The Time I Went to L.A. By Lee Aged 26 and A Half

So we’d just stepped off the train at Glasgow Central and the four of us stood there on the platform for just a few seconds, just a little bit longer than needed. None of us said anything to each other, I don’t even remember looking at Mark, Lorna or Ben but we shared a moment right there on the platform. I’m not even sure what that moment was about, it could have been the realisation that we were actually going to E3 or it could have been the realisation of the enormous task that lay ahead of us…

“Oh shit my bag” – quick 180 degree turn and I charge for the train without a care for who was in the way; lucky for us we had sat right near the door on the train and there it was on the chair where I left it. I cheese it for the train doors just as they are closing; I was like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark; granted, an overweight Indiana Jones who didn’t have a hat, and the golden statue was actually my a bag containing my passport, dollars, video camera, digital camera, flight tickets, E3 conference tickets and all of that other important stuff. Now, not to show off or anything, and doing such a thing as leaving a bag with all that in on the very first train we got on was impossibly stupid, but I couldn’t help but think on returning to the others how cool that would have looked on video. Ben had that look on his face that you give a mate which is roughly translated into “you twat”, Mark was in complete disbelief and Lorna probably would have stabbed me in the chest if she had a knife on her.

This isn't boredom... I'm really the Intersect

Lucky for me she didn’t, and we’d managed to laugh it off by the time we got to the elevator. I won’t bore you with the rest of our travelling details – I’m actually sure I slipped into a coma of boredom at one point. I’ll skip to the end and just say that me, Ben, Lorna and Mark made it to GLHQ: Los Angeles (ohhh that would be a cool name for a TV show) safely, no thanks to U.S. Airways (whose tail fin flag looks Greek by the way!) and U.S. Immigration. May I recommend taking a read of Mark’s and Lorna’s accounts of the day. As it stands at the moment we’re just waiting to head off to the convention centre to pick up all our show tickets and passes and, with no gaming having taken place, it’s pretty tricky to write about what we’ve seen.

If you have never been to Los Angeles I can tell you that it is exactly like it is in every computer game you’ve ever played. Pedestrians wander the streets having the strangest conversations, but you only ever catch the funniest parts as you walk past them, cars spawn out of nowhere and everybody who isn’t a drug dealer is a murderer. Don’t misunderstand me, we are staying in a really nice part of L.A. but on just a very short walk to the shop up the road me and Ben saw the Feds on a stakeout, at least ten drug dealers, three murderers, the Triads’ L.A. base of operations, a man from the Mafia, a lorry bigger than Optimus Prime and a mobile meth lab. Oh, and the little green men on the traffic lights are white – L.A. is weird.

Two minutes after I put the camera away, all the Feds came out and raided the place. Was amazing. There were guns and everything, it was like Tarantino had come to town.

We’re just getting ready to head out to pick up our various E3 press passes and tickets for the main events tomorrow and the rest of the week, so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with all the latest news and, of course, keep checking back to the site for our daily diaries, previews, interviews and more.

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