Advent: Dec 6th

All of the alcohol was drunk and all of the hangovers were had today. Cycling to work i had two cheeseburgers and when i got to work we had a KFC burger too. Nothing much else happened other than a Le Mans at work.

On a side not GTA: Vice City is out on the iPad. Might have to get it, loved that game on PS2.

Advent: Dec 12th

Today was spent just like any other day off, waking up at about 11am, staying in bed till 1pm. Getting up to feed the cats and peruse the Internet, answer emails, reply to twitter and Facebook and see whats going on in the world. Watched a film called Drive, not to be confused with Drive Angry with Nicholas Cage. Now poor old Nic Cage seems to have a hit and miss career, one film is great, one is shit. Rinse and Repeat. Drive Angry was one of those "it's so bad its good" films, which i enjoyed. Drive however was a film i had wanted to see since the trailer. And at last i did. Easily one of my 'Top 5 Films of 2011' (Expect a post later this month). The style reminded me of GTA:Vice City on the PS2, well maybe it was just the pink lettering of the cast/directors etc but the 80's Electro music helped too. Damn i really liked that game. I really liked it and glad the music from the trailer was in the film too, in an equally poignant moment too. As i said, one of the Top 5 of the year.

Apart from watching Drive i just played Call of Duty on line with a few of my friends, now not boasting but we kicked arse but forgot to take names, oh well.

The night was ended with late night Skype and drinking with my friend, watching crap movies and part writing Dec 10th Advent Blog.

Advent: Dec 3rd

I was a little hungover this morning due to the drinking of the night before so on the way to work i had my post drinking dry mouth. Usually i just buy some Oranges or Orange Juice but this morning i bought a Mango, 3 large oranges, a pear, 2 bottles of mountain dew and a litre of Orange Juice. Got to work and it wasn't too bad, had some accidents but nothing too bad thankfully. The day was one long hangover, just had a headache all day and was counting down the hours till i was going to my friends for her birthday. Which luckily came around quicker than i thought. 

After work i came home got ready and went to the flat for some party time. I got there and promptly said hello, grabbed a drink and chatted to the few people there. As more turned up the conversation gets better as more people to talk to, including two very gorgeous girls. Lots of alcohol, a few cheeky joints later the conversation got to Twilight, damn sparkly vampires, and general drunken chit chat. A few people joined and a few people left the party and eventually we ended up playing Kinect, well a few of us did. Drunken tennis and drunken Baseball is indeed fun. I would have preferred chatting to the girls a bit more but they left, oh well.

I left at some time i don't remember but i got home about 3am after a nice walk home. For some reason they have a ice sculpture of a polar bear outside of Marks and Spencers and they had a security guard in a van making sure people don't do something to it i suppose, was a bit weird. I think the night cap at the flat did me in because the walk home was rather long, thankfully not cold or raining however.

I really need to start writing these Advent blog posts the day after rather than two days later.

Advent: Dec 11th

Woke up a little late today, still managed to get to work for 8:50. Enough time to get changed, get a tea and get the machines up and running. The day went like most Saturdays during peak period, roller coaster start. First theres a few people, then the shop is packed then theres a few people. Rinse and repeat for the whole day.
Didn't sell much, a few things here and there, a couple of big sales with all the trimmings. It was mainly talking to customers about presents or new cameras for themselves. Everyone left happy.
About midday the manager asks me to go speak to the Regional Manager who was upstairs, and after a chat about being late again (I had a disciplinary about being 5-10mins late for work) i was also questioned about things i have posted on here/facebook and twitter regarding work and any issues i have regarding it.
Thing is apart from this blog, where no mention to what company i work for, the rest of the social media sites are set to private. So the only people that can see it are people i work with, friends and family. The general public cannot see any remarks i make. So I'm not saying anything, but 2 + 2 =....

Nevertheless we had a brief respite where i could just wander around pondering such things before going back in. The regional manager came to such conclusions that they were suspending me from work until further notice and that i was not to talk to any employee of work and not visit any branch.

Silver lining being that i have time to shop for presents and I'll probably be able to have some sort of Christmas this year.
Bad part being I'll probably go back for a disciplinary and lose my job.

Certain members of work have been blocked from Twitter and taken off facebook so my musings can't offend them anymore, ah well only work colleagues.

So i was escorted off the premises, not like with my hands behind my back but in case i kicked off or something stupid. And with that i went to lock my bike up.
As i was doing so my mates came round the corner and i told them what happened. We walked around a bit and discussed what lead to my suspension and what would happen next. They had the 'we told you so' look and also said i should have got a new job ages ago anyway. Which is true.

We walked around for a bit and talked, then we bumped into our other friend who's flat warming it was. So we broke off, they went to get lunch and we did too. We talked about the flat warming and again about my suspension.
I got my bike and he went to pick up some other friends, i cycled to the Oakford and handed in the camera i found on Thursday.
I then cycled home and emailed a friend what happened at work and if i can appeal against the decision etc while it was fresh in my mind.

My friend came to pick me up and we went to Asda to get supplies for the nights activities. Lots of alcohol and some food from Iceland. Back to his flat where the girls proceeded to put the tree up, decorate it etc while we sat back and had a beer or two.
With the tree looking pretty damn impressive we connected it up so it would stay up and not fall over. We cracked open a few more beers and sat around listening to music and playing a ping pong game on the xbox. The girls then cooked some Rocky Road, which was amazing, and we put some food in the oven.
Finished playing ping pong when everyone came in and we watched Elf. A pretty festive film if i may say so and Zooey Deschanel is gorgeous as ever. We played a DVD interactive game of Family Fortunes, was fun but we didn't really play it properly.
We couldn't decide whether to watch Inception or something light hearted, so we watched Team America: World Police. I hadn't seen this film in ages so was just as funny, half the people left during the film and only a couple of us were left. We finished drinking and watching the film and then i got a lift home.

Got home quite early considering it was a party, though i was pretty tired after the days goings on.

So i probably shouldn't have talked about what was going on at work, but there is an element of freedom of speech i like to have. And again nothing mentioned on where i work.

I now have to wait for my disciplinary hearing and the outcome of that. Though i can see where it is heading.

Tales of a Drunkard: No Sweat Fest

When my friend Tom usually says "Hey I'm going to a squat party, you should come" I usually envision a dark and dingy building with lots of drug addled protesters and hippies. I was pleasantly surprised.
We started off in Reading at the Allied Arms having a quick drink before we headed to the train station to get some drinking beers and food. On the train to London we chatted, I took pictures and general tomfoolery.
The squat was in Hackney so a bit of a trek from Reading, but a tube here and a bus there we got there. The reason for the bus was the tube was being its usual crappy self, only problem with the bus was Arsenal had just won 6-0 and was letting out time when came past. We got to Hackney around 7pm, fashionably late i know, and the place was amazing. Like an old theater it loomed at an awkward angle.
A lot of people were already outside, sitting in a boat, on the floor or standing around chatting. We paid the £5 donation then went to get some beer from Iceland. Apparently me carrying in two 4 litre bottles of Ye Olde English wasn't the thing to do so i settled with 4 cans of strongbow to start with.

We sat around chatting to random people and some of Toms friends came and chatted to them. The music was from 2pm onwards and we caught a few of them, mainly Punk with some ska-punk too.
There was one band that was pretty good, after a few songs the singer would read some of his poems. One went "What kind of man are you, who rubs his elbows against mine on the tube. Must be a poof" Then 10 seconds into his song a guy ran out of nowhere, jumped on stage, lamped him and grabbed the Mic stand trying to hit the guy. The singer grabbed his bass to try and defend but the crowd divided them.
Apparently the singer has a history of saying homophobic or sexist remarks. Shame as it was a good band up until that point. Ah well. Punks eh?

I don't remember how or when, partly due to drugs and or alcohol, but i sat down talking to some people, Ann, Angela and Caroline. Good chats about life and such, probably the drugs, but at one point Angela was helping this guy Morgan who was absolutely battered. We got him some water and Angela went to find Thelma, a sexy secretary looking polish girl who was his girlfriend. She couldn't so i tried, failed but helped him inside so he could pass out somewhere.
Hours passed, drinks were drunk, chats were had and dancing was done. Yes theres probably photographic evidence of me skanking it up but it was fun.
It got to about 2.30am and i started chatting to a girl called Lisa about Pokemon, Stargate and other such nonsensical wonderment that long nights of drinking bring forth. Which was a nice end to the night.

Tom was talking about an after party in a warehouse but at time of leaving the squat, 3ish? There was no word. Morgan appeared out of nowhere and said he was going to a party so i left Tom, Anders and the others to head back to Paddington, while i stayed with Morgan. Outside he was chatting with some guys and i asked him for directions back to Paddington, he gave them to me but as i helped him when he was drunk he wasn't going to let me wander the streets of Hackney alone. Which was good because i had about £800 worth of stuff on me.

We walked through Hackney sharing a bottle of rum and coke when he laid the bomb on me that he had nowhere to go as he was Homeless. We continued chatting, about himself and how he came to be on the streets. Unfortunately he was a victim of circumstance. Foster homes, run ins with police etc, I'll leave alot of that discussion out.
He came to London from Ireland about 10yrs ago but again circumstances meant he was on and off the streets. We sat around talking for hours. He met a couple in the off license and they came and we all sat around chatting till the sun came up. He is actually a graphic designer and currently has two websites up and running, he uses free WiFi to update etc. He was a really nice guy, and now a friend on Facebook, hopefully I'll see him at some point again.
It got to that point where i had to find my way back to paddington otherwise i would just curl up in a ball and pass out. I said my goodbyes and jumped on a bus that said 'Via Kings Cross' as i vaugley knew where that was.

OK due to me endlessly twittering to keep me amused during my journey it helps piece together things. Apparently i left the squat at 3:54am with Morgan and we chatted till 6:44am which is when i got on the bus to nowhere. Due to that nice bus trip it meant i was back in Hackney about 7:30am because i went to McDonald's to get some breakfast. Now i have only had 1 McDonald's in about 4 years and that was on New Years Eve.
After walking a while some guy called Gary proceeded to tell me that he 'Doesn't drink or do drugs but needed some money for a hot chocolate" I ended up getting a tube from Highbury and getting to Paddington at 9:29am. So it took me 3hrs of walking and the such to get me about 8miles, impressive display of idiocy.

I think my experience of Hackney is summed up by this tweet

"I cant seem to escape hackney. Ive walked in every sodding direction and taken a bus yet I'm still in fucking hackney"

Not having much money i was pleased to see the gates in London were open and if i had any trouble in Reading i would just say i came from Twyford. As soon as the train left Paddington i must have sparked out in the vestibule because i woke up as we just pulled into Reading. I then remembered i sodding cycled to Reading so had a 4mile bike ride home. Slowest bike ride ever. I walked into my home around 10am, and fell asleep till 4pm. Then went to a friends from 8pm - 2am. No point wasting a day in bed :)

All in all i had an amazing time in London. The squat party was brilliant and was for a good cause so check out the website No Sweat. The people i chatted to were amazing and I even enjoyed the walk home.

I think that's about it, unfortunately this probably doesn't seem that good, but to me it was a fun evening and I'm sure some of it has been lost in translation.

Best Wednesday Ever

Firstly this gem of a camera came this morning while at work. A Fuji Instax Mini 7, which takes and produces credit card sized instant pictures. It has different settings for indoors or outdoors etc and takes 10 pictures at a time.

Secondly. I receied this too.



This my friends is two pairs of Sega Lock-On laser tag games. Now this was a game I remember playing in the streets as a kid. Running about shooting each other, ducking inbetween parked cars for cover etc.
You can choose to be on Team A or B, so teams are endless essentially, and you each have a gun and headset. There are sensors on both which is where you can get shot.
You also have a drop down LCD type display which ticks down your lives so you can keep track.
On the gun you get a Super Shot style button whih when pressed fires three consecutive shots (or one big shot that knocks more lives off) can't remember which

All in all this has been a pretty damn good wednesday. Now im just waiting for my records to make an appearance this week

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Tales of a Drunkard: Finale

Well this is the last drunken re-cap which was New Years. We started out at my friends where we played some Mario on the Wii and drunk a punch concoction of vodka, rum and fruit juice. Stayed there for quite some time just playing and drinking, mini dartgun fight too. We trundled along to the Hope Tap, i had foolishly left my coat at home thinking we wouldnt be wearing them. How wrong i was. Everyone else was wrapped up warm and i was freezing my nuts off. Though the walk was a long and cold one (it was actually fairly short but still cold).

We started the drinking games, Three Coins. Rules of which are:

You have three coins which you throw onto the table and depending on what comes up you do the following:Br:
Two Heads - You drink

Two Tails - You nominate someone to drink

Three Heads - Everyone Drinks

Three Tails - New Rule

With the new rule it could be anything like 'Everyone drinks with their opposite hand' or 'everyone time someone is nominated, the person to their left drinks" you know the idea...

Anyway we got quite drunk and by 9.30pm we were all drunk, far from the midnight celebration, but continued with the games. Twice the bouncer came over and told us to calm down, i mean yeah we were noisy but there were only 4 of us, not like we were rowdy. And its New Years for fucks sake. We left and went to Lounge 108 which is below a sushi bar.

Its an awesome venue with an amazing sound system. The decor is all white seats and its fairly small, fitting about 50 people in, 60 at full capacity. So our new years was intimate. Though we got there about quarter to eleven it was fairly empty. We had free shots and at midnight a glass of champagne with a shot of black sambuca in i think, was wierd but was nice. We celebrated new years and sat around drinking and having fun. Smashed two glasses, well someone did, and by the end of the night stank of stale beer.

Our night pretty much ended around half one. We walked back to our friends flat stopping off at Maccy D's. Now if you know me (which none of you probably do) you'll know i havent eaten McDonalds in about 3 years now. But it was cold, i was really really drunk and tired and needed food. It was a means to an end and im ashamed but i bought a Cheesburger and chips.... The shame... And well thats the last one for another 3 years :D

We went back and i passed out on the sofa, which was 3x too small for me but i've slept on worse before. Got up around 11am and most of us were fine (Mark) and ventured out to have a fry up at the pub we left the night before. Unfortunatly i was talking about how i'd like to spend New Years day drinking all day with friends and ordered a beer with my breakfast. Thankfully not drinking for 6months isnt a New Years resoloution and just a choice, but i drank that beer for medicinal reasons. It helped my liver process the alcohol in my system thus preventing any long lasting damage.

Went shopping, bought Borderlands and spent the day playing Borderlands with my friends. Also bumped into a friend and got my bag of 25 DvDs i lent her when she broke her back a few years ago. So all in all a good New Years Day.

Even though New Years Eve was fairly quiet and there were just a few of us, it was one of the best New Years Eve nights i have had in quite some time. So here's to next year.

Tales of a Drunkard Pt.9: Stoke and Stafford

This outing is sponsored by The Hangover Cure. More about that later.


So for this last outing we trekked to Stoke. Yeah i know people say "Why would you go to Stoke" and i say "for a friends birthday".

So supplies packed we met at the train station and board the train to Stoke. That was the first mistake. We had pre-booked our tickets so we could have a table seat to ourselves to drink and play cards and what not. Unfortunately there were 3 old ladies sat all comfortable in our place. Now unsure what to do i stood there with mark behind me looking at each other, trying not to laugh and also embarrassed that our northern friend Chris decided to turf them out with no remorse, i think i also saw him tapping his watch as these frail women eased themselves out of the chairs. Not only was there lots of embarrassment going around there was also a queue forming behind us. I quickly shuffled into my seat and sat looking out the window as to not make eye contact.

Shortly after we set off the cans were cracked open, by myself, and the Cards/Nintendo DS's and Laptops were broken out. Train was fine, though got really busy towards Birmingham.


Got the bus to Stoke city centre and went to my friends sisters club that's being done up. Looks amazing and cant wait till it's finally finished as it will be a great venue, especially when the other elements are completed.


So we went back to their house, got showered and changed, had a drink and whatnot and got a taxi to Stafford. The taxi ride was one of the funniest i have ever had, i was crying with laughter on numerous occasions. It doesn't help when sisters laugh the same and at the end let out a sigh which then starts the laughter again.... OK maybe you had to be there.

Started the night with a nice Subway to settle the stomach and went to Chicago Rock Cafe (Which isn't a real Rock bar Geordie) and had quite a few 2-4-1 Cocktails, though the barmaid was slow and just didn't give a fuck about serving people. So we moved onto the second venue. Second venue was pretty good, had a few drinks of various nature including two bottles of champagne, sambuca, beer and vodka. Only problem is the bar proved a bit too pretentious, bringing out the champagne in a bucket with a fucking firework flare attached as if to scream "Hey EVERYONE, look at these guys buying champagne, aren't they complete dicks". Anyway drinks drunk and laughs had we moved onto a new club that had opened and thanks to Chris, who knows everyone there is ever to know, we got in for free and scouted out the new club which had something like £1mil budget.

Now this club was amazing, but you'd expect that from £mil. Though it was abit too big, i got lost a few times not knowing if i was upstairs, downstairs or where. The pluses being that they had Guitar Hero, Rambo and Pod Racing machines in a side room, LED dance floor, a giant Disco Ball (At least 9 feet high and as much wide and about 3 other dance floors. The uniforms for men where red waistcoats and for women were red corsets. More drinks where had, mainly beer, though strangely no dancing was had, well the odd Geordie scuffle dance though Chris and Sol (my friends sister and her husband) had a Dance Off. In true movie style too. There wasn't anyone on the LED dance floor and a song came on, so Sol went on and danced as Chris watched from the sideline, then went and did his dance. This went on for a good 5 minutes with the crowd watching and cheering too. So bizarre but excellent to watch!

Our Taxi was booked for 3.30am so we made our way to get something to eat, Chips and Gravy, and jumped into the taxi back, again an enjoyable taxi ride was had. Got back to the house and me, mark and Geordie took sofas to sleep on. Though my bed was a wavy chair, like a psychiatrists. Brilliant to sit on but a nightmare to sleep on.

Now before i went to bed i had one of Drink THC's Hangover Cure. Pint of water and one of these before bed will apparently cure a hangover. Now I've always had the notion that drinking a pint of water before bed will help prevent a hangover because of the dehydration that occurs when you drink alcohol. But DrinkTHC has vitamins and electrolytes and other things that mean something to some science guy. All in all it is meant to replenish all the vitamins that are lost due to alcohol consumptions (Like Vitamin B12 to name but one). Anyway drank it and in the morning i felt fine, i mean i hadn't drank tons but i did mix a lot of drinks as that always gives me a stinking hangover. I had a dull headache, though mostly from lack of comfortable sleep, but looking at the other guys pale faces i think i came out better. Only problem with a hangover cure is it takes away the "OMG what a night that was, i cant remember much and my head hurts" which i kind of like. Its like a badge of honour. Plus i wouldn't remember to take one of these each night i had been drinking as all i want to do is stumble in and up the stairs and fall into bed.


All in all, if you can remember to take one of these mixtures before bed, you won't regret it as you'll feel fine in the morning.

We went for a massive breakfast in Stoke and a walk round some shops before getting the train back to Reading. Again people were sitting in our seats so me and Mark just decided to sit away from the guys and play on our DS's and beat Geordie at Mario Kart, over and over and over again.

Got back to Reading about 5.30pm and went home to veg out. Brilliant time had in stoke and amazing time in Stafford.

Here's hoping we go back when the club is finished, possibly for New Years as that will be my last time drinking this year as I'll be giving up alcohol again for my new years resolution, till at least April, maybe June for my Tales of a Drunkard Special Feature......

The World Shall Be Mine

Havent really been doing much over the past few weeks. Well i have, i've just not written about it. Bad me.

One thing that we have been partaking in recently has been an enjoyable game of Risk every now and again, mainly Thursdays. Quite nice really sitting in a pub playing a board game.

A bit of simulated violence goes along way!

Lego Donkey Kong

Yes I know, enough of the Lego, but it's Lego. So no.

Fingerboards

Need i say more?

Pogman

I fucking loved Pogs. I really did. I mean ok they're just small circular pieces of cardboard, with pretty patterns and colours (occasionally something shiny is printed on it) but there is something about the damn things.

I remember the first few series were of Pogman and his adventures or something. But with most collectable items from the 90s, there were knock offs and spin offs.



From what i remember (from what i have in front of me) there were Batman/Power Rangers/Sonic/Premier League and the normal Chinese knockoffs.


From the normal Pogs, and their parental Kinis (used to slam down on the stack), there was also Tazos, the stackable yet connectable little game. I remember the Looney Tunes ones mainly. These were slightly better than Pogs, because no one knew of the Pogman and his crazy antics, whereas we all know and love Bugs, Daffy et al.

I also had a milkcap maker, with which i made Pogs out of Beano comics or playing cards or anything i could, it was a neat idea but came too late into Pogmania.

Check Milkcapmania for a rather extensive list of Pogs and i think Tazos too.

I'm off for a game, anyone want to play for keeps?