More wallet rape...

Following on from Friday night's unintentional purse masochism, after last night I don't think I'll be going out again. Ever.

Popped into town yesterday afternoon to get some more fuel for the PSP (to avoid falling asleep on future train journeys) and I'm thinking - despite promising myself that the rest of the weekend would be safely spent in my bedroom - that the sun is out, it's a really nice day, maybe I should take advantage of the better side of this country's shaky climate with a nice cool beer outside a pub somewhere. Just the one mind...

I call up JC, who I know is already in Town, but he's not having any of it after the 'silly hat party' he went to the night previous. So I call up Matt, who drags himself out of his instance* to come and meet me.

We have a couple of pints down the Bay Horse (my long term local) and are eventually joined by Rob (my former housemate) and Lucy (his girlfriend - who moved in when I upgraded to the room at Matt's place). 2 more beers and Rob is getting hungry, so we move on to the Thai restaurant across the road.

By now of course, the damage is done. Myself and Matt (And Jens, who appears at some point during the course of our Meal) go off to O Connors for more beer and then two more clubs before we finally run out of money and go back home.

Watched Tenacious D when I got home, and all I can remember about that was that it wasn't very good. At all. I feel like my wallet has been sexually violated. That's my lot. Until New York of course (gulp!).

*An instanced Zone - in the drug that is World of Warcraft.

When a night out isn't a night out...

...when it costs you sodding £100 to get home. That's when...

It started off well enough, with the director of our company inviting some of us frontline guys to a pub in Farringdon to join him in entertaining a recruitment agency (on their budget). Didn't end up spending a penny until I was in the taxi (but enough of that until later)...

I'm almost thinking that Karma is dealing me a raw one just to make up for the AMAZING week I've had so far. Went to a press screening of Spiderman 3 on Wednesday, which by all rights I wouldn't have been at had I not screamed like a baby to get myself into it. It was AMAZING though... it was at the big Odeon in Leicester Square and everything. Exactly how it would have been if I'd had to wait until the film was out etc. Rah!

Anyway, the aforementioned travel fine came about due to my passing out on the train shortly after leaving Liverpool Street this evening. Was a bit tipsy I'll admit, but the power of my lovely Playstation Portable is usually enough to sustain me. Didn't have it on me today cos I'd finished all my games. Very stupid of me, cos even if I just use it as an Ipod it keeps me ticking over long enough to remain concious until my stop. I didn't even think to use my old trick of annoying similarly innebriated passengers with non-stop chatter as a means of staying awake.

...and so I found myself waking up in Dis, which is apparently near Norwich. I felt obliged to tip the Cabbie a tenner after he drove me 60 miles back to where I should have got off the train. So that's my lot for the weekend I think...

New York, New York

This is what my desktop looks like at the mo:

I can't really afford it, but I'm not gonna let that stand in the way of me realising my highest priority post uni/new job ambition - to travel the four corners of planet earth. What WAS stopping me however, was the lack of a similarly minded cohort to accompany me. Enter housemate, JC, who was of a similar disposition, albeit without the same reliance on his VISA card (gulp!).

First stop: The Big Apple. Why? Well, why the hell not? The place is so ingrained in my subconcious due to countless movies, TV shows, miscellaneous media culture and THAT DAY in September 2001, that I just have to go and see it for myself. In many ways, it might as well be the capital of the planet.

So we booked our tickets on lastminute.com on Wednesday. Just under £900 each got us flights, insurance and 7 nights at a 3 star hotel on 34th Street (just down the road from the Empire State Building). You might say - considering that I'm spending my saturday night starting this blog instead of 'having it' on the town as usual - that I'm in full-on excited mode now.

A work collegue got me an up-to-date guidebook from an inter-departmental sale yesterday which I've been furiously scanning most of the day. Currently on the list of things/places I want to do/go are:

• Empire State Building


• Statue of Liberty


• Ground Zero


• Central Park


• Times Square


• Coney Island (maybe via ferry/water taxi?) - Iconic location used in The Warriors, Angel Heart and countless other movies. Check out some more of Brooklyn while we're at it?


• The Flatiron Building (Daily Bugle in Spiderman)


• Locations from Ghostbusters (This is JC's only request so far)


• The Rockefeller Building


• Grand Central Station


• Chinatown


• Little Italy

...which I know is an ambitious amount of stuff to fit into one week, but with some cunning navigation we might just do it. Need to figure out where stuff is geographically and allocate a day to each area... or something.

That's all for now until I need to let out some more excitement. Obviously, all the pictures will be going up here via flickr and I may even do some blogging while I'm out there if we have any downtime at all.

As the song goes: "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere..." :)