UKitP X - Winter again! The big One Zero!

[Archonic Energy]

So... Who's here already... Since there is no bar or reception to invade...

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Posts, posts everywhere, and not a reply to drink...

I think that while you lot have been trying to preplan the indecision of dinner I've been blocking scenes from Much Ado and running around dressed as a Viking.

British humour is amazing by definition. It's British.

I'm game for waiting around and having pre-meetup dinner.

[Totally Guy]

Posts, posts everywhere, and not a reply to drink...

Tell me about it. As soon as someone tells me where to be I can be there.

[Archonic Energy]

Guy. The travelodge.

That's the place to be right now.

[Totally Guy]

I'll head on over.

[GrlumpTheElder]

Sorry I wasn't more useful, you got me right in the middle of Oklahoma! Also, I like on the other side of Bradford to the Travel Lodge, so have yet to see any of the UKitPers

[Lensman]

you got me right in the middle of Oklahoma!

That's sounds really painful. Have you sought medical help?

[Totally Guy]

In the reception of the hotel.

[Kneenibble]

I hope your congregations this weekend are fabulous, all of you.

[Fredaintdead]

I hope your congregations this weekend are fabulous, all of you.

For a moment there, I thought Kneenibble was coming to the meetup. Now I see that he isn't and I am sad.

[The Succubus]

At Leeds. Will be at New Pudsey in 30 mins.

[The Succubus]

Where is everyone Im at the hotel but serp and arc arent answering

[Cikomyr]

Apparently, I have been accepted at Bristol University of Bristol.

How is the town of Bristol compared to Newcastle?

[Lensman]

We're hitting the road. Three hours drive to Bradford. I hope we can find somewhere to park, and get back before the snow hits us!

[GrlumpTheElder]

It's 10:54 and so far we have Fred, Fred, Factotum, Hamish, Guy and Myself...
Meetup is a go.

EDIT:

11:00

13 People

[Mercenary Pen]

Have fun dudes, wish I were with you.

*shakes fist at place of work*

[Sgt. Cookie]

Unfortunately, a family issue came up at the last minute. So I will be unable to go to the meet up. I can only apologise to people, Lensman especially since I was supposed to be a player at his star wars game.

[Castaras]

The mighty sword has been given to the great prophet and visionary, Fiszzik. And now we have the sword we will seize the fields of paradise from men! The roden will prevail!

[Castaras]

Muhahahahaha!
Teh Graye Koorly hath stlen th'account of th'insignificant Miss Cassie Lassie and is waiting foreverz for her turn t Starcraft.
Also: SNOW! LIEK MADNESS!

Koorly out.

[Totally Guy]

Calate

The mighty sword has been given to the great prophet and visionary, Fiszzik. And now we have the sword we will seize the fields of paradise from men! The roden will prevail!

You crazy cultists! How quick to violence!

[GrlumpTheElder]

Koorly has stolen this account as well!

We have played with snow indoors and outdoors and are now hunting for Cylons and werewolves in a sports bar.

Time's are good.

I am also making a concerted effort to get drunk, So far, no effects have been experienced. And I've drunk a lot in a short time.

Koorly out.

[Lensman]

We've just made it home - we were right to get moving when we did. Deep snow already on the roads, and a blizzard all the way home. Took us 2.5 hours to get to Bradford (plus an hour trying to find somewhere to park and getting to the Student Union!). Took us almost exactly five hours to get home. Very hairy driving - last fifty miles at 30mph, last 10 miles at less than 20, and one very nasty skid.

(Collapses and demands a stiff drink!)

Hope everyone else travelling got home okay.

Still - good fun was had, Star Wars PCs survived (albeit leaving a Great Old One squelching across the world of Zaradim), Vuldus got nuked (as did Cassie - yay!) and we learned to play Dungeon!

[Mercenary Pen]

Sounds like next winter we try and book our weather in advance, even if we have to get Castaras involved in ensuring we get the right stuff (oh think of the chaos that'd cause)

[Fredaintdead]

Just thought I should let people know I managed to get home safely despite some unfortunate circumstances with trains and coaches.
Honestly, I had an absolute blast while I was there, and despite any travel problems I may have had in Manchester, it was worth it.

[factotum]

Meetup was great, nice to meet you all again (plus the ones I hadn't met before)...but the journey home? I live around 45 miles by road from Bradford. Drove out of the car park there at 7:50pm. Got home at 11:30. I make that an average speed of 12mph...

Glad to hear Lensman and Fredaintdead got home OK, though.

[Castaras]

Silly snow. Lots of fun but bloody annoying.

I am awake and sitting in a room interneting properly for the first time in a couple of days. This meetup has been and still is pretty damn awesome.

[GrlumpTheElder]

This meetup has been and still is pretty damn awesome.

I cannot agree more.

Hope everyone has a safe journey back home - enjoy the snow

[Qwaz]

Thufir, Tasroth and I all arrived back safely. Roads much better today esp. the motorways.

It was a pleasure to meet you all even if I hadn't spoken to you online first! Damn - Nuclear War is incredable.

To Mr. Action Castle! I completely want to play that game properly. Start to finish reguardless of wether you know how to "Beat self" or not.

To the Nerd-Spawn. Try to fit some revision in around all that skyrim...level 40. Jesus.

To the Nerd Herder. Deputy stationed and refueled. Preparations being made for summer duties. Hopefully won't need to borrow your scraper then!

To the Convict Deportee. Hope it was worth the trip and the snow didn't ruin it for you.

To the Oldest Man Ever. Thank you emensly for organising it, hosting a small mead-fueled afterparty and bringing RL Werewolf into the evening. Mega brain wave and lots of fun.

To Tasroth and Thufir. Thank you for getting me along and doing the planning from the Newcastle end. Made my life a lot simpler.

To everyone I shared a game with thank you so much. I had a blast and I hope you did too.

Finally a mini thank you to an inanimate object. My sat nav. Without whom i would be eternally misplaced.

Now for some sleep and SUPERBOWL!

[Thufir]

So, we arrived back home before anyone we left behind will have left Bradford. At least by train, I suppose Ku may well have set out before we got quite back here Regardless, it makes me kinda sad, thinking of that extra time I could have been spending among many of my favourite people. Much as I love the internet, and the Playground, being in the same place is kinda better.
I MISS YOU ALL ALREADY WHY ARE YOU SO FAR AWAY.
Frickin' distance. Geography has some sort of a grudge against me, I swear.

Tch, naughty naughty.
Here's me doing essay research (maybe I'll even let someone read it (yah, as if anyone wants to read it))

Hey, I might have theoretically been interested. Though on the other hand, I might not have understood any of it.

We really do need a procrastination song for our meetups. It's all we do: procrastinate, eat baked goods and play games.
What kind of semi-adults are we?

THE BEST KIND.

I hope your congregations this weekend are fabulous, all of you.

They were fabulous. I wished you were there a couple of times.

Muhahahahaha!
Teh Graye Koorly hath stlen th'account of th'insignificant Miss Cassie Lassie and is waiting foreverz for her turn t Starcraft.
Also: SNOW! LIEK MADNESS!

Koorly out.

Ah, so I guess this is what you were doing on the laptop while I was trying and failing to throw snowballs at the window you were at.

Koorly has stolen this account as well!

We have played with snow indoors and outdoors and are now hunting for Cylons and werewolves in a sports bar.

Time's are good.

I am also making a concerted effort to get drunk, So far, no effects have been experienced. And I've drunk a lot in a short time.

Koorly out.

You are brilliant.
Though, um:

Time's are good.

You may have been at least a little bit inebriated. Not drunk, but in my judgement there is a distinct possibility you were a little tipsy.

So, meetup post. Sadly, since Ku went straight to bed I couldn't use his phone for wifi last night to make a post-post-post-meetup-meetup-meetup meetup meetup post. But anyway.

I would call this possibly the best meetup I've been to? Obviously the recentness emphasises it in my mind, but it was pretty damn awesome. I really liked making my bedroom the gathering point, in the absence of a lounge area. Wonderful late staying up times. Who needs sleep? (Granted, I did sleep through my alarm this morning but who cares? Any tiredness is totally worth it)
Another important element in the relative awesomeness of meetups for me I suppose is just getting to know the people better each time. Definitely adds to it. I'm getting to the point where I can't necessarily predict whether I will refer to Playgrounders by their real name or Playgrounder name at any given moment.

Um, games. They happened. There were things. We unleashed dread Cthulhu in Star Wars. That was a thing. I was a Cylon pony. Stopped all those pesky humans. And then werewolves. Apparently if you don't want to be lynched in UKitP werewolf games, you should avoid being a pirate cylon with a beard.
I'm sure there were other things. I'll write up a full meetup blog post like last time, which will contain more stuff.

To specific people:
Various people I didn't really interact with that much: You're still cool! But I have nothing much to say to you for obvious reasons.
Fredaintdead: You fit into the above category but get a special message because you were new to meetups! Also, forgot to mention at the time, but your T-shirt was remarkably fitting - Foo Fighters, worn by Fredaintdead, formerly FredtheFighter, nicknamed FreddyFoo? Doubt that was deliberate, but it amused me.
Succubus: You're a meanie with snowballs, but a nice guy. You seemed fairly shy/reserved, but that could be said of a lot of us, we just come out of our shells more at meetups now because we already know each other.
Cassie: ...I'm sure there was something... whatever. You're always fun. You were just you the whole time.
Serp: It was really nice to meet you! You should stay.
The people who made the snow Dalek: We made a snow Dalek! It was awesome.
Archie: Nyaha, Cylon wins.
Lensman: Star Wars was good as always. The addition of Cthulhu was... interesting to say the least. Also, Oren should really think about not wearing his best and favourite clothes on missions. They're only going to get damaged and/or dirty.
Qwaz: You drove me to Bradford, that was pretty helpful. And we fit five people into your car, which was... interesting.
Fred: Hardly any SAN damage dealt this time. You're losing your touch.
Grlump: NO LOINCLOTHS. But you're cool. I remember in Sheffield, it was pretty much just "Hey, here's another guy who likes G&S! Cool!" and then not really talk to each other for the rest of the meetup. This time was better.
Curly: You're still my Goddess and therefore awesome. The first 5-10 minutes of your company really hit home how much I'd missed it when you weren't around. Sorry about your sleep deprivation, but Ihope you agree that the meetup was well worth it. Also, a lot of the time I would never have guessed you were particularly tired, so well done on that. I'm sure you'll manage to get drunk another time.* Also you totally trolled your nemesis. Nicely done.

*I am not actually sure of this.


Photos will be getting sorted shortly. So all that remains is to plan the next meetup. As Archie pointed out this morning, since we had this one late, if we had the next one early, it could be the shortest inter-meetup gap yet! Or, we could then shift into a 3-meetups-a-year pattern (That part was my idea and you should not be remotely surprised by this).
Anyway, I put in a bid for Newcastle.

In the meantime, you should all come see me in Pirates of Penzance in two weeks time! Or, more like a week and a half maybe. 16^th to 18^th of February. I meant to show people flyers, but I forgot. However you did all see my pirate costume as I was wearing it yesterday. If the costume is not sufficient encouragement, the rest of the show is good too, and it is the 60^th anniversary of the society.
I don't really expect a lot of people to come, or even anyone, except Grlump already said he might, but I thought I'd mention the possibility. If anyone can come, I would be delighted. I can probably offer a sofa bed and a certain amount of sofa/floorspace to save on accommodation, and if people come on the Saturday, they can also join us at the after-show party. Consider it, if you will.
Alternatively/additionally, I'm doing The Gondoliers some time in March (I should really know when, but I don't), if that's more convenient for people. No fancy anniversary for that society, but I'm playing one of the lead roles in the show, so that's a thing.

And continuing on G&S, I suggest to my fellow Playgrounder G&S enthusiasts that we should go to London in April to see the professional production of The Grand Duke. (Also, Koorli, I checked - last professional UK Grand Duke was 1896, I was right)

So, yeah. Mini-meetups! They are a thing which should happen more often. I think that's all my ideas for the next couple of months.


Wow this is now a really long post, but I have so much to say because I love you all. Srsly u guise. For a six second video clip on a webcam, that's turning out to be remarkably useful.

[Tasroth]

I think the other 2 covered the bit about getting back safely.

Yeah, mostly I can just echo their general sentiments: To those of you I'd met before, it was great to see you guys again. To those I hadn't, it was great meeting you (hmm... was trying to think of a different word meaning great, but brain failed). I had a lot of fun, and I hope the rest of you did too.

And now the major lack of sleep is beginning to hit me, so gently falling over now.