I imagined, it didnt really look like the intimate pre meetup that I had imagined it to be, but nonetheless, we continued on.

It was fun leading people to embankment, most people were still confused as to how to take the tube, its probably the most intuitive thing ever, if you dont understand the map, just follow the pretty colours. But yeah, its all about sign reading but people lack that

We finally got to the wasabi stu was planning on taking us, but it didnt have seating so we were considering going to picadilly circus to try out luck at the wasabi that had seating, I was pretty much leading the way again, and to do a meetup, one must be totally oblivious to preparation in order to have the perfect meetup (becauase planning sucks the fun out of adventure). Anyway, i chose the wrong direction to get to picadilly but lied to everyone and said we were going to take the bus haha. People got a bit frustrated and we ended up going to wasabi in embankment and sitting in some random park.

I managed to bag myself TWO bags of wasabi. It looked like I was going all out when in fact it was a bag for the sushi and a bag for the chicken yakisoba. The park was a bit shite, you couldnt sit on the grasss and the benches were already filled with people, we managed to find 3 benches next to each other that were empty and decided to camp there and eat.

We met some random muser who wanted to meet Stu and the rest of the gang, she was surprised to find out who we were and said how she’d never expect us to look like that etc. Anyway, we had our sushi and immediately began our wasabi challenge. I had an extra packet of wasabi so I decided to use that to smother other peoples sushi to make the challenge, challenging.

The challenge itself was pretty awesome, about 5 people participated (me, Inn, Mona, Aino and some random person). Mona was indeed the king of eating spicey stuff, just check the aminated gif and you’ll know what I mean haha

I though I was going to be able to survive it but the sensation is like a volcano erupting out of your nostrils. The sensation lasts for about 3-5 seconds but it makes you explode inside.

Stuff you experience are runny nose, tears in your eyes, nice puffy red face and of course the dying need to go ARRGH! Afterwards its all good haha. Mona continued to tempt fate by eating wasabi raw. Though there was much left so yeah. Its only good with sushi to be honest. The challenge was so fun that we HAD to do it again the next day haha.

After some banter, we decided to head off to a coffee shop. We noticed some protesting going on so we decided to go and check that out. It was a “No war on Iran” protest held in trafaulgar square. We decided to advance into the area, I managed to find some signs people used to protest (probably left there by people leaving the area) I began getting one for myself and started protesting, soon the group all joined in with the protest, it was a nice feeling, though we were probably taking the piss haha, were we? Who knows.

After a nice protest, Aino and Max decided to go do some babysitting whilst the rest of the crew went to a starbucks to lounge about. We did a quick walk to leceister square and I managed to find a starbucks that we could drink in before it starting raining.

Twas a friendly lounge about, inn had trouble finding chairs and then she had to order the drinks for everyone haha. Once things settled in we just had a nice banter. I think I tried using internet and all. But yeah, this was as relaxed and chilled as the day goes. Afterwards it was time for us to all say goodbye. Mona needed to get back to Oxford Circus so I led them all to that general direction and along the way, go into Soundcontrol for some instrument abuse.

I managed to demonstrate a few songs but that was about it, I really need to learn some new songs haha. Everyone was tired after that. Inn in particular. So we decided it was time to go back to Kazzie’s place.

The train journey was pretty painful. We had to get to Watford and then Kazzie would drive us to her place. Most people had some beef on the idea that we had to get Zone A passes just because of this, and that it would have been easier if Kazzie parked her car at Brent Cross and did the driving there. The journey was just painful. We had to take buses, taxi’s and did a bit of walking to get to her place. Inn’s account is probably alot more detailed so its best to read her post haha.

Right, lets skip to the fun bit, at Kazzies house. Her mum was very kind to buy loads of stuff we requested, including my rice cakes, beer, and gay malibu. We managed to nip to tescos to buy some food for BBQ’ing, but lacked the special ingredient for BBQs… firelighters. I was guranteed by inn and stu that they could get a bbq going so I went along with it. I had to pay £5 to buy the damn charcoal and all.

Anyway, while inn and stu did the hard labour stuff (ie set up the bbq). I did the stuff that people got paid highly to do. Set up stuff haha. Though when you think about it, I dont think anyone knew how to set up a wii, and more importantly, I wouldnt allow people to touch my wii haha.

Twas a bit annoying Kazzie’s TV, she said there component but i found out that there wasnt. Was lucky to have brought my composite cable otherwise there would be no wii! So yeah, that waas pretty much set up, and I wanted to get her wifi sorted too but they were all too busy surfing on the board, or making bbqs. The BBQ itself failed misrably, I did touch it at all but it seems that they couldnt keep a constant fire going. I’ve seen people fail with the liquid stuff so i wasnt surprised that bits of card and candles didnt do. I myself use about 12 cubes of firelighters to get a PROPER bbq going haha.

After all the bantering, we finally got into some wii action. This was what the whole night was all about. Battling it out, me and stu had a quick game of smash brothers to see who was full of it. Turns out stu was haha. I whooped him silly!!! Not your average silly, silly silly. The kind of silly you see in the bible when David tries battling a giant, only to find that his weapons were pawned for booze money and that he was drunk during the fight.

Inn made her pancakes during the fight, I didnt get to try some, but wasnt keen on the idea of pancakes in the evening. I’m not a fan of sweet things either. Something wrong about that. Dunno what.

I decided that we shouldnt waste the burgers and sausages so whilst people were doing random stuff (ie surf the web) I cooked the sausages and burgers. It was nice that we onions, otherwise the burgers and sausages were just plain lame.

People were a bit intimidated by smash brothers, when I refer to people I pretty much mean kazzie and adam, they both suck at it and did nothing but fall off the stage like the losers they are haha.

Wii sports was where it’s at. We had alot of intense battles on the wii, we started off with a bit of tennis, then it got into stuff like baseball and ultimately, wii boxing. I think I ruled at wii boxing, doing some mighty fierce jabs and managed to beat adam in the first round with 3 knock outs. Bowling wasnt that fun, I beat stu with loads of spares, stu had a spin going on whilst I was able to control my ball to get strikes or spares.

Baseball was fun haha, most of the time it was strikeouts. Me and stu played and it ended in a 3-2 victoria (or maybe 2-1). We hardly did much home running. Stu did some pretty fast bowls and all. After wii sports inn kinda took charge of the multiplayer mode in wario wares smooth moves. We tried one of the sub games where we had to get cake and jump over holes, that was fun. Me and inn managed to get a cake and fuck up only a few times. Adam and Kazzie tried it too but missed out on the cake.

We then played a variety of multiplayer games which we would pass the wiimote to one another. It was pretty exciting, I managed to come second all the time in that :(.

After all the wii goodness it was back to the game we were all creaming over. Super Smash Brothers… MELEEEE! This time we excluded kazzie and adam from the game purely on the fact that they were rubbish ahha. The games were pretty intense. I was cocky enough to play against them handicapped, they knew they wouldnt have won if it was a free for all so it was probably the most fair way to play. At first I even threw in a jigglepuff to aid them, but consider this. I had 5 lives, I had to kill them 15 times to be able to win. A good victory if i managed to pull it off. It was definitely a challenge to fight humans handicapped. They’re not like computers, least you cant hold grudges against computers anyway.

It waas a vicious vicious battle. The games kept coming and coming, we would scream and shout if we lost or won a battle. Near the end, I was finally getting the hang of it all. My strategies in the past were focused mainly on computers, usually my tactic was to let them kill each other and then go for the kill but this time, they were all after me Stu kept using pikachu to throw lightening bolts whenever i was above him and inn would just run away everytime she got a beating.

It was tedious nonetheless. Sooner or later I managed to figure out the best ways of defeating them and then it was apparent that I was defintiely a threat to them, EVEN when being double teamed haha.

The battles lasted all night to about 4 or 5. It was depressingly awesome haha. We were well aware that another meetup was scheduled tommorow but we just couldnt put our pads down and goto sleep, there was so much animal instinct built up inside of us that we couldnt of just called it a night. We finally did, but probably because we were far too tired to play and that the characters were becoming more and more blurred haha.

We decided to call it a night. Kazzie had sorted the airbed and all for me to sleep whilst the other two were sleeping on the couch (separate ones obviously).

Anyway, since the meetup was held at 1pm we had to wake up at around 9 and leave around 11 to kinda make it on time. I managed to set a few alarm clocks (my ds lite and my phone) to go off at that time. I put my ds in an awkward place which required me to get up to turn it off so it should be bullet proof.

Anyway, sleep time, had a bit of a chat but eventually we all went to sleep. I had NO idea who it was but I was woken up about 5 or 6 times by some VICIOUS snoring. It kept building up, and I was so close to just throw a pillow at whoever it was (i think it was stu!) but yeah. That didnt help with the sleep haha.

At 9 I did managed to wake up, thanks to the ds lite and mobile phone, but guess what? Everyone was tired as fuck and still needed to sleep. GARGH! There was hardly any motivation in getting up so I just gave up and went to sleep a bit more. It finally got to a point where I HAD to turn on… the wii. and Play SMASH BROTHERS

Stu bounced right up and we were immediately playing smash brothers, that REALLY got her heads working haha.

Thats part 1 done

The planned time to meet up was 3pm… I somehow managed to arrive at 5:30 or something stupid. Can’t remember what I was doing, probably bantering about on my camera and trying to get to grips with Photoshop CS2. I met Popey, Blee and Max at Victoria station, got a bit lost on where it was but eventually found it (usually I’m good at finding my way around Victoria since I went past there twice a weekend last year). Never knew Victoria had a Wasabi thingy.

Today was also where I was able to test out my new mobile service I signed up a few days ago, Shozu. It allowed me to upload photos I took on my mobile immediately to my flickr account. I wrote a quick muse board thread detailing photos that they can expect to appear randomly during the meetup, it was quite a few thing. Bit too geeky but it’s something people will be heading eventually (automatically geotagged photos, the lot).

We eventually headed down to Nando’s where we had some Sangria before we ordered. Kazzie was going to be a tad late since the people at her work made her work slightly longer then she had expected. Popey began devising his Secret Santa treasure hunt he had made for Kazzie. The locations were slightly unadventurous (under chairs and tip boxes) but I guess its the thought that counts haha (I was expecting places like inside some waiters mouth or behind a table of people who were already eating, or better yet, stuck on the managers back and she had to get it without the guy noticing).

Today, as well as being my birthday meetup, we also made sure that we were going to do the Nando’s challenge which was to eat a full extra hot platter. The platter would include a whole chicken, a large salad or coleslaw and large chips or rice. Me and Popey were the main people involved in the challenge, Max tried to join in but since he opted for Medium he was instantly disqualified.

Oh and Kazzie arrived at the scene, I immediately greeted her with my Canon EOS 400d camera which made her very jealous indeed, though at least we were dSLR buddies. She had a fun time finding her presents WHILE she was dying to use the little girls room.

The nando’s challenge was pretty intense…. for the other two. Max in particular since he couldnt finish his food off. A whole large salad was left to waste since he was full on 3/4 of a chicken. Popey got a bit sluggish near the end but he DEFINITELY finished it (cheated a bit with by eating a bt of chicken and then eating some coleslaw to neutralise the heat) but nonetheless he proved that he was manly enough to finish a full platter. I myself was a bit pissed off that I didnt use any strategies when eating my platter. I went nuts on the chicken first and had to finish off with the salad and chips. Really should have mixed up them up alot as the food was getting boring near the end. It wasnt a case of being able to finish it off, but more of a case of wanting to eat salad after some hardcore chicken (it technically is a meal for 2).

Most of the food was consumed and I even had a bit of Max’s chicken just to taunt him a bit haha. We eventually left Nando’s in search for other entertainment and while we left, Popey managed to persuade me to get my own cock stick haha.

He also tried to make me get him one but I only do crime for myself haha, I did give him room to steal on himself but he didnt (being the pope and all?). Anyhow, this was where we rode the tube to Picadilly Circus and went to funland. Blee had to leave so she said her goodbyes at Leciester Square station. Before he went to funland, Kazzie also managed to get herself a Joey hat for Kev.
The rest of the evening was spent watching the other three go nuts on the games that gave tickets for prizes. As well as some fun games such as DDR, that drum simulator game (broken bass drum haha), some horse riding game, bumper cars and some other stuff haha. Max suggested that we’d do Musecast during the bumper cars but then it got a bit weird when I tried filming it haha. We had alot of fun and eventually got ourselves 4 trumpets from the tickets they won (I didnt have change so I didnt go nuts on the shooting games etc).

Think that was it, eventually Max left and so did everyone else. The one thing that pissed me right off was that my cockstick was in Kazzie’s bag! I had to put it in there since it could be seen as a weapon in funland. Was pretty annoying, dunno what she’s doing with it now haha. So yeah.

Earls Court Hotel lounging
Anyway, the day starts off with me waking up in my nice single bed at Earls Court haha. Enjoyed having a bed all to myself, and I also enjoyed the fact that I could take a shower in their hotel room too (after Stephie haha). My boiler in my house was broken so I couldn’t really take a bath or shower there, so thank god there was a shower there haha, Can’t goto the muse gig smelling like alcohol and emo kids haha.

Shower was refreshing, stole Steph or Kaz’s shampoo and condition (Brilliant Brunette, i did feel like one too!). Think I stole whatever I saw in the shower haha. I accidently left one of my magnet bracelet on the side of the bathroom when I exited the bathroom. Around that time Steph was still prancing around and getting ready. Guys take about 1 or 2 minutes to get changed (2 being the most for a guy, ever). So I was able to sit around and play with Kaz’s Canon 350d camera haha (Did a bit of that last night too).

During the whole getting changed period, Inn phoned up several times, she was getting closer and closer to Earls Court so Steph or Kaz had to meetup with her in case she gets lost and all. I cant remember what I was doing, most likely packing up ready to get back home and everything. Inn got a bit lost and even ended up walking the opposite direction in Earls Court and all. She managed to find her way and all from very useful landmarks (Nandos and KFC) and eventually met up with Steph (who JUST managed to get ready and all (rushed version anyway)) to escort her back to the room.

One of the first things I’ve noticed about Inn was that she wore a hat. That was quite funny hahah, since everyone stopped wearing them ahaha. But anyway, said hello to inn for a bit. Bummed about for a bit in the room and headed off back to home.

Back at home
Not sure what I did when I was at home, did the usual battery recharging stuff as well as banter about on the Muse board. I was yet again pretty relaxed from everything. Think I listened to the Muse recordings a bit too. Didnt do too much at home but somehow I get the feeling I was lounging about in my room way longer then people thought. I did book reservations for Nandos, was pretty awesome booking a large table for everyone haha, I reported back to Kev in case he had already booked a table, but turns out he’s done nowt. Eventually, Inn phoned me a few times wondering where I was, so I guess that was the call for me to head off. Took the tube straight to TCR. Was quite a quick journey I must say, I miss using the tube for prolonged uses (ie owning a a week tube travel card).

Random synths, sushi and crazy car problems
I managed to meet up Inn and Steph at Sound Control. Was pretty glad (but it WAS kinda predictable) that they were sitting around there, I was able to piss about on the synths like I usually do. As soon as I got to the bottom floor of Virgin Megastores, I instantly homed myself to the synths, had a quick jam and sighed, knowing that I had to be polite and meet up with Inn and Steph haha. Them two managed to spend their time pissing about at the PostSecret gallery. I did want to go and all but my iRiver wasnt fully charged then so it wasnt a good idea haha.

Upon meeting Inn and Steph, I heard bad news about Kaz’s car being towed away, was quite a shock I must say. The amount she had to pay was crazy (£200). It was to a point where Kaz wasnt able to goto Nandos, as well as seeing Muse. Inn managed to persuade her to try her hardest to come back to Wembley and all though.

After a quick banter and chat at the good old Costa Cafe down at Soundcontrol it was time to head off, but not until I showed Steph and Inn some of my keyboarding skills haha.

I managed to play both Take a Bow and Hoodoo, I used some random E Piano sound instead of the Grand Piano (couldnt find it) and it was pretty nice, Hoodoo in particular. I did some thrilly bit at the top where I kinda play two notes and just twiddle around throughout. Sounds pretty nice. I managed to kinddda play Space Dementia but Inn dragged me out so we can eat at Wasabi.

Wasabi was a delight as usual. I really wanted to get some Yaki Soba but knew what was planned later on haha. So I got two prawn nigiri’s, 2 California rolls and some random rolls that had fried prawns. I also bought a packet of Wasabi (skipped the soy sauce). I cant remember what Inn bought but she did choose quite alot too, most of them were maki rolls which was a bit silly (since the Nigris were obviously better value and all).

We didn’t eat them at the restaurant since we were running a bit late so we took them to go. Our next stop was BACK to Earls Court. I think people had to drop off their stuff or something, but nonetheless, we had to meetup with people etc. Apparently, there was an accident at Earls Court, which meant the Picadilly line was closed and the district line was delayed quite a bit. We were aware that Kev was in London and was heading over to Earls Court. We managed to get him to stop at South Kensington rather then Earls Court (since he was on the Circle Line anyway and it didnt stop at Earls Court). The guy announcing stuff at South Kengsinton had a rastafarian accent, not sure why but I just random spoke to Kev on the phone with that accent as well, was bored and everything.

Meeting more people
Eventually, Kev managed to arrive at South Kengsington in one piece, immediately Inn was taking photos of him with Kaz’s Canon 350d (ah, thats another reason why we had to go back, drop that off and everything). Strangely, kev was caught reading this…

This was him using his news paper to shoo Inn away, he was on the phone at the time and Inn thought it would be funny to have a camera frenzy on him. Did not go down so well I must say.

So after all that dilly dallying, we were sort of on track to where we were going. We took the district line to Earls Court and went straight back to hotel (this was where I was able to get my bracelet back haha). Everyone wanted to look at Kev’s room (just to see if his room is cooler then Steph’s as well as us knowing what room number he was in). His room was small and depressinng. Was perfect for your typical room youths would book after running away from home so that they can slit their wrists and listen to some emo music… hope Kev didnt do that. At one point, kev came into Steph’s room going “has anyone managed to lock themselves out of their room yet?”. Was probably one of the best lines kev’s said on that day. Bless him.
After a nice long banter at the hotel rooms we were running VERY late for Nandos. (I think we were out of the room at about 6 (yup, people were entering Wembley Arena whilst we were still waiting to head to Nandos and everything)).
We went straight to Earls Court to catch the train to Wembley Central (which was closer to Nandos compared to Wembley Park). At this time, B managed to have finished her college, get back home, get changed and all that stuff and meet me up at Earls Court. We were also waiting for Miss Blee to meet up with us as well. But kev sort of met up with her and showed her to the hotel and everything.

So yeah, it was all quite confusing at Earls Court, more people were tagging along to head to Nandos and everything. B managed to work out an easier route to get to Wembley Central (involved going to Paddington station and all) so we all followed her lead on that one. Kev did try to make a few team leader decisions but were soon disregarded due to the fact that me and B knew more about London then he did.

I had a quick game of Tetris DS with Kev during the journey. I whooped him silly (naturally) in front of everyone. Was quite fun I must say haha.

Ooh I forgot to mention, Kev bought his jacket from a charity shop. Twas the most suave he could be for a meetup. I mentioned that he looked like he had just broke up with some emo chick hence the clothes haha. Most of the meetup was there to joke with Kev, no idea why he suddenly became that guy everyone makes fun out of but thats life I guess. I also forgot to mention how we’ve managed to blame Kaz’s car accident, how late we were etc all on kev. Purely because he was team leader haha. Thats life… if things go wrong, you blame others. Kev made me look after his DS Lite… cant remember why, thought he had pockets for it. but nonetheless I looked after it in my bag.

Nandos (finally)
After a semi painful journey to Wembley Central, I managed to instantly sniff out Nandos, it was pretty far, but somehow I managed to sense the resturant anyway. Wasn’t as awesome as the Sheperds Bush one but you know. Beast Love and Popey were all waiting at Nandos already so the seating arrangements were all sorted.

So yeah, here’s most of the gang at Nandos; there was BOD, Ploy, Popey, Beast Love and Pryo girl.

Was very surprised that BOD was there too, no idea why, but I kept laughing at him haha. Think we got straight into business and ordered our food. I managed to get the usual (10 wings hot, 1 large fries with peri spice and, 2 peri dips, 1 soft drink) as well as a free quarter chicken using my Nandos card. Was semi pissed off that I couldnt give it to Inn to use since they’ve spotted me passing it on haha.

That was pretty much my food, was quite an awesome portion haha. Kev had to pop off and fetch his sister (who was still lost as ever haha). B managed to remain sociable (but on the phone) and walked outside of Nandos to continue her phone antics. Kev mentioned later on that she was there when he left, and was still there when he came back.

Think I just ate haha, occasionally bantering with everyone. I did manage to shake everyone’s hand and say hello. Was nice seeing Ploy again haha, she was fun. So yeah, lots of bantering until Kev arrives with his sister. They immediately ordered their food since they were running late and all.

The food kev ordered was horrific. I mean, I can eat alot but boy did Kev go all the way. Was proper savage (not in the good sense that Stephie uses in her general dialogues). We did our usual challenge of eating EXTRA HOT (and beyond) nandos wings and see who would give in and drink water. This time there was a bit of a kick, Inn thought it would be funny to smear wasabi sauce all over the wings haha. It was horrific (in a bad way!)

You’d think it was spicey by ordering Extra Extra Extra Hot wings, but putting Wasabi on was simply a bad idea. Not in a spicey way either… me and Kev tried it and couldnt taste a thing haha (probably because our senses were dead from the prior nandos munchings). We both tried to look non challant as possible, but I’d say that those wings would have killed if we ate them first, not to mention that fact that they were dry instead of soggy. I’ve noticed that things are much spicier when they are dry and charred haha.

More visitors and the journey to the Arena
At some random point, Max arrived at nandos with CottonCandy. Twas funny seeing her, her trousers haha. She kept offering people random sweets known as “Satan’s Sperm”. They taste weird…. according to everyone else. I didnt try them because they look very mank haha. Kev seem to likes them for some reason (weirdo).

Think that was it at Nandos I must say, I started to tell everyone that he HAD to head off due to us having a possibility of missing Muse (the actually point of meeting up ahaa). So yeah, most people began heading off, twas funny how kev almost did NO leadering whatsoever, just give us shit advice that noone listened to (mainly directions haha).

So we all headed out of the building, some people took toilet breaks and all. I was one of the first ones out and out of nowhere, I head a noise….. sounds like a dropped something. Hmmm, wonder what that was haha. Seems like my bag was wide open and kev’s ds lite fell out of my bag haha oops. I did tell kev about it but he wasnt so piss (but I think he cried inside a bit, his sister said he was all protective over it when he had it haha (its like my life mirrored haha) ). Yet again, we were doing more detective work as to where Wembley was, I was leading once again but was told a gist of the area. So I just followed it, was pretty easy to find since its next to Wembley Stadium.

At once random point me and B were actually skipping to the venue, kev thought we were mental, but we’re used to skipping to gigs haha. Was awesome, kev was losing his breathe all the time and everything haha.

Getting in the damn venue
Painfully, we were REALLY late haha…. the band didnt start, but then there was a queue for the gig. We waited like everyone else, but when it was our turn…BAM! The tickets were all gone. They had ran out of guestlist tickets….this meant that they had to print more tickets out for us to use. The problem of that being what ticket numbers were they going to print. It was pretty funny how it kinda went real messy at that point. ALOT of waiting was involved. We were somehow allocated with tickets that were located at block N3 (alot closer to the band and all). I think we missed about 3 songs of the gig. Was pretty annoying. You could hear it from where we were standing. We were all also contemplating about stealing some aftershow passes since they were just sitting there and the lady just disappeared out of nowhere to have a chin waggle. When she was actually sorting out the tickets Kev just threw tonnes of abuse at her “Come on lady, faster!” etc. Was quite funny haha, kev hurling abuse to a lady, behind a counter type thing where she couldnt even hear her. Proper manly.

Overall the whole waiting and all was frustrating and evil. People behind us were proper pissed off at us (The guard didn’t really explain the fact that there wasnt any tickets for them to give out, so I assume they thought we were slowing things down). So yeah, everyone rushed to Block N to get some Muse action.

Muse gig, finally
One of the things I noticed was Matt’s clothes… he wore red…. just as I prophesied (black for day 1, white for day 2, and hmm, what colour does matt also like wearing?). People were lounging about having no idea where to sit down and eventually they just sat whereever, we were unfortunate to sit on some proper lousy seats (was better then the others in terms that it was closer to the stage and all)… we had some random security guard ask us to check our tickets, we showed them and he tried to locate the right seats for us. The thing is though, he really shouldnt of bothered us, noone was challenging our seats, customer wise, so why is he bothering us? It was really tedious. He made us follow him in and out of the bloody block. Disturbing everyone and all. Eventually he found the seats that we were suppose to be allocated and guess what? They were already taken, the people on those seats had the same ticket number and all like us. So the guy had no idea what to do. B just ignored him and went back down to some random standing area to watch the band. Was really annoying because the guy was proper confused on what he was doing, so yeah… I’ll just shorten the story about our seats because it was simply frustrating, but there was one point where they took us out of the block to go to another block with apparently better seats. But then it just got real confusing and we eventually sat back where we sat at first. Really ruined the day I must say. (Which I shall blame kev for, for making us late and everything). But I’d blame the damn security guards as well for not treating us like proper paying customers, we werent trouble making so why are they disrupting everything.

The photos were ok, there was some random pillar in the way so that was a bit of a bummer, but at least it was real close to the band.

Oooh forgot to note, the last photo is the legendary supermassive mosh hole. People would leave this space empty, and when the song REALLY kicks in, they’d mosh like crazy. At one point Matt dedicated a song (Stockholm Syndrome) to them crazy moshers haaha. He loves making fun out of them.

So that was it, the setlist was a bit shabby for the last day, they played Knights of Cydonia first and Take a Bow last. I preferred the second date the most, it was such a perfect setlist, greatest hits and the whole tracklist of Blackholes and Revelations.

Aftershow antics
So the hard part was over, the next bit was for me to work my magic and get about 12 people into the the aftershow. Kev was useless haha, all he could do is phone Tom, but my first plan of action was to simply get everyone going to the aftershow area, at least you could stand a chance of meeting Tom…. or if not… get some passes from other people who left the gig haha.

Me and B were running straight to the gig and all, I texted Kev to head to that direction so I think he managed to tell everyone where we needed to go. Remember that the goal was to simply get into the aftershow party…. (just keep remembering this point haha).

We met up with Michelle, Caff and Gem during our journey to the aftershow area, and they tagged along with us. Seemed like them lot managed to get ok seats, perhaps none of this would happen if Kev got us to the Arena early ahahah. So yeah, we eventually end up at the waiting area for the aftershow place. This is where it got REAL exciting for me (and me only haha). Anthony, a friend of mine who I’ve met several times at several aftershows saw me waiting outside, last night I asked him whether or not he’ll be coming tomorrow and he said he wasn’t as he was seeing Julliet and the Licks. But yeah, he managed to turn up, we had a quick talk and all and it turns out he was invited by Chris to play footie with him at some random place. I explained him my situation and to my surprise, he offered me an aftershow pass!! HAHAH. THAT WAS IT!!! I got my aftershow pass sorted, the guy had 3 strips of it, I tried to ask for another one but he saw SO many people waiting with me that he thought “nah, just one, i dont know the others”. So yeah, guess I was stuck with just one aftershow pass.

So yeah, folks, if you want aftershow passes, meet up with people at aftershows, important people haha. So anyway, after celebrating my aftershow passes, I promised everyone I would go inside the aftershow to find Tom to see if he could help everyone out. Though I must say, more and more musers were waiting outside for us, the best way to explain this task was by comparing it to “squeezing triplets back into a woman, and the babies arent even hers” I would have used more babies but that’s just proper cruel to the lady haha.

Having said that analogy, later on I found out that the amount of people ACTUALLY inside the after was similar to 3 triplets inside a woman. At first upon entering the aftershow party, my first reaction was “nobodies”. Noone I knew was around, so it was generally a boring aftershow. Had to wait a bit more until Tom or the band to arrive. I came back out of the aftershow and reported to everyone that it was actually boring and that the water costs £1.90, which was rediculously overpriced. I wasn’t too keen on this aftershow, it was like last nights, only with more people (you didnt know). As well as that, no music and the area became more and more packed with people.

To keep everyone outside convinced that this aftershow was shit, I took some photos of the place to prove to them that it was just a packed up aftershow that wasnt worth going to (not to mention, impossible to get so many people in and all).

I really wasn’t bothered to goto the aftershow, I’ve already went two times in a row, and not to mention the fact that I’ve already checked this night’s aftershow party and found it boring and lacking in people to talk to. The photo above gives you an idea of how packed it was, it got alot worse afterwards, one point it was simply far too packed to even do anything in there.

Most people were not really bothered about going to the aftershow, was glad that so many people were thinking about this. I had previously already told people not to look forward to an aftershow since when I spoke to Tom last night about getting us aftershowed, he was REALLY iffy about (use the woman and triplets analogy again). Michelle received a text from her mates that the band wasn’t going to be in the aftershow party at all, so it was simply a useless aftershow. Though quite alot of people were determined to get into the aftershow party. Gem, Michelle and Caff were sort of in a team since they were all staying at Michelle’s place. They were quite determined in getting in. I tried asking people who were leaving the aftershow for wristbands if they were leaving and all. Eventually I managed to get two from people leaving the building, it happened to be the Editor of NME haha, upon finding that out I managed to quickly plug in my website haha (was funny, in future I should make business cards for the occasion).

Anyway, I gave the first two passes to B and Michelle, in that order (there was definitely alot of politics going on haha). Afterwards, since Michelle was going with Caff and Gem, I had to give the next two passes (which I managed to get from Anthony again when he was leaving the venue and all) to them. And that was it, I felt a bit evil offering the passes to people close to me first, but I did make my point that I was in a very tedious situation, Kev managed to help me up by telling me to give them to Gem and Caff haha, so it kind of made it look like I was actually willing to give it to anyone (which I was anyway, it was tedious already).

So yeah, after all that bantering, we tried queuing up for the aftershow, but the problem now was that the aftershow was simply packed as ever. The security guards didnt let any more people in haha. So all that pass snatching was useless. Gemsy and her friend managed to get in as well. She did the same chewing gum technique and was able to get into the aftershow for a bit (I was cooler haha).

So yeah, at one point I just kept asking the security guard if i was able to get some water from the toilets as I was REALLY thirsty haha (from all that persuading and everything), the bald security guard got proper mad and told me to “F**k off” haha. Ah well.

Leaving the aftershow
I think at some random point everyone just gave up and left, I wouldnt say gave up, since most of them werent really bothered. If we wanted an aftershow party it was defintiely alot cheaper and cooler to make one ourselves, since the aftershow lacked in people we knew, and the drinnks were expensive (as well as no music etc).

We were able to catch the last train back (but only to Baker Street) at the Wembley Park station. Required quite alot of waiting, at one point kev told people that the train approaching was our train back home, it had been “Leader approved” haha… funny bit was that it was a train delivering train tracks.

We did hope kev was going to jump into it and all haha.

During the tube journey to Baker Street me and kev played Tetris DS, I whooped him 4 times in a row, and was almost going to finish him off for the 5th time when suddenly he managed to beat me at it haha, though he was lucky I had cold fingers so he won that time, afterwards I beat him for the other rounds, kev’s not really quick with his fingers. When we arrived at Baker Street, B was able to quickly find out bus back to Earls Court and Hammersmith. We went on the top deck and had a few giggles, at one point I told Miss Blee that I had received a private message from StarSailor, I used my phone to read out the pm haha, I did it in a funny french accent and everyone enjoyed that. B was expecting me to stay over at hers but unfortunately I had to sort out the other people who had no idea of where London was and all. So yeah, I had to say goodbye to B as we got off at High Street Kensingston. Was pretty worried that she was going back home on her own but she’s not 15 anymore I suppose.

The REAL aftershow (with munchies, drinks and rice cakes)
We had a quick trek to Earls Court, was a nice trek. Along the way we managed to stop by at a 24 7 Newsagent and get some food. Me and Inn pitched in for some DECENT Tropicanna Orange Juice (leaving the others with shabby water haha). We went slightly nuts on crisps and stuff, I made sure that we bought some rice cakes (yum yum).

So yeah, our own little aftershow party in Steph’s room.

This one was alot more fun since we had munchies and drinks. Kaz bought some beers, alcopop and assorted food. Stephie started distributing the Absinthe haha, only me and popey (and a few others) were drinking it haha, I was being sly and simply mixed it up with my Tropicanna, didn’t want to end up wasted hahah, that’s just not cool. Kev got changed before joining us, we laughed at his retro old muse T Shirt, he had forgotten the fact that he would be ridiculed for wearing it haha.
Managed to take some photos of everyone using Kaz’s daddio camera (mmm). And throughout the party people were knocking the door. The funniest thing is how everyone darts off somewhere. Either to the bathroom or down on the floor haha, It reminded me of an episode of friends where they just hide when Pete talks to Monica over the video phone.

Eventually the hotel guy DID knock on the door. He asked her how many people were in this room, and Steph replied “4…” expecting the guy to believe her, what with the cameras in the corridors and everything haha. He guy told her that if they were partying then they could use the Lounge and everything. Steph was surprised that there was one (as were we) so we all went up and continued to party upstairs.

The lounge had hot water (should of bought pot noodle haha), an internet terminal as well as some comfty seats. So this was where we partied up the place for a bit. Twas quite sad actually, most people found it more interesting to go on the internet then actually socialise haha. Makes you want to shake your head seeing them and all. I just happily munched on my rice cakes and spiked up orange juice.

The computer was shite, the browser didnt support javascript so we had to disable alot of things to actually make the muse board work. It was horrible. Couldnt even watch youtube videos.

Soon we had to pack up and finish off the party. Blee and her boyfriend went to their room, so did kev and her sister, Gemsy went back to her place whilst BOD, Popey and I left the hotel to go back home. I had a nice chat with Popey throughout the journey hehe, unfortunately, it wasnt one of those deep and meaningful chats you get during random midnights where you would constantly squint your eyes and stare at the other person intently, agreeing with them as they waffle on whilst getting ready to follow it up with some of your own waffle, it was just a normal chat about … stuff, cant remember haha. was glad he was taking the 93 bus too. I eventually got back home in one piece and got some decent sleep in my own bad.

So yeah, that was it. Eventually got a text from B saying that she got back home safe. So that was good.