All wings, report in

GENTLEMEN.
It's been a long time. I have summoned you here today to discuss the liquidation of cyclists.
But let's back up for just one second, where did it all go wrong?
I arrived at Blackpool on Sunday just over a month ago, stepping off the coach I was immediately hit by what a dive it is. Seriously, the boulevard was like Las Vegas meets Chernobyl, and one steet back from that was the ghetto. Just like anywhere else in England, it had its nice areas too, but why anyone would want to come here on a 'holiday' I will never know.
The one thing Blackpool had going for it was the fact that it's street racer central. Everything everyone's said about cars being cheaper up north is so absurdly true, you'll see very few modified FWDs and a silly amount of Jap imports. Within an hour of being there I saw an R34 GTR, so I was sufficiently impressed.
My instructor was pretty cool, which I was very worried about, as getting stuck with a bad instructor for a week would've been hell. The other guy I was paired with was alright, a total builder but we all got on great.
The week went pretty quickly, driving during the day and either reading on seawall or playing my DS in the hotel during the evening.
Failed my test, all because I overtook a fucking cyclist without leaving a 'safe distance'. If I was going to fail I wanted to put the car on its roof or into an orphanage, not a stupid little thing like that.
Ahh well, I've been driving with Andrew's old instructor since I got back, who really knows his stuff. Got my test next Wednesday morning, and if I fail that I really don't know what I'll do.

I met up with Ellie and a bunch of other people in London the Saturday after Blackpool. It was rather strange as I'd been on the coach all night and had managed no sleep at all, but I still wasn't tired at all even after walking around London all day.
We did a tour of some pretty cool shops, and I managed to bag volumes 23 to 29 of Initial D for £2 each out of a bargin bin, now I just need to buy volumes 13 to 22 to catch up...
I met some really cool people (and some real elitist pricks) and generally enjoyed it. We spent the second half of the day at the Namco arcade which was pretty awesome. I'd been there before, but when you're just passing through is totally different to when you properly stop and take your time. Best part of it was the Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune 3 arcade machine. Which while having a silly amount of catch-up turned on, proved to be the most awesome arcade racer I'd ever played. I spent a lot of money on that with Pill, who while having no previous interest in motorsports was really enthuiastic about the racing games, definitely a potential getaway driver. Also hung out a lot with Jess, who seems to share pretty much all my interests and has a delightfully overenthusiastic fan-girl side.
I'll be seeing all these crazy cats again at MCM next weekend.

Started watching a bit more anime again recently, although I've dropped Moyashimon and haven't been able to bring myself to watch any more Baccano! yet.
Most notably I watched the six episodes of Golden Boy, which is freakin' hilarous, quite possibly the funniest comedy anime I've ever seen.
I also blasted through the entirety of Infinite Ryvius alarmingly fast, I really didn't expect it to grab me as much as it did. It's basically Lord of the Flies in space as it follows a ship full of stranded teenagers left to sort themselves out for six months.
Now I'm watching Toward the Terra, which has also really grabbed me, although it certainly has a lot of things that really do not appeal to me. It's main attractions are the situation the main character finds himself in and the sci-fi genre. But the thing that really gets on my nerves is how some of it is so blatantly aimed at pleasing fan-girls, which shouldn't be surprising as it was recommended to me by a serious yaoi fan, but there's only so much eye rolling I can do at the heart-throb mentor and his antics, luckily he's on the verge of death, so hopefully he'll kick the bucket and get out of my face soon enough.

I've left out a lot of junk that I've been up to, but I guess that's what's gonna happen when I don't update for a month. Hopefully I'll have nothing but good times next week and will get back on the ball, we'll see how things go.