Hmpf and Scapekid's Arctic Adventure -
Feb. 6th, 2004 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfbeing an entry that should have been made last week but was only finished yesterday. I was too busy to write it in one sitting.
Here goes:
Last week, on Wednesday afternoon I went into town to pick up Scapekid for a short geek meet (Wed. to Fri.). Wednesday was a strange day. We went through at least three seasons in one day: in the morning it was snowing - winter. Two hours later it was bright and sunny - spring. Another two hours later it was raining – autumn - and the rain later turned into sleet, and then snow again. By the time I arrived in the city centre winter was back and there was a thick layer of ice on the streets.
Scapekid and I got on the bus home at around a quarter to six. We got seats and started talking. The bus... moved at around walking speed, if it moved at all. After a while I asked Scapekid “How many hours have we been on this frelling bus?” She said that it wasn't that long, probably, but she didn't have a watch. Neither did I.
We kept talking, geeky talk that blurs the lines between reality and television, role-playing, and other alternative realities we routinely inhabit; the kind of talk which makes normal people cast strange glances at you because they cannot quite imagine a situation in which someone could crash a moon into your ancestral plane. The bus kept stop-and-go-ing. I kept asking, first for fun, later more seriously, how long we had been on the bus. Eventually we dug out Scapekid's phone to check the time.
It was past eight o'clock. We had been on the frelling bus for two and a half hours. And we weren't even halfways there. (Note: usually it takes about 20 minutes from the city centre to where I live.) My stomach started complaining.
So we got off. The sidewalks were covered in ice, slippery and dangerous. Scapekid had a backpack and a small suitcase; I carried my own backpack and her sleeping bag. We shared my single pair of gloves. The road was long, dark, and there wasn't a place where we might find some warmth in sight. To our right there was King Edward's, the school that Tolkien went to. It's surrounded by a *huge*, and by that I *mean* huge, park and a high wall, and walking along that wall made the long, dark, straight road seem nearly endless. We had about thirty or forty minutes to walk, or would have had, under better meteorological circumstances. Under the conditions we had it was more like an hour, with the constant danger of breaking a limb. I was glad for the sleeping bag, which I imagined would have cushioned my fall a bit if I fell conveniently.
We kept up the geek talk, and maybe the familiar 'geek meet feeling' helped a bit to keep us warm. We reached a Tesco's and decided to shop for our dinner there instead of facing the risk that Sainsbury's, closer to my house, might close before we got there. Then we continued our trek, past the university, past Aldi (closed), past the library, across the canal and under the bridge, past the pizza place, and finally, after many heartstopping moments of almost-slipping, arrived home, where we successfully mastered the slippery slope leading up to the door. I've rarely been happier to be home!
By then, it was almost ten in the evening, and I suspect only the geek meet glow (the inner glow of warmth you feel when after a long time spent among mundanes you finally meet another geek and can share your thoughts) kept us from collapsing. I made dinner, we ate, then we exchanged CDs. )(Exchanging CDs containing favourite television shows, movies, fan videos, fan films or other digital items of geekish interest is a central geek meet ritual, as any anthropologist who has studied geek meets in the years since the advent of the CD burner can confirm. I myself have been able to observe this behaviour (and participated in it) many times...)
In addition to the CDs Scapekid had brought me something else, equally fabulous: thanks to her I am now owner of a real, honest-to-God action figure. I never really *wanted* to have an action figure, but now that I have one I actually find it quite cool. It's Zhaan, of course. Thanks also go to Kev, Scapekid's boyfriend, who apparently suggested this present. :-) (On the weekend, when staying with Eledhwen in London, I found out that she, too, had recently inadvertently become an action figure owner. This leads me to speculate that perhaps action figures automatically 'find' you once you've displayed a sufficient degree of geekishness. Some kind of cosmic reward? Instant geek karma?)
Well, we watched vids and fanfilms and had a good time in general, only interrupted when I had to go to uni. I also planted an evil song in Scapekid's head (it got stuck in mine, too, and I startled people at university by breaking into it suddenly on Friday morning). Scapekid retaliated by demonstrating her bizarre gift of dancing strangely for me. On Thursday evening we were joined by my two sort-of converts to watch some Farscape, and one of them had a violent fangasm which sent her clawing my bedsheets while I showed them LithiumDoll's great vid “Until It Sleeps”. Unfortunately we were all rather tired, and hence terminated the evening early.
Friday was hectic. Scapekid left for home, and I left for London, and there wasn't much time for anything, not even a proper breakfast. In London, I was so drained that I sort of collapsed upon arriving at Eledhwen's flat, and even forgot to congratulate her (she'd turned 24 the day before)! Fortunately I remembered after a few minutes and also remembered that I had brought her a present, the Borribles trilogy, which I am always eager to spread. Then we had dinner – vegetable stir fry – and ate while watching “Pirates of the Carribean” on Eledhwen's shoebox of a TV. That was my first meeting with “Captain” Jack Sparrow, and it was highly enjoyable, although I am sorry to say that I still feel no desire to write PotC fanfic.
Saturday was LotR:RotK day, again, and I think we went to the most expensive cinema in the world, or very nearly. Afterwards we had pizza, which cost me about a third of the price of the cinema ticket! It was nice to meet some new, and also one old TORnado, though. The old TORnado was Hengist whom I hadn't seen since watching FotR in Oxford in December 2001. He's a really nice guy, so I was happy to see him again. The new TORnadoes didn't know me and I only had the most fleeting acqaintance with them from occasionally lurking at the forums, but they all seemed really nice, too. We didn't have all that much time to get to know each other, though. Maybe I'll get another chance sometime. Apparently they meet rather regularly.
On Sunday I had to leave early, even before Eledhwen returned from her rowing session. I slept in the coach for most of the way and then, back in B'ham, tried to get some work for uni done. And I think here I'll stop my report of my geekish weekend (would that be a 'geekend'?), cause what follows is mostly uni, and a new obsession. More on *that* later.
Here goes:
Last week, on Wednesday afternoon I went into town to pick up Scapekid for a short geek meet (Wed. to Fri.). Wednesday was a strange day. We went through at least three seasons in one day: in the morning it was snowing - winter. Two hours later it was bright and sunny - spring. Another two hours later it was raining – autumn - and the rain later turned into sleet, and then snow again. By the time I arrived in the city centre winter was back and there was a thick layer of ice on the streets.
Scapekid and I got on the bus home at around a quarter to six. We got seats and started talking. The bus... moved at around walking speed, if it moved at all. After a while I asked Scapekid “How many hours have we been on this frelling bus?” She said that it wasn't that long, probably, but she didn't have a watch. Neither did I.
We kept talking, geeky talk that blurs the lines between reality and television, role-playing, and other alternative realities we routinely inhabit; the kind of talk which makes normal people cast strange glances at you because they cannot quite imagine a situation in which someone could crash a moon into your ancestral plane. The bus kept stop-and-go-ing. I kept asking, first for fun, later more seriously, how long we had been on the bus. Eventually we dug out Scapekid's phone to check the time.
It was past eight o'clock. We had been on the frelling bus for two and a half hours. And we weren't even halfways there. (Note: usually it takes about 20 minutes from the city centre to where I live.) My stomach started complaining.
So we got off. The sidewalks were covered in ice, slippery and dangerous. Scapekid had a backpack and a small suitcase; I carried my own backpack and her sleeping bag. We shared my single pair of gloves. The road was long, dark, and there wasn't a place where we might find some warmth in sight. To our right there was King Edward's, the school that Tolkien went to. It's surrounded by a *huge*, and by that I *mean* huge, park and a high wall, and walking along that wall made the long, dark, straight road seem nearly endless. We had about thirty or forty minutes to walk, or would have had, under better meteorological circumstances. Under the conditions we had it was more like an hour, with the constant danger of breaking a limb. I was glad for the sleeping bag, which I imagined would have cushioned my fall a bit if I fell conveniently.
We kept up the geek talk, and maybe the familiar 'geek meet feeling' helped a bit to keep us warm. We reached a Tesco's and decided to shop for our dinner there instead of facing the risk that Sainsbury's, closer to my house, might close before we got there. Then we continued our trek, past the university, past Aldi (closed), past the library, across the canal and under the bridge, past the pizza place, and finally, after many heartstopping moments of almost-slipping, arrived home, where we successfully mastered the slippery slope leading up to the door. I've rarely been happier to be home!
By then, it was almost ten in the evening, and I suspect only the geek meet glow (the inner glow of warmth you feel when after a long time spent among mundanes you finally meet another geek and can share your thoughts) kept us from collapsing. I made dinner, we ate, then we exchanged CDs. )(Exchanging CDs containing favourite television shows, movies, fan videos, fan films or other digital items of geekish interest is a central geek meet ritual, as any anthropologist who has studied geek meets in the years since the advent of the CD burner can confirm. I myself have been able to observe this behaviour (and participated in it) many times...)
In addition to the CDs Scapekid had brought me something else, equally fabulous: thanks to her I am now owner of a real, honest-to-God action figure. I never really *wanted* to have an action figure, but now that I have one I actually find it quite cool. It's Zhaan, of course. Thanks also go to Kev, Scapekid's boyfriend, who apparently suggested this present. :-) (On the weekend, when staying with Eledhwen in London, I found out that she, too, had recently inadvertently become an action figure owner. This leads me to speculate that perhaps action figures automatically 'find' you once you've displayed a sufficient degree of geekishness. Some kind of cosmic reward? Instant geek karma?)
Well, we watched vids and fanfilms and had a good time in general, only interrupted when I had to go to uni. I also planted an evil song in Scapekid's head (it got stuck in mine, too, and I startled people at university by breaking into it suddenly on Friday morning). Scapekid retaliated by demonstrating her bizarre gift of dancing strangely for me. On Thursday evening we were joined by my two sort-of converts to watch some Farscape, and one of them had a violent fangasm which sent her clawing my bedsheets while I showed them LithiumDoll's great vid “Until It Sleeps”. Unfortunately we were all rather tired, and hence terminated the evening early.
Friday was hectic. Scapekid left for home, and I left for London, and there wasn't much time for anything, not even a proper breakfast. In London, I was so drained that I sort of collapsed upon arriving at Eledhwen's flat, and even forgot to congratulate her (she'd turned 24 the day before)! Fortunately I remembered after a few minutes and also remembered that I had brought her a present, the Borribles trilogy, which I am always eager to spread. Then we had dinner – vegetable stir fry – and ate while watching “Pirates of the Carribean” on Eledhwen's shoebox of a TV. That was my first meeting with “Captain” Jack Sparrow, and it was highly enjoyable, although I am sorry to say that I still feel no desire to write PotC fanfic.
Saturday was LotR:RotK day, again, and I think we went to the most expensive cinema in the world, or very nearly. Afterwards we had pizza, which cost me about a third of the price of the cinema ticket! It was nice to meet some new, and also one old TORnado, though. The old TORnado was Hengist whom I hadn't seen since watching FotR in Oxford in December 2001. He's a really nice guy, so I was happy to see him again. The new TORnadoes didn't know me and I only had the most fleeting acqaintance with them from occasionally lurking at the forums, but they all seemed really nice, too. We didn't have all that much time to get to know each other, though. Maybe I'll get another chance sometime. Apparently they meet rather regularly.
On Sunday I had to leave early, even before Eledhwen returned from her rowing session. I slept in the coach for most of the way and then, back in B'ham, tried to get some work for uni done. And I think here I'll stop my report of my geekish weekend (would that be a 'geekend'?), cause what follows is mostly uni, and a new obsession. More on *that* later.
