sirgavalot

07:46 pm: stuff and things
Long time, no post.

This weekend I went to Capsule's Supersonic festival in Birmingham and it was AWESOME.

The week started off nicely. I was on lates and was feeling pretty good starting at 11, though finishing at 7:30 can be a pain.

I went to see Brüno on Wednesday with Nick, Gemma and Hannah (thanks for the free ticket Nick!). While I can't deny the fact that I laughed all the way through it, it wasn't always because it's comedic value but increasingly from his entirely inappropriate behaviours and the reactions of those drawn into the film. It had more of a story, apparently, than Borat, and I imagine there were a few bits here and there more set-up than the rest. Highlights: the 'sex scene' with his boyfriend; confusing 'Hamas' with 'hummus'; the hunting scene; the swingers scene; and the entire end wrestling scene,; the last 3 especially for the poor fools being films and their expressions and awkwardness.

Thursday was Chickenhawk + Kong at the Chameleon. I went there straight from work, after having some tea in the staff room and burnt my mouth on really hot spaghetti. I'm not sure I like the Chameleon. It's small and local and a bit ad hoc which isn't always a bad thing but they don't have anything on tap, they blatantly buy everything from the Tesco Express across the road, then charge vast sums, but never mind. I can't remember the name of the first band but they were good and started the trend that evening of setting up partially in the audience. Alright The Captain were on second and were just as good as last time I saw them, as a 4-piece. I forgot to bring earplugs and after spending 2 sets in front of the drum kit manned by some awesome drummers I was feeling a little uncomfortable in the ear department. Chickenhawk were great - frantic, explosive, heavy. They encouraged the crowd to almost surround them, dived about off nearby furniture and played with a strobe light as the sole source of illumination making them look like they were playing in slow-motion. Rob turned up at about this point. Awesome awesome awesome. Kong, an Oceansize side project, were weird. Dirgy and dissonant, wearing random pieces of red clothing and ill-fitting clear plastic masks covered in make-up, and playing guitar with strings missing. Went to City danced and drank, ate chicken, then went home.

...

04:42 pm: Top 10 first date faux pas:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4985139/Clicking-your-fingers-at-the-waiter-is-the-biggest-first-date-faux-pas.html

1. Clicking fingers at the waiter

2. Adding salt to the meal before tasting it

3. Getting drunk

4. Licking the plate clean

5. Burping

6. Picking teeth with fingers

7. Licking the knife

8. Slurping soup

9. Talking about sex or bodily functions

10. Not leaving a tip

But 9 is all i do! My parents are both nurses and meal times were full of chat about bodily fluids or functions normally involving said fluids! I spent almost 1 hour straight on friday talking about shit, putting fingers up girls arses by accident, and spontaneous and random vomiting with George, Jack, and Martin loudly outside of Broadway. I personally don't mind 2, 5 and 10, and 8 can't always be helped. It is the Telegraph though, what do they know...

01:27 am: FONKY
A peacebone got found in the dinosaur wing
I've been jumping all over but my views are slowly shrinking
I was a Jugular vein in a juggler's girl
I was supposedly leaking the most interesting colors
While half of my fingers are dipped in the sand
You progress in letters, but you're used to cooking broccoli
The other side of take out is mildew on rice
And an obsession with the past is like a dead fly
Only a few things are related to the "old times"
Then we did believe in magic and we did die
It's not my words that you should follow, it's your insides
You're just an inside
Adjust your insides
You're just an inside

12:18 am: whatever
whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever

06:55 pm: Beards on the Rise
"...Palmer was set upon in the street by four men, who threw him down, injuring his back, and attempted to shave him. Palmer managed to drive off the assailants with his pocket knife and was thereupon arrested, beard and all, for unprovoked assault. When he refused to pay the fine, he was imprisoned for a year..."

Read all about it!

+++++++++

while i dislike it when people make too much out imperfect spelling and grammar, (though text speak should remain on mobile phones) and believe that language is organic, sometimes even i have to sigh...

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/winningest?rdfrom=Winningest

06:57 pm: trhe6tehwtf
"
I am slow, and sometimes men on the bus laugh about it.
But I grew a beard and it makes me so happy.
I don't think I've ever seen them happy.
"

09:55 pm: gfhyrbrdygv
i was feeling pretty low on my way home from work, the leaky footwear wasn't happening. one should always remember that there are people having a worse time than you elsewhere

http://www.fmylife.com

http://sorry-mom.com/

and lo i feel sooo much better having read these

10:07 pm: 785i56
long time to post

not much to say really. everything is pretty much shit. not bad, just not good in any way shape or form. i feel like i'm just wasting time until the inevitable. just all rather pointless

the snow has been nice though. walking home on tuesday (or was it monday?) across campus, crunching in the white stuff was delightful. highlight of my year. roll on 2010

11:20 pm: fefhenmgfnnhgmnd
being that christmas sat quite central in the week my time spent at work these last few weeks has been odd and sporadic with two one-day weeks. i got back to gloucester eventually after getting a bit pissed off and bit lost with the trains and met the gang in doc fosters. it was of course awesome to see them after having been stuck up here for much of the year, and good to finally meet ronan's girlfriend four years, kim, she was really nice, pretty funny despite the language barrier (not much of a barrier to be honest, she's pretty hot with her english and there's always someone around who can manage a bit of mandarin), smart and very pretty. and very good at pool. i was dissapointed to find they've stopped the night buses so we had to end the evening disappointingly early but not befoire having poured too much money into the quiz machine and going for rather abstract KFC.

christmas was.... christmas. everything seemed more subdued this year. my parents had other things to worry about, my mum's job has been getting busier and dad has just started a new one that involves working OMG shifts. even the neighbours normally horrible garish external decorations were verging on tasteful. maybe it was all the credit crunch's fault. i dunno. there just didn't seem much in the way of celebration, of anything really. i hate schmultzy stuff, i'm not religious and i dislike the commercial side of everything but i actually missed it all. we have drab, dull, grey winters and this time is the only time you really get any colour until near spring-time. mum was too busy too cook, grandma isn't really up to it nowadays so there wasn't even a home-made christmas and cake and a lack of mince pies.
tea was drank, dinner eaten, more tea drank, gifts exchanged and wallace and gromit watched. i didn't do too well on the present front. i don't like buying gifts, not because i'm cheap (oh no!) but because of my high gift-buying standards. i want every present i buy to be the best present ever or at least in the top 3. brother and sister were easy to buy for but the others, the ones that matter a little bit more to me were a lot harder, but they normally are. luckily mum and sadie helped out.

didn't really do much while i was home. i'd planned to do more but for various reasons plans fell down. we all gathered round steve's for a bit of a get together which was cool. awesome, in fact. we had an inpromptu quiz, a couple of rounds of Buzz and some horrbile kareoke game which was good enough to keep occupied until around 4 in the morning. luckily there was still taxis out and about. i had actually drunk quite a lot without realising. so much so i had to have a bit of an emergency vomit on the train the next day. classy. felt better for it!

NYE. went to george's with andy. matt and kizzy were also in attendance. small, but it did mean there were places to sit ;) we drank lots and spent almost the entire night playing guitar hero (as opposed to rock band) expect for around midnight when me matt george and andy went outside, got out the bucks fizz and cigars and me and george danced to boys noize, despite it not actually being played anywhere other than our slightly scrambled brains. it was well nippy but cigars and beer keep you warm! we went home disappointly early i think (i blame it entirely on there being a girl there. and kizzy) but me and andy went home and watched a few episodes of spaced still nicely drunk.

new years day was full mainly quiet recouperation in front of the tv and a massive (but not as massive as last year, we could actually move relatively soon after) fry-up. i was in a sullen mood i guess, but remembered a few words of wisdom and decided to pluck up the courage to be sociable but by the time i had gotten my act together it was rather last.

friday - back at work. for a whole day before the weekend. awesome. even went out to meet people in the evening. was awesome to people again, especially dawny and schtom

anyway

while all this introspectiveness seems a little cliched i think it's mainly due to the fact that everyone does it at this time of year. it is a good point at which to do it i'll admit. question: do acountants do this in april instead?

Tags: i'm fucking ben affleck

09:53 pm: JOHNNYTRUANTJOHNNYTRUANTJOHNNYTRUANTJOHNNYTRUANT
yeah so

i really can't remember much of what i do for half the week, or what i DID, i mean. lately the first half of the week is pretty quiet with everything happening in the latter half.

it was decided by tyler that we should hit the curry club on thursday and lo! andy and myself sampled the second curry on our list, the chicken biriani. martin joined us too. i'd tried this previously during my Night Of Two Curries and wasn't impressed. the second time around was a lot better. i'm not sure if having to wait about half an hour for it made a difference. (this compared to less than 5 last time). i didn't think that much of it though despite it's improvement. i enjoyed eating the korma, this one i merely enjoyed eating. it wasn't bad just wasn't anything special. i think we gave it a 4...

having drunk a few pints we decided it would be a good idea to go to city, and so we did, heading straight to the bar and then the shots bar to top up. bottle of blue stuff + 1 shot of blue = £2.50 of alcoholic goodness. and so we danced the night away, avoided being accosted by, well, weird young ladies, and generally had a good time. well, me and tyler did. i don't really like taking andy to city. he's not much of clubber as it is and really dislikes the music they play there, especially on a thursday in the basement, where me and tyler live. there tends to be a few different groups of people i know there and like to go off and chat with them and feel bad about leaving him down in the basement. to fair the music isn't always to my liking either but once i've had a few (beers and good songs) i cease to care, especially if george is around and we can piss around on the dance floor.

with friday off it meant i could have a lie-in. sadly, this lasted 'til gone 2:30 and i felt rough for it. upon venturing downstairs i found andy snoozing in front of boosh series 2. and there i remained pretty much for the rest of the day. we watched the entire series and put on napoleon dynamite when ali came home. neither of us could bare him sitting eating louding and making retarded comments and the film did the trick. when i first got it i didn't think it that funny but upon reviewing i enjoyed it a lot more. dunno why. ali just look bemused and left the room after 5 minutes. i guess the whole film is one long joke. there are no gags to speak of, they don't really say or do anything that is obviously asking for big laughs (apart from the bike ramp-crotch-crushing bit, which, involving injury to someone in the groin area, was pretty funny). i went out for munchies, got carried away and we sat and ate dorritos and watched the 2 new batman films back to back. i know everyone says it but dark knight is AWESOME. full stop. it's still as gripping as the first time i saw it despite knowing how the film ends and heath ledgers performance is still just as enthralling and inspired. and what a performance to sign out on! poor raul julia's last role was in sodding street fighter! (i caught addams family at the weekend to, that's where that came from)

i kinda forgot i was at work over the weekend. my massive lie-in on friday morning/afternoon pretty much killed my chances of getting to sleep at a decent time, and the last time i remember seeing on my phone was gone 4:30. unsurprisingly i was feeling pretty tired went i crawled into work. luckily it was pretty quiet, even for a saturday. on the other hand blood bank was comparatively busy. no emergencies as such just top-up after top-up. kev left his mp3 player plugged into one of the computers so i sat there and tried not to sing along to the offspring and marylin manson. went to do some "christmas shopping" (got some photos done and bought my comic. i suck).
saturday night was johnny truant. i found while looking for the start time that this is their final tour and that it was their LAST EVAR nottingham gig! oh the sad-faces! anyway so i got there for 10 (i was actually early, despite the bus being late. the drive really didn't want to stop for passengers until he got to the QMC when he promptly turned the engine off and went for a piss!) when i thought the club opened on a saturday. balls to that! we were standing outside for a good 25 minutes watching the bands arrive and unload their gear!. so the first band started and they were a real surprise. really nice heavy instrumental stuff with samples and loops ala 65daysofstatic. so nice i bought their cd and talked to the bassist (who looked like, i'm sure, george's hot friend rachel) about their set up. the second band where a bunch of younger (still!) guys who were pretty much a poor man's cancer bats with too much 80's styling. mullet and wife beaters are not a good combo, nor with butt-fluff 'moustaches' either... bad bad bad.
JESUS-H-TITTING-FUCKING-CHRIST JT were just AWESOME. just so into it, so confident and energetic, this was a proper show and to me really put the lot i saw last week or the week before that to shame. you know you've had a good time when the band finishes and you've got a giant retarded grin stamped across your face.
RIP.

sadly i missed the bus so i walked home yet again and got home at about 1:45 :( so i was pretty tired sunday. and late in. but never mind. nelson was in control. i spent most of the time in bank again or randomly talking to kate. doesn't like marylin manson but love killswitch. random. we played spot your house on google maps. my parents is pretty easy to find and despite there being some around you can get a good resolution. we found kate's block pretty easily too despite it being a small small town somewhere in northern poland. i think its czame but when i look at the map the roads are wrong and i can't get the better resolution... after work i had lunch with rebecca and geoff. yes, rebecca! what's she doing in nottingham? MY nottingham? i forget that geoff was a student here and they were here for some sort of reunion. whatever the reason it was awesome to catch up with and she bought me lunch too. i think she's got a good one there with geoff. i actually like the guy without having to try and he just seems really normal. good for her i say. no band practice meant more sitting on my butt with my guitar trying to be creative and failing. arrrgggghhh

08:52 pm: u65y734
it's been awesome watching all of the george's super-8 film with martin and jack and hearing them say the same things we said. in fact we've only seen a small portion but already there are bits to work from. hopefully george will start (and finish) his video his video project soon enough so that we have something more concrete to work from.

aside from all the wonderful clips and all the potential music, it's been good to look at just what sounds we can/could/might use. i've spent far too much time looking at youtube videos of looper pedals and found some awesome uses. i have come to respect kt tunstall for her one-woman-band ways nad have decided i'll probaby get the same pedal she uses and endorses. it features handily enough a delay function. i've been playing with andy's dd-3 and i've been seeing what interesting sounds you can make out of it. awesome sounds, that's what. i'd also quite fancy a korg kaoss pad too. the clips on youtube show some great potential; george was definitely interested in it's dj-ing applications but it's use in live sound manipulation is what us both interested. i've finally figured out how matt bellamy does all his really weird solos on origin of symmetry and seen radiohead use it live on some of their kid a and amnesiac tracks. i'd dearly love one, or at least an x-y controller attached to a guitar, with one you really don't need a tremolo arm and it opens up soooo many new sounds. so much money is needed...

in no particular order i need/would like to acquire:-

*some new cables, more like the one i've got already; a long replacement and a shorter one for my amp/cab
*strap locks for bass (at the same time as new pick-up, get them fitted together)
*new pick-up(s) for bass
*fuzz pedal (after new pick-up)
*electro-acoustic, not too picky, good percussive sound, maybe good bass resonance, not sure what's required
*akai headrush loop and delay pedal
*korg kaoss k3 mini-pad (maybe, see if george gets one first)
*i really fancy a boss tremolo but i'll have to see what i can get out of the headrush first
*octave pedal, boss again, 2 sub-octaves for the win!

also, i need ear protectors! but i'm not sure what to get! i haven't got the money for the expensive ones but i don't wanna buy cheaper ones in case they're rubbish (which is so often what i end up doing)

i went out thursday to see apocolytica. nice idea i thought, cellos and whatnot. swallow the sun were in support. to cut a long story short i had bits of their music before and aside from the keyboards (always with the keyboards) i didn't think them too bad at all. they were however quite quite boring live. because i'm a bit of a nerd and a muso i like to actually watch the musicians do their thing, the drummer especially as they're alway more active and i can't play the drums. there really wasn't much to watch on that front. playing pretty slow music meant there wasn't much energy in the performance. i've seen clips of neurosis play stuff of through silver in blood, all of it slow, and they manage to put so much intensity and passion into playing.

apocolyptica. now of course, i had forgotten they were famous for their metallica covers. do i remember what famous thrash band i am not very keen on at all really? i do now. now these guys were full of energy and showmanship. and themselves. yeah i was pretty good, they were tight and their... er... cello solos where impressive. they managed to play well despite singing their instruments around to gurn a the crowd and each other.i think in the end what disappointed me was how straight the covers were. having now seen ed alleyne johnson play all sorts of covers with just his violin and a loop pedal i'm further convinced they could have done a better job. when they did go for straight classical it was rather enjoyable. i really like the deeper sound of the cello. one mildly amusing and slightly annoying aspect of the gig was when they tried to talk to the audience. god knows where they're from but i sohlud have been able to pick it up from their incredibly strong accents. now i can't reallly speak a word of any second language so i can't complain too much but jeeeeze you could hardly make out what they were saying. "hurdygurdyburdywurdy - metallica - blurbydurby - metulllllll!" etc. it was however really good to see so many people there to say hello to and whatnot. i was expecting to be stood there by myself so it was nice to climb the stairs and see stu's dreads and jos's pigmentally changed hair as i reached the main room.

anyway, so annoyed was i with the showboating, the crowd and the metallica that i left halfway through their set and met up up tyler and martin. suffice to say i ended up at city and drank loads, bumped into laura and jack and martin, drank more and walked home cuz i had missed the bus...

friday i went out with people from work to celebrate the end (and success) of scott's assessment. in the end it was just me scott and the michaels, which was kinda cool. we went skating in the square which was pretty cool if expensive. scott and skilly had obviously had practice whereas i haven't done it in years and ol' mikey t hadn't skated at all and processed to spent the 45 minutes skirting the edges. i fell over trying to knock scott on his arse. first time. hurt my ego more than anything. i hoped it would persuade mr toplis to let go or the barrier a little but sadly no. after that we went and became members of a pool hall opposite the cookie club. £3.50 ('student' discount) got us 2 pints as well! £2 each got us 2 hours on a pool table which was ace. unlike my pool-playing. i haven't played in years and i might as well had not played at all previously. i was that bad. but still occasionally jammy. scott and mr t beat us every game, but to our (or just skilly's?) credit only by a ball or 2 normally. i was so bad i actually reduced myself to tears (of laughter) and was pretty close to being throttled by michael.

we left at about 12-ish and the michaels went off home. this being scotts celebratory drink and me going to the sal anyway, to brought him along. long story short we drank far too much cider and spent far too much money on the quiz machine with a bunch of lovely young lasses and didn't win much back at all. still, good times were had and it was nice to see a few familiar faces matter how briefly i saw them of how crude the expressions were that were thrown in my direction ;) we left when we got kicked out. scott walked home cause he lives in west bridgford. i walked home (again!) because i had missed the bus. my arse and legs hurt from all this walking and skating for the rest of the weekend. scott made random phonecalls and kept walking into things he swore weren't there and vomited an awful lot. no more cider for scotty.

and i found my copy of takk in my copy of new adventures in hifi!

12:16 am: gr4ht4r6y45
i give up!

totally, completely, utterly. until the next burst of optimism...


...

(3 today! blimey!)

08:20 pm: u65juy5hutjuyrhRIPJ7fgdgbnsd
frrrrrrrrost!

awesomeness! snow yesterday, frost and ice this morning and more frost on my way home, this is coming a proper winter instead of a series of cold dreary over-cast days like the last few years have been

lordy lordy J7 is going to shut! sad times! unbelievable times! i don't remember there not being a J7 having opened in 2002 when i was still not entirely familiar with nottingham. along with the angel and maybe the social (though they do seem awfully friendly with rock city lately...) it was a nice mid-sized venue picking up acts not hosted by one of the RC venues and plenty of decent local stuff, sitting between the heavier genres hosted by the angel and the lighter stuff hosted by the social. although never on time things are always done nicely there. ive' never been to a gig and felt that the venue in some way spoilt an otherwise good night (the bands can do that themselves), it's a good sized venue and i've always liked the sound there, even if occasionally it has been ever so slightly excessively loud. i'm really gunna miss it and shall endeavour to get my arse over there a few more times before closing.

bummer dude, bummer





Aw jeah! It's the BREAKDOWN!

Tags: j7 closing

06:36 pm: frewtgehttyhruythnyftbydflemonsquashjklnjkfdgb
so winter is officially here as i've had to get my gloves out of my bag, and even worn my scarf. fuckers

last week... um... went round george's to help him with an essay (WTF?!). we watched some Kingdom too which was cool, i haven't watched it since i first got it nice it's in danish and very very long (5 and a half hours i think). i'm really looking forward to watching some more and may even renew my efforts in finding the second series dvd.

i went out 3 whole nights in a row! my usual trip to city commenced at the roebucks curry club where andy and myself partook of the first of many curries for our next chart. unsurprisingly we started with the korma as it's the mildest nd at the top of the list. there are... 12.. i think, in total, though we'll be skipping the prawn and veggie curries for obvious reasons. it was alright. not bad at all, but not anything special. larger was a bad choice. looking at thee list of drinks you can have with your curry possibly a g&t would have been the best choice but that's something to think about for next time. i had a pretty good night, got to catch up with many random people, probably not quite as gooda night as the last few times, but there are reasons for that. george was annoyingly drnk and most repentant the morning after, even andy came along as he had the week off.

problem was i got greedy. one wasn't quite filling. normally andy is the won to take the lead in such gastronomical tests but that night it was me and what i thought was an insatiable appetite. i went for the second on list (might as well!), the chicken er... biriani, or however you spell it. not that good really, a little bland in comparison. the second curry that night was, in itself, not a bad idea, but the second naan and beer, and a pin of (dirt cheap) festival ale had me groaning until about 12 that night about the size of my stomach. i really didn't feel hungry when i had my first meal of the day at about 6:30 the day after.

i forced myself to have some yea that evening as i was going out (again, YEAH, HARDCORE!) to meet tyler and sarah who was back for a random day. i totally failed to lead us off to the orange tree or the sal meet nick and mike which was a bit of a bummer. but the festival ales were nice and dirt dirty dirt cheap. whole night including chips was under a tenner. awesome.

i had to planned to stay in in some form on saturday night. unsurprisingly it was cold, after grabbing supplies and doing some christmas shopping (well, i trekked to hobbycraft for some canvas boards, bought some badly needed socks [pants this weekend] and a couple of comics - for me) i didn't really feel like going out. with my plans for the evening set they were kicked in the balls at about 19:40. by 20:15 however i found myself in the rescue rooms at a gig gorge had been bugging me to go to all afternoon but had no intention of giving in and attending. but i did. and i did. it was the launch of the hellset orchestra's new album, a band i have previous heard of but not listened too. the support was a band called swimming who were alright i guess. didn't start off to my tastes but there were definite pleasingly post-rock leanings displayed and i probably would have really liked them if they hadn't have at it from jangly indie-shmindie land.

hellset were pretty awesome. with a drummer, bassist, sax/organ player, keyboard player/vocalist and two violin players they weren't quite the orchestra i was expecting, but you rarely see violins live with rock bands like this so i was still taken aback. i'd describe them as being a mix of the bad seeds, queen, dresden dolls and 70's david bowie with their amazing frontman receiving comparrisons to mercury, bowie and the like. just really very good, full of energery and attitude. the whole band were full of character too, not just stood there "rocking on". gig was only a fiver and to top it off we ALL got a copy of their new album. they were almost pleading with us to take one, which they didn't really need to do as free is always awesome and so's the album. very nicely done. after that we went to matt's, watched a bit of cats (euw) and the incredible hulk which was good, better than the previous one, and fits in nicely with the ending of iron man too.

sunday was a very cold band practice. after last week's double 'booking' (the bastards) is was good to get playing and we had a constructive evening despite the heating not working and me trying to play in gloves and a coat and scarf. there were sweets left out though, which we devoured. well, all except the mints...

it's going to be next week until me george jack and martin get in a practice room which a shame as i was really buzzing after our first practice. george has got hold of masses of old super-8 film from his parents and is in the process of digitising it. he showed me some last night and i have to say i haven't been this excited about future plans in so very very very long. this is all really exciting, there are so many avenues of exploration revealing themselves. my old track is probably going to be done (can't wait to give it a go live) and i have plans for film for it. amongst george's collect was a high quality french stag film, which was just AWESOME! it was nicely made, nice and sharp but wasn't in great condition so had lots of lines running up and down it, and 'hairs' and the like. it was divided up into a title, a strip, a bath/bubble scene and a nice fade at the end. yeah tits are good but it such a nice short concise film and will need no editing, just finding a way of putting it into a playlist. i'm REALLY looking forward to getting this on file and start righting for it. even better was when it was rewound and played in reverse. on another reel, a family holiday one, was a series of scenes from blackpool at night with all the lights going. everything apart from the lights is pitch black, the colour of the lights as intense as only film can make them and the reflections were a nice extra. again i'm really looking forward to putting some together for this. i really hope jack and martin get as excited as me and george are! should hopefully be able to get a showing on the material at the weekend, hopefully with a practice on monday. hopefully! i just need to spend a bit of time in front of the tv with my guitar strumming away, get a few ideas up my sleeve ready.

aside from that, meh. things still fail to met my increasingly low expectations. you can disappoint a pessimist after all!

Tags: topsecretproject!

11:29 pm: hrtthnre
oh i can't be arsed tonight

excited

but lazy

and tired

...

07:01 pm: rgjyrhyre
a week of cancellations

guards lost the voice of their vocalist and their lead guitarist and with him went the other band so thursday gig was cancelled. this, we were told at about 10pm wednesday night, which was nice. after 10 minutes of indecision we popped down to the greyhound and had a word with the landlord and he decided it was best not to go ahead.
this thursday's gig is probably most definitely unlikely to go ahead. well, we're not going anyway. couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, whoever they are...
we got to GW today and noticed the lights were on in the roo we had booked. "hmm..." we say, "what's all this then?" upon entering the room we find that there's some sort of promo thing been set up for Dawn Of War 2, like a LAN party, and no one told us, the people who had booked the room, anything about it. shortest band practice ever.

i forgot to book last friday off so this past week i've been dead. not a full week the week before (had monday off), but then the weekend (and a night at loggerheads with too much cider) and half of this week. suffice to say i slept an awful lot of thursday. i've been in the main lab, not too bad except i was the only one, all our mla's are with the chemistry lot aside from those who have escaped to the blood bank, main lab or coag. i am hoping i'm on coag next week, i really really am.
my searching for a new job is not going well at all. i'm really really bad at it, i don't know what to look for, i'm crap at applying etc etc etc. i fuckin hate it, really. i like it in the blood bank, but not that much, and as they seem to refuse to replace (or at least can't) staff we end up spending too much time in chemistry which is just plain shit. i did however manage to do fuck all on friday. luckily really, considering the state i was in.
a good night was had by all on thursday night! on friday night i met up with people from work for sharna's birthday. my second trip to yate's was mercifully quick. an amusing conversation with the bouncer regarding my coat-
"take your hood off"
"i'm not wearing a hood...?"
"no hoods allowed inside" (cuz i'm a fuckin hoodie/hoodlum who's gunna go inside and cuz trouble, like at least one of the wankers already inside sans hood isn't likely to cause shit at some point in the evening) "take it off"
it dawns on me that my coat has a hood, one which i'm not wearing!
"well... it's attached to my coat"
"take it off"
....
twats. now with my coat in my hands i am no longer going to cause any trouble, glass anyone, mug old ladies (which the place was full of), jack any cars etc etc etc
wankers
sue and her husband turned up briefly which was cool too. and my boss bought me a pint. long story short i went to a bunch of places i would never normally willingly entire, are numbers dwindled, sharnas friend was hounded by some dodgy guy would wouldn't fuck off, paid to get us all into some place, bought us all drinks which we necked and legged it saying we had to catch a taxi. my head swimming from all the beer i wobbled into the sal for a bit then wobbled to a taxi and swayed home.

this has lead to me spending a good portion of the weekend asleep. boy, has it been needed! this has meant i've done nothing of use this weekend.

what i have done is to browse the internet in search of useful public domain film footage. this new project of ours just won't blossom fast enough!
i've spent a little (but not nearly enough) time messing with more interesting sound and getting back to cult of luna and neurosis and a sliver mt. zion to get into the mood. i've spent the week with all sorts of asymmetric riffery floating round my head, mainly at work where i've had the time to think about things but no time to actually sit and write it out properly. this had meant that i haven't come up with anything new for TDL but i've got bits and pieces here and there.
was most impressed i managed to confuse martin and jack with my 11/8 madness, i'm just hoping it's not too complicated to work with. it comes pretty naturally to me, fingers crossed j & m feel that way with a few listens. what to do with george though...
he wants to use us as part of an exhibition and he's putting the film together roughly now which will probably mean this start moving a little faster. the last practice on monday was awesome and we came up with some really good stuff, but it's all improvised. just as we had planned we were dropping in and out with different things, picking up different instruments. just how to solidify it, how to put it into a form that we can repeat! a certain amount of structure is needed if we're gunna put it to film. i've got a few bits from years ago, but i'm thinking they're maybe a little too structured or heavy, but they're certainly weird and there's a lot of room for adding strings, samples, interesting instrumentation. we shall seeeee! (tomorrow)

11:31 pm: cghdsrydrw
bleurgh these weekend shifts are killing me, i forgot to book friday off so i'm now halfway through a long stretch

roadblock was cool, but i have a feeling i'm rota'd on to working the weekend everytime it's on which a right bitch.

apparently, last weekend we had "literally a ton" of delivery samples. never get what famous saint's day was celebrated 40 weeks ago...

band practice today for thursday gig at the greyhound, band practice tomorrow too, but with a different band! woooo!

this thursdays gig wasn't too bad actually. first band on were a bit of a dad-rock-pub band, second band was fronted by the flying aces singer who we had last played with at my first gig with TDL. annoying glammies. this new band of his was annoying indie instead. we were loud and fast and heavy as usual. my bass map was cool. i've still haven't had much chance to play with it, trying to get a nice sound out of it. difficult

08:36 pm: fdhgyhrteyrw mark II
joe got into nottingham at about 5:30 while me and andy were stuck in a bus outside rock city. i've never seen so much solid traffic in the city centre before, and no road works in sight! we met joe, hannah, and hugh at the roebuck for pre-boosh food and drinks and met dale at the arena. i've never been to the arena for anything more than a spot of skating so it was a new experience to see what it was like for shows and it's one i'd rather not experience again.

can't really be arsed to go into much detail but i really did enjoy myself. the show they put on was a lot different from last time. when we saw them in 2006 they followed a pattern similar to that of their early live shows, incorporating different bits of sketches to make a longer unique story. this time it was more of a cabaret act or prime time weekend family entertain program. there was the usual intro in front of the curtain, the usual bickering (awesome!), and a quick overview of the evening entertainment. then they went through all their guests (other characters) who each had their own little slot. the first half ended with more vince and howard. bob fossil tried to get people up and doing silly danced rather like his dreadlock holiday dancing, the moon did his usual thing, and tony harrison got a decent slot too. this was especially funny as noel fielding slipped inside the prop chair that was hiding the rest of his body making it look like tony was falling inside the chair. the mumbles and complaints boh in and out of character were damn funny. i think bollo and naboo did some sort of rap and dressed up accordingly with a furry purple shamans robe and a giant clock that always read 3 o'clock
the second half was some sort of play that howard had written, a little dull, pretentious and self-absorbed play about him being the "chosen one" who we lead the remaining of a post-apocalyptical earth to some sort of blissful new age, and so vince had to make a few minor "alterations" much to howards despair. the show finished with numerous songs played by the boosh as a full band which was cool.
you could see they extra money they were afforded for this tour and, although it was very nice, i do miss the cheaper DIY look of the previous tour and the first series

saturday morning i was due to travel to gloucester.upon mustering enough energy i hopped out of bed and to next doors to pick up my package. it was the single most expensive and biggest thing i've ever bought (yeah so there were actually 2 parts to it but i won't them separate as opposed to in one unit, so there! :P). awesomely enough someone was in so i picked up my head and got that into the house alright. the cab was another issue being pretty fucking heavy (4x10" cones in a heavy duty cabinet) and the box being a lot bigger than i. i just about got it through the neighbours door and staggered home. despite the journey being measured comfortably in feet i managed to fall over very slowy dropping the cab. unsurprisingly, due to the build quiality and the numerous card board boxes it was in it wasn't damaged. didn't 'alf take some effort to get it out of the box though. it also took me a little while to figure out that it had 2 volume knobs (well pre-amp gain and master volume). i think the fall and lumping the cab around strained my butt-cheeks. it must be. i was afforded this time to play due to a slight problem with trains. i only looked them up because i couldn't quite remember when they left beeston. good thing i looked as there wasn't a train. sodding track works between birmingham and gloucester. 3:45 journey. bollocks. add to that, my missing the connection at birmingham (because i'm a prat) and travelling either side of the stations i was travelling in some manner for 5 hours. what gets me is the fact i went through all the same stations i would have normally and, ignoring waiting between connections the whole journey was only about half an hour longer than normal, exactly the same as if you had done the beeston > birmingham > cheltenham > gloucester journey WITHOUT the track works. WTF! just put my fucking cardiff central train on you fuckers and stop pissing around. loada bollocks.
parents picked up me up from the station, collected my bag and dropped me off at the peel centre in time for me to meet half the taxi convoy at the baker street for a quick pint before heading for the all-you-can-eat. it was just like school dinners in their. the food was good, sooooo much crispy chilli beef. i wish i hadn't eaten anything during the day to get my ten quids-worth of crspy beef. the music was reeeeeeeeally annoying! you could barely hear it but what you could hear sounded EXACTLY like my ring tone. i spent my time in there stuffing my face and checking my phone repeatedly despite the fact i had TURNED IT OFF!
bec's new man didn't have a ticket for the comedy night so it appeared he had walked through the thick rain to the guildhall for nothing but managed to pick up a spare from a guy outside. rich hall wasn't bad. he was blatantly not on his best form but was still pretty good. he seemed a little better during the otis lee crenshaw part of the act which was pretty good.

sunday was spent watching blackburn suck and playing with shaven pussy. PHNAR!*

so. that was that.

I'M PLAYING AT THE GREYHOUND IN BEESTON ON THURSDAY AT ABOUT 7:30 AND IT'S FREEEEEEEE!





*steve's cat has had the female snip and liked me faaaaaar more than it liked rebecca. it curled up on my leg and purred making sounds like a motorbike in neutral. AAAWWWWWWW

09:34 pm: fhyjrehygteterfKhayelihleKhayaLami
sooo... long time no post. i can't really remember what i did the week after the last thing i wrote. probably nothing of interest, but i could be wrong

that weekend we had a pretty good practice i remember though. spot on, loose but not too loose, fun. good stuff.

monday i hung out, drank tea (from a pot) and ate biscuits i hadn't seen for far too long.

tuesday i accidentally got pissed. it was george's fault. i think there's evidence too :S

can't remember wednesday. might not have happened, i can't really remember. i think i played a lot of dawn of war. i completed the single player easy enough. to be fair i played it on 'normal' but i can't really be arsed to go back and do it all on a different setting.i tried my hand at the skirmish. as only one race is playable during the single player campaign it was good to try something else. obviously i went for the chaos marines. all the multiplayer maps come with the various capture points like in singleplayer and you can chose how they affect your mission objectives. i stumbled a little on the first game and pretty much crushed them in following games. i tried a harder setting and a different map and got my arse handed to me every time. i'm not sure what i was doing wrong. my playing was as efficient as possible but time and time again i was overwhelmed by better troops and hq choice i just could not have built in such a small time. feels like the difficulty setting doesn't change the AI, just gives it a massive leg up.

thursday. pub

friday. gig. managed to get off work early, as did everyone else because i was quiet. got to the angel with plenty of time. the first band was just setting up and we waited to hear them sound check and help us swapped a few bits of gear around. we sound-checked and went for dinner at southern fried chicken (classy). we got back just in time to see goblin sound check and it was a most humbling experience.
due to the gig almost selling out those still wanting a ticket had to turn up early, so with us, the alabaster suns, and early birds and a few of their own fans the first band got under way with a decent crowd. they sounded pretty much like i thought, like acid king. though i guess the music was a little different, the main pull was the rare sight of a female vocalist.
next up, us. again i wasn't feeling too grand and empted my bladder on numerous occasions just minutes before we were meant to start but once we started playing i got pretty comfortable. with all the lights it's quite easy to forget you're alone as you can't really see people unless they get close. aside from a few small errors it all went well. i really enjoyed pissing around with the stone cold jam. normally they're pretty short when we play in front of an audience, not just because we play faster but because the longer you play the more time there is for a bum note i guess! they tend to stick to the same old pattern too. but in the last could of practices we messed around a lot more and took them into different directions so it became a proper jam and not a lengthy instrumental part. i dount if anyone knew about a third of what we played was kinda improvised but i don't think it came out too badly. i think. too much adrenalin. i'm sure if i heard a recording of it i would think it awful.
the third band, the 3-piece alabaster suns were most enjoyable. i'm not sure a lot of the crowd agreed with me. i guess they were a cross between high on free (thick sound, sparse vocal lines and rolling drums) with maybe something like weights & measures. the guitarist/singer used a nice-looking semi-hollow with a open tuning and lots of big chords and had a voice like the guy from snapcase. OG were just grand. i had a wail of a time being buffeted around at the front of the stage shouting along to the words. just plain old awesome.
it was so nice to see familiar faces, and it was so nice to play on the same stage as such awesome bands in front of a audience who liked music similar to what we play.

saturday i got up pretty early (early for me) to catch a train to birmingham, which i managed reasonably well. they got the trainsport police on the train at derby for some reason. first time in god knows how long i need a train to be on time and they're pissing about with the transport police. i found my way to moor street easily enough following the street signs. it's a really nice station, looks newly opened, got lots of original victorian fittings and the new bits like automatic doors fit in unobtrusively. i found i my to the platform where i was to catch my special train easily enough. all i'd to have done anyway was to follow the england shirts. after a little bit of last minute platform hoping we got on our train. it was quite new (well newer and nicer than the old central trains coach i was on earlier) and there weren't many people on it either. an hour or so later we were in bicester and dad got on. an hour after that we were pulling into wembly station. funny thing - we were taking about the fact that my bag would probably get searched and later on how i looked a little foreign. we get out of the train, off the platform, up some steps an i immediately get pulled over for a 'random' bag check by the police, i forget if they were over the transport variety or not. fair enough i guess, there weren't many bags. i tried to remain jovial about it but what a load of shit really. no disrespect to the guys just doing their job but a load of bollocks. anyway! went to the nearest newsagents for some cheap snacks, bought a can of 'coconut and fruit juice' which was just that, kinda coconut milk with a bit of fruit juice and chunks of coconut flesh. interesting, but not something i'll try again.
the new wembly is massive. very very big. i wasn't particularly impressed by it's looks though. yes it was nice but looked like every other half decent modern building, all bare concrete glass and steal. well, it could have been nasty-looking couldn't it i guess? there were armies of staff manning the numerous incredibly over-priced food and drink stalls, very few doing anything. we were on the second tier, i guess there was probably one more floor below us before ground level. it was very very dull. the 'atrium', i guess the front of the stadium, was nice and open and airy, but it was all so very painfully corporate. what the fuck are 2 champaign and seafood restaurants doing there? the whole area was far too full of stuffy middle-class london types in their £200 jeans, v-necks and sports jackets. just... ugh. yeah we got the tickets off my mum second cousin and they were 'club wembly' tickets so we were bound to run into these types. i mean, there was a fucking jazz trio in the corner and another trio in the opposite corner with a tuba, trumpet and banjo! it was all suits and icebuckets of wine and shit like that, not a white or red football shirt amongst them. this is the state of the game today, all corporate hospitality and snobbishness and VIPs and VVIPs and VVVIPs and fucking air-hostess-a-likes! luckily they all must have had better seat than us because there weren't many sat round us, just genuine football fans and bloody kids who were bored every 15 minutes. to be fair i was pretty bored for the first 45 minutes but i think everyone else was too.
it was good to see some kazakhs (kazakhstanis? kazakhstanians?) there, if only just a few. they were mainly seated on the opposite side of the pitch, 2 blocks; one on the lower tier, one on the middle.
after pottering abot for a bit we took our seats and waited ofr the game to begin. we watched the teams do their warm-ups, played spot the overhead camera and waved our red pieces of card during god save the queen to make a giant st george's cross.
the first half of the game was so dull. aside from a few decent runs by walcott the kazakhs got the best chance of the half. wright-philips on fr barry after the first half, and a change of formation brought about a much better game. although still kinda slow to move up the field (now towards me and dad) with rooney in the centre goals came pretty fast. i don't quite agree with the booing cole got but it was so very far away from where we were sitting. anyway, the whole thing was cool, aside from the nobs and the kinds and the guy sat in front who was slightly too excitable.
we got out of the ground easily enough and waited about an hour for the sodding train to arrive. it was far more packed than earlier, the fact that one carriage didn't have power at all didn't help. an hour later got into bicester and possibly the best chips i've ever had, and possibly ever will have from the sunrise chinese and chippy. awesome stuff. the drive home was pretty cool, going pretty much straight from bicester to gloucester as you could, avoiding the motorway until we had reached the shire. there was soon much fog around which good to look at though i doubt if dad enjoyed driving through it. we had to stop in a place called witney for petrol. it looked pretty cool from what little i could see and i wouldn't mind going back there if the opportunity arose. got back at about 11:15, i having left my place at about 10:40 that morning and went straight to bed.

had sunday lunch with the grandparents and the sister. had mooch round the to the village pond and green and back again, discussed photography with dad for a bit and beanbags with mum. they'd brought me back a nice selection of larger and ciders from france, and not only tea but tea cups from turkey which go nicely with my tea pot (gheymuch?)

far far far far too many words

i wish one foot, two abdomens and one soul a quick return to less troubled and more healthier times

11:01 pm: ghnfrjhtdhitdghmgfhbfghdfcfriedchicken
i am kinda lazy i guess, but nearly as much as people think. yeah i can be lacking in will-power and can spend an awful lot of time asleep but these are not the only reasons for me not doing things. sometimes i forget, or get distracted, sometimes i'll put off doing something for reasons other than the physical effort it requires to do it, a lot of the time things will get buried in my lists of things to and it can take days, weeks, months, sometimes years to get round to something, but i'll get there in the end.

saturday i visited a wooded area north of wollaton park, hidden away behind russell drive, called martin's pond and, i believe, harrison's plantation. it's a lovely strip of heavily wooded area squeezed in the middle of the suburbs. martin's pond on the west end was quite nice, though surrounded by chavs fishing and a little over grown. i had a quick walk round it, chased the odd dragonfly and quickly dived head long into the trees and bushes. the plantation was nice if very narrow. wollaton park, the arboretum and the campus, although very green, they're a little thin, a little 'managed'. the plantation was thick and wild and rough and bloody marvellous! if it wasn't for the hum of near-by traffic and gravel path it could have been medieval sherwood forest. it didn't matter what direction i looked everything was brown and green, the canopy thick enough to block out the sky. the pond at the east end was a bit like martin's pond, only with fewer people about. the surrounding wood was a lot thicker. suffice to say i got a little bit lost in it. not too lost though as it's about 50 meters thick at it's widest but i didn't really know where i was having only glanced at google maps to check road names and relied on my sense of direction to get me from wollaton hall to the wood.

although immersing myself in greenery was the primarry reason for going out i thought it would be an excellent opportunity to take some photos. i can't say there was much in specific to take pictures of, the scenery as a whole was enjoyable enough but there weren't many focal with which to compose around. the diffuse lighting underneath the trees reduced contrast and brought out the colours but the occasional breaks gave rise to harsh lights and thick shadows. the stream in the plantation and by martin's pond were really nicely lit and it took me forever to capture the warmth and intensity of the colours while keeping the picture well lit and crisp. i spent an awful lot of time playing with the shutter speed aperture and iso. i'm still not sure exactly what i'm doing and most of what i was doing was trial and error but i think i gained something from it. for the most part i just tuned on the macro mode and covered the flash! i don't know what settings it uses (other than shutter speed and stop) but it produces pleasing results.





facing into the light made it difficult to get detail in the shadows without over exposing the highlights, and again keeping the colour of the water and weeds beneath the surface





these 2 were biches to do, to keep the light up and retain the strength of colours, especially the warmer terracotta colours under the water. i don't think i got the outlet right at all but i should probable have brought a tripod.

on the walk back i decided to walk around the edge of wollaton park. the satalite photos showed lots of trees so i thought i might take a stroll. turns out all the interesting bits are conservation areas which i shouldn't have walked through but not much is actually sign-posted as such. and the gate was open! it was inviting me to enter. it was only when i was stood face to face with some deer that i realised i probably shouldn't have been there. the deer were very pretty indeed! i was slightly worried about encountering more deer as i flung myself into the deepest darkest wooded areas i could find, not just about scaring the poor things but because it was rutting season too and those stags have HUGE fucking antlers. i wasn't really in the mood for rutting either... most of them were louging around under a tree to the north of the lake, not a fence in sight. i didn't dare get too close, just in case so didn't manage to get any decent shots of them. need a lens with decent zoooom! it was quite cool to see the deer skip through the scrub when i spooked them, bouncing gayly over fern and bracken. the section of wood that runs along derby road is a conservation area despite there being no fucking signs telling me that, only the sound of deer legging it over dead leaves and snapped twigs. was really really nice though. i miss the country side.

so, it's taken me well over a year to get round to going there but i can't wait to go back again with a bit more camera knowledge.