I'm home at last. A brief recap... on Monday we went along the big Freedom Trail (most of it anyway) looking at all of the touristy stuff. This walk went on for a good while but before crossing the bridge up north we gave up and went home for a rest. We'd been told that Central Square near Harvard was the place for a night out so we went up there for dinner and visited a couple of bars, including one with some live music which I thought was pretty good.

Tuesday next, and we went to the Aquarium, and very little else, since we then rearranged our flight so we'd fly out that night instead of early the next morning, which suited us fine. Shame we didn't have much time in Boston to really get around, but that's life. I looked up where the two Cheers bars were (the real exterior and mocked-up interior) but I wasn't in the mood to see either. The flight was tiring because it was a late night one (we got in at 3-ish Eastern) but got to see Thank You For Smoking on the TV, which I'd recommended to the other two despite not having seen it myself, but we all thought it was very good. The food on these British Airways long haul trips is very good too, so no cliché stand-up comedy gags from me.

I spent the whole of Wednesday in my room doing very little as jetlag set in badly - it was 10am when I felt like it was 5am, so naturally missing out on 5 hours that could've been spent sleeping felt pretty bad. Now it's Thursday and I'm back at my desk at work as if nothing happened. Hopefully jetlag will wear off quickly and I'll get back to working on Wikipedia Machinima articles and the like.

Boston now. I should probably go over what happened on the last day or so in NYC, so I will.

Friday we went to the Museum of Modern Art, mainly because my mate wanted to see Starry Night by Van Gogh, his fave artist. It wasn't too bad (the place, not the painting), but I've seen so many museums and art galleries already I'm a bit worn out with it all.

Then we went to Staten Island, mainly because we wanted to go on a ferry past the Statue of Liberty, and the ferry there is free (recommended by a friendly woman who apparently stank of booze, according to my accomplice). As soon as we got off the ferry we went past a guy on a bench, pissing himself. Good first impression, I must admit. Nevertheless, we sauntered into the first bar we found (an Irish Pub, apparently, but I wouldn't be fooled) and proceeded to succumb to the local friendliness of the Island. It certainly had a different feel to the rest of New York, and we played much pool with the handful of locals there (with the rules varying at points as we adapted to the American style of pool). Several hours and a good few Yuenglings later and a good time was had by all.

Saturday we went to the Natural History Museum, which was certainly very comprehensive, but we weren't really in the mood to go around everything there, so never mind. Amongst a couple of other sojourns, such as seeing the Flatiron Building thing (big wedge thing), we went to a restaurant in Little Italy, one of many it seems. Nice food, though.

So to Sunday, and a long 4 1/2 hour Greyhound trip to Boston, and a night out drinking. Now it's daytime on the Monday to go and see the tourist sights - I'm gonna be busy. Boston's got a lot of history it seems. Time to get some tea bags.

NYC next, then, and it's big. Very very big. First thing we did, after a wander through the centre of Manhattan, including Times Square, was decide, at nighttime, to go up to the top of the Empire State Building. I reckon it was probably about the same height as the Eiffel Tower - the building itself is bigger, apparently, but the viewing platform appears lower than the Eiffel's. Still, nice view over Manhattan, even if it was a bit dark to really make out that much other than the Chrysler Building.

Following day we did plenty of walking around, mainly Central Park and visiting some museums I think (it's all a bit of a blur). Unsurprisingly everything seems more expensive than the other places I've been, but that's to be expected I suppose, like in London. While the others went and got a meal, I went up north for a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. A great experience, although the home team lost 3-2. I don't have time to go into detail, but I had a lot of fun, and the seats were great.

Today we went to Coney Island for a nice day out, and spent most of the day there. It's amazing: it's like Skeggy, US-style. All the seasidey stuff you might expect - including the downright weird 'Shoot The Freak' (featuring a guy with a mask and armour getting shot at by punters) and what appeared on the outside to be a genuine freakshow (we didn't enter) - the only difference seemed to be that most people didn't speak English, bizarrely. Spanish seems incredibly common around here, especially in certain areas, like around our hostel in Northern Manhattan. I find it odd, really, but there you go.

I have to go again - I don't wanna spend too much money on the net, and it's $20 for 20 minutes as it is - so the next time I update may be when I'm in Boston. Don't hold your breath.

I haven't updated in a little while, since leaving DC for Philly. Personally I think Philly's better than DC: it's much more compact, there's so much more stuff everywhere, and better stuff in general. I think it's just more like a big English city in its layout, possibly because it's quite old compared to most US cities. This is just my pontificating though.

As soon as we got to Philly on Saturday (which was quite a difficult process involving Greyhound buses, and before that a fast food meal with a horrible-looking burger and a 32oz Coke, which explains why Americans eat and drink too much) we got a cab down to South Philly to watch CZW, a wrestling show. It was a kind of a pilgrimage for me and my mate because it used to be the legendary ECW Arena which I'd seen so much of. I was amazed at how modest it all was - very small, almost a derelict place, and tiny inside. Good show though.

We went yesterday to the Art Museum where Rocky ran up the steps. I refused to do the pose, even though EVERYBODY ELSE was doing it so I wouldn't look out of place. Also went to Eastern State Penitentiary, really old prison that looks like a castle. Interesting.

Today we crossed over the river to Camden, NJ (crime capital of the US - woohoo!) to visit the Aquarium. Lots of fishy stuff. Nice. Also had a Philly Cheese Steak somewhere with fried onions, and it was very nice indeed.

I have no more time now, but little more has happened of note. Will probably post again in NYC, which we're going to tomorrow.

I went to the Warped Tour in Bristow, VA today. I was knackered for most of the day, in addition to the humidity rising and me thus spending the whole day with a thin sticky layer of sweat all over me. Horrible. It wasn't really my kind of thing, my mate wanted to go, but we came back and went to Chinatown for food.

The previous day (Wednesday) we ended up doing all sorts of things, mostly going to all the touristy things - all the memorials, including Lincoln's and Jefferson's, plus a brief look at the White House and Capitol Building, and got to see plenty of interesting stuff in the National Archives, such as the Declaration of Independence - it's fucked! You can't read it at all, the writing's faded away! Oh well, I suppose it's kind of old, but we had a fun, exhausting day.

A note: beer in DC is far too expensive, and varies wildly between around $3 to $6-7. I saw Stella Artois on tap, and decided to ask for 3 pints (or whatever the equivalent is), and it came to $19.50. I was not pleased. Then my mate goes and gets 3 bottles of Corona at another place: $6. There's no justice.

Yep, I'm in Washington DC, and me and my pals still can't quite believe we're actually in the USA. It's surreal, it hasn't sunk in. The fact that we are sleeping around half a mile from the White House is even more surreal. Phew.

Anyway, on the odd occasion that I do get to a PC, I'll update this blog with what we do, and check mail and Wikipedia stuff. Keep those comments coming in, but if you want me to reply to you, please attach an email address! I can't use AIM or anything like that where I am, so comments with just a name won't be replied to (because I can't).

Yesterday was just a slow day after the loooong process of flying for almost 8 hours, checking in and going for a few drinks and dinner. Today we're gonna be a lot busier. Stuff to see, stuff to do, should be fun.

I'm running out of time but I might be able to get another post in in a few days, maybe when I get into Philly, if not before.

I fixed the QMovie screenshots - for some reason nearly all of them were in all caps for the filenames (APTHUNT.GIF for example) whereas they weren't called as such on the HTML. Fixed it so they are, just so you know. Any more probs, please email me and I'll fix them ASAP.

I'm back. Yes, it's me, I'm back. The Jungle's been pining for me, and I've answered the call.

Now, I've got several things to say after so long, so first things first:

I'm sorry. I'm very very sorry. I'm really really really really sorry. For everything.

Anyone who followed this site back in the heyday (and I realise that's probably almost none of you so I imagine I'm preaching to an empty crowd) will know that I was a big-headed, egotistical, self-righteous, self-important, rude, arrogant, petulant, stubborn arsehole. And I know that now. There were a few other arseholes in the QMovie community, but there were a lot of nice guys too. And I pissed them all off. So I unreservedly apologise to any and all that are reading whom I have pissed off in the past. Yes, Ajay, that means you too.

Now that I've got that off my chest, back to business. My last update was back in January 2002, almost a year after anything meaningful happened on the site, and I haven't been involved with machinima at all since then. My last post said that after all my plans "I'll be 23 by then, and I ain't getting any younger". Well, I'm nearly 24 now, and I feel it. But I searched for 'psyk' and 'ppj' and all that on Google, and encountered the Machinima Project on Wikipedia (oh, how I love that site). It was being pondered that the PPJ was only available on the Internet Archive, which doesn't exactly work too well. So, inspired by this, I've joined the project, and further inspired by the will to get all the old movies recognition again, I've started up the PPJ all over again. Oh glorious day.

I feel like a man who fell into a coma and woke up four years later. This machinima business has changed. I'm gonna have to get used to saying 'machinima' because it seems to have stuck. There's four years of catching up to do, and a few people might need to give me a hand with that. My first stop will probably be the thing everybody's talking about, Red vs Blue. The fact that guys like Rooster Teeth have produced so much machinima and got it out on DVD is quite a feat. Things have changed a lot, though: there's no big movies anymore, just lots of episodic series like RvB, Strangerhood, the Strange Company things... so I'm debating whether it's really worth reviewing individual episodes, since people don't do that with TV shows. I don't even know if I want to start reviewing stuff again, or whether I'll just stick a blog on the main page, leaving the bulk of the site for machinima historians. I just don't know right now.

For the moment, this is it. I'll be in the USA between 8th and 23rd August so updates won't be forthcoming any time soon. We'll see how it all pans out. All I'll say now is, in the words of Gary Glitter:

"Hello, hello, it's good to be back, it's good to be back.
I knew all the time what I was missin', now I'm back with the boys.
Do you wanna touch me there? Yeah!"

I think there's a message there for all of us.