5/29/2005 09:59:00 PM|||James O'Malley|||Christ, considering I'm something of a social recluse, I've done a hell of a lot of socialising in the last... two days. Well, by my standards.
Last night (Saturday), after work, I went to Emma's "moving house" party. I was fashionably late. Four hours late. The festivities started at three, I got there at seven. Nevertheless, I assume I rejuvinated the proceedings. JD, Heather, Thom and Christine were also there.
It was all very enjoyable- although like most blog things, not very interesting to read about after it happens. Not that it's going to prevent me from rambling on and on. I seem to be able to write thousands of words about myself yet struggle to get to the word limit on essays that matter. This might make me sound like a bit of an egomaniac, but lets be honest, I'm slightly more important than the relative competitive advantages of two Devonshire holiday parks.
But anyway, long story short, there was an aborted attempt at Pokémon Monopoly (which wasn't my copy), followed by watching Black Books. Wasn't bad at all, actually. The most noteworthy thing that happend was probably a short musical Thom (pronounced Thom) wrote about me. It's interesting because I've previously expressed my dislike of musical theatre to him, before discoving that musical theatre is his life. I'm not joking- if he isn't talking about musicals, he's singing songs from musicals.
James O'Malley: The Musical, as he called it, was a journey through my life... starting with my death. As you might guess, it was all very upbeat. The worst, or best bit, depending on your perspective was that whilst he was getting everyone there to do a read through, I had four of my friends chanting in unison how wonderful it was that I was dead. "Pfft", I thought, "At least I'm not a poncy theatre type".
Other than that, it was a lovely evening.
But wait, there's more!
Today was really the big day for me - it was the day of my big social folly to celebrate my birthday. My birthday isn't actually until Thursday (June 2nd... mark your calendars), but due to others having "better things to do", we did a bit of the celebration today. Spoiler: It was also a great day.
Logistically, it was probably the second most difficult thing I've ever coordinated. I caught the train with Matt and Soph, which was timed with precision to arrive so we could rondez-vous with the village people (Heather, JD, Emma) at 1049. It was remarkably well timed. I really wish there was an amusing anecdote attached to this segment of the story, as it feels somewhat unfinished otherwise.
We made our way to Megazone, passing by a posh bus stop advertisement- it had a TFT monitor mounted inside it, advertising the Hitcher Hiker's Guide film. The only thing was that it had been on for over 60 days- and at the bottom of the screen, there was a Windows XP balloon alert informing the reader that there was unused icons on the desktop. Good old Windows.
We got to Megazone, my massive blister not causing me as many problems as I'd anticipated. I'd phoned in advance- the bloke said that they shouldn't really have 16/17/18 year olds in there with 12 year olds... "You're not going to beat them up are you?", he asked. "God no, we're all sensible", I said as sincerely as I could. So it happend- we got to shoot 12 year olds with lazers.
I celebrated our arrival with coke. Heather wouldn't complain as it celebrating my birth. Result!
We got three games for a fiver each, which wasn't bad atall. The first game was a deathmatch... all vs all. It's like real life Quake 3, only slightly less fast paced in my case. I marched around the arena shooting anything that moved. Ducking and diving, peering around corners and so on. After the game, which lasted around 15 minutes, I came out on top- with a good few frags above my nearest opponent. I'd pwned everyone else at a pseudo-sport, how proud was I?
Next game, we had a team game- it was us, the loutish bunch of teenagers versus a group of kids who hadn't even couldn't even begin to imagine what osmosis is. Needless to say, we "won the day", and sent the kids to their proverbial home, proverbially crying, with their literal lunch money in our proverbial pockets. They kept camping, which was irritating. They also tended to swarm, so at time it was similar to the "how many five year olds could you take on" timeless question. It was like shooting fish in a barrel- picking them off one by one. I pistol whipped a few of them just to make sure they were dead.
Finally, for our last game, it was teams again, but they were split to be potentially more even. Of the people that mattered, it was me, JD and Soph versus Heather, Emma and Matt. The interesting variation this time was that each team had a "base" which they had to protect from the other team. We won. I put this victory down to my |33t skillz and clever handling of the gun- if it's held upside down and pointed around a corner, very little of the lazerable area is exposed.
Before we left Megazone, we had a game of Pool. It was Matt & Soph versus myself and Heather. We put up a good fight, although eventually, due to some dubious rules and mine and Heather's crappiness, we lost when it came down to the black. This was a very different experience to the height of my pool playing career. Matt also owned me at air hockey- although the puck didn't seem able to remain on the table for very long. It made me think we were going to be chucked out.
We chucked ourselves out shortly after the end of the game.
On the way to the Hut, we passed the stage entrace to the Haymarket Theatre- this seemed to bring back a repressed memory of Heather's, as she started making "disgusted" noises. Apparently she had to look after small children, who were all dancers, and make sure they were wearing the right costume. When I remarked how much I'd imagine a pedophile would enjoy that job, she didn't seem best pleased.
We arrived at Pizza Hut both merry and hungry. When seated, Matt told the waitress that it was my birthday... they got me two pink balloons. Great. What made it erm... even better, was that my friends tied them to my wrists.
The Pizza arrived, it was very nice by my standards, and we all pwned Matt, who was more or less advocating speeding. We all went "Booo, traffic accidents", followed by "pwned".
Post Hut, we had a wander around Leicester in search of a table tennis bat for Soph's brother. Whilst not terribly exciting in itself, the process of finding one was. We went into The Shires shopping center, and were childish on the escalators. We ended up being fragmented as a group and at completely different ends of Rackhams to each other. I still don't quite know how I ended up in a women's clothes shop. Either way, Soph left empty handed.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing about erm... shopping, was that we ended up in a sports shop in Leicester. I felt most uncomfortable- I neither wear sports clothing or play sports. Surrounded by metrosexuals and football shirts, Soph found herself paying a staggering ten English pounds for a one table tennis bat. It even said on the packaging "this is for the amateur or casual player"- exactly what her brother is, but for ten pounds, surely something of on-board computer with robotic claw variety of bat is what one would expect?
We were going back to Harborough on the train when it suddenly ground to a halt. There were some CHILDREN playing on the LINE. When I'm Prime MINISTER, I will order TRAINS to run over the LITTLE bastards and TEACH them a LESSON they'll NEVER forget. I blame the railway children. It's giving kids a false impression of what trains are like- and not showing just how dangerous they can be. Also, the posh bloke on the train who waved? He could have been a nutter. It's things like this that make me angry. This, and losing at pseudo-sports.
It was here that Soph left us for another man! Her boyfriend, Scott, in fact. The rest of us decided to go and loiter down by the river. Here was where the biggest shock of the day occured. For the past few months, I've been arguing with my friends that ducks cannot fly. I mean, I'd never seen one fly, and anyway, why would a duck need to fly when it can swim and walk? Three method of movement would be greedy. I couldn't believe it when Matt ran at some of the ducks in the river and they quite literally flew away. I shit you not. The ducks flew away. I was flabberghasted. I don't think I said anything for a good few minutes, just leaving my mouth wide open in shock. I'd be pwned. By a duck. On my birthday. (Celebration). Unbelievable.
We all got back to my house, and we slacked in the garden. I introduced a toy gun I got last Christmas, which can shoot small rubber balls rather powerfully. Needless to say, we spent a good few minutes, if not hours, trying to shoot a can of coke balanced on top of a tube of tennis balls. And then we shot Matt. And then we threw tennis balls at a can on Matt's head. I wasn't entirely "for" this idea, as I didn't like the idea of injuring my good friends. Nevertheless, I had a damn good shot at his head. Knocked the can right off of his head.
Watching Alan Partridge, I became slightly concerned that my friends would find out that I'm a massive fraud, and that practically everything I say is directly lifted from the TV series I'm Alan Partridge. Watching the first two episodes through made me want to cringe. I'd repeated some of the one liners so often that they'd practically become mine, so hearing them come of the mouth of Alan Partridge, a serial loser, was horrible to watch. Even Heather, arguably my biggest fan, conceeded that there's a "little bit" of Alan Partridge in me. Oo-er. It was still very funny though.
Both Matt and Emma left during our very mini Partridgeathon. This left myself, Heather and JD to slack it up twice as hard as usual - as we needed to make up for the loss of two people. We browsed far right websites, and laughed at their silly outlook on life. They're all nuts, and it's funny because they try so hard, yet will never be in power.
JD left after this... not wanting to make allegations, but maybe it was because he didn't like our lamenting of the far right view point? (ie: everyone == bad).
So me and Heather bantered on for a bit, until her dad picked her up (via car, not on to his shoulders or something... I hope, anyway). The only noteworthy-if-you-wern't-there-at-the-time thing that happend was I rediscovered my small collection of Gogo's Crazybones, from around 1995. (So old there isn't a decent website I can link to). The memories came flooding back, and I recalled to myself how I failed to be any good at the game that was attached to the plastic figurines.
But anyway, overall, I had a really wonderful day. The only thing as enjoyable as it would have been writing about it, glorifying myself in the process- incidentally, that's what you've just read.
Woo yay!|||111740884914657155|||Socialising Overload!