Pesky bloody crap bus service...

I hate the night bus.
It always seems to have gone by early when Kat's at the Cathouse, meaning that it's sometimes as late as 5am until she arrives back in East Kilbride.

Meh. What a pish weekend.
Good day at FireFight games-wise, but I had a few bouts of acid reflux wosname that were insanely sore.
And we had no overnight babysitter at ALL this weekend, so Kat was out on Friday and Sunday night while I stayed in. Everyone was either out as well, working, or simply not up for coming over.

Fun Easter weekend there, then.

Doctor Who was good, I suppose...

Dear GOD! THEY'RE AT IT AGAIN!

SHUT UP!
SHUT UP!
SHUT UP!
SHUT UP!

There's absolutely NO NEED for a home hi-fi to EVER be played that fucking loudly!
TURN IT THE HELL DOWN, YOU BLOODY INCONSIDERATE ARSEHOLES!!!


*Phones cops again*

Well... that stopped the music!

Tunes got turned off 5 minutes after my last post. The cops are STILL hammering their door.

Are they fucking morons?
Really - "Haw, whit? If we turn ra choons doon, thu'll think wur no' in ony mair!"

Gah.


( P.S. - This Post Brought To You By "No More Shit Music", "Their Door Must Be Dented To Hell", and "Extra Special Bonus Cute WPC!". :) )

That's the cops knocking at their door now.

They obviously can't even hear them!

Still at it.

Yup.

*Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud*

The music stopped some hours ago...

FUCK BLOGGER TIMEOUT ERRORS! FUCK THEM IN THE ARSE!

I just said:

The music stopped, but has just started up again.
I nipped into the hall to check, and the bass, when stood at #21's door, was actually uncomfortable to my ears.
Arseholes.

So the cops are called again - And chances are that #21 will stop the tunes as soon as the plod arrive, and I'll get more verbal for wasting their time.

If they get the right door, that is ( Unless the girl from #17 that hassled Kat wasn't just being a wanker for the sake of it. )

Further to that...

The fucking arseholes at #21 Oak Avenue have ALREADY started blaring their shitty music.
We had to call the police at the back of 10 last night... They arrived at half past midnight, to find the flat in darkness, and silence.

That's nice - We had a few hours before then of Hendrix and Oasis at ear-shattering volumes. I'm TWO FUCKING FLOORS BELOW THEM!
I should NOT be able to hear lyrics.

Then the girl from #17 accosts Kat in the close, and gives her shit for "Calling the cops to her door".
We didn't. We TOLD them it was #21.
And the cops also claim that they went to #21 and only #21.

I am sick of this shit.
So unbelievably sick to the back teeth of it all.
Even now, I'm struggling to not throw my goddamn keyboard against the wall.

I'm sick of being lied to.
I'm sick of being fucked around.
I'm sick of being fucked over.
I'm sick of being the nice guy - Of trying to the right thing by everyone, and STILL getting accused of being the bad guy.
I'm sick of being ill, and of being tired all the time.
I'm sick of the fact that seemingly I'm not ALLOWED to be ill, or tired... Yet folk still drop everything and jump when it's someone else who needs help.

I'm sick of it.
Sick of it all.

Back to London later tonight...

For now, just a quick sitrep.

It's Friday night, I have a sore stomach...
I'm in tonight looking after Morgan, and Kat's changed her plan from heading out at the back of 9, to going for a pint with Jen pre-clubbing.
She went over to Julie's a few hours ago, and they're still there. I thought that was them heading OUT when she left.

Maybe I'll get peace for a bath later on, once Morgan goes to bed.
Whenever THAT may be...

ovknasovnasovna;sodvna;sodvna;sdvnas;dljvas;dlk#


What a fun easter weekend. They're away out Sunday night, too.
I won;t be.

I bet there's more backstabby politicking shite at FireFight on Sunday, too.
Certain people have let a few things slip, and I know someone's gonna try to fuck me over again.

Meh.

LittleBunnyWeeblGoRound!

I hate London transport.

We planned to get up early, and be at the World's End by noon. Then Lainey and me would go to the Webcomix Thingy in Mile End ( One stop from where we were staying! ) for about 2, for the half 2 panel.

We got to the World's End for about 2, due to a combination of general sleepiness / slowness, and other people in the flat being in the sodding bathroom.

Got to the Comix Thingy for about 2:45.

T'was good though!
I met Weebl, and the folks behind Little Gamers, Bunny, Scary-Go-Round, and a bunch of other cool comics.
I got Kat a Kat Hat, and I got me a signed LG book. Also, a whole bunch of freebies, and some nifty framed art.
Got some photos of Max with various folks, for his comicblog, and had a good afternoon.
I also managed to get sweat-rash on my thigns so bad that they were red raw and in AGONY for the next 2 days. The hard water down there didn;t help - Made it a hundred times WORSE, in fact!
Oh, the pain!

Still, it was fun. The panel was interesting ( What I heard of it! ), and Mr Madsen made some amusing wank jokes.

I expected nothing less.

Lookie here!

"Is that... PUBES?!?!"

The Electric Ballroom.

Been there a few times in the past for "Full Tilt".
Now, the club night is "Sin City".

The changes I'd been informed about included a switch in music policy - The huge floor now plays metal etc. and upstairs is a bit more Bling... And that they now had cage dancers.

Both of these statements are true.
However:

The DJs - All 4 or 5 of them, or however many folk were in the booth - Are really, really good at completely and utterly ignoring folk standing there waiting to request a song.
Seriously - Even when I'm alone in the booth ( Usually... ) I still make sure that I speak to anyone waiting as soon as I can.
I don't stand and chat, or browse CDs, or dance about and wave my hands at the crowd as if they're there to look at ME.
Not when folk are waiting, anyway ;)
I also make a point of leaving borrowed CDs somewhere easy to see should the owner come back. I'm now down one mix CD and Thumper's down a scabby CD wallet as a result of this.

The security - What the hell is their job anyway?
OK, the on-door searches were done well... But in-club stewarding?
no evidence of that at all.
As Julie, Kat, Thumper and I were sitting taking a breather, some REALLY drunk dude passed out on the bench next to us. A number of bouncers walked right on by, totally ignored him. A few even looked at him, but walked on.
If that was the Catty, he'd have been gonez0red in seconds!

Then there was the silly little short-skirt-and-stockings-clad cow who spent most of the night sitting down on the dancefloor.
She clearly decided after a few hours of this that the general populace didn't have QUITE a good enough view of her fanny, so she LAY DOWN!
You heard me - She was lying down on the dancefloor.
Then she had the cheek to stand up and chase one poor sod who tripped over her, and give him dog's abuse for daring to not notice her... as she LAY ON THE DANCEFLOOR!

Arsehole of a girl.

Think that's bad?
What about pile-ons?
Again... On the dancefloor. We watched a 10-man pile-on take place, and again nothing was done about it by staff.

The cage dancers were crap - If they thought they were dancin' sexy, then clearly London Sexy is very much different to Glasgow Sexy.
And one of 'em really had her pants too low... We were convinced - Until close examination proved us wrong - that her untrimmed bush was bursting out over the elastic.
It was just the shadow of her belly though.
Add that to the ungainly, clumsy attempts at being slinky, the fact that one got her foot trapped in the cage, and the general half-assedness of it, and it really didn't work well at all.

I hate to say it, as I loved the place the first few times I was there, but I doubt I'll be back.
They even closed the chill-out room early.

Julie thought we were angry with her, because she pulled some random dude and spent her usual 10 minutes saying goodnight, when we'd told her we wanted to go NOW as we weren;t sure how to get back to Hackney at night ( Kat had forgotten the card with the address of the flat on it. )
Worked out alright - We got a bus within minutes, and it turns out that getting to Hackney by night is actually FAR easier than by day! The night bus runs an extended route, whereas the day bus stops well short.

Zzzzzz...

Dinner. Oh, and WHAT a dinner!

Let's get this out of the way first.

I'm a tight bastard.
No, really - I really do grudge paying over the odds for things.

So when we decided to go for food, jumping into the nearest place with nary a glance at the £ collumn of the menu didn't quite sit right.
Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse was the venue.

Never in my life have I paid £20 for ONE COURSE of a meal!
That's £16 for the steak, and £3 for the mushrooms... £2 for the chips.
Yeah, all paid for seperately.

"But that's just London!" I hear you cry.
Or maybe "You want a good steak, that's the price!".

Nope. I've had meals just as good in London for less cash... And I've had steaks elsewhere for less too.
It WAS a bloody stunning meal ( Even if the "Bed of paté" was more like a pillow... Or a throw-cushion. ).
But £20?
Nah, sorry. Not worth it. HAd everyone else not insisted, I'd have been outta there before I went in.

Also, somehow my camera fell out of my pocket - I realised just as we went into the tube station! Bolted back up, looking at the pavement all the way. Went back into the eaterry... And it was under Thumper's seat.
Lucky me.

And to think that one of the reasons I was getting so pissed off that Thumper kept on running across roads with no warning was that I was worried I'd drop something - Phone or camera.
The other being that my knee has a habit of giving out. ( If you ever see me dropping to the deck at FireFight, chances are that I'm not actually ducking a volley of fire with great skill... My leg's just given out on me! )

Quick jaunt back to the flat... Quick blagging phonecall to the Electric Ballroom, to get on the guest list ( A scathing review will be going up when I have a moment. ).
Then off we went for some hot clubbing action.

"Hamley's, we love you! Hamley's, we do!"

I really do. It's just a cool place - Even if their selection of action figures IS shite!

We started off on the top floor, and worked our way down.
I got the aforementioned Best Hat Ever, and Kat got £30 worth of Jelly Beans.
Mmm... Jelly Beans! Nothing in this world is as tasty as a buttered-popcorn flavour Jelly Belly jelly bean.

We picked up a new flatmate here, too - An as-yet unnamed cat from the Bear Factory section.
He's got specs, smaaaart shoes, and a pinstripe suit.
We think he works in an office somewhere. Not sure though - He's quite quiet.
He's supposed to snore, since Kat didn't want to record a voicechip herself.
Sounds more like purring to her.
Sounds more like Darth Vader to me and Semp!

I bought Kat a new keyring - a 3D laser engraving of Tigger, in a glass block.
The technique is excellent, and although the scanner used only gets a 180* view, it's still impressive to see a translucent Tigger suspended in space with no seam lines at all! ( A laser is used to burn away the glass, controlled by a CAD/CAM computer. Nifty! )

Max Rebo was along for the trip too, and he got his photo taken with Tinky Winky.
The big purple poof tried to chat him up, but Max is a real ladies' man, so politely declined - Even when Tinky Winky tried to use the old "Do you want to come and see some puppies, then?" line.
True, he MIGHT have simply been talking about the stuffed dogs on the 1st floor, but you never know.
He carries a HANDBAG for god's sake!

Kat and Julie wanderer off for pubbage, and Thumper and I endulged in some Star Wars Racer action.
We admired some lovely chess sets, then went off to join the ladies.

"We're in the Red Lion", said Kat's text.

A suggestion for any Londoners reading this blog :
TRY TO BE A BIT MORE BLOODY ORIGINAL WHEN NAMING YOUR PUBS!
There's 2 Red Lions within a minute's walk!
Bunnyboy and I were in one, wondering where the hell Kat and Julie were!
They, in turn, had forgotten the name of the "Food after 5pm" place, and were wondering where WE were!

Pesky bloody English unoriginal pub-namer-type-people.

Then onto dinner.

"Kickin' pigeons! Kickin' pigeons in... Leicester Square!"

*NOTE* No pigeons were actually kicked.
Not by us, anyway. One big fat bastard kicked the living SHIT out of one of it's smaller, scrawnier cousins. But that's Pigeon business, and not for the likes of us humans to get involved in. Their ways and affairs are beyond our ken and to meddle would be dangerous, possibly catastrophic. Maybe even cataclysmic.

And THAT would be putting the cataclysm among the pigeons, and no mistake!

Ahem.

Friday.

Got up.
Got dressed.
Went to wee café for breakfast.
Had lovely burger.
Ate half of accidentally-bought extra burger.
Mocked Thumper for eating NO veg.
Failed to realise until now the extreme irony incurred here by the interface of this fact with his nickname.
Went into London proper.

It was alright, I guess. We didn't really plan it too well, so wandered aimlessly and visited FAR fewer shops than I intended. I guess the rest of them wanted to get to a pub, but I was more interested in SHOPPING, dammit!
T'was not to be, not really.

It was hot, it has to be said. 22* at one point IIRC.

Points Of Interest:

Julie and I standing outside the bank watching a gang of hardhatless workmen hauling planks, tools and nails up 5 storeys of scaffolding - by tying a rope around each item.
AROUND - meaning "One loop, tied horizontally".
The suspense was a killer, but nothing fell and nobody got killz0red.

Ah well... you can't have everything.

Sat in Leicester Square. Ate muffins.
Watched the aforementioned Pigeon Mortal Kombat.

We passed a great sex shop, the name of which cracked me up.
"Lovecrafts".

What the hell?!?!
Are we talking Cthulhu porn, here?
DJ Bastard agreed with me on this one - I texted him, and he asked why I hadn't gone in and gotten a few Chtulhu butt-plugs.
Being honest, the ones I have are still fine and will probably last me well into the summer.

Looked into a few nifty wee Oriental stores - I wanted to look more, but we needed to move on.
Ended up in an Irish pub that CLAIMED to serve food, but didn't.
This is after the Red Lion told us that they didn't serve food until 5pm. We didn't wanna wait.
The Irish place never told us until AFTER we'd ordered drinks.

On to Hamley's, where I got the best hat ever.
Flame-print stetson. According to Lainey "That hat was made for you, Steve! It IS you!".
Thanks. I think :)

In the interests of easy-to-read-ness, I'll post this now, and do Part 2 in a moment.

Beearrbee!

"It's true, Edward! There IS a London!"

Been a few days since I updated.
Why?

I bin in Lahndan, innit?

Kat, myself, Julie and Thumper went off on a London Adventchah - incorporating a Monas board meet and a Comic Thingy.

No REAL reason for it, other than that I love Camden, and we'd been meaning to go for ages.
Julie's become a really good friend, so she came along, and Thumper... Well, it wouldn't be a London Adventchah without that lovable little pisshea^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hscamp now, would it?

I'll backdate these entries to the appropriate dates, even though I'm writing them after our return.

So... Holiday.

Our mode of transportation?
No, we didn't fly. Nor did we summon Gwaihir, Lord Of The Eagles to carry us down there 'pon his majestic feathered back.
We used Megabus.com.

THREE QUID RETURN!

I was half expecting it to be a shitty wee old double decker with hard plastic seats for that.
It wasn't - Not by a long shot. It was actually a comfier bus than when I used National Express!
I got the back seat on the top deck of the double-deck tour bus.
Bunnyboy got the next 2 seats, then Kat, then Julie.
Yup - 2 seats each. Perhaps Megabus is generally viewed as too scaffy ( Remember THAT word?! ) to travel on by most.
Sod that - It was great!
Left Glasgow at 11am, and we were in London and off the bus before half eight at night.

We met up with Kat's cousins Gary and Eileen - Who live in the same block and who had graciously offered to share Eileen's room so that we could borrow Gary's.
A quick trip to the pub was followed by a visit to a kickass wee kebab shop. I LOVE English Greek kebab shops ;)
Why can't we get Garlic Sauce up here?!?!
It tastes so nummy - You can feel the garliccy goodness doing you good right down in the pit of your squeedly spootch!

Post shop, we hopped on a bus over to Hackney ( Where the flats are ) and munched.
Then t'was time for snoozing.

Snoozing and, in Thumper's case, going "OOooooooooowwaaaarghnnggggggaaaahhhh!" in one's sleep.

More drama - Brief outline...

Last night, I heard shouting, screaming, thumping and crying upstairs.
Stuck my head out into the close, and a female voice was heard yelling "Please call 999! Get them to [ADDRESS EDITED AS I WAS QUOTING, AND DIDN'T THINK NOT TO QUOTE THE ENTIRE CONVO :) ]!"

Whoever's door she'd banged ( I THINK it was the girl from upstairs... And I THINK she'd banged #17's door... ) responded with "And tell them what?"

"Please! Just call 999! Please!"
"I don't want anything to do with this. Sorry."
"Call the police!"

At which point, a male voice told #17(?) to get back inside and shut the door.


WTF?!
IMHO, that's well out of order.
I called them, since it sounded to ME like there was something bad going down - I wasn't for going up since I was in alone with Morgan. Still, the cops should have taken less time than the ~30 minutes it took them to respond!

No idea what actually went down, since the cops only stayed for a few minutes - But if someone bangs on MY door and begs me in tears to call 999... I fucking well call 999!

Some people...

They should call 'em "Not-work cables"...

So, a slightly quieter weekend than initially planned, but fun nonetheless!

Kat was off at a health spa weekend with Mandy - They won holiday vouchers at the Cathouse birthday party by doing battle whilst wearing inflatable sumo suits.
Mandy's Chebs Of Doom ensured a 2/1 win, but she shared the spoils of war with Kat and booked the pair of them ( Kat and Mandy, that is... ) into the Cameron House Hotel for a weekend's pampering.

I, in turn, invited a bunch of friends over to geek out all weekend with the assistance of a wee bit of LANnage.

Most of the buggers' PCs chose this week to enable their Vertical Mammary Mode, so it ended up being me, Edgecrusher, Orev and Thumper.

Thumper's PC decided to throw a strop too - But it's a Ferrari branded laptop, so that was only to be expected.
Pesky Italians.

Games-wise, we got a decent bunch of rounds in - Once we got the network running!
Didn't quite have enough cables, but Kenny downstairs stepped in to save the day.


AvP2 - Alien Evolution mode rocks, especially when you play as a Facehugger and hide inside the Powerloader. *Grin*

Postal 2 : Share The Pain - *Smack* Nothing hurts like a shovel to the face!

Black Hawk Down - "THAT BASTARD'S FLYING!"
*BOOM*
Not if Scapey's Barrett has anything to say about it ;) Shot the fucker out of mid-air.
Go me!


So aye - LAN party = teh g00dz0r.

I inherited some yummy doughnuts, and some biscuits.

Bastards took the jelly beans though :(
Was hoping they'd be left too.

WHERE DID YOU BUY THEM, OREV? THEY ROCKED!

A.D. - Thief. Liar.

Went into town to grab a new hard drive ( 700GB total space now! Woo! ) and who do I see as I get off the bus, but "A.D." [ EDIT - NAME REMOVED, AS I CAN'T BE ARSED WITH THE FALLOUT FROM FOLK WHO DO STILL TALK TO THIS GUY, AND WHO THINK THAT WHAT HE'S DONE IS SOMEHOW NOT TOO BAD...].

For those of you that know him - I advise you now to stop letting this fucker in your home or anywhere near your personal possessions.
For those of you who don't :

Back when I was living in Partick and working at EasyEverything, my flatmate bought a bike.
I had some spare cash, so I bought one too - A sweet little BMX.

Commuted ONCE on the thing, and realised that I really needed a mountain bike for this job.
So I got the shop to swap - Which was nice.

( Few days later, I noticed that the front gear was slightly dented... Before I could get this fixed, I crashed, going through the clyde tunnel. Ripped my face open - But got a free replacement gear a day or so after that. )

Anyway, I moved to Garturk Street, and the mountain bike went into the cupboard. It had been used only on a few occasions, and had spent mose of the rest of the time in storage.

My "friend" A.D was round at the flat one day, and mentioned that he needed a bike as he was up for a courier job.
I offered to sell him mine, and even let him take the bike on tick on the understanding that he would pay me from his first wage.

Well, he screwed up, and lost his job.
Months went by - "Oh, I'll get you the cash soon... I promise."

I was trying to be nice - The guy was down on his luck.
Then he disappeared utterly - and as I had moved out of the flat by that point, the only contact I had with him was through mutual acquaintances... Who were refusing to help me even talk to him.
I even told him I'd knock £30 off the price of the bike if he paid me within 2004.
( By this point, I didn't WANT the bike back as the other potential buyers had long since gone away )

Eventually, this year, he passed on a message that he had some cash coming in soon, and would pay me just to get me off his back.
Which brings me to me getting off the bus, and seeing him chaining MY FUCKING BIKE up outside Cash Generator.

"Hi ! How are you?"
"Better than you"... As he walked away.

The police have now been informed, and given all the details on the situation.
I'm also looking into civil proceedings against him, since I'm not going to let this lie.



So yes, those of you who know A.D. - Know this:
He is a liar.
He is a thief.
He is not to be trusted.

Those of you who still hang out with this bastard after what he's done here?
What's wrong with you? How can you let someone steal almost £200 from a friend of yours, and still call THEM your friend as well?

There's something wrong with that...

Neds. Who'd have 'em?

As posted to Alternativenation:


So, tomorrow was scheduled to be a private-hire day at Firefight Scotland for 8... umm... "Young people with behavioral difficulties" from a certain youth centre to learn some people skills and get a wee taste of how to work as a team.

Or, to put it another way:
"Hey, Steve - I've got these wee bams who've been kicked out of school and are generally mouthy wee gits. Reckon Airsoft'd be a good way to instil a bit of discipline in 'em? They really need a good kick up the arse. You up for it?"


Me?
Yeah, of course!

So the plan was to pair these kids ( Ranging from 15 - 17 years of age. 5 boys, 3 girls ) up with one experienced Airsofter each... Split the lot into two teams and get them into some contact drills, and patrol training.
Then play a few games so they can use what they've learned.

And before anyone gets smartarsed - They had the benefit of the doubt even from me ( Although we did make sure that ALL our gear was insured against vandalism or theft ) and would not have been given a hard time so long as they behaved themselves.


Guess what?
They didn't even get as far as the site.

I got a call a few hours ago - We've had to cancel the game because the wee shitbags vandalised the centre, set off fire alarms and assaulted a staff member!

It's probably a very good job they didn't get as far as the game - Since if they'd tried any of that shit with some of my marshalls, they'd have been eating ground and awaiting a police car before they even had time to say "Aw whit man?!"


*Sigh*

The youth of today, eh?
You try and do something nice for them, and what do you get in return?

Parcelfarce. Yeah, it's a shit joke...

... but it trips off the tongue a mite faster than "Parcelfuckingcuntragarseholeshitbagwankstaincrustycumscrapes."

5 rifles were sent up from Reading on Thursday.
£41 was paid for "Next-Day Delivery".

Are they here yet?
No.
What day is it?
TUESDAY!



Add that to the fact that T.N.T. claimed on Friday at half five that they'd attempted to deliver Sunday's ammo at 22 minutes past ( LIES! ) then after promising a delivery first-thing on Saturday had the nerve to tell me at 11:30 in the morning that "You're booked in for Monday if that's OK?" and I wasn't too pleased.


"You informed me on Friday that the parcel that was due then - And don't get me wrong, I don;t believe for a second that delivery WAS attempted since we've had folk at the door all day and heard it fine... And no card was left to prove that your guy had actually been here - You informed me that the parcel would be with me first thing this morning.
This parcel contains ammo for a paintball [ It's not worth the hassle of explaining... ] game that's scheduled for Sunday.
If I have no ammo, I have to cancel the game.
If I cancel the game, I lose money.
If I lose money, YOU lose money as we will be taking your company to court for loss of earnings incurred due to your company's incompetence even on the second try."

"The parcel will be with you within the hour, Mr Fletcher."


You're damn right it will be.