This isn’t Tokyo.

So, last time I updated it was the end of July and can’t say I’ve accomplished much since then, almost 2 months argh. Stopped working so much 2 - 3 weeks ago which is brilliant, don’t even miss the money.. that much. I finished Six Feet Under at some point and it has one of the best, most emotional endings to a tv series I’ve ever seen, loved it. So, what else. I have done things, cinema a few times (go see 2 Days in Paris - so funny), read books, watched tv shows, exercised but that’s about it.

Last Sunday I went to Connect Festival with Karen, her mum and her mum’s friend which was probably the most fun i’ve had for awhile. Got there just before 12 so went on the massive trek through a forest of mud to get to the festival itself. Had a spot of lunch, sandwiches on my part and haggis ‘n neeps ( HAGGIS ‘N NEEPS!!) on Karens part. Missed Patrick Wolf sadly but headed off through the mud again to have a look around. Not sure who we seen first but it’s the first year of the festival and it had a much more laidback atmosphere than T in the Park which I liked.

Seasick Steve! Crazy looking hillbilly guy came out on the main stage and starting talking with the kind of accent you’d expect then he started jamming on his guitar. Could feel the bass running right through your body and he was actually pretty good but we didn’t stick around long. Oh, the most entertaining part was his roadie at side of stage who was rocking out to the music, an old fat guy.

Next was Aqualung at another stage, I didn’t really know them apart from one song but Karen liked them.

Newton Faulkner, again I had no idea who this was but Karen wanted to see him and he was actually really good. Actually entertained the crowd as opposed to just playing and disappearing like some bands do. Just lay back on a black plastic bag with Karen for about 2 -3 hours listening to various bands. It was very chilled out and nice.

Think we went to see Regina Spektor eventually, and the sun was out again. She was pretty good and very nice to the crowd. Not sure if we moved again after her, possibly went for dinner, a burger for me and stole some chips from Karen.

Basically just waiting for Polyphonic Spree after that, had some very long conversations with Karen, laughing about past relationships and other stuff. Polyphonic Spree finally came out and Wow! they were brilliant. I was not a fan of them at all beforehand, I only faintly remembered them as the weird band that had loads of people but they were just great, happiness in the form of a band. The singer was so full of energy, jumping around his arms flowing around. Hard to explain, just really cool. At the end they did a cover of Nirvana - Smells like teen spirit which was pretty cool.

More waiting for about 3 hours, just talking to Karen again until Idlewild came on at around 10:20pm. They were probably worth the wait, good band to hear live.

We left a bit early so we could avoid the traffic and I was quite worried that muddy forest we went through in daylight would be the death of us in darkness. Thankfully the festival organizers had worried about this before me and installed little lights along the path. Would def. be a great place for murdering under better circumstances though, creepy route.

Got back to the car and drove for a bit until we got to a B ‘n’ B which we stayed at. Had nightmares through the night, about Dunnes and an imaginary manager who had become a zombie/demon and they’d just left her in the stockroom. I remember wrestling with her trying not to let her overpower me and kill me, covers must have been too tight on me :p

Had this good plan in my head about getting up at 7am and doing push ups etc before breakfast but we hadn’t gone to bed till 1am after a tiring day so that didn’t happen at all.

Morning went down for breakfast and usually I only have toast or maybe cereal but felt I better have more since it was included. Had cereal, toast, sausage, uncooked potato scone (wtf mate?), black pudding (lost my black pudding virginity :-O ) and egg so was pretty filled up. Karen was still tired so she went back to bed and I read my book. This was the view from B and B below

Very nice area. Anyway, after that we all went on a drive to places I’m not even sure where. Stopped at a nice little place for lunch and I had..burger again, but this one was very nice.

This place was right beside the Ferry, so next up was..the Ferry! Drove around various nice bits of Scotland and it just really drove in how terrible Clydebank is, lol.

Dinner is ready so I’ll end this quick - had a good time, and went to see 2 Days in Paris that night so overall a good 2 days.

Halam Foe is a weird film. Bye bye.

I’ve just been watching Six Feet Under and (I mean this in the nicest way) I think this must be what a Dementors Kiss is like (see:Harry Potter). So depressing, I think one episode, season 3 episode 5 or thereabouts was really happy and everyone was having a good time which I knew was a bad sign and without ruining anything it’s been depressing since :p Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good show but I need something to cheer me up.

Karens back home now We went to see Transformers last night after I finished work and it was a fun summer film. I wasn’t blown away by it but cool effects and big explosions ftw sometimes. The cinema was packed, usually I always go after uni finishes at like 2 -3 pm so I always avoid this, couldn’t get a seat without asking people to move up.

Today I’ve done nothing, did my daily exercises in the morning and watched Six Feet Under all day which I’m gonna avoid doing again for the above reasons. Summers just a really boring time for me, and I feel like i’m just in limbo between the university year, working to waste some time. I should put it to better use, enjoy the free time while I still have it but I just want to get started with 3rd year now, sort of.

Suggestions for interesting things to do are welcome though may not be acted upon. I really want to start running, or cycling - just not in this area..

Hey, I’m rubbish at blogging these days. So since last time, I had exams during May. As usual it was basically studying the day before (or few days before for some exams) hoping I’d get through. Thankfully I did but I’ll never pull that off in 3rd year so I need to change drastically or I won’t be at uni much longer. On that note I’ve been thinking a lot and really don’t know what I want to do. Sometimes I feel i’d much prefer doing something outside, more hands on than sitting in an office 9 - 5 being a code monkey but I’ll probably be too scared to do anything about it.

At the very least I will never work on a shop floor ever again after university. I’ve been working close to fulltime for last 1.5/2 months and don’t get me wrong it’s not hard - you go, do the work then go home at night without having to worry but it’s just so boring, time drags and after the first week I felt like i’d been doing it a year. Monday and Tuesday of this week I did night shifts, 6pm - 6am which wasn’t as bad as it sounds, no customers at least but I was in a fair bit of physical pain from lifting heavy furniture and shelves all night.

I’ve not actually done anything fun all summer, just working and on those rare days off dreading work I think at the beginning of September I’m gonna try and get back to weekends though so I can have some more free time and see about learning Java and C before 3rd year starts (summer reading requirement yuck).

This blog is depressing me a bit reading it back but I’m fairly happy, just need to start making more of an effort to do things I enjoy and maybe start spending some of my wages

Her voice is hypnotizing, and it’s def not the kind of music I’d listen to but I am anyway. Not to mention she is quite pleasing on the eyes :p Alizee the french popstar for anyone who doesn’t recognize.

Hm, so it’s been about four months since my last blog but you haven’t missed much. In January I had my first round of 2nd year exams and they never went great. It’s getting harder to pull off last minute revision and I ended up failing Algebra (luckily not needing to resit though). After that was start of new term and new subjects which are going better, less boring anyway. I turned 19 at some point, possibly 10th of feb and there was some other celebrations at that point like me and Karen going out 2 years, Valentines Day. More uni stuff, possibly staying late every night in lab doing various assignments and then saying every time “I’m starting early next time!”, which suprisingly I did with 2 of them, but they’re still not finished and one is due 2 weeks from now. A week of maths tests which went from bad to okay, then back to bad and I was done for Easter!

Two weeks in and I haven’t done much. At the start i went with Karen to Alton Towers in her new car which has been the highlight of Easter. Loved the ride “Air” and went on it three times since there wasn’t any queues, being March. I still had a fear of roller coasters at the start but I eventually  just put my trust in them to not kill me and I enjoyed it from there on. The gym! Yes, I’m finally back in a (vain?) attempt to get more in shape which i’m enjoying - it’s a good start to the day and you feel good about yourself after you go - except from wanting to go to sleep sometimes. Still the usual mass of perfect looking people and body builders in the gym but it doesn’t bother me much.

Karens birthday last week, went to see “The Hills have Eyes…2″ with Karen, Rhuraidh and Jace despite knowing I wouldn’t like it. It was brutal, almost as soon as it starts you see a woman chained up giving birth to a mutant and getting it pulled out of her by an adult mutant..then she’s killed. After that you get a few horrific murders and then a rape scene or two, finished off with a “it won’t ever stop” ending. Later on me, Megan and Gavin headed up to Glasgow for Karens birthday night out at Miso. The usual people were there (that I know) and Joe kept talking about dressing up in ladies clothes, perverts on the subway who like to feel up woman and “have you ever kissed a man?”. I didn’t realize there was such a strong theme throughout the night till I wrote that out. A few bands played but other than the middle one I didn’t really like them. After all that a drunk Karen left for the Garage and myself, Joe, Leslie, Rhuraidh, Megan and Gavin headed to Subway before braving the 66 bus home. I didn’t want to chance my luck at the time by saying “this is actually an okay bus journey” but it was actually okay! Strangely I go on the same bus at 4:30pm and it’s full of neds… oh, and the fact I didn’t have to pay any money to go home was nice!

A still drunk-Karen turned up about half an hour later then fell asleep to wake up only to be sick, nice.

Hmm, worked the weekend, that wasn’t very exciting but we seem to be losing managers which is a shame.

This week I plan to learn the uni courses I should know this term but we’ll see how that goes..

Oh, tv shows! Downloading like a mad man, seriously..

Lost, Jericho, Heroes, Dexter, Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Dead Like Me, Day Break, Town Called Eureka, Skins, Dresden Files, Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy, South Park, Prison Break, Supernatural( not watched yet). Not to forget new Sopranos is due any time now, infact maybe already out, I’ll have to check.

Oh, and been reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, starting the fourth once I finish this blog.

‘Ello ‘ello. What have I been doing since last we spoke. Not too much. Tried getting back into the gym but only went like 3 times before Christmas appeared, although I think I’ll be going next week, after New Years Day whenever that is. I’ve been working loads lately, it’s pretty soul-destroying. Finding a job you really enjoy even if it’s barely enough to live on really is the most important thing. Although I am hoping for a healthy balance of enjoyment and money

Sunday, being Christmas Eve I somehow managed to get the day off work! Yes! ( as Joe might say :p ). Was feeling fairly generous with my nice bank account and bulging wallet ( argh, don’t rob me, i’m rich by minimum wage dunnes worker standard! ) so went into Glasgow about 9:30am and got family & Karen an extra gift. Nothing exciting happened while I was there..

Didn’t do much the rest of the day, watched the original “Miracle on 34th Street”, it was okay actually Santa makes fun of a fat kid and a guy brushes his teeth then smokes a cigarette in bed, nice.

After that watched a bit of an old Doctor Who featuring the Daleks, ahh, it was great Dangerous mission, who should we send alone into the dark and scary alien forest? The little 9 year old girl, no one even said ” oh no! don’t go”. This happened to her multiple times where the two adult men ( one being THE DOCTOR) and a woman were all just like ” la la la” waiting for her to leave.

Hmm, much later watched “Crash”, which Karen would never go to the cinema to see despite it getting good reviews. What a depressing Christmas Eve film to watch! Good film though.

Went to bed, couldn’t wait for Santa coming!! Nah, sadly this year I really couldn’t care less, wish I was still wee Was woken up Christmas morning at 8am! with Erin wanting us to get up. Got some clothes, dvds, aftershave, family guy annual and a cool x-men poster. hmm, and money. Filled in my family guy crossword, had Christmas dinner. Karen was ill from drinking which is a sort of tradition now but she came up later that night. Exchanged gifts and I got a not bad haul

Family Guy Season 4
Family Guy Trivia Game ( a pattern is emerging? Fun game )
Family Guy Movie lol
The Batman Handbook - The Ultimate Training Manual, so that’s me sorted for my crime fighting days in the near future

Karens mum and dad also got me vouchers for Xscape to finish my snowboarding lessons that should be fun, waiting till after exams. Oh, and decent snow gloves and socks

Boxing Day.. back to work again, rubbish. I was in 9 - 4 counting the Christmas Eve money  so I was kept fairly busy most of the day. Was actually not bad. After that headed up to my Aunts for a family party. It was pretty fun as far as these things go, I must be the oldest child ever who still plays pass the parcel heh. Oh, I bought Family Guy Season 5 and Steamboy that day during work.

Next day, Wednesday? Working 8:30 - 4:30! oh no, it was pretty lame but I survived. It was getting to the stage where I work so much it just becomes the normal thing to do, which depresses me even more. Didn’t do anything that night I don’t think, where did it go! Hopefully read something, not sure.

Thursday.. still working Went to bed at 10:30pm on wed night and woke up at 8:10am starting work at 8:30, oh no again! Showered late that night so just got clothes on and ran for bus, it arrived 2 minutes early though so I missed it, the bastards. They then skipped a bus on the timetable and I got one at 8:32. A wee bit late, ah well. It was okay I guess, held on to the fact this was my last day till Sunday. Sadly I eventually had to go downstairs where the customers were being even worse than usual! Was standing at the fitting rooms ( beside the tills ) and this woman came up and was moaning
” I’m not waiting in this queue, I want my money back RIGHT now “. Err.. no. She just looked like an idiot, moaning over these £2 candles or whatever it was. Oh yeah, she was going on about how they’re running the store terrible and what needs done *yawn* Was just waiting ( hoping ) she would say something about me because i was just standing idly at the fitting rooms humming the Strokes song that was playing

Friday, also known as today I had to go to the doctors for the first time since 2nd year of high school, argh, was only in like 2 minutes though ” You are perfection” was all she said and I left. :-/

Next on the agenda was the university library for some studying! found a dark corner where all the old math books people have wrote for no one to read sit. There was some old skeleton bones and someone had scraped the date into the wall: 5/1/89. The second part is true. The first might be. Analysis really is the most pointless subject ever! Still have to worry about it sadly Got through about 2 and a half hours of letting Epsilon be greater than 0 before I gave up and headed for home in the rain.

When I got home Erins “Singstar 80’s edition” had arrived, it’s pretty fun It’s far easier when you know the song before hand though, tried “ice ice baby” and it was terrible. I’m pretty good at it, not that it has any indication of how good a singer you are, but I can do tone, sort of. Deep and deeper. I like most the songs, the final countdown, don’t you forget about me, atomic, tainted love, 99 red balloons etc. There’s also a rock edition..hmm.

Ya, I’m just being geeky these days, reading books, watching tv shows - that’s about it.

Listen to Cold War Kids,  I smile EVERY time I listen to “We Used to Vacation”

“That’s what’s so stupid about the magic thing, you know, you spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom and then you’re so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half blind from reading old grimoires that you can’t remember what happens next” — Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

Good book

The weather is insane at the moment, even for Scotland! Forget Lord of the Rings, I had the most epic journey ever yesterday just getting home from uni then going to Karens later. Trains were canceled and they never told us till we arrived at Hyndland so (some might say stupidly) we decided to go for a bus, however you need to know that we managed to get lost the other day looking for central station in Glasgow, never mind being in Hyndland a place I usually glimpse from the train. It was a bit like these horror movies where just before the (soon to be dead) teenagers arrive in the creepy old town the man at the gas station tries to warn them but they don’t listen. As we were leaving a man sitting on the ground tried to warn us against it ” we’ll be fine..” OR SO WE THOUGHT, AHHH.

Following the direction of which can only be described as “Forward” with my navigational skills we just kept finding various little streets with no sign of a main road anywhere. Rain, heavy winds and the ever present hunger we were becoming desperate. I’m not going to kid you, I considered eating John a few times to survive, what other option did I have?

The giant talking steak John noticed a bus stop and it seemed we were saved! A 66 bus arrived and out of the chaos we realized what was going on - Donegal! I’ll save that story for another day however.

Onwards with our story I arrived in the lovely Dalmuir. A little flood at the top of street but nothing to stop our hero - balancing on the big kirbs around the grass I slowly made my way round the maze of non flooded areas until I got to the end where a river of knee high nasty water blocked my last stretch home. I stood for about 5 minutes wondering what to do. Considered going round the back and climbing through peoples gardens but that seemed a bit rude, so I rolled up my jeans and was about to take trainers off when a car stopped to save the day. Ignoring my usual rule of Not entering a strangers car I jumped over and in and finally made it home!

But wait, I had a white rose movement gig to attend! Leaving the house with 2 essential thick bin bags for legs I slushed my way through the Canberra River with a surprisingly minimal amount of water leaking. Thinking I had made it I took them off and walked on to find an almost equally sized river on the outside street, again forced to put on my armour of bag legs I made it through and ventured on to try and get a 66 bus. Safe for now, I sat listening to some “Yeah Yeah Yeahs” but Donegal hadn’t given up yet. The road beside the petrol station near Yoker Station was completely flooded and after about 15 minutes of sitting the bus decided to go through anyway, with the result of water joining us on the bus.

I finally reached my destination of Karens house about 90 minutes later but we lost a lot of men out there.

The White Rose Movement gig was good, arriving at 9:20pm thinking we would be late the 2nd support band hadn’t even started. It was The Rubik’s and I had a link to them earlier but I’m not looking again, top friend of WRM’s myspace. After that was WRM, who were awesome as usual. Was pretty close so took some pictures on camera phone:

“I knowed a man in Paphlagonia who’d swallow a live snake every morning when he got up. He used to say, he was certain of one thing, that nothing worse would happen to him all day. ‘Course, they made him eat a bowlful of hairy centipedes before they hung him, so maybe that claim was a bit presumptive.”

– Quote from Neil Gaimans “Stardust”

Brilliant little fantasy book It’s about a boy, madly in love who says he’ll go find the falling star and bring it back. And of course the crazy adventures along the way through the land of Faerie.

Nothing much happening these days, still a tv show addict ( Jericho and Dexter added to the already massive list ) and I’ve got back into reading as you can see above. Despite promising myself I wouldn’t my assignments are stacking up again and I think I have a few due next week, bleh.

Oh, I’ve ordered a contract mobile phone as well, those damn leaflet wielding people outside the QMU finally got to me after a year and a half. Sony Ericsson W810i if anyone knows what that is.

Maths to do, work to go to, adios.

I don’t blog enough, but I lead a fairly boring life so i think it’s best this way. Today I accomplished a feat thought impossible by all to this point. I listened to my Computer Systems lecturer for the entire 50 minutes without drawing or doing anything else to avoid the horror that is CS lectures. Don’t get me wrong though, it was hard - there was times when I almost never made it. By around approximately 11:30 my eyelids had started to give up, but I prevailed! Again, at 11:45 I was ready to give up for a small doodle in my pad, with people all around me luring me with their shaded drawings of boxes and shapes you couldn’t even begin to imagine! Weak, but still motivated I kept my eyes open and took in his wondrous talk of microcontrollers and LED’s, knowing what he was talking about only half the time. However what I gained from the almighty Mohammed can never be learnt from a book! Nah, not really, it was pretty hellish. In gaming news, Gears of the War is the best game i’ve played since the last “GoW” game, God of War. Amazing graphics, excellent gameplay and a co-op which ADDS to the single player experience - it’s a must for 360 owners. Did i mention your gun has a CHAINSAW on the end of it?! Oh, and now I’m almost late for work \o/ better go!

Hm, did a big post moaning about uni but it was too lame, so to summarise:

• 2nd year at uni is shit, especially comp sci
- direct quote ” we can’t go on to this chapter yet ’cause it would help too much with the assignment”

• Won’t let DCS make me hate comp sci, I still like it - just not the course.

• Maths is an option, but i’ll see what my grades are like this year.

Hmm, what else, Heroes is probably the new best show on tv, expect it in UK eventually.

Life is extremely boring right now, hardly ever see Karen ’cause she works again and so do I Need a break from uni, only been back 5 or 6 weeks

Ahhh well. Been listening to some Sci Fi Hip Hop, “Deletron 3030″, pretty good Reminds me of RJD2 which is some other weird trip hop, but in a good way. Kill Hannah are coming to Glasgow, first ever UK Tour :O Should be good

Had a dream last night where I quit my jobs at Dunnes and was working somewhere else. What’s weird about this though is it was a NIGHTMARE. I guess for all my moaning I don’t actually want to leave, but i’m sure i’ll manage when the time comes for a better job

Next year - giant panda/ chicken suits but go to uni like normal and get ready to take notes.

Clocks going back, I hate it! I felt far safer in the dark mornings than I do walking home at night in the pitch dark, rubbish.

Politics, no, not really - don’t care.

This is the kind of hair i want! I’ve got a stupid coo’s lick thing at the front of my hair though, on top of the already thick hair, so we’ll see how well that goes.. I think this is my 7th or 8th try at growing hair \o/ although I did shave it which wasted about 3 or 4 months, interesting!

Hm, another good band, Nemo, google ‘Nemo international’ to find them. Especially good song is “Living Room”. I’d like to think people who like White Rose Movement would like them, but they supported Imogen Heap so who knows. Oh, and they have The Faint as an influence

Paid £30 even though I was skint to renew my gym membership and i’ve been once. Can never be bothered after uni, still doing exercise at home though so i’m not getting fat..yet.

Dunno how my mate finds all this weird hip hop, but look at the synopsis of this album..

“Dr. Octagonecologyst is the first album by underground hip-hop artist Dr. Octagon, an alias for Kool Keith. Dr. Octagon is an extraterrestial, time-traveling surgeon who pretends to be a female gynecologist and has sex his patients and nurses.”

I hate the youtube community, what is this lonelygirl15, emogirl etc etc crap?! MTV dramas in youtube form, with the worst acting ever. And then some fat guy doing a reply video to it, ugh, even worse. No wait, the worst is lonelygirl15’s “bf”, argh wait, i’ve become one of the fat guys! noooooooooooooooooo.

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-kiss-someone-passionately

Video on how to kiss passionately, but the site has loads of “how tos”, like fold a t-shirt in under 2 seconds, always handy. Oh, and kill a vampire.

It’s not so bad, it’s not so bad. Off work on Sunday, lets have a sexy party.