Another year, another Newgrounds meetup, once again in the belly of London after an Olympics-related absence last year (although I kinda cheated by visiting Namco Station during a YouTube meet that Summer). Snow be damned, here's how it went.

Day 1 - Friday
There was pretty much snow all over the place, but having already booked my accomodation after countless anxiety waiting to get paid for my commission (see previous post), I decided to go for it. The main event wasn't planned to kick off til the evening, but I figured better safe than sorry on account of the snow. Amazingly enough, the trains were actually running on time, which was nice. I do notice silly mistake number one, forgetting to pack my camera battery charger, as it was already down to half battery when I got round to checking it. Thus, instead of having some fancy vlog detailing the weekend's events, this is the only video I ended up taking. I do manage to take a smexy selfcam of myself (see bottom of post).

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After having some Burger King, I find the trains from Birmingham to London were working okay as well, only suffering from a slight pause near the end of the journey. After checking into my Travelodge and, after double checking there wasn't anything going on prior to the official meetup, proceeded to spend the afternoon playing Theatrhythm on my 3DS and watching Come Dine With Me. As you do.

After grabbing a dubious combo of sushi and chicken curry that I was uncertain whether I'd regret or not, I made my way over to the White Swan & Cuckoo, arriving a bit early alongside Bahamut before waiting for Luis and the others to arrive. Twas a bit of a modest crowd on account of the snow, but the usuals activities were had. I 'won' a game of pool (sort of) and ripped out a lovely rendition of "I Believe I Can Fly" (blame the Game Grumps). Did find it a little hard to get into any conversation so I more or less spent the rest of the evening taking pictures with my camera (til it ran out of battery and I had to move over to my phone, ugh) and making snowballs out of the lovely snow in the garden area and punching them purely cos they look nifty. We ended up clearing out an hour earlier than usual for some reason (which was later revealed to be someone allegedly pooping everywhere), but it gave everyone a chance to catch the tubes rather than hassle with taxis in the snow. Day one, over.

Day 2 - Saturday
A bit less snow than the previous day, so after some morning cookery programmes and a Starbucks breakfast (why did noone tell me they had such yummy hot chocolate), I headed to the London Eye to meet up with Zictor and StupidHumorKing. After a McDonald's lunch in the company of some evil looking pidgeons, we popped into Namco Station for a bit to blow some money on some games. I managed to win a cuddly Luigi in a crane game, which was nice. After that, people soon started to assemble for the main meet, and thus the drinking and conversationing began. Got to chat with some of the more familiar faces such as Eddache and Tom, as well as have some productive chats with other people. Particularly girls. Always good. Also managed to learn how to free up memory on my phone, which has been plaguing me with a 'low space' message all month. We enjoyed hanging around Namco so well that we pretty much screwed the plans to move on to the other place we had planned, so I ordered some ribs and they were goood. Also people bought me lots of Smirnoff Ice. Also good.

After eventually deciding to leave Namco, we all walked a helluva lot as we followed Tom to another pub (the first of which turned out to be closed), where more conversation was had. Due to how much we were walking, I jokingly brought up the idea of a Newgrounds Fun Run, though some people seem to think it might be a good idea. We eventually ended up at another pub, where we mostly just chatted away until everyone eventually started dispersing. As the pub closed, I eventually parted from the rest as we headed on our tubes back to our lodgings, where I proceeded to watch the latter half of Saving Private Ryan for some reason.

Aftermath - Sunday
After packing up my stuff and having yet another hot chocolate, I pop by Soho to say hello to my brother who works in a chocolate shop, where I was given another hot chocolate. Decided to go to Ed's Diner for lunch where, silly mistake number 2, I foolishly thought I could handle a slick dog, cheesy fries and a coke so soon after having two thick hot chocolates. I eventually make my way back home, again, no issues with the trains. Upon changing at Birmingham and hopping on the train back home, I finally notice silly mistake number 3: leaving the suitcase containing my clothes (including three Newgrounds t-shirts) on the other train. No valuables were lost, but I'm gonna miss them shirts, even if that UK one was getting small on me.

So yeah, aside from that last minute dumbness on my part, twas another good meet. Wasn't any Jungle Speed or anything, though it wouldn't seem right without Bez anyway. Whether Luis decides to put on another one anytime soon is anyone's guess, but let's face it, he is to UK meets what Hideo Kojima is to Metal Gear Solid. He'll say he'll quit it, but he'll always come back.

Photos

In other news, I animated this dumb thing based on a Sonic Adventure audio splice mrSimon made.

He also made this soon afterwards.

Oh, and I'm currently animating asdfmovie6 right now. Fun times.

Til next time.