You're so pretty and I'm so stupid...

This was Reuben's lyric that was playing to me on the bus in to work on Monday morning, this first sober morning which could be spent reflecting on the drunken adventures into Liquid - premier nightclub in Shrewsbury. Described by this guy Simon it's "...a bit like a prison". In despite of that, I was fortunate enough to meet two attractive girls on Saturday eve and Reuben were giving possibly the most concise summation of all (and I mean all) my crushes to date.

The plan of the evening was to go out for drinks in celebration of my mate Fletch's recent birthday. Off into Shrewsbury we went and bumping into Simon and Mark who I met the last time I was back in Shropshire on a fun camping adventure. They mentioned that they were heading to Liquid and whilst we make a quick detour where I once again got my glasses knocked off my face (man, the argument for contacts has never looked stronger), we headed over to Liquid to join the masses.

A digital camera is either a dangerous thing or a source of cliched snaps, and there was probably a healthy amount of both. There are many pictures of the evening now circling facebook - all I know is that I must have been pretty wasted as a. I can't remember the majority of these pics or time spent in liquid and b. I was pretty much giving the same, muppet-nobend-"I want to demonstrate how much of a good time I'm having" poses i.e. either sticking my tongue out, giving the horns, or both.

Moving on to the meat of this post and back to the two crushes I gained that night - my only wish is that I remembered more of the time in Liquid, for the majority of it, all I have to go on are these pics on facebook. One in particular involves Kym, the first of the crushes I would like to discuss, pretty much exposing her breasts with me giving the tongue and horns to the camera (again). Now I wish I could remember if there was anything I did to motivate this pic or whether it was just, hey it's a camera, let's do something kerazee. There are many comments saying that she exposed a nipple and the evidence I would argue is pretty conclusive, bless them the people that commented saying "I think we can see your boob Kym" - what they actually meant to say was nipple plus the fact is you could see the majority of them for the whole evening, which is probably the main (possible read: only) reason I was crushing on her; that and maybe the fact she had red hair, I blame Diggnation for the potential brainwashing, it seems all red haired laydees are now v attractive. That, or as I'm going to attempt to rationally argue that having very brightly coloured hair is very eye-catching, much like if a girl is wearing bright colours in the gym, they more often than not catch my eye. (I may have got away with it...)

Some of the few memories I had did involve telling Kelly that she looked really cute in a photo I took - she dismissed it of course, which is also a shame. As I've already discussed with my good friend Wilson, I put all my eggs in what turned out to be the wrong basket, and concentrated on Kym. At one point I remember asking her if she was single, to which she made the inductive step and replied that she's not interested. Well, it stunned me a little (surprisingly) to which led to a swappage of messages entered into our phones - the terrible thing is I cannot remember her response, although it was cool that she felt the need to explain herself more. It was probably along the lines of you're not my type, you're a nice guy an' all, the same old BS. Basically the only thing we had to go on was the physical attraction, impossible to hold a proper conversation in Liquid. It was a simple conflict of interests - I was very much interested in her, but she did not reciprocate, it's a common situation, and strangely enough I was cool with it.

And as I said, I can't remember a lot else at Liquid, except visiting the bar several times with Fletch to consume more shots with him, only for it to backfire and cause me to not be able to remember anything, really regretting that. That being said, it can't have been *too* bad, a lot of people I met there have since befriended me on facebook, so that's all cool. Actually, Kelly friended me and not the other way round. After being a little nosy checking out her profile, turns out that all the music she has listed I also like, so I actually have more in common with her, plus she's facially more attractive than Kym, and that's probably the largest check box of mine (to be rational and slightly cold for a moment).

Anyways, I need to message up Kelly if I can just put aside five minutes where I'm not getting completely distracted with something else. To bring it full circle, Reuben chanting away "You're so pretty and I'm so stupid", just reminded me like a sobering slap across the face, I've never (and I mean, never) have been properly intimate with a crush of mine, and that sucks, I mean, that really sucks.
I ask myself, perhaps these girls are only crushes as I determine them to be out of my league, and/or I get a serious case of bad nerves/hesitation (speaking of which, how is everyone enjoying the podcast? Oh no wait, I still haven't started recording any eps arg!)

I could go on, but it's late and I don't quite feel up to unravelling my inadequacies here. I'm sure there will be another time, but until then I'll be occasionally visiting places like Liquid doing my mock-dancing thang where noone understands it's done to be ironic, waiting for you to give me a smile.

Read full post >>

New DLC announced!

S
o in a bid to get more content here rather than me adding more bells 'n' whistles to an already bloated bell and whistle page, I'm thinking about setting up regular weekly posts. For now, I'm thinking I should have a sports-oriented set of posts, obviously detailing the teams/sports I'm following and any rants or praise songs I may want to add there. Another obvious one would be to have a set about games, bit of a no-brainer. Another one could easily be a music type one, and I think that would do very nicely.
I'm thinking it might be quite pr0 to have these regular posts occuring on the same day each week, so we could have a gaming Monday. That would be quite smart, the name "gaming monday" however is not. So, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'll get to work on my own ideas, and then I will ignore any suggestions and stick with my ideas cos there are da best!
Also these special posts give me the opportunity to try out adding some images to the post titles (seriously I cannot stop tinkering!) so that might be something quite smart, we'll see how it goes. speaking of images, I do also want to throw in soe more pics to spruce the place whether that be ones taken with the phone (yikes!) or ones pinched from the Internet, and if that is the case I will quote my source like a responsible author.

Read full post >>

Happy new blog spot 2008!

Yes, it's been a long time coming, but here's a fresh new post on me blog! Crowds rejoice!
It is a little bizarre that the gap has been such a huge 'un as it's not like there hasn't been things to post about.
Probably the biggest change, which I alluded to in some posts ago was the fact that I have a job! horray! I've finally gone and joined the rat race, and have been slowing waking up to the realisation that I should no longer see myself as a student anymore.
Obviously this is more of a "hey Internets! I'm not dead yet!" type message (of course, I hear you all cry), so content is actually a bit on the sparse side. I'm not sure if I can be bothered to catch up on some of the major events of the last 3 months or so, that's not to say there haven't been that many.
Along with the jobness, I've managed to get my own place and all the fun that has been getting that all sorted, and settling in. Also of course, there have been some pretty huge releases which I have purchased in the fields of music and games, possibly the most immediately significant of those being the latest Coheed album and Halo 3, but more of those later.

...And to wrap up the post, it might be worth jotting down some new year blogging resolutions which I will attempt to keep. I think the first one would be of course to blog more, and leading on from that, I've never been much of an online blogger, I usually have to force myself to blog and then upload it later which usually leads to mammoth posts which trail on for too long, kinda like how this one is turning out. So yeah, more online blogging, prefer the better, short but sweet, a quick judgement on some news article I've read, we'll see how it goes...

Till then, take it easy and watch this space, there is a lot more to come...

Read full post >>

Rhythms of the World, come forth! (backdated 23/07/07)

Hey, overdue post here, last weekend I was invited by my good friend Will to the Rhythms of the World festival in his own backyard, Hitchin.  Now due to the way the trains work, if I was to solo the trip, it would mean travelling into the centre of London, going via the Underground to another hub in London, and then back out and northwards to Hitchin.  Will offered to pick me up (and drop me off) at Milton Keynes Central, one of the main stops towards London.  This was very advantageous as it cut the journey effectively in half so I was all in favour.  The festival fell on the weekend of the 14th July, so the (revised) plan was to head down on Saturday morn and return back on the Monday, just before Will went off to work.

Trains were fine, and after a bit of traffic getting out of Milton Keynes, Will getting slightly annoyed at the sheer volume of the number of roundabouts, we were on our way to the festival and the alcoholic oblivion beyond :D.  Will stressed getting the earlier train to allow for more drinking, and well we arrived in Hitchin with about half an hour before the festival officially started LOL.  We went via his sister's flat, currently unoccupied, to fill up cooler bags with beverages and then we were on our way.

First stop was off to see a band on one of the main stages that was promised to be in the same mould as Enter Shakiri.  Unfortunately that was not so, the band that actually turned up produced nothing greater than watered-down 3 minute emo songs.  A promised highlight (thanks Will) was their completely unexperimental cover of the dance hit "Castles in the Sky", which when the rest of the band kicked in created nothing more than shapeless noise - nice one guys, you were so good, I can't even remember the name of your band.

Next stop was the other main stage for the Chris Phillips Band which many held in high regard, the band forming after the split of former local band Ardent Kicks, and Tom, one of Will's mates, was brother to the Chris from which the band drew their name.  By this time a bit of a crowd was forming, and front man Chris milked it for all it was worth, and the set was genuinely enjoyable - their stuff being quite folksy thanks to Chris' acoustic, but also some electronic and synth elements included to deepen the sound.  One for the future here hopes, the guys were extremely good, very tight - Dan the drummer is held in exceptionally high regard for his skills although the set didn't allow the freedom for him to show off, plus speaking with Chris later that night was pretty cool, a stand up guy - I wish you guys the best.  As I mentioned to Chris in the little chat I had with him, the band coped very well the technical difficulties that struck Dan's kit a couple of times throughout the set.  Rather than feigning excuses and mass shrugging, it was inspiring to see Chris take the initiative, and get the crowd involved.  That involved the classic sing-along and clapping with the instruments dropped out.  Another bit of fun was the Mexican wave that was sent back through the crowd which actually made it back to the front a couple of times, which was quite smart.

With the early highlight of the day already over, it seemed appropriate to take a breath (and get more beer) so we headed over to the acoustic stage to chill out (if memory serves me correctly, it gets a bit hazy from here on in, thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol that we were drinking).  The absolute name escapes me but next highlight was an Orchestra that did classical covers of modern songs - it couldn't fail to be entertaining so we all set about being there.  Some food later and we headed back to the first main stage in what was already an impressive crowd but the sound seemed screwed up.  There didn't seem to be any amplification going on, so it was very hard to hear them over the general hubbub of the crowd.  It was a shame as they promised to be very good, so we took our leave -  I can't remember if we went back to the acoustic stage or perhaps even the George for the first time.

Next performance we couldn't miss was the Easy Star All Stars (I think that's what they were called, where is my programme?..), and we didn't miss them.  This goup were responsible for remixing popular albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Radiohead's OK Computer in a reggae inspired fashion.  Properly liquored up the crowd were really starting to enjoy it, lots of people dancing, our substantial group as well and even I showed off some of my moves towards the end.

It was after those guys that I met one of the Irish girls (I want to say her name was Fiona oh dear :s), and in my merriness I got her to say lots of things, practically anything that came into my head, starting with all the cliches like "Top of the morning to ya laddie!"  I'm afraid I got quite smitten pretty quickly, and that is quite worrying that I can get like that after such a short space of time. It actually got me thinking about certain voices, or perhaps accents can, just on their own, be very hot.  I actually thought of Koel, particularly one of the times when I went up to Cov to see everyone and she left this incredibly long answer phone message, but it was cool to listen to her voice a couple of times hehe.  Anyways, back to the festival...

Later on in the day, we were back in the George (I'm pretty sure) for the performance of another person that Tom plus others knew (it seemed Tom knew the majority of Hitchin) and his band at the back of the beer garden.  They were fine without being particularly exciting but it was at this point that I discovered that, upon reflection, quite naturally, that they had a Ceilidh (look up spelling) on in the town hall.  I tried to persuade at least one person including this girl I've never met, who it turned out to be the girlfriend of the guy whose band we were watching LOL.  A little disappointed that noone would join me for a ceilidh, I decided to go check it out on my own, and hoped that I would find another odd person over who would be my partner (for those not in the know, Ceilidh's are dances that generally operate in groups of 2 or 4).  Hanging about on the fringes didn't seem to help much, and I didn't feel bold enough to ask a stranger to dance, so after what was a probably short time, I headed back dejected that it didn't work out *mimes sad expression with fingers on face*.

 

The final act we had to see on day 1 was this very large, latin-inspired percussive act which amongst its lineup had one of Will's friends, Dave's dad.  They were also a lot of fun and with that sealing the end of the day, we promptly headed over to the George and the other pubs closeby.  Some more drinks later, and a trip to the loo and I lost people, which was very scary, I was thinking oh crap oh crap oh crap, I actually left this one pub and then joined the queue to get back in just in case I missed some ppl despite me having a big look. Fortunately, Will randomly turned up so it was all good. We went inside the pub and played some fuseball which I lost after taking a promising early lead - shame.

 

We returned back to Will's pretty knackered and pretty much went straight to bed.  The next day was going to be more of the same, but we chilled for a lot of the waking day playing Call of duty 2 and Forza 2 on Will's 360.  We went down at about 8 to have the rest of the group attack us for not being more prompt and not getting into town at 12 like they all did.  The pub had a hardcore chiller set up outside cooling some beer cans which could be ours for just a £1 each -bonus! We got some of those and then got into the live drum 'n' bass that was on at the end of the beer garden.  Enjoying that as much as it's physically possible we thought it was best to leave and headed over to Club 85, the "indie stage" but in fact a club - the clue's in the title.  We were off to the see the last act of the festival, the Eagles I believe was what they were called.  Yeah, they were pretty cool, had essentially a young lineup, with this older guy doing a lot of spoken word which was pretty cool.  They also had a fair few guests come up on stage including a 2nd drummer which Will met at the bar just before, and a woman singer to do a song.  We then met back up with the group to finish off the beer supplies which were a little low on the ground.

 

The next day I only just made the train, the timing being very tight.  It is very strange that I am always tired and/or hungover when making these commutes back to Wem, why is that?  Overall a pretty good weekend, spent a lot of money, and got a bit sunburnt on my neck, but it was a lot of fun.

Here's pencilling in the weekend for next year.

Read full post >>

Gym Impressions #1

This is going to be the first of what hopes to be a lengthy series of opinions and reviews towards some music that I have listened to, whilst gymming, to use a bastardisation.  As I have mentioned earlier (I hope), I got myself a little mp3 player which I would then load new albums onto, and then go enjoy them at the gym, and thus avoid having to experience any other noises that may be happening.  I also hope to start adding a few pics to the blog, brighten it up a bit with a few album covers by using Windows Live Writer, so here goes.  If it fucks up then I'll take the post down pretty sharpish and try again :s

EDIT: laptop was being incredibly unresponsive when adding the pix so apologies it looks a little crappy and in need of better presentation, but I ran out of hair to pull out arg!

 

 Mike Park - For The Love of Music

Ah, Mike Park, first experienced this guy when he supported Alkaline Trio when a group of us went to see them in wonderful Brum.  For those not in the know, Mike Park is the founder of Asian Man Records, a record label that Alkaline Trio released some of their first material, hence the connection.  Armed with a stool, guitar and a small projector, he put on one of the greatest, and without doubt most enjoyable support sets I have witnessed.

The standout track from the live performance was of course "From Korea" which he is probably the most well known for.  I acquired two albums through Soulseek - a great little App, a peer-to-peer program which I've found to be the best source for the more obscure and/or less known music.  Anyways, back to the review, and I opted to put on "For the Love of Music" onto the mp3 player because of the familiarity of the "From Korea" track.

Now, "From Korea" itself is a very simple song, in which Mike Park explores the misuse of politically incorrect terms like "gay" and "nigger" to quote the song.  Just like at the live show, the song is very immediate, has a wonderful sing-along quality and serves as an obvious entry point into Mike Park's material.

I admit, I was slightly skeptical at what just one guy with an acoustic guitar could do - could it be as good, if not better than From Korea?  The answer, is most definitely yes, and in fact as alluded to before, "From Korea" Is one of the simplest songs on the album, and that a high number of them contain other strings to add layers to help create a greater depth to the songs.  Park has a wonderful sense of melody and by the second chorus I was already armed with the skills to sing along to what are all at times throughout, simply charming lyrics - "You're grade today, an A for loving me".

Other standout tracks are "I'm Supposed to Be There Too" and the other protest (kinda) song "Hey You!".  Overall, a great little album, I can almost guarantee it will not blow you away in terms of stature or content, but if you feel like kicking back and enjoying some charming, acoustic based, and honest music, then look it up.

 

 AFI - decemberunderground

Not so much a new album, it's been knocking about for at least a year, but I felt it deserved at least a listen.  Now, my first exposure to AFI was the album "Sing the Sorrow" and because of this I'm not a fan of the much more raw and lesser produced material which predates that album (sorry).  Before experiencing decemberunderground, reviews I had read on Amazon had expressed generally negative thoughts due to the departure from the type of music which AFI started out with.  Not weighed down with this emotional baggage, I was ready to check it out.

The first song, or more of a short introduction, sets the scene for more to come, mainly the more orchestral-sounding element which first began on "Sing the Sorrow". Also the first vocals are very much of a "Sing the Sorrow" mould and definitely not the more harsh, ragged, more harsh vocals on previous albums.  The first song "Prelude 12/21" also features the lyric, "kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep", which I almost immediately found myself changing to "Kiss my arse and lay me to sleep" - old habits die hard...

After the quiet opener, the album properly kicks off and as is as explosive as ever, and does not let up much at all.  Something that is quite immediate is the high quality of production that this album has been subjected to.  The entire album simply wreeks of slick production, which some purists and hardcore AFI fans may hate, but it's something I am finding myself requiring as a prerequisite to a good album - solid production.

Moving onto the songs themselves, and I regret that there aren't many standout tracks on the album, although saying that the quality of all tracks is high, and there is a good flow to the album.  A flow which is helped very much by the pace of the songs, it's almost a barrage at times.  One reason perhaps why there aren't more standout tracks is the difficulty (i have at least) of understanding and recognising the lyrics which is a continuing element of AFI's music.

If you have never heard of AFI before, I would recommend "Sing the Sorrow" before this one.  The standard is very high on "decemberunderground" but it lacks the standout tracks, which luckily "Sing the Sorrow" posesses in high numbers.  Although that is my personal view, and perhaps a fairer assessment of this band would be to begin at the start of their discography, but again I have given it a try and not found anywhere near as many gyms as can be found on "Sing the Sorrow" and this, their latest albums.

More Gym Impressions later, I am still undecided whether to post the "mini-reviews" altogether or give them their own individual post listings, mmm..

Till then, here's hoping you will listen to something new today.

Read full post >>

"Is it Jim?" / "No, it's Hughes, I'm here for the gym.... crap" *holds head*

Hey all, Just thought I'd blog about my recent ventures to the gym, something I intend to do heavily on a regular basis.  I've been putting it off for ages, but the start of July came, and I thought hell, why not, I'm not getting any fitter/losing any weight, sitting on my ass trying to force myself to go.

Now, the gym is in fact the small one they have at the Secondary School, and although it's not much, I am happy to use it as leaving the house, jogging to the school actually puts me in the correct frame of mind for some mean gymming.  One goal I have set myself apart from the general ones, those being to improve my general fitness, lose weight, get some proper upper body strength.  Yeah, it's a little worrying that I'm a little out of breath after climbing  a reasonably large flight of stairs - that's when I started to think to myself, I need to do something about this.   The losing weight is pretty obvious, although I'm not really fat, I do have a bit of a belly which my Nan attributes to "beer", but yeah I'm about 12 and a half stone now, although haven't weighed myself for a while, but that weight I am happy with, just want to work on the process of making that weight more productive, i.e. turning some fat into badass muscle, grrr. The general fitness is my main aim, there are times at work, when I'm moving boxes etc and I find myself for want of a bit more strength lifting things, particularily over my head, so there are the straightforward, logical reasons, oh and finally to pick up chicks lol. Nah, as I said, it's a small gym so it doesn't get that many attendees, and even less that are in fact hot...

 

At the turn of this year, Eric had this plan of joining the Navy, of which the only fitness requirement is to be able to run a mile and a half in under 12mins.  Along with the general fitness, the aim of achieving the 12min target seems a sensible long-term target to work towards. I say, long-term because despite my questionable fitness, my second time on  the treadmill, and my first attempt at the full mile and a half distance, I ran it in just over 15mins.  Still a bit off, but I reckon I can get that down by some next time (Friday), it's just a case of getting used to the distance, and then working at getting the time down.

 

Speaking of the gym more generally, I am concentrating on the treadmill as mentioned above, the rowing machine, which is good for arms and actually quite a lot of fun, and the varying methods of lifting weights.  Mike asked what am I benching (obviously gym/work out slang), to which I can confirm that after feeling out where I was the first time, I have settled on 35kg as a basis to work from, although the last time I went (Thursday) I tried out 40 and obviously a bit tougher going, but manageable. 

 

It was particularly cool the first time I went the first time as I had the equipment to myself, so I didn't have to worry about looking flustered, or straining to pump the iron (that's the correct terminology right?).  I also had a go at a few chin-ups, man they are tough, and I conclude that after doing a fair few reps of varying weights I cannot hang from the chinup bar with one hand - perhaps I needed chalk?...

 

Also the great thing about going to the gym and the jogs there and back is what it is doing to my self-esteem. It is very premature to expect my build to be changing, but it may be down to an inflated ego, but already I feel better in myself. It does honestly feel good to do a workout, once resting pulse is reached again, to actually be making a difference to myself. Contrary to what Fight Club says, self improvement rocks!

 

It does seem really weird when in the gym, myself personally I'm making it a habit of jogging at least a mile and a half and rowing 1km but it's very weird that all that effort doesn't actually get me mile and a half down the road (or river)

 

Also something I am also quite pumped in doing is taking my music into the gym, block out everyone else and have something actually decent to listen to. I've also decided that it may be worth using the time to listen to some new albums (or old ones :D) which I've been meaning to give a proper listen, so more of that later.

Here's feeling fitter already, and you can too!...

Read full post >>

Last.fm update - 20,000 songs yay!

Hey peeps, I have recently reached a landmark on last.fm music profile. Yep, I've past the 20000 song mark so I thought I'd take a quick look at how my charts are doing and make a blog out of it.

I think I remember mentioning in a previous blog when I hit the 10000 song mark and the artists at the top haven't changed much since. Yep, Coheed and Cambria still grace the top spot by a healthy distance, which is probably fair they are probs my fave band, and statistics prove this lol. I remember at the last milestone, Matthew Good Band were higher, once holding 2nd, but they've dropped down a few.

Checking my weekly charts now and again, I am quite proud that I can boast 100+ artists in some weeks, and well that does mean that the not-quote-so-popular artists grow at about the same rate and so there aren't too many fast climbers.

I have been listening to a crap load of MCS and Sparta, or at least what I thought was a crapload, but they currently sit in positions 31 and 28 respectively.

Some that I am suprised are still up there are the likes of bands like Bad Religion, but that is only because I have pretty much their entire discography and well some songs of theirs get played on my huge "All Music" random playlist that I feed winamp with.

The "Top Tracks" chart I was convinced was bugged as songs like Hundred Reasons' No Pretending and Coheed's The Suffering were up there pretty much since I signed up for last.fm and the chart hasn't really changed that much (again I think it's the same songs getting played at the same rate). Anyways, while I listened to the commentary to the playoff final featuring Shrewsbury (they lost sadly :() I decided to loop a small song and see what happens. 42 plays of Von Bondies' Going Down, and I can now confirm that the chart is working, like it always has been, no doubt lol. Yep, that song now sits in third in my all time top tracks (on last.fm).

Contrary to the disappointment of MCS and Sparta's poor performance in the charts, if the rolling charts are taken a look at - genius idea - it turns out those artists are very close to the top. When I discovered the Juliana Theory, their stuff got some heavy play and that has resulted in them lying in 12th.

Last.fm is a great idea, but one of the few criticisms I have is that the lists aren't weighted with how much material you have of a particular artist. Now this can't be implemented using the current online method, but bands like Bad Religion, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden etc are so high simply through attrition rather than geniune plays - don't get me wrong these artists have a load of good songs, just that sometimes the less-favourable songs get played cos they crop up more on the random playlist, simply due to the greater number of songs that belong to a particular artist. The idea of weighted lists is something I'd like to do in my own little music player if it ever gets off the ground.


Looking forward to the next milestone whichever I decide, whether it be 30000, or I wait till 50000. I'd like to think I could possible hit 50000 by the end of the year, and with my music collection growing and growing we'll see if Coheed will ever be knocked off the top spot. My music collection stands at about 40Gig atm, probably half of it I know pretty well and will listen to it comfortably, rather than making the effort of checking out a new artist etc.

I've just got winamp to add up all the songs and here are the results (lol):
I have 9783 songs (damn so close to 10G), which taking the track lengths makes a total length of 652 hours 3 minutes 55 seconds. That works out at just over 27 and a half days. Wow! I didn't realise it was that much. Ok, challenge to the masses, who wants to spend the entire of next February listening to every last song in my possession.

I have just under half of those songs of my mp3 player, and I may be slightly bragging that I can pretty much recognise them from the first few seconds of play - maybe someone would like to challenge me on that lol.

It blows my brain, I may have trouble sleeping, what with comprehending how music that is :S
Take it easy
J-Man.

Read full post >>

OCD [Dated 09/05/07]

Hey peeps, carrying on with the concentrated blogging I'd thought I'd bring your attention to OCD, but definitely a light-hearted look as I'm not attempting to make new discoveries etc.

Anyways, I got thinking about this the other day, and it seemed something I could write a paragraph or two, and thus is worthy of blogging.
My mate Eric bought boxsets for a daytime tv show Monk, you may have heard of it, but if not the premise of the show is this guy, last name Monk, who is a police detective, and also has OCD, which it so happens he finds himself using quite often to solve the bizarre cases which always seem to come his way. My point is not about the show, but my mate Eric, bless him, after watching a lot of this show is convinced he has some OCD traits like having to have his stack of DVDs neatly ordered, with the bind facing outwards etc.

I told Eric that this isn't really OCD behaviour but he won't have it, and he seems proud in his own little way. Anyways, I was thinking, do I exhibit any kind of behaviour like that? Behaviour that under Eric's definition is classed as OC behaviour?
At the time of Eric watching all this Monk, nothing came to mind, but recently the thought re-emerged, and I do have a few. These will probably sound daft but these seem a little OC to me. The first one that struck me was the way I eat chips. I don't know how long I have done as it seems like forever and I can't remember when I started to do it, but when I have chips, I actually eat them in size order, from smallest to largest, and I actually get a little annoyed if I discover smaller chips than the ones I've just eaten - pretty weird, and I do it without thinking.
Another similar OC thing I do, is when paying for something, like a train ticket or something similar, basically something that has me waiting with money in hand to make the purchase. I find myself arranging the money (it can only be done with coins I guess :D) in my hand in size order, so smaller coins lie "above" the larger coins - i.e. if I were to take the money in my hand and lay it on the table, it would form a "tower of coins" if you like, from large coins at the bottom to smaller ones as you go higher.

Another OC thing, which is probs the least weird, is my obsession with having my mp3s tagged correctly, and getting annoyed with downloaded ones that stand out in a winamp playlist, due to bad tags. Following on from that there is the file structure which must be maintained for my music directories. That being Artist/Album/Song. Also the naming convention must be exact for the song files. That being [tracknumber][space][song title(in full)].mp3. The tracknumber must also be prefixed with a 0 if less than 10, obviously. I am not a fan of having tracknumber, space, dash, space songtitle. It all seems rather wasteful, and pointless as it does not contribute any information.
I'm sure there are couple of OC behaviour which I do without thinking, and thus haven't been able to isolate them by posing myself the question, what OC behaviour do I exhibit?

Take it Easy.

Read full post >>

Concerning Biffy and Becca.... [Dated 18/04/07]

Hey all, the superb Biffy Clyro were playing my old student union on Saturday, so I thought hell yeah! I'm there, good band and a chance to see some of my uni friends again - sorted.

My mate Adam was also coming but he was getting a lift there in a minibus which arrived maybe half an hour before the gig so there was no real time to hang out. I get off the bus and discover that none other than Fran, Becca and Snowy were also on it - some confusion and delight later and we're ready to head in.

Carter, suprise to me at least, can play guitar and sing, so he was warming up the crowd, his best being the cover of the quite recent dance song, "My heart is pumping for love", I don't know the title, whatever, but it brought a smile to my face, so congrats to that. The next band, This City were next, and they seemed like a load of scenesters, not very engaging and I spent most of the time flirting with Becca, more about that later.

The main act, and the reason we were all here, the Biff! We watched them open on Semi-mental from the side, but thanks to the positive mood I was in, and the alcohol coarsing through my veins, I had to get closer, so I threw myself into the pit, and stayed there for the rest of the set. I was listening solely to Biffy on the train down, and it cemented my belief that their early work, Blackened Sky and The Vertigo Of Bliss is their best, but with a new album soon out and the show being a warmup for the Bloc Party tour, it was not suprising that more recent material dominated the set list. They played new songs Asexual meat Kitchen, I'm a fire and new single Saturday Superhouse which despite me not being an immediate fan of the new stuff, I personally feel is a small step back towards the more chaotic stuff on Vertigo of Bliss. From Glitter and Trauma they played Some Kind of Wizard and suprisingly, The Kids from Kibble and the Fist of Light. They kept the hardcore fans happy as well, by playing classic 57 and also Hero Management, which was a suprise also. For their inevitable encore, they played All the Way Down (Ftw!) and Glitter and Trauma so very happy with that.
Biffy don't say much inbetween songs, a small thank you and a short praise for the support bands, but they just keep to knocking out song after song with a violent energy that is still unrivaled. I've seen them quite a few times now, probs not the best I've seen them, but it was still a great gig, and was happy I got to see them once more, good to see that they have maintained a high level of consistency for their live shows.


And now onto Becca. My uni friends were all very pleased to see me, as I was them, but I dunno there was something about Becca's manner, probably coupled with the couple of cans I had previously consumed that got me thinking, "hello, there may be something here". Now for those that aren't long prescribers of previous blogs, I can easily confess that I had a crush on Becca last year, around the start of the third term, then she went to germany and then the Koel thing sort of caught on, and we all know where that went. Anyways, back to the story, I reminded her that it has been in fact about a year since I'd seen her, coincidentally probs around the crush went away, lol. I had reasoned before of not ultimately going for it, cos well despite her being physically attractive, there didn't seem to be anything truly engaging about her, I'm afraid to say, but that was a thought back in my elitist days.
The truth being that I didn't really know her, and still don't really, but at least now I'm more open into entertaining that idea now. Anyways, before the bands came on, I tried to be witty and flirty at every opportunity - one problem I have is not being as obvious as I should be towards liking someone. When I told Koel I liked her, she was all omg!, I had no idea! etc.. I was even started to get irritated when Becca was talking with other guys, which is usually a good/bad (depending on how you read it) sign that I'm smitten. Anyways, what with the distance and the fact that only one of us is a student now, it's probs (read: defs) not a good idea to start anything despite being quite keen to :D.

Biffy came on as described above, so I left the company of my friends for some grooving to hot choons. When that was over, we met up again, and Fran/Becca was asking if I was getting the bus back - I was so joined them outside, where we met some of the Replica X guys. I met Paul the keyboardist and we got going about how hard it is to get a computing job, I mean, this guy has a first for christ's sake and he hasn't found one yet. It could be that he still prefers the student life, but that's another hot topic of discussion.

I went back to their house, and some swivel chair spinning later, we decided on watching this foreign film about nuns and some drug conspiracy, I was hoping it was gonna be something else. Anyways, I wasn't following the plot that much, so anything that could be interpreted as innuendo, I cried out "hell yeah!", to be joined by Snowy when he got in from his walk. By this time, Becca had dropped off, so me and Fran were throwing bits of paper over her. Time went on, and I had to make tracks for fear that Mark wouldn't be about.

I made the short walk back to Mark's to find that he was still up doing a little bit of revision. I got another drink, and thanks to some sneaky webiste giving out the codes required to activate Television X, we watched a bit of lesbian porn, before settling into the low budget horror film Hellraiser 4, which after seeing the original in the cov house last year, equally enjoyed this sequel with it's cheesy lines, questionable acting and dodgy special effects. We turned in around half 4, and not before discovering that Tom's bed (mark's housemate) had made holes in the wall from him and his gf getting freaky, as I was witness to the last time I stayed.
"shitttt!, Hooollllly Shiiiiit!" - that was hilarious, I almost pissed myself.

Overall a good weekend, I got back Sunday evening to discover that best of top gear, the film Lost in Translation, and match of the day was on, so my night's viewing was sorted. Thanks to my mate Andy, I got to watch Lost in Translation when it came out a few years back, and well I watched it again, mainly for Scarlett Johansson (Schwing!), and also Bill Murray, who is a legend.
Although I got annoyed as well I don't bother with celebrity crushes that much, but I got terribly annoyed, as she is very fine, and that's not just because her arse features in the opening credits.
I probably actually have a crush on the character she played, as she is almost not like that IRL, beign an actress, she probs has the arrogance, looking down her nose at ppl etc etc. I was wondering if I would ever to get meet to girls like the one that Scarlett played, or will I have to wait till I hit Bill Murray's age and become a dirty man, and then it's frowned on, lol.

Anyways, enough moaning about things that will never happen, i.e. meeting Scarlett. I am here in the library blogging away like a soldier, to use a poor similie, thinking about the crushes I've got going in Shrewsbury. Question: can you have more than one crush at a single time, cos I think I have like 4 right now, oh dear *shakes head*. Anyways, remembering What Koel said and how I should go for it with the Hot Librarian Chick, and then succeed in not seeing her since that conversation about a month ago, and look who is behind the desk when I walked in today. They say coincedences only happen in fiction, but I beg to differ just like Bill Bryson comes across numerous times a book. I don't know if i blogged somewhere about it, but she actually came into TJs one day - I was so stunned, I actually did do a double take. I unfortunately froze and couldn't do anything more than gawp at her, and she hasn't been in since, sigh. I would approach her, but with the setting being a library, it's impossible not to have everyone listen in. Ultimately I shouldn't care, and I like to practice the ideal that I don't care what strangers think, but it's not quite true and I can't quite live upto it completely.

Saying that, I have managed to be more selfish which I'm happy with. And I mean this in the respect, that if I have a choice to hang out with someone who smokes, I simply won't do it, or outings where I'm left a 3rd wheel, I will now avoid as I don't feel I should go through the awkwardness of it all.
A prime example, getting the train back with carl, he, not us, really have assembled a group of ppl that will go with us. The latest addition is this girl, woman really as she has kids and a proper job. Anyways, she is Carl's friend, and I did not enjoy having to tell part of my lfie story to her who is effectively a stranger when I first met her. Anyways, I don't even remember her name, and she smokes and walks back the same way as I do from the station. Now I could walk with her, have to put up with inhaling her smoke and forced to make awkward small chat, OR I could do what I do, let her go some distance ahead of me, then I walk back on my home, where I can enjoy cleaner air and my music, horray for me I think. If she's offended, then I'm not too fussed about it, at the end of the day, she's not my friend.

Ok, I've ranted more than I wanted to, but that's ok. Off to work I go, it seems the last few days, there hasn't been that much important work for me to do, and have the feeling of making up the numbers. Hopefully I will get to leave that place soon, here's hoping.

Take it Easy.
J-Man.

Read full post >>

Belated Hello! [dated 13/04/2007]

Hello and welcome back. Before I decided to start blogging again, I took a little look at the last post I made. It was actually the first post in a new blog I had created and unintentionally it mentioned a renewed effort to get into the habit of regular blogging. I think that post was made last September, Lol.

Anyways, here we are now, and this time I promise it will be better, and that doesn't sound like a cliched empty promise if ever I heard one.

Let's kick things off with some music commentary and go from there. As it turns out, I'm back off to my union to see Biffy play there, should be awesome, looking very much to that. My original and hopeful plan was to meet up with my old mate Adam and spend the hours before the gig catching up and general hanging out, but a phonecall earlier today means that now Adam is going in a minibus from and to Northampton. Gz to him I said, and although I knew that I would be making the train journeys there and back on my lonesome, but I won't get to hang out which saddens me greatly. Anyways, I'm not gonna moan too much, the gig will be cool, and I'll get to see my uni mates so it should be win win.

In more general music news, I can't get enough of At the Drive In's supreme Relationship of Command, and also Motion City Soundtrack's Commit This To Memory. Considering At the Drive In first, the album is the result of a group steadily getting better and better until they break through with this hit. Although I have downloaded the back catalogue of them, I'm nowhere near as impressed at those efforts, which obviously suffer from lower and lesser production, then RoC which is as polished as well, a very polished stone lol. I remember when first hearing it, and my initial thoughts were that apart from One Armed Scissor, it was all incontrolled noise. A couple more listens and a couple of years later and that opinion has pretty much reversed. That happening is probably thanks to finally being able to appreciate the Mars Volta, whose debut was a masterpiece, to exaggerate ever so slightly, but later efforts have me less convinced, but that's another story.
The great thing I Find about listening to RoC is how chaotic it all seems, it feels like getting chucked about on a rollecoaster, although that is still quite comfortable, maybe a plane crash is closer. Listening along, I feel almost breathless from the onslaught of sound they throw down my ears. When it stops I feel relief at the restbite, btu at the same time, really enjoyed the song, and wish it had never ended. Anyone that has not heard it, I recommend it fully and if you have patience to listen to it a couple of times, as initally it's probs not to everyone's tastes, you will love it... or your money back.


Another album I can't get enough of is MCS's 2nd album, commit this to memory. I remember when it came out, how excited i was, after finally been converted to them thanks to my mate's love of I am the Movie, I came to the slow realisation, that it was genius. I was excited at release, downloaded it promptly (i'm a pirate, get over it), but then felt disappointed - it had seemed that the magic formula created on I am the Movie had been lost in the time after. I don't know how much time passed before I decided to give the album another proper listen. I think it was during revision time, when I put it on to revise to, and unfortunately for my revision, I paid too much attention to the record, and I was thinking, actually oMG! this is fantastic, a masterclass!. I was happy once again with MCS. Somehow some months later, probably after reviewing both albums in quick succession, I had decided that Commit This To Memory was not worthy as being I am the Movie's successor and had cast it down once again.
Only thanks to a couple of songs, namely Hangman and Attractive Today appearing in my huge random playlist of all tracks, I had retracted my opinion again and actually it was awesome once again.
The writing is awesome, and their grasp of melody is superb. There are only a couple of songs off the new album, mainly the slower ones, which don't have you singing along and/or tapping your toes even after the first listen.
So good was the album, it's been on my wanted list for quite some time, and eventually I stopped resisting and parted cash for the shiny cd and artwork.




A final mention, music wise, is with purchasing MCS's album, I also splashed out on Guitar Hero 2 for the 360. Although it's probs the least stunning looking game I own for the 360, that's not a really important feature for the game. Being bundled with an Xplorer controller, I get to play along with some classic rock tracks. It's crazy addictic and fun as well. it wasn't long before I was nodding along while I was playing. In terms of achievements, I want to 100% complete the game, although it may be really hard. I am working through on medium now, and it's starting to get tough, and the next difficulty they start using the 5th fret button :S



Moving on to other events, One of particular note, happened at work yesterday. This Irish woman, and I assume it was her daughter were purchasing a garden set from TJs. Me and this guy Aaron weren't allowed to take it their car, they had to find their way to our loading bay on their own. they then confessed that they couldn't read or write, adding that they were Irish - like it was something, a trait you expect of them. It's a stereotype I've never heard of, if they were drunk, then they would be living up to what I consider stereotypes of the Irish. Anyways moving on, and I couldn't help noticing her daughter - to be fair she was half naked so good for her. She wasn't freckly as such, more blotchy over the top half of her body. I was curious to what the rest of her boobies looked like, as well most of them were hanging out of her small red top. It's no suprise I hadn't failed to notice them. Anyways, they went off to bring the car round - wtf they can't read or write, but they can drive! *shakes head* As I later learnt they were gypsies from the fair that was in town. It might be a bad and shameful thought, but I couldn't help but think - "mmm, if you're not worried about catching diseases, then to score some gypsy ass would be pretty cool"

They eventually arrived at the loading bay, later that day, and Martin was loading a TV into his car at the same time. We helped the garden set into the car, all the time Martin was smirking like a chesire cat, and I almost lost it and burst out laughing. When they left, Martin came over, said a few things, he said to us, us being Rachel, Janet and myself, that those 2 must have been a sight from the loading bay (there is a significant drop to the car park btw), and we were all laughing, but I was acutally thinking, it wasn't all that bad, thanks to the daughter, I'd say that was the best cleavage I'd seen all day, hell probs all week, unless something crops up later today lol.
The question is, am I a bad person to think like this I'm not too sure.

Right, time is against me so I must go, One thing I must do is remember to upload this, I have a few blog entries on this laptop which have never seen the light of internet. There's a few more things I wanna add to this, I think it will get done in some kind of P.S. form, seeyas laters. Take it Easy.


P.S. I resume several days later, and also more importantly did not get this uploaded, ah well, I'm trying to force myself into a regular blogging schedule, but still hopefully avoid boring and trivial posts like maddox moaning about how many pieces of toast one blogger had one day, mmm. I also want to make this blog more public. I am becoming a bit hermity in my existence at the mo, so maybe having this connection in written form, well keep ppl connected, and if someone asks what have I been upto, I will then barrage them with the URL of my blog, although that probs won't satisfy all of them - "What?!?! You haven't been keeping up with my blog!?!? ZOMFG!"

Anyways, time for fresh post, concerning the weekend that has just passed, bb

Read full post >>