Short version

I went to Black Celebration, a two-day goth festival type thing in Nodnol. I had fun.

Also, not only is Amber a fantastic writer, but now has the best website ever. Go visit for circular amazingness.

Long version

I was going to see an industrial-ish band in Carlisle on Friday, but much as I know the local alternative scene needs my support, my enthusiasm for the idea dropped sharply when it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't get drunk, as I'd have to drive home afterwards. As we know, I don't normally see the need to drink, but the possibility of alcohol was made the prospect of spending five hours seeing a few bands I'm not all that bothered about in the company of a scant few probable-geens (not all Cumbrians are geens, of course, just most of them), followed by five hours sleep and a load of non-stop raving seem much more appealing.

So I stayed in and made the promotional website for my computer game. I was rather proud of myself - normally I can't webdesign for love nor money, but this turned out to be brilliant (typo: brukkuabt. Sounds like a good powernoize band name, actually. Is there a band called Discombobulated? There should be.) Well, I thought it was good until I saw Amber's website, anyway! But what a sad use of a Friday evening! Must. Get. Out. Of. Here. Fast.

Anyway. Who had the sk1llz? Zed did. And so, she sang the song she always sang when she had the sk1llz: "Who's got the sk1llz? The sk1llz are mine! Sk1llz blatantly superior to thine!" I decided to send Alex a couple of burnt CDs, along with the rest of his present. In choosing them, I went for opted for "goth stuff he probably doesn't own" and not only was one appreciated, but he'd been cursing to himself audibly over his failure to possess the other. w00t!

Praise Vukkoneattee, the newly revealed Banana cult God of magazines, for he is kind! I was wondering, "Oh, what to read on the train?" Magazines' text-to-weight/carryability ratio is superior to that of books, but after all this train travel, I've now read about 3/4 of each of my huge pile of magazines, and I couldn't be bothered bringing several to finish. But! When I went downstairs, the new Metal Hammer was there.

(Ooh, speaking of Metal Hammer, a while ago I sent them the most witty letter ever, running to about a thousand words, explaining exactly why they should send me another CD to replace my missing one. They sent me three CDs, a magazine and a note saying, "Jeez, you only had to ask.")

And now, once more with feeling: I HATE TRAINS!!! (Except when I don't have to be on them.) My outward journey is supposed to take four hours; rail.co.uk promised it would take five; but it turned out to take six and a half, meaning I missed most of the first act, Avoidance of Doubt, who were seemingly mint and sufficiently metal for a bit of \m/ing. Speaking of which, bleepers (a great term I discovered for EBM type people) seriously need a hand gesture to mean "hello cool person", "you rock!" and "get on!" Hippies, punks and metallers have varying combinations and positionings of fingers, and goths can just do affected hand-gestures, but without glowsticks (I'm trying to be a death metaller here), I had no idea what to do with my hands. I propose raising the second and fourth fingers, reproducable online by *tuning fork*.

Also, the middle section of the journey took place on a bus, and on every leg, I had to put up with someone listening to entirely audible bad music from several seats away, even in the quiet car on the first train. Now, I don't require complete silence. I actually like hearing people talking on trains, as long as it doesn't offend me. In fact, on the train back, I heard a conversation between a woman whose daughter had died in prison and an activist type student: they'd just met on the train and both of them were immensely articulate. Excellent stuff. And I'm not even bothered by non-discreet headphone-use: um-chuckas, like the doof-doof-doof-doof you get from cars, actually make me happy: I like to see people having fun, and they're repetitive enough to ignore if they get irritating. But when I have to hear every note? I've got my laptop, I could play us all some New Model Army, but then neither of us would be able to hear our music properly. So why do you get to choose what we all listen to, faceless person, especially since I find soully dancy R'n'B bumph more offensive than a chav family on their way back from a day out in Margate. (At least that's funny, in a scary sort of way.)

(Of course I didn't make a complaint. Whenever I complain, I start crying, even if the receiver agrees it's justified. I know why, but we shan't go into that now.)

Also, Euston station toilets? Any chance we could we turn the temperature down a bit? There are some non-masochistic people who wear PVC that require your services. (Well, there's me anyway.) It's bad enough that they're a rip-off 20p, but escaping from the PVC in them rips off half your skin too.

Anyway. Bands were mostly mint. Tony and Kat (us Cumbrian homies) were there, I met Tony's infamous friend Helen for the first time, and they said I could sleep on Kat and Helen's hotel room floor. I didn't have any accommodation of my own, as it was entirely possible (theoretically anyway) not to have to sleep anywhere at all all weekend, but I didn't know if I was quite hardcore enough for that, so that was good.

Afterwards, me, Tony, Helen and Tony's boyfriend Mike went to Slimelight. I wasn't really in the mood to dance, but that was ok, as I was in the mood to scare random people. When I'm sober (I didn't feel like drinking), I'm normally too shy, but I think I got possessed by the main character of my computer game, who feels no qualms about saying all sorts of rubbish to strangers, as tends to happen when I spend too much time working on a project. The night began:

Normally-dressed bloke: Can I come in?
Security guard: No, there's no black on you.
Zed: You could give him a black eye, that'd work!

And continued similarly. The people in general seemed friendlier than they were when I was there last, I ran into someone who was at Vain in Edinburgh the previous weekend, Tony met a Carlisle United supporter from the other end of the country (it should be pointed out to those not au fait with English football that our local team are rubbish beyond measure), and there was an unprecendented number of people eating fruit.

It was a good thing I was in talky mood, because Helen drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels at once (in addition to a healthily intoxicating amount previously consumed) and passed out next to the urinal (they are unisex toilets, so it's not quite as bad as it might have been), so I spent the rest of the night keeping her vertical. Fortunately, she managed to walk back to the hotel, though admittedly, not in a straight line. We found a shopping trolley on the pavement, but she wouldn't get in it, which was probably rather sensible, considering my chauffeuring ability, as Tony discovered to his cost!

I slept for about three and a half hours, then ate some free hotel breakfast and saw "Hollyoaks" for the first time in my life. Oh, argh, it's so pants, and yet so addictive! Not surprising, I suppose, as Phil Redmond's responsible. Have I ever mentioned my utter adoration of old Grange Hill episodes (1978-87ish)? Well, I have now.

We then sat around groaning. Just before we set off for the second day though, a very drunk Dale and Matt phoned me randomly, possibly for the first time ever, which spitted in with the firit rather nicely. After the bands (Assemblage 23 weren't as good as I'd expected them to be, but the rest were better), we went back to the hotel and found Noisex in the reception. This was cool, as Mike had been randomly given a Noisex poster, so he got them to sign it, and as it was a hotel reception, the receptionist was able to provide them with a proper marker, as opposed to ye olde deadde biroe they would have got elsewhere.

We were going to return to Limeslight, but I was dead tired and my feet and the bleepiness of it all were slowly killing me, and gradually everyone gave up on the idea. Instead, five of us stayed up til the morning, talking, which was mint. More free breakfast (to which we brought a bottle of wine) ensued.

I also love the way all forms of transport seem to play goth music after I've been to gigs. Fraggle's car played a whole compilation tape's worth after Dark City in Sheffield and the tube played an industrial version of "O Fortuna" this morning.

Of course, sixteen hours of dancing and four hours of sleep left me in a fine old state to go to work this afternoon, but I did go, my telephone manner just wasn't quite as articulate as usual. Namely: "Urgh. Plectrums. Catalogue. Guitar pages. Where are the guitar pages? Yeah. Oh no, I can't find plectrums. Plectrums. No. I'll have to ask someone to find them for me. Hello again, I've got them now. I wasn't being stupid, I was just looking at the wrong page."

We have new tropical fish at work, including the tiniest black molly ever! And we've got mixed gender white mollies, and if my last pair are anything to go by, they'll have zillions of babies. Yaaaay! (Until one gets a disease, the others eat its corpse and they all die, of course.)


Thursday 28 October 2004

As of 5.20pm today, there is absolutely nothing more I have to do to my computer game until I have some playtesting results back.

Does this mean I am at last on the verge of shutting up about my programming progress?

Certainly not, as what have I done in the last hour and a half? Started the next one.

Oh yeah, note to self: never let Ibid near workplace. On Tuesday, I discovered we have an enormous bubblewrap dispenser! I got given a piece to put in with a CD I had to send off to someone, and it was such a struggle not to start popping it.