Saturday, August 29, 2015

metrocentre

hi there

of all the places we stopped off on our travels to and, thankfully look you see, from Newcastle, one of the two is almost certainly worth a further exploration here. consider this, if you like (i mean, if you have absolutely nothing better to do) a companion piece to the previous blog post what i did, earlier on today.

i suppose the only thing surprising about us visiting the Metrocentre is that it did not happen at some point sooner in our time here back in England. once upon a time i was a frequent visitor to the place, thanks to a dear friend that i have not heard from for a while. in more recent times, i believe that my only visit to the place was in 2001 or 2002, courtesy of Mr Norman B@stard on the way back from that fancy airport they have there in Newcastle.

a look at the outside of the Metrocentre, specifically from the "red" parking zone, in Commodore 64 mode? well, i can think of no good reason why not.



it may please or displease you to learn that, dear reader, the above is the only Commodore 64 mode picture in this post. i am prepared to admit that this blog has gotten rather top heavy with Commodore 64 mode images of late; ever since Spiros gave me one of them iPhone things and i was able to easily take and mail them to myself.

what is, you may ask, the Metrocentre? well, i don't know if this is true now, but once it was declared to be the largest shopping centre not only in the UK, but across Europe too. there has probably always been bigger ones around the world, and no doubt there are bigger ones to be found in Europe too. it's not like people in Sweden have all that much else different to do, so they might as well make massive shopping centres i suppose.

it's also, now as it was then, a place for the youth of today, as it was for them of their day, to hang around and loiter, with our without intent, if you shall excuse the deference to Bono there. a perfect place, then to take the boys so that they may stand by a wall.



it has changed a bit since i was last there. well, no it hasn't, it's still a massive shopping centre. i believe, however, that the boss rollercoaster it had inside the centre has gone. there was a rather smart train ride you could now take, but a train is not a rollercoaster. well, it isn't unless it is a train on rollercoaster tracks i suppose, but you get my point.

there was, all the same, plenty of amusement and entertainment to be had there. we shall get to that, but i am almost certain that you are quite excited to learn want commerce related activities i, or if you like we, engaged in whilst there. 

if that to you looks like an 8GB USB stick in the shape of Boba Fett, that's because it is, stood next to one of my class Boba Fett toys and before some sort of Nightmare Before Christmas goblet that my (considerably) better half was rather enthusiastic about owning. i have not seen the film, so i don't know.

where did we obtain this latest Boba Fett merchandising from? the Disney store, but of course. for a fee of £14.99, which is rather steep for an 8GB USB stick, but also pretty reasonable for a Disney based Star Wars item of merchandise which has an actual practical use.

how does it perform as a USB stick? i have absolutely no idea as it's not been out of the box yet. i would imagine that it's going to be a pretty conventional USB B connector, and is based on USB 2.0 technology inside it. i mean, absolute boss, or if you like Bossk, if it's USB 3.1 inside, for that will mean a far faster transfer rate to it. it is, however, sold as an item of Star Wars merchandise, i think, rather than as something claiming to be the latest and greatest in USB technology. for faster and better, more reliable USB connectivity, you are probably far better off going to Lindy rather than the Star Wars section of the Disney shop.

as a bit of Star Wars merchandise, well, it's Boba Fett, isn't it, so i think that it is quite smart and i like it very much indeed. i have no idea what i will use it for, but i would like it to be that i use it for something which would be no good to me dead.

on to fun stuff, then, and on to some video of dodgem cars. you will be very pleased to know that if you can make anyone out in these videos (for there are two), they are the 75% of my family that you actually all like, as i was busy filming them. 



dodgem cars are rather smart, and usually i like them. however, at £3 a go and with the boys finding many things to spend my coins of money on at the 'Namco Entertainment Centre', i was happy to give it a miss.

a picture of the dodgem car festival to go along with the video? sure.




but a picture of dodgem cars doesn't really cover the excitement, the wonder and the adventure of them, so here you go with another video.



was the dodgem ride decent enough value for money? it was most decidedly so. the three of them had a brilliant time on them, and although i wasn't keeping track it seemed like they had a pretty lengthy go on them for my coins of money.

there was indeed 10 pin bowling there, but no one but me really wanted to go and do it. perhaps next time, then. well, at least i hope so.

there are, oddly, just as many walls inside the Metrocentre for the boys to stand against as there were outside. a plus was that one of the walls on the inside had a chart of the Bash Street Kids out of the Beano comic, against which they were able to compare their relative heights. yeah, sorry that the numbers are not too clear so you can't see their actual height.



on the whole, from what i saw at the least, the Metrocentre remains a most splendid and excellent place to go and have a gander, a bit of a shop, something to eat and have fun in.

anyway, that will do this post for now. many thanks as ever for reading.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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