This weekend I attended an all-night film festival for the Sci-fi London Oktoberfest — about 10 hours of icecream, red-bull and the hilarity of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K). On the programme it’s listed as “Seriously funny {stuff}!”, and it really was.
I arrived at the Odeon West End (near Picadilly Circus) at about 23:15 … and then found out I was in the wrong place! Not sure how that happened, but suddenly the benefit of having Google Maps on a phone became very apparent — even I could find my way, despite both my own lack of a directional sense and London’s winding, Celtic roads.
So I wasn’t too late. I met Allen “Conky” there; he gave me my (half-price) ticket and we wandered into the cinema.
Extremely comfy chairs! Free tea, coffee, icecream and red-bull! A couple of guys from EA (the games company) showing off their new XBOX 360 game (and a guy dressed up as the main character, how funny is that?!). I wasn’t sure what to expect, but £15 for at least 4 movies I was ready to enjoy myself. So how happy I was when the organisers handed out “showbags” on the way in — a bunch of DVDs (including a metal-cased special edition Voltron!), some badges, t-shirt transfers, little “build your own X-fighter” toys.
Even better for one attendee — he got the “lucky” seat and ended up with a brand-new XBOX 360 and a bunch of games (all courtesy of Play.com — thanks!).
So I was already in a merry mood when the movies started, and they turned out to be really, really funny. Take a bunch of bad, bad movies — including the Worst Movie of All Time, “Plan 9 from Outer-space” — and add a commentary by a couple of funny guys (actually one guy and two robots). The hours flew by, and before I knew it it was 9am!
We stumbled out of the cinema into broad daylight, squinting, dazed and confused. Whether it was the all-night laughs or the red-bull cola, I felt fine! A little bit dopey but certainly not tired, so I walked home and woke Dee (heh heh), trying to convince her to come outside and go do something!
About 5 minutes later I was asleep.
However, after 5 or 6 hours sleep I woke again, had a snack and went to see some comedians at The Comedy Pub with some friends and friends of friends (Joyce, Luke, Heather and Wayne). They were so funny too! Hard to remember the jokes; harder still to actually deliver them. After comedy we had a late dinner in China Town (I almost ordered pigeon, but settled on chilli and bean chicken).
Sunday we cleaned up the house, did the paperwork, and had a delicious dinner courtesy of Colleen (our housemate) who was really just cooking for her little brother :-).