I blame Sam

[kingandy]

I was tempted to put an entry just saying "Fuck", but then I'd have to explain it in comments and I may as well just make an entry about it.

I've crashed Raj. It was a cascade reality fault resulting from the event of samharber handing me a map on Friday night.

Let me explain.

This weekend we went to mrssshhh's house to play Star Wars. This involved a 30-mile journey away from home to an unknown (to me - obviously Neil knew where it was) location. Mr Harber thoughtfully printed out a map so we could find our way. On Friday I was round his house so he let me have one. This was all well and good, and the directions were easy enough, but the scale on the map was all screwy. Essentially Neil's house was the second exit off this road, and the map gave the impression that there was something like 100m between the first and second exit. They were actually more or less adjoining, so I missed the turn. I panicked and tried to take the next exit (in order to turn around and try again, or at least pull in and think), except I was going too fast and the road was wet so I skidded a little and hit the kerb. I gave the turn up as a bad one - anyway, I realised, being a dual carriageway I had best find somewhere to turn right and then double back - and drove on to the next right turn, noticing the wheel was now dragging severely to the left. arwel, in the car with me, poked his head out of the window to check and saw that the tyre had gone flat. So we stopped and changed the tyre (with Sam's help).

That wasn't the crash. Oh no.

In defence of the weekend, we spent a good afternoon and night at Neil's house. Star Wars was fun, we played an Imperial Inquisition squad. Noble, loyal, idealistic troops and agents working hard to improve the galaxy for everyone, by wiping out those arrogant Jedi scum. I'll spare the gory details and just say it was great. I did my best to play a commander of men, only occasionally backing down from decisions or hesitating and asking for advice. I did spend rather too much time defending my commands, I think, but that was in the spirit of player enjoyment. If one player is in command it can quickly become all about them and exclude the others somewhat. Not that I put that much thought into it at the time, of course.

So Saturday afternoon and night was good, and this morning was quite nice too. We watched Star Wars Episode II: Send In The Clones and then Neil bought us lunch. I think he wanted us to develop good Pavlovian associations with visits to his house, so we would start drooling whenever he suggested visiting. When it came to travelling back to Manchester, however, I had to plan an alternate route. The spare tyre, being a narrower guage, had a 50mph (80kmph) speed limit, which would naturally not do on the motorway, so Multimap suggested an alternate non-motorway route back.

While following the directions, in the rain, on the way back I crashed. I looked away from the road for a moment to read a sign, and looked back to realise the car in front had stopped - apparently the car in front of them had decided to suddenly turn right. The difference between them and me is, they managed to stop in time.

Raj still works, but I don't know if he's legal to drive or not. His bonnet and bumper (er, hood and fender?) are a bit bent and the lights are smashed. I think the engine's more or less untouched, since the radiator is the first thing in there and if that was damaged there would have been water gushing everywhere (I speak from experience). The AA man who towed me home said he reckoned it would cost more than the value of the car to repair it, but I'm going to get it checked out anyway. If he can't be repaired economically I'll have to step up repair work on the Metro, then try and get it MOT'd, taxed and insured ... I need a car by this weekend. Myself, bacony and batelf must get to Waypoint. I hope Raj is salvageable. Three of us have got in the Metro before, but it's tricky.

So if Sam's map hadn't been shite, I wouldn't have burst my tyre. If I'd had a proper tyre I would have been on the motorway, miles away from the A58. Admittedly there's no guarantee of a safe journey on the M62, but I still blame Sam.

(PS, don't worry, no humans were harmed. Shaken and pissed off, but not harmed.)

Comments

Blame

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

Personally, i think you should blame yourself - this is what happens when you go off to have fun without me.
Bastards.
You got what you deserve.
Hope you can make it for D&D though.

Re: Blame

[kingandy]

It's looking unlikely, unless one of the garages tomorrow morning says "Yes certainly sir! I can have that knocked into shape by six this evening thank you." If this does not happen, I will be travelling across the pennines by locomotive, there to work on my emergency backup reserve automobile. Even if I get that working it won't be MOT'd or taxed or insured so driving back across the mountains is not advisable...

[blue-room.livejournal.com]

Very glad you're alright dude, know how a car accident even a minor one can really screw up your day, ask Katie R about that one.

A small suggestion, rather than go to all the trouble of getting a car MOT'd and fixed in a hurry have you considered the possibility of hiring on those long chunky BMW cars that Easycar hire out? I suspect it would save you a load of hassle at least in the short term and I've seen people fit a shedload of stuff in them.

[kingandy]

Hmm, it's a thought. My Mum suggested maybe spending 100 pounds on a crappy car with a few months' MOT, since it would be cheaper than renting for a week or two, but Easycar is a lot cheaper than I thought. Definitely a potential option for over the weekend.

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

At least there were no bees involved. I was a mite concerned when I saw the Incident mentioned in bacony's LJ.

re: f*ck

[icklejo]

What you should ask Sam is what was wrong with the directions I mailed him? I think he has a multimap fetish or something. They detailed which shops to look out for so you knew which left turn to take off the dual carriageway.

Re: f*ck

[samharber.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to accept that it was all my fault for printing out a map, making it extremely easy to get there. I'd just like to point out that I used the same map, saw the turn off in time, didn't bang into the curb, and all in all, can read maps and drive.

No offense Andy. Smiley.

Re: f*ck

[kingandy]

As long as you accept that, everybody's happy...

It is your fault. It is all your fault. It is always your fault.

Winking smiley. With tongue sticking out, possibly.

Re: f*ck

[kingandy]

That would definitely have helped.

Re: f*ck

[mrssshhh.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd give them shop directions. This is why I was hugely surprised that they managed to miss my house.

All is well that ends well, though, and I'm glad they all enjoyed the game. It's still very open as to what could happen there, and still very open for another character or two to surface in it.

Just in case Nook wants to find out what he missed.

[nattydreadi.livejournal.com]

Good to hear you are ok - I blame the crap tyres that people are using these days for emergencies - bicycle wheels or something.

You can hire a car for the weekend for about £100 if you shop around, cheaper than a banger as no insurance worry. I used enterprise, they are expensive but very professional (about £150 for an astra saloon) that took 4 people and 5 people's kit to Omega.

[kingandy]

EasyCar looks to be about 50 quid for the weekend, might have to pay a bit extra for additional mileage (as I think the site is more than 75 miles away). That said, though, I won't be moving the car on the Saturday which would give me 225 miles to play with ... is it more than 110 miles away from Manchester? Don't know. Can't remember where it is...

We've had a few offers of lifts though, which may be cheaper and probably easier. Raj is already in the shop, though, so it's possible he may be better by Friday. The possibility is slim, but extant.

This has become possibly the most complicated week of my life so far.

The site

[redhillian.livejournal.com]

It's in Ledbury, Herefordshire.

I think it's going to be over the 110 limit from Manchester - it's and hour/hour and a half from Brum as memory serves.

Hope Raj can make it - better than easycar (esaspecially at short notice) is Avis by Piccadilly Station - they were really good to me last time I was stuck.

Dude

[redhillian.livejournal.com]

Not sweet. Having crashed my car before - it sucks massively.

Hope car's repairable and stuff, and you're still good.

And /really/ hope to see all at Waypoint.