Some guys took a photo of themselves while the camera was hanging on my back.

Sunglasses in the abyss

I find that photography never does the theatre justice; you really must be there in person to see the brilliance of the performers.

‘Round 2′. Round 2 is their newest production – small plays where the audience gets to choose who plays what role beforehand. A different experience every week.

‘The seagull’. In this production they bring no props; they use items found in the theatre and they ask the crowd to bring props with them. The cast varies every week, and while they follow the story of Chekov’s ‘The Seagull’, all the scenes are ad lib.

P.S. go and see ’round 2′ by The Factory at the Electricity Showrooms from March. http://www.thefactorytheatre.co.uk/

Geeky stuff: Leica M6, Leica 35mm 1.4 Summilux, Kodak Tri-X +2

16 of us flew from the UK to Jonkoping, Sweden for the Street Fighter IV tournament at Dreamhack Winter 2009. Here is what happened.

Ryanair

Flying from London to Gothenburg.

I stood here for ten minutes waiting for her to move her trolley up so I could get some shots.

Shau

Femi

Chunkis, David & Zade. Sleeping on Ryanair is not a comfortable experience.

Say aaaaaah

The weather in Gothenburg was actually worse than in London. Wetter and colder.

Sweden

For some reason, Dreamhack brought the tournament forward one day from Friday to Thursday, so we had to rush straight from the airport to the event. We were pretty whacked when we got there.

Waiting for the bus

Some of my matches

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ryan Gutierrez (aka Gootecks, seated right) and Cami (behind players) were invited over from California by Dreamhack to do commentary on Swedish TV. We played some casuals with Gootecks.

Ramzi & Gootecks

Dawgtanian & Gootecks

F Word challenged Gootecks to a push-ups match – whoever lost the fight would have to do 30 push-ups. Here is what happened.

Click here to view the embedded video.

F Word gets on all fours

And then tries to escape after one push-up.

Zak ‘The Beastman’ Bennet playing his group

One of Zak’s matches.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ryu was in the house, in F Word’s group.

Here is the main bracket after the group stages.

I had Ryan Hart in the first match; one of the three worst draws I could possibly get (the other two being Zak and Gootecks). Here is how our match went. Not great for me by any means.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ryan Hart took down the tournament for the UK, eliminating me, Afii and Zak in the process. It was inevitable we would eliminate each other when 14 of us made the last 32. Pretty good showing by the UK.

We were front row supporting our guys. We were on Swedish national TV!

United States of Kingdom

After the tournament, we had a 6v6 against the Swedes. Gootecks represented the UK and Xian joined the Swedish, to give us ‘The United States of Kingdom’ vs ‘Swingapore’. It was great fun and there was a lot of trash talking.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nom

The wall of microwaves. You could buy a TV dinner and heat it up here in 5 minutes.

Et voila.

Random guy. It seems a lot of my photos are slightly under-exposed. I need to get used to Leica metering.

This is Jadi, he has a pretty gangsta joystick.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some kind of card game going on here at 4am

Cami & Gootecks

Cami and Gootecks preparing for a podcast recording with Ryan Hart and Zak.

Waiting.

Breaking down what they are to discuss in the podcast.

Podcast time. Zak and Ryan had an interesting debate on the limitations of Street Fighter IV.

2nd place finisher Ho Kun Xian was really jetlagged.

Live studio audience

Xian is not very live.

Game over

The last night of Dreamhack, we grabbed a bunch of beers and played Third Strike until 7 in the morning.
Group shot of some of us, some of the Swedes, Gootecks, Cami and Xian before we all hit the road.

Cami & Gootecks still had the energy to climb a tank. Crazy cats.

Sleep

Getting the train back to Gothenburg to fly home.

We met Jenny on the way to Gothenburg; she was on her way to pick up her son from kindergarten. She speaks five languages but is not available for marriage. Sorry chaps.

The others were still in Jonkoping when we got to Gothenburg, so we waited for them at the internet cafe.

Is everyone asleep in Sweden?

Seems so, but some are still keeping busy…

Geeky stuff: Leica M6, Leica 35mm 1.4 Summilux, Kodak Tri-X +2. Panasonic SDR-H250 video camera.

So I went to Neo Empire’s Super VS Battle and entered the Street Fighter 4 tournament. Not many pictures as I was playing games most of the time, including online poker (at the same time as playing my group games no less). The event was in a hall behind the leisure centre.

A small part of the ‘Bring your own console’ section. Size matters. Big props for the SNES.

Most people brought joysticks, though there was the odd pad player. I’ve been playing joystick myself for six weeks now. Takes some getting used to. I still have problems executing moves for my character (Zangief), and especially combos.

Street fighter 4 alley.

Capcom had two cabinets for people to play Street Fighter 4 on. If you played around with the buttons between character select and the fight, the button mapping would screw up and the capcom guy would have to reset the controllers inside the box.

Ryan Hart (left) and IMX.

Joystick modding

King of Fighters (KOF) XII. This was a ‘money match’ between Kneero (left) and Sendo. Sendo won in convincing fashion. Crowd

Big crowd

Biiiiiiiiiig crowd.

You may be wondering who I am or how I did – my handle is ‘WorstGiefEVER’. The SF4 tournament was due to start at 3.45 but ended up starting at 8.30 – around 6pm I decided to play a poker tournament on my netbook. By the time my group was called to fight, I was not only still in the tournament, but I was also in the money. I had no choice but to play my tournament fights AND play poker (literally) at the same time. I play Zangief exclusively. I won my first fight vs a pad Guile player, lost the second fight to an Akuma, then played Zak (who has the biggest winning streak @ Tottenham Court Road) and lost to his Balrog (Boxer), then lost to an M.Bison (Dictator for those in Japan).

I expected to lose all my fights so I’m quite pleased with my one win. I think I would have done better against my other opponents had I not been playing poker at the same time, but probably would have lost to them anyway. I had a great time and will be back at Tottenham Court Road arcade  to receive more arse whoopings very soon!

Street Fighter 4 results, courtesy of Neo Empire:
1: RickyTTT (Spain)
2: Shirl
3: Prodigal Son
4: Zak
5-8: Roboduck
5-8: Shau
5-8: V-Ryu
5-8: Slick Rick

Geeky stuff: Canon EOS 20D, 24-70 f2.8 lens.

Welcome to the Apollo Theatre.

Both are mourning the passing of Michael Jackson, Along with pretty much the rest of the world.

The Apollo turned the adjoining wall into a tribute mural. It was raining when we arrived in Harlem, and the wall was covered in a plastic sheath.

The rain did not stop the tributes.

The rain eventually wore off, and the covers were removed.

People from all backgrounds came to pay their respects; I guess this shows how Michael Jackson’s music crosses various boundaries.

Outside the entrance to the Apollo, a shrine of sorts had been created, and people had gathered outside to leave notes, flowers and sing.

MJ memorabilia

The entrance. You can click some of the images below to read the messages.

Goodbye Michael.

Geeky stuff: Canon EOS 20D, 24-70 f2.8 lens