So in case you were wondering why we didn’t update EN last week, we actually had a legitimate excuse this time! The EN crew and several members of the forum travelled to the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire because Virus is moving to Canada to live with his girlfriend, so it was a sort of last hurrah and a chance to meet some good people and spend 20 minutes in a queue to for a 60 second ride. The total number was 14 people. Myself Garry (Lothar), Stuart (Eastwood), Martin (Silversword), Alan of course (Virus), his two younger brothers Barry (the middle child) and Dean (the youngest out of us at 14…but he looked at least 19. Probably should have held back on all the sex jokes, and pointing out all the phallic imagery around the park), and Virus’s mother and her boyfriend who I never actually learned the names of. Oops From the forum we had my mate Drew, (Studio Asperger), Nick (Metallix Brother), Iain (Retrogamer), Jeff (Jeff38uk), Matt, (Feldoon), and Jon (Pixellated).

Studio and I drove down on Sunday. Nothing much happened really, borrowed a GPS unit from my mother and we only got “lost” once for about 30 seconds when it was getting us back on route. Got to the hotel where six of us were staying at about 3pm. Called the other travellers, which consisted of East, Silv, Jeff, and Feldoon, all being picked up by East. They were lost. Well not strictly true, East and Feldoon had been lost in Hounslow for two hours trying to find Jeff, who is now a cunt apparently. Eventually they found him and went to pick up Silv…which they did at SIX PM (or thereabouts). Studio and I ended up going to see District 9 at a nearby cinema, then having something to eat and heading back to the hotel…and they still hadn’t shown up. The short version of this was that muggins here had to pay for their damn rooms so they didn’t lose them (they paid me back straight away though), and they didn’t arrive until about 11pm. By that time all the purveyors of alcoholic beverages were closed, so there wasn’t much to do except go to bed.

The next day started more successfully, everybody was up and after breakfast the drive to the park began, with me leading the way because that lot couldn’t navigate themselves out of a playground which had big signs saying “Exit this way!” We got to the park after driving through pretty much every village in the county, and managed to meet up with Alan and family, then had to ride the second most annoyingly voiced monorail ever, a fucking pirate. Captain Black. Not Blackbeard, not Black Heart, just Black, this got old very fast. When we got to the station we managed to find Retro, Nick and Pix. There we spent the next few minutes saying hello, taking pictures, signing the British flag I got for Alan, and stealing Retro’s goggles and declaring I would take over the world followed by laughing like an evil genius, which got weird looks. Not as many as Feldoon though who came dressed as a Fascist. Seriously, check the pictures I’ll link to at the end.

The day at the park started with golf, weirdly. There was a hole in one thing where you had to try and get a golf ball in a hole in the middle of a small lake. I had some extra cash so I had a go, and failed miserable. There’s a video of me doing it on Pix’s youtube account. Everyone laughed…until East had a go and failed harder. At least I managed to hit the lake.

We then went on Oblivion, which is one of those 90 degree drop coasters. And by we, I meant eight of us, because Retro, Stuart, Studio, and Martin didn’t. Got on the ride in about 20 minutes and I found it very fun and I had about a half second thought of “oh shit I’m gonna die” before it was over. In the EN topic I’ll link to there will be a picture of me at the top and after the ride.

We then proceeded to get refresh by buying a £6 cup which allows for free refills all day in the park, which everyone said was a rip off at first but then half the fuckers got it afterwards. I’m a trendsetter.

We then went to the most boring ride at the park, Hex. Here’s the Wikipedia quote:

“The theme of the attraction is loosely set around the local legend of the Chained oak found at Alton, in which the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury was cursed by an old beggarwoman to suffer a death in the family every time a branch fell from the oak tree. Hex’s version embellishes the end of the ‘original’ tale with the Earl experimenting on one of the fallen branches in a vault deep within the Towers themselves, and it is this vault, with its entrance bricked up behind behind a bookcase, that has been supposedly been sealed up for two centuries and only recently discovered during renovation work.

The attraction starts in the real armoury of the Towers, decorated with scaffolding and artefacts, which starts to tell the story of the renovation and the discovery of the vault, through video screens found along the twisting atmospheric queue-line. Statues draped in dust sheets decorate plinths high up near the darkened ceiling and sound-effects of chiselling can be heard to give the suggestion that this renovation is currently ongoing and unfinished. At the end of the queue line is a large painting of the Earl hung on the wall, and visitors hear a short narrative which gives a brief introduction to the legend before they are shown onwards into the cinema area (still part of the real building) where visitors watch a short film which dramatises the legend and makes it clear that they will soon be visiting the recently-discovered vault where the original branch is located.
From the cinema area, guests are let through into the Octagon (still part of the real building) – a large dimly-lit eight-sided hall containing more scaffolding and dust-sheets, draped curtains and a whirring generator high on a wall – and are led to believe that the story will be told further through more video screens. However, the generator suddenly ‘blows’, causing the lights and the video screens to fail and the room is plunged into semi-darkess. A wind picks up, causing the drapes to billow, and the ghostly cursing of the beggarwoman can be heard, along with the loud crash of a falling branch and the sound of horse’s hooves. An apparition can be briefly seen in an alcove. To add to the suspense, the noise of the crashing branch is synchronised with a light water spray falling from the ceiling onto the guests below. The generator restarts and the lighting comes back up to allow guests to move up a small staircase, past the bookcase and into the next section of the attraction.
At this point, the guests are moving from the original building up into the specially-constructed part of the ride, but due to the careful continuation of themeing, it is difficult to tell where this occurs. They turn to the left past the bookcase and along a short, low-ceilinged ‘stone’ corridor – once again similarly-decorated to the rest of the attraction – where they wait at two doors for entry into the vault. The vault itself is a large hall-like structure, with the decorative ceiling supported by stone pillars, and shelves containing dusty artefacts lit with flickering candles. It contains the branch itself, chained to a long ledge that runs along the middle of the room, two rows of lap-bar benches that face the branch and a large machine, covered in lights and dials, which the Earl supposedly used in his experiments, which is located up against the far wall and wired to one end of the branch.”

Basically after all that exposition you sit down on a set of seats and they swing, while the floor you’re swinging over moves as well, making it seem for all of 1 second that you’re going upside down. This reveals a face of branches under the crappy plastic branch. Someone said it looked like Cthulhu, I personally thought it was Ceiling Cat. People were screaming at this. Idiots. Also what kind of experiments can you do on a tree branch anyway?

“Quickly Igor, place the cat on the branch! Hmm…perhaps if we smother it in gravy and nails we will get the required reaction!”
“And that reaction is what exactly master?”
“Haven’t a fucking clue!”

After this, we went to Rita, a short ride that accelerates from 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds. Nine of us went on it this time, basically leaving Studio, East, and Silv to hold our stuff. It looked rather sedate but the burst of acceleration just hits you with barely any warning. I remember Retro coming off it and walking like a zombie for a good few minutes after that.

Oh we had a theme of the day where everybody had to wear hats due to a Team Fortress 2 in joke. I intended to bring a Jayne hat from Firefly but it didn’t arrive in time, so I brought a winter hat. As part of the in joke, we made Pix wear ALL our hats (something like seven or eight in total) at once. The sight was glorious and made Jeff fall to his knees.

This is where I forget the order we did things, then after that we headed for the nearby Burger King and it is the only “fast food” place that has ever lived up to its name. You give them the money, boom, there’s your food. I gave Raye a call while we were eating letting her know how we were doing.

The next ride we went on River Rapids, the only ride we all went on. There was much wetness, plus East tipping his hat to people who kept looking at him like he just asked them if he could fuck their sister. We all got quite wet but I think Silv “won” that honour. After this a couple of people had a go on some crooked carny games. Nothing was won. Though at this point Retro went on this rock climbing wall, and barely beat a small girl to the top.

After this we went on “Duel” which is a haunted house with light-guns where you shoot the monsters/zombies. Like Hex, it was boring, but unlike Hex, your hand hurt afterwards. You didn’t even have to frigging aim as they had stuck the receiver lights for the guns everywhere! On the zombies, the walls, the ceiling etc. I ended up just pointing randomly and firing. What was annoying was all the girls in the cart in front of us screaming at this stuff that wasn’t scary in the slightest. Studio, Feldoon, and Silv were in the same cart and apparently Feldoon in full Fascist mode argued with them and possibly told them to go bear children for the future of the glorious Reich, or something.

After this we headed for Nemesis, a ride I’ve always wanted to go on, and we were down to five people going on the big rides. Myself, Virus, Feldoon, and Virus’s brothers. I had a slight headache in the line for it, and after going through the very fun 3.5G turns it became a FULL FUCKING MIGRANE. This was annoying as I couldn’t look anywhere because of the light. The stupid amounts of Coca-Cola and the heat probably didn’t help. East kindly gave me some headache tablets while the other four who rent on the rid headed for Air, which I was kind of disappointed to miss, though Virus said it was rather sedate so I wasn’t missing much. But at least I had a legitimate excuse for not going on it, against everyone else’s excuse of suddenly growing vaginas.

After this, crooked carny games! I won a SpongeBob doll for Raye, and East won some Mario and Luigi dolls. Apparently the person running that stall was a man, but I swear to Zeus it was a woman! The group apparently finds this hilarious. We also spent about five minutes debating whether to play an arcade version of Guitar Hero before passing, and I mugged Pix for his hat. I mugged him by tickling him.

After the carny games we proceeded into the Sea Life Centre aquarium, and got a picture of us looking like the campest submarine crew ever. It was quite a nice relaxing experience and helped my headache lot. Also there were some fish fighting. Highlights were pretty much everything Stuart did, where he somehow managed to antagonise a crab that followed his every move, and when we went through the tunnel, he nearly leapt as this projection of a pirate ghost who kept saying “the ghost of the sea” over and over and over and over and over and over. To be fair I probably would have handed him the shark. After this we got separated in a very small area before finally meeting up at this very loud speaker where we could learn how to speak pirate. Personally it all sounded like someone simultaneously having a stroke while having their testicles taken out. Feldoon also said a urinal spoke to him, but he’s crazy.

Since the day was almost over, we decided to head to the mini-golf. At first we all decided to walk to it, but then Group Sensible, being myself, Virus and his brothers, Jeff, and Studio, decided not to, and took the monorail instead. There we got the most annoying voice over ever, like a young Michael Jackson after having his testicles removed, where the anaesthetic was helium. It made us want to die.

Eventually, the other group realised their folly as there is actually no way to walk to the mini-golf. And they met us about half an hour later. By this time Alan’s mother and her boyfriend and his brothers had to leave, as well as Retro and Metallix,but Virus decided to come back to the hotel with us and drive back with me and Studio and take a train back home from Middlesbrough where I had to drop Studio. So we said bye to his family and to Retro and Metallix. It turned out Retro made it back home ELEVEN HOURS LATER at 7:30am because he’s an idiot and wouldn’t stay at a Travel Lodge. Ironically he did this as he had work the next day, which he ended up calling in sick for.

Then the mini-golf was on.

We played 18 holes divided between “Team EN” consisting of the EN creative crew, and “The Other Guys” consisting of everyone else. I had this uncanny knack of making the difficult shots, like sending a golf through a loop or jumping over water hazards etc., but completely buggering it up by missing the fecking hole three thousands times when I was two inches from it. But a good time was had by all, except The Other Guys who actually caused a queue to form behind them because they were completely crap. I didn’t win the round I believe East did overall. Though Virus, who is moving to Canada, won a free game of golf for the next time he feels like doing so. All he has to do is cross the Atlantic Ocean.

After this the remaining eight headed back to our hotel for some drinks, snacks, and a game of Zombies!!! that East had brought with him. Think Left 4 Dead in board game form. Was a good romp, although I was disappointed I wasn’t allowed to shoot Feldoon’s guy in the leg since he laid a shitload of zombies in front of me. Pix had to leave just before midnight to get home, Virus taking his place, and since I had to call Raye again I let Jeff stand in for me, and he then proceeded to win, meaning I also won. Great team effort Jeff!

The next day was just driving back home after having a McDonald’s breakfast and saying goodbye to Feldoon, Silv, East and Jeff. Virus, Studio and I drove back (and by that I mean I drove back). Not much happened on the way back apart from I bought everyone a coffee/tea/hot chocolate. We made it back to Middlesbrough where Drew had to catch his bus, and me and Virus browsed in Forbidden Planet seeing if there were any decent graphic novels/TPBs. I got Batman: Going Sane, he got Fables: War and Peace. Then we said our probable last goodbyes at the train station. We hugged, which I did to everyone else at the meet at least once. I then headed for home and did fuck all for the rest of the day.

So, all in all, an awesome meet up, a good way to meet up with guys from the forums, and a great way to see Virus off. Probably won’t be the last time we’re all together but certainly for some time. Got some good memories out of it.

To see the photos and videos of the day you can go to the official topic on the EN boards:

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Exterminatus_Now/index.php?showtopic=4767