So no, we didn’t get to see Meatloaf at the weekend, and in fact he’s cancelled the rest of his tour in its entirety, owing not to stress or acute laryngitis, but vocal cysts, they are now saying. I’m disappointed of course, but I’m coping. No cards, please.
Friday was still a lot of fun, except for the drive there which was often thwarted by slowwwww drivers, Welsh hills, my under-confidence in overtaking, horrific traffic on the motorways and a closed M6 around our junction. Ruth, JTA and I met up with JTA’s mum Chris and sister Harriet in Newport. Ruth and I walked their dog Milo down by the canal while JTA visited his old school. It turns out Ruth has gotten very geeky about canals since her narrowboat holiday. i’d quite like to go on such a trip, but I’m worried I’d spend the whole time bored, drunk, or both.
After being fed by Chris we all set off for the NEC to meet Gareth (our Dan replacement) there. However, having finally circumvented the traffic jams and lane closures (and one confusing roundabout) Gareth phones JTA to announce that the gig has been cancelled. At this point, we all think he is joking, but soon and sadly realise he’s not. We agree to meet at the airport, then at the NEC when we remember parking costs, then after failing to convince the very nice attendant at the Hilton that we should be allowed to park for hours for free, we decided to head back to Newport for a pint.
Back in Newport we chatted for a bit whilst Gareth was fed many leftovers from earlier, then wandered the long 50 yards to the local pub, where Ruth decided she liked the glasses so much she was going to hide them in her handbag.
After a couple of drinks we went back to the house, made our farewells and set off in our separate directions. Having listened to Meatloaf all the way to the concert, and now associating his name with disappointment, we were very glad that JTA had burnt a CD of explicitly NOT Meatloaf for the journey home.
The return journey was on beautifully dark and clear roads and reminded me why I like driving. I enjoyed very much just spending time with Ruth and JTA with nothing to do but talk and sing along to the bangin’ tunes. They were both exhausted when we arrived in aber shortly after 1am, so went to bed. I, meanwhile, headed to the Bay to meet up with Jimmy, Beth and Lizzie.
The Bay was packed when I arrived, and having found the three of them singing badly along with the jukebox, I deduced that they were a little tipsy. In an attempt to play catch-up, I got myself a snakebite and black. Jimmy insisted he and I had tequila, so the next round was snakebite and black with a shot of tequila on the side. After that I don’t remember what I drank… I know we sang a lot more, and eventually made it to the dancefloor. Jimmy got lost for about an hour at some point in the evening, and we all ended up leaving before closing at 4, but not by much.
So I had a horrendous hangover on Saturday, but Jimmy was way worse. We ended up watching “California Man” on TV, which was as 80s as it was brilliant! At some point Jimmy stole my feet and named them Steve and Jemimah (sic), going so far as to write their names on them with a marker pen…
Following that, Troma Night occurred, as it usually does on a Saturday Night. We watched WarGames, which I loved, and I really felt for the creator of the supercomputer, getting a parently feeling when it finally made the connection and learnt what everyone was hpoing it would. Then we watched Flashback, which is a great film about rebellion and being true to yourself, with a very uplifting feel. Perhaps I’m a bit of a hippie, though. After that we watched the first episode of a series called “Dexter”, which Jimmy brought. It’s about a serial killer who helps the police find serial killers/analyse blood spatters/if all else fails, murders the bastards. Interesting premise, reasonably gruesome, just darkly funny enough to be watchable. I’d like to watch some more at some point, but there’s a limited audience since Ruth and JTA found it a bit too gruesome, I think!
Jimmy left Sunday morning, for which I was harshly awakened (I wanted to be awake to say goodbye, but I’m not sure the pointy stick was necessary…) and then later we all went for Sunday lunch. It was going to be in the rave-reviewed Druid Inn, but this week they were fully booked, so we went to the Pier Brasserie (not brassiere) and ate our fill. It was, as usual, good food and good company. Whilst there we managed to convince Amy that she wanted to come and see Poultrygeist.
Later on that day I received a call from Dan saying to be at Beechings ASAP — we’re going for a pint with Lloyd Kaufman, president of Troma studios and creator of The Toxic Avenger! And so we did, as evidenced by Dan’s blog. It was really great to finally meet the man who is responsible for the films we’ve been watching at Troma Night for years, and I’ll admit to being a little starstruck by it all. OMGLloyd! Having spent some quality time sharing a plate of nachos with Lloyd, we went up to visit Matt in the hospital, who has now finally escaped, but sounds like he had a horrible time of it. Get well soon, Matt! The we headed up to Poultrygeist…
It was a fantastic film, on form for Troma, meeting most of the drinking rules (copies of which we passed around the cinema), containing fabulous songs, ridiculous gore, and a surplus of nipples (if such a thing can ever be had). After the film and subsequent Q&A I managed to get a poster I’d bought signed by Lloyd, and then we went for curry. Probably shouldn’t have, really, because I was nowhere near hungry enough.
Last night we had a fire and fireworks on the beach, mostly organised by Paul, thanks Paul! The fireworks were ace, though the wind did make it fairly hazardous to be stood anywhere within about 100ft of them… Rory got some good photos by the look of it, too. Penny and I went out to the woods to get firewood, but when we inevitably ran out of wood we decided to buy more rather than go hunting in the dark for driftwood. Seems a bit like cheating, really.
I’d really like to make more comics, I seem to have neglected them. I think I might make another Aber Effect, but using Flash rather than pen and paper. Trouble is, these days, I seem to have no time, what with the two boyfriends and the 60 credit Masters dissertation, lectures, practicals, advisory work, Welsh dept work… Gotta get better at scheduling.
Christmas is coming, and lots of people have said I’m hard to buy for. This is mostly because I don’t know what I want, and also that anything I do wnat is probably too expensive for one person to buy. Firstly, I’m really shit at buying people presents, so don’t worry too much about buying me the perfect gift. Nevertheless, things I’d like for Christmas include:
Guitar Hero III (Wii)
A nice pair of headphones for use with my electric piano (Don’t say keyboard)
Some sort of speaker setup for the same
Some way of recording guitar/piano to my PC
A CD of music I like (check Facebook for my musical taste, I own almost no CDs so your chances are high of getting me something I want)
I’m spotting a musical theme here… So it’s my only interest these days, even my diss involves it… Since you ask, it’s on Automatic Classification of Music by Genre using Machine Learning, and it’s going reasonably well.
Well, I’ve been writing this for hours and I have to go to work, so it’ll have to do. Enjoy!
edit: Added a load of links, it was looking a bit barren.