The view from under the brooklyn Bridge back towards lower manhatten.

This sphere once stood in glory at the central plaza of the World Trade Centre below the two main towers. It was recovered in this state from the site under all the rubble and somehow, although damaged, it survided.

It is now in Battery Park (just a few steps from the WTC) and stands as a temporary monument to those who died.

An eternal flame was lit about a year later.

The view into the central part of the World Trade Complex, where once stood two giant towers. I cant wait for the new building to built, it should be awesome and a real monument to the people who lost their lives here.

Furthest south you can go on Manhatten Island, shows the buildings across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

The view from Battery Park, back in land towards the finance centre.

Gives a sense of just how big this area is, with the Statue of Liberty in the far distance.

A bit plumper than I remember, she seems to have put a bit of weight on.

Viewing her from the docks at Statten Island Ferry.

FAKE!, yer ok its a fake, but the real one is comign up soon :p

Many financial institutes are here of course, but I was shocked to find that in lower manhatten, only 700,000 live there, whilst on a weekday, 12 million people work there.

The gap between the black building on the right and the green topped tower on the far left is where once stood ONE of the WTC towers.

This particular WTC buidling was badly damaged in the 9/11 attacks and although they have tried to repair it, it is now deemed beyond repair. they are now taking it down, floor by floor, hence the cover.

The woolworth building (green topped) is probably my favourite building in New York.

The view across the east river towards Brooklyn.

This little corner is about a mile from the WTC but stands as a small reminder of those who died in the events of 9/11. Each plaque was secured to the fence after the first 5,000 were stolen as souveniers :/

On the corner of Lafayette street and the federal buildings area of the nsa, fbi and court houses.

The flat iron building was the first skyscraper in New York, standing at a mere 22 floors, which is still bigger than anything in Cardiff to this day...

The first glimpse of the Empire State building and pretty much the only worthwhile shot I got of it. Its just too damned big close up to get a good pic.

The further you go south, the higher the buildings get.

The New yorker Hotel on the left with the dalta airlines commissioned mural on the building to the right. It showed all the destinations they fly to from New York.

This is the start of the south loop tour of manhatten island that I took on Monday morning. After beign up til 6am drinking tequilla with rome, ms.x, astz, lauke, cl0ck and stu, 10am was hardcore for a tour.

I did fall asleep a few times on the tour too :/

At last, after 5 days it stopped raining and the sun came out. NYC is great when the sun shines.

He seems ok with it, maybe he likes that sort of thing?

Ouch. He was asleep too :/

Picture 1 of 3 in what will no doubt become an animated gif... astz gets ready to plant a fine slap on cl0ck (I thought scots punched not slapped, what a girl!).

Time lapse is cool, although I got a little carried away with it I guess.

Times Square again, only this time on our final night.

Trillian stands on the left as the cabs stream past. We had 5 people, so Grayscale (our expert cab hailer) had already gothis cab with syn and rome. We however, had less cab skills :/

The whole event was one big busy show. Although ive used some camera trickery here, it shows a little of just how busy it really was.

New York Mets (baseball for those of you who dont follow) stars Cliff Floyd (left) and Juan Padilla with the girls of the GGL.

Over 40,000 people went through the event and it was never busier than when the stars turned up to play in the celebrity NBA2k6 match. Here, they wait for Jessica Alba and co.

I have no idea what those mopeds were doing there.

These guys were awesome all weekend. We did some promotion for them on the stream and in return they allowed us to have a set of their earphones. These allowed me to block out all engine noise on the airplane home. Good stuff.

Nintendo made a showing.

Spectator area and main stage with the iTG broadcasting area just to the left of this shot. It made it a little tricky for the guys playing on the stage as they could hear every word we said...

Tournament area for Halo 2. A little controversy here as a 7 year old boy somehow got into the tournament...

Even if u cant play, it plays for you, or something, I dunno really. I cant remember exactly how this thing worked, but this guy had no idea how to play, yet it sounded pretty good and in tune... I will stick to my air guitar for now.

ESPN radio were busy doing their live programs from the event. It was nice to see they got the same issues as we had, i.e. people randomly walking up to them whilst on air and asking them where something was...

Not to be outdone by the guys in the next stand (best buy) Nokia rolled out an awesome Mini complete with a host of gadgets from Nokia. Dont like the lack of boot space though O.o

These guys are big in the states so Im told. Impressive hummer tbh.

Creative were in attendance showing off the new x-fi card, which they kindly gave us two to give away in the quiz on Sunday. XM Radio were just one of several local and national reporters at the event.

It wouldnt be a PC show without Bill's boys in the frame would it?

Actually the stand they had was excellent, with a whole range for all kinds of people. Xbox 360's to see in action, clever TV PC's and of course the usual assortment of software.

Toshiba seemed to be battling with Nokia over who had the biggest banner and stand. Both impressive.

As well as the Intel broadcasting booth (which iTG were located in) Intel had two further areas at the event. This was the home living area with some cool new gadgets shown off. Intel Sewing Machine anyone?

The event floor was filled with some of the biggest names in electronics.

Well, the truck didnt, the people did...but the UGO.COM truck was a popular stop throughout the event for many visitors, especially cl0ck...

Even the banners are big in New York.

the main area of news reporting from GGL's news partners, Gotfrag and the admins from GGL.

Times Square McDonalds and TGI Friday's, scene of our meal on Friday night and a costly one it was too.

This is the famous adver building in times Sq with the Coke advert which has been here for over 80 years in various forms. This version was updated last year.

When the two towers came down, Morgan Stanley were affected badly. 4 years on and they seem to have found a new home in this impressive building on the same corner as our hotel.

Our hotel on 47th street, just a few walking paces from the corner of 7th avenue and broadway.

If you saw the earlier picture of times square when I arrived and compare to this one, you can see just how wet it was. The lights stay on 24/7 too...id hate to see their electric bill, sorry cheque.

Although overcast, the buildings took on a new look during the periods it didnt rain.

By Sunday, the weather had finally got better, although it still rained again during the day it was at least dry in the morning.

The CS Squad Rival made it through the early rounds of the tournament but wouldnt be able to stop the steamrollers from 3D or CoL.

Looking from the GGL/Gotfrag tables across to the back end of the event and the tourney area.

Trillian was on good form throughout the event, both in terms of keeping me, rome and syn in check (tequilla does bad things to you) and I enjoyed casting with her once again, this time in UT.

The 138 year old (according to syn) SirScoots of gotfrag fame with iTG's rome and syn in a pre-production area.

Syn (aka Daryl) looked a little hung over but actually it was just our decision to go to McDonalds in Times Square at 3am the previous night. We also got asked by a very old lady "if you give me a ciggarette, I will let you show me your pickle" and then offered prostitutes on the corner of broadway and not to be outdone, offered some cocaine on the entry to McDonalds.

New York has changed a fair bit in the 16 years since my last trip, but some things dont change... I am glad I had syn and rome with me tbh.

With flights in all completed and the second day setup done, day 3 of my trip was actually day 1 of digital life. The admin area here showing Tex in the white shirt discussin his UT2004 tourney.

The skyline of New York City looking back from the Jacob Javits centre located next to the Hudson river on the westside.

The taxi ride back to the hotel shows just how wet it was. These things are impossible to get in New York at night too, good job we had a native New Yorker in Grayscale, fear his hailing skills!

It takes on a whole new beauty at night, Times Square on our return from setup at midnight. The amount of people still out was amazing, as was the fact that the shops like virgin were still open...

Not sure which way round this should be, but you can clearly see the top of the buildings starting to go into the clouds. This is one of the average sized buildings too, so Id guess it was low cloud. Whatever, it was wet and miserable.

Possibly one of the most famous sets of street signs in the world.

Day 2 wasnt much better, weather wise and it caused a bit of flooding at the event, which gave the iTG staff a chance to walk around New York int he rain. Here, Trillian and Syn are approaching the Hard Rock Cafe.

A much better shot of the area, showing just how wet it was. It had rained for 6 or 7 days before I arrived, the taxi driver told me. It showed.

First view of times square on the day of arrival. It was very wet (as the following pics will show) but never the less, Times Square seemed a lot busier and nicer than it was 16 years ago.

The first chance I had to get the camera out after a tiring journey from Newark Airport. This was the view from my hotel room looking out over the city.

Bristol Airport, UK. My exit from the uk via continental airlines. In comparison to other airports its very small. This view shows the WHOLE of the departure lounge for the entire airport O.o

I took a lot of pictures whilst in New York for the DigitalLife Tournament and event, but most of them seem to be of New York, so dont expect too many "people pictures".

If that doesnt worry you though and you like buildings/architecture or you want to see some of lower Manhatten, you should enjoy the gallery.

In my haste to report all the bad stuff yesterday on my journey here to New York, I neglected to mention the funny, odd and good things. Incredibly, yes there were a few better moments of the journey.

The seat I had turned out to be next to someones husband and they had been seated apart by a few rows. The lady asked if I would swap and of course I obliged, but then began a series of odd coincedences, such that the only phrase applicable is "its a small world". Here I was on a flight from Bristol, England to New York, USA and find myself sitting next to a couple where the husband was born in the same hospital and town as I was and the wife grew up in the same suburbs as I did. An interesting couple, she was a geography teacher and he was an "archivist", visiting thier daughter in princetown and then flying on to Las Vegas for a holiday together. I mention this, mainly because after exchanging a few pleasantries, the lady wanted to know what I was doing in New York. Initially I was sceptical that she would not understand what I do at events and simply kept it simple, "I work for a broadcaster".

She pushed a little more, wanting to know who for and what did I do exactly, so I explained about being a gaming commentator for an internet video stream company. This kinda lost her, but likening it to a TV broadcaster for soccer gave her a safe feeling again. A few hours later in the journey she wanted to know how this worked but in more depth and despite my discomfort at explaining to a mid-50's non-PC user what Unreal Tournament was and how several PC's linked together allowed interactivity, she took it pretty well.

If ever my eyes needed opening, it gave me an insight into the mind of what I am sure she wouldnt mind me calling, a mainstream technophobe. If these people are ever to be converted ( I have my doubts on this though) or at least be cultivated into "knowing what exists in e-sports" then its obviously mine and other e-sport broadcasters to make sure this happens. Its down to everyone that wants e-sports to succeed as well, but as someone who is supposed to "bring the game" to others, I feel that responsibility more than most. Players do a hell of a lot for it globally, especially the likes of fatal1ty of course, but its down to the people who comment the games to ensure that we get as many people interested in gaming as a whole and not just concentrate on the people that regularly tune in. Saying that, part of our appeal is that we cater for the people that know the game and simply cant be at the event, so we need to find that happy medium so as to not turn off those who already enjoy our broadcasts, but at the same time make it more appealing to the casual viewer. Perhaps though, this is a way off just now, simply because as someone without a PC or with limited internet access/knowledge it would be impossible for them to tune in anyway.

It does beg the question of where do we go next. The next logical step is to move towards TV broadcasts using satelite stations or shows on exisiting satelitte stations, something which giga already does and does very well. There really needs to be an English alternative to Giga though and it just cant come soon enough. It needs to happen in the USA of course, but Europe needs it just as badly. We only have to see the success of Korea as a broadcasting market to know that it can work, all be it on a much smaller and less enthusiastic (by the mainstream) scale.

They say you learn something new every day and today I learned that you can use a kiwifruit and a bannana as a battery that can power a radio. Incredible really that someone has the capacity to be able to think things like this, let alone make it happen. But, thats exactly what has happened. Using a set of electrodes made from copper and zinc and stuck into the fruits in question, it does indeed provide enough power for 30 days of radio listening... amazing.

I also learnt today that the Empire State Building was constructed in just 1 year and 45 days from start to finish with a staggering 4 1/2 floors completed per week. 7 million man hours went into the building, employing over 4000 people during construction. 10 million bricks were used, 6500 windows, 120 miles of pipe and 2.5 millions feet of wire were all used in the building. Initially the building was slightly shorter than it is now, but a TV style mast was added towards the end to make it the (then) tallest man made structure in the world. Interestingly the cost of the building including land was $41 million, but more than double that has been spent in the last 10 years alone on restoration...

A.M. in New York City of October 13th would prove to be a little unlucky for a number of reasons, not least of which for the organisers from the GGL with the event centre at the Javits convention Centre on 34th Street.Id met up with the iTG crew, Syn, Trillian and Rome at 10:30 in the starbucks on Time Square and after we moaned about the amount of rain a phone call interupted our coffee to let us know we wouldnt be needed for some time as the Javits was flooded thanks in part to a leaky roof and mainly due to the 7 solid days of heavy rain. We spent the morning buying umbrella's and coats and also, especially myself, spending far too much money on toys for my children in the over-sized Toys R Us store on Broadway. A 100ft ferris wheel INSIDE the store added further grandiose which in the UK simply doesnt exist.

A pizza or two at Rays and then more tourning in the rain, although it had lightened up a little by now. Finally at around 7pm we headed for the event location to begin our setup. Its now 1:17am, which actually is pretty good going for a setup night arrival back at the hotel. Both EC and EWSC were well after 4.30am on night one...

Sleep now, as I didnt get much last night, falling victim to "boring TV" syndrom and nodding off at 9.30pm local time and then waking at 2am (body thinking it was 8am) and then of course had to try and get some sleep to stop Thursday becomming a nightmare. Fortunately I grabbed about 2 further hours and Thursday was ok, if still very wet.

Meeting at 8.30am so off to sleep now, with a very busy day ahead tomorrow when the opening qualifiers are played and the CS tourney starts in earnest.

Interesting I guess you could call it, my journey to New York City today... Very interesting and not a little frustrating.

I left home at 7am uk time and made my way to Cardiff train station only to miss my first connecting train to Bristol Airport, doh, not a good start. Fear not though I had to wait only another 15 minutes. Once in at Bristol Station it became clear that the train didnt go to the airport and id have to change to a bus for the remainded of the journey, through rush hour traffic in Bristol, doh. Arriving at the airport I was finally just in time for my flight, had a chance to grab a quick ciggy just before my flight was called and it was on to board. Or rather it would have been had it not been for the 4th successive flight of the year for me to be "randomly" stopped and searched, including hand luggage. I swear I have a terrorist face :/

A 7 hour 50 minute flight then took place on the most hideous plane I have had the displeasure of flying on in my entire life (some 20 or more flights previous). The food was shockingly bad (no surprise I guess), the hostess was rude, discourteous and thoroughly ignorant of the people having issues next to me in my row and to top it off the turbulence and landing were so bad that more than a few "paper bags" were used to dispence with the mediocre dinner we'd had an hour or so before. Add in a leak of water dripping from theover head cabin into peoples laps, hand luggage and even one 5-year-olds lap and Continental are officially in the redeye hall of shame. The fact that even when alerted to the fact of running water pouring through the cealing, the disaffected young stewardess could only mutter "yes, I know". Not an apology or an offer of a towel for the young child, just a flippant reply as if she were being told something for the 50th time and couldnt care less.

Arrival at Newark Liberty Airport then and surely things would start to change, for now at least I was out of the hands of Continental and in the hands of the people from Super shuttle. Maybe these guys work together, I dunno, but the service was pretty much the same. After calling for my pre-paid transport to pick me up I was told to wait 20 minutes, having taken nearly an hour to get through customs and imigration (where this time i wasnt interviewed for carrying a razor blade). Super shuttle driver turned up 20 minutes later and packed my bag. I got in and waited for the rest of the passengers to join me. Once we were all in though it became apparent that we were 1 too many. Guess who got asked to step off? yep, once again god shits on me and I have to wait a further 20 minutes for the next one. I wont bore you even more with the ensuing arguments at ground traffic desk, but suffice to say they were heated and I was getting more and more narked at being "forgotten" by the supper shuttle people. A full hour after I first rang finally I had my ride to the hotel in central Manhatten.

It took us nearly an hour to get to the Hotel in Times Square, mainly because of traffic on the lincoln tunnel (connecting the mainland to Manhatten island) and through the pouring rain it didnt help either. But at last, some 14 hours after I left the house in the UK this morning, I am here in the Hotel and looking forward to a nice dinner in the Pizzaria downstairs along with watching the re-run of the England World Cup game (although thanks to both Dickz and Tosspot I know the score now, (doh 3) ).

New York is as it was when I visited 16 years ago. Wet, big, sprawling, massive and wet. Not much changes I guess, but its good to be here once more and this time I fully intend to make use of my spare time and do the things I didnt do last time, so maybe a trip down the Hudson to view the Statue of Liberty, an athletic climb up the Empire State building (if it ever clears up weather wise) and certainly a trip along broadway (of which I am smack bang in the middle). I have a wireless connection here in the hotel, so should be able to at least upload some early gallery pics tomorrow, ready for the tournament at the Javits centre to begin in earnest on Friday morning. Digitalife 2005 here we come...

For now, its dinner time and a date with a carbonara in Times Square.

Its been a while since I updated my journal (poor neglected thing it is, everyone say awwwww), but I intend to keep it upto date whilst I am out in New York covering the Digitalife Finals for iTG.

In fact, I have just realised I didnt really do a journal whilst out in Holland for EuroCup finals Lan, which is a bit of a shame as not even I can remember what i did now... its the old age getting the better of my mind you see.

So, like, yer, anyway I am off to New York in less than 24 hours time to cover Digitalife where a few of the europeans will do battle with America's finest in CS, UT2004, WC3 and Halo (mustnt forget DDR either, Im sure Astz will rock at it...). For me the obvious interest lay in the CS and UT2004 tournaments as these are the games I cast regularly. Its also notable that I covered the euro qualifiers for UT2004 too where both astz and killu made it through. DevilMC and lauke will also be going, although both will have toi qualify on the first day. Neither should have any real trouble doing this I dont think, they are both world class professional players so I see no reason why they should fail.

I have checked out my hotel, its not too far from the Javits convention centre (scene of the event) although a walk through midtown manhatten might be a little too much, even for one who enjoys viewing architecture. The hotel is in a great place though, right in the middle of Times Square and for that fact alone I am thrilled. It has been over 16 years since I last visited NYC, so to not see the Twin Towers is going to be very weird for me. This time i am determined to do the things I didnt do when I last visited. Go up on the top floor of the Empire state building for instance and take a boat ride out to the statue of liberty. Expect a good gallery when I get back, although how much will be filled of the event over architecture shots is not certain right now :p

So, nearly ready, almost packed, shaver (electric this time to stop me from being taken off to interview by customs), toohbrush and a few clothes done. The main esr site should carry some results throughout the tourney, but if not, grab me on IRC and I will see what I can do at the event. Also, dont forget, we have Video and audio from the event and the details of this will be on www.ggl.com and www.radioitg.com.

Heres hoping we have no terrorist threats while we are there and a great digitalife tournament.

Until thursday then, adios.

The return of the Clanbase LAN finals and with it a gallery!

The EC was finished and Brett and Carmac from the GGL were ready to party. Brett actually paid out a huge amount of money of free food and beer after the event for all those hard workers from clanbase. (4am finishes are NOT nice).

Chance for a bit of fun after the event and a team photo!

The smile on Ronald McDonalds face wasnt there before Carmac put his hands in his lap...

A nice cast from the Irishman in the COD final and he seemed to enjoy it too.

She also tried to steal one of the cups! (honest).

Hate it when I cant remember names, some caster I am :( (sorry yet again to whoever this is).

Trying to work out how the heck neither of them managed to win, deep in discussion.

Jibo seems to have broken out into a sweet already and they havent even played the Swedes yet...

Cooller and Jibo watch over the shoulder as Fox and Toxic warm up, but they really should of been at their own PC's warming up!

Not no.1 at this event, surprised by an in from sk.Hot.

Neither of the 4k boys came through to win the tourney, although here we see grubby relaxing into his warcraft match.