Arcing Over

[lupestripe]

Amidst the chaos of heavy snowfall last week, we ventured out to celebrate Arcais's birthday. With gusty blizzards and seven inches of the white stuff delivered, perhaps venturing out was a bad idea but we had a birthday to celebrate and celebrate we did.

We picked Shenson up at the station initially as he was going to stay at ours for the night as part of his magical tour around every fur's home in Britain. Or at least it seemed to be that way as he was doing a mammoth tour of England, having come down from Aberdeen. We were all too happy to oblige and I trust he had a good time, despite the fact we had to cancel our proposed trip to the Liverpool meet due to the aforementioned snow on Saturday (we were effectively snowed in, we couldn't get the car out and trains were disrupted, partly due to snow and partly due to cabling theft).

Our first port of call on the Friday was Bradford and the Russian Restaurant, always a popular choice with us due to the excellent food and Vlad, the fantastically personable owner cum waiter. Shenson was feeling a little wary of the food at first but endeavoured to try it, only to discover it was to his tastes, which was quite a relief. We had Baltika 4, specially in stock, while I tried the Yorkshire twist on the beef stroganoff, served inside yorkshire puddings.

After the meal, and with the snow still falling relentlessly, some of the sane ones headed back while we trudged on to the Gasworks, our favourite metal club cum bar which was sadly deserted due to the deteriorating conditions. Still, with 30 people or so there, we still had a good time moshing, and we left at 2.30am, shortly before the club closed. We saw a moody fat man applying eyeliner liberally in the bar plus some of his friends inadvertently joined our group but it was all fun nonetheless, despite a few tired faces towards the end.

We forwent the traditional post club McDonald's due to the weather and the fact the taxi drivers would only take us on main roads, so it was back home we went to wake up late the next morning under drifts and drifts of snow. Seriously, I've never seen such depth of snow before, even a few years back when we had two months of the shit.

So with Liverpool plans scuppered, Shenson had to view my Fursuit in my front room. He wanted to take pictures and, as our bondage frame is still erected, this became a classy yet erotic BDSM shoot. Nothing seedy, all rather arty, but a fantastic way to spend a snowy Saturday afternoon. I was very impressed with how the images turned out, both vanilla and kinky. There was some good colour contrast going on and we even made an improvised gag and blindfold. Happy days.

With the snow receding slightly, Arc and Draken managed to dig their way our if their driveway mid-afternoon and after taking friends back to the railway station for their trains home, they said they'd pick us up in Pudsey and we'd go to the new TGI Friday's at the Trinity Centre in Leeds. So we showed Shenson around Pudsey briefly (which really was just the bus station and Gregg's) before heading into town.

Arc and Wolfie hadn't seen the Trinity before so we aimlessly wandered, looking at handbags before going to the Lego store where I bought Wolfie a blocky wolf shaped keyring. I also bought a large map with gold leaf, which you scratch off when you visit a country. It's like a personal map, which I intend to hang on the wall. I got a student discount on that too, another benefit to my Russian learning.

Needing noms and Shenson having to continue his journey, we headed to TGI where we tried to persuade them to make a balloon model panda for Arc. Sadly "all the children needed to be seen first" (sad face) but Arc did get a free chocolate cake and birthday song, courtesy of one embarrassed waitress. As the restaurant was new, the service was quite slow but it was a great meal and we didn't mind, such was the excellence of the company.

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Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

plus some of his friends inadvertently joined our group but it was all fun nonetheless

Hee! That must've been a little confusing.. =:D

I also bought a large map with gold leaf, which you scratch off when you visit a country

The problem I have with such maps (a great idea, nonetheless!) is you don't see all of a country by seeing a part of it - sort of okay with the UK, but when it comes to an expanse like Russia or the US, it feels a bit.. sort of cheating to mark it all as "visited". I wonder what a better option might be.. for simplicity, maybe just a geographic area cap per country, above which, you use that country's top level of division (province, state, etc).

'Course, now I'm pondering how many dimensions of data visualisation you could encapsulate digestibly, to represent the actual time spent there, how long ago, how frequently.. ^_^; Could have a globe, with prongs protruding from each country/province, with height denoting amount of time, thickness for frequency, brightness for how long ago.. ooh, that'd still leave hue free to represent something, let alone shape.. hm. Wonder if I could rope njrabit into coding up something like that as a WebGL thingummy.. ^_^

around Pudsey briefly (which really was just the bus station and Gregg's)

You're not looking to work for the Pudsey Tourist Bureau, I take it. =:)

both vanilla and kinky

Ooo.. this could be interesting. ^_^

traditional post club McDonald's

Eep!

Surely there's a great place for a kebab, or a curry? (Though, much as I love a good kebab, at least when I'm not busily shedding pounds/kilos, I've never quite understood the way they're always stuffed so impractically, making them next to impossible to eat without shedding meat everywhere, like The Fly with a bad case of meaty dandruff)

I'll admit, I'm not really a TGIF sort, but there's a lot to be said for a friendly bartender. As the roomie and I discovered last Saturday, taking Mum out for dinner.. suffice to say, the bar tab was over double the food bill. ^_^; A good time was indeed had by all, even if he and I did wind up having to get a taxi back home, having missed the last train, barely. (Would've made it, had we not got on the wrong line at the next station up - it's one of those stations where the different lines run on the same tracks, splitting apart outside the station. Would've just made it, even then, had a massive concert just not let out, bringing traffic to a halt outside Wembley.. still, it was fun trying =:)

Aww, no balloon panda! Maybe they can make you one next time you visit, to make up for it. ^_^