Kim and Paul's Wedding

Saturday morning we got up real early. Had a LOT to fill in this day. First I had to do a quick run to my mums to do the usual Saturday chores. Then off to Castlepoint - Lisa needed passport photos for Uni enrolment, I needed a new shirt for Kim/Paul's wedding, we both needed food and a wedding card. We tried to get some confetti but couldn't find any anywhere!

Kim's wedding - I was really nervous and it wasn't even my wedding, Paul was as cool as cucumber (must've been the pint he had beforehand!) The vicar looked like Brian Blessed ... but without the signature booming voice - he had a timid high voice with a lisp. The funniest bit was the organist! He must've been at the communion wine cos he kept playing bum notes. Jo sang a lovely song - made Kim blub.

After the service and all the photo's had been taken we went to The Bell for a few pints and some food (me, Lisa, Scott, Lots, Mat, Claire, Andy and son) There was a weird atmos in there for us though. It must've been cos we were all suited and booted! The thing that pissed me off the most was that I'm probably more local than any of the other people in the pub as I live across the road!

After the nosh Andy and son went home, the rest of us went back to mine for more booze and Wii. Claire and Mat had never played before but are now hooked. After a while, we realised we should be at the wedding reception. It was being held at the Tudor Grange. We ordered a couple of taxis - was told they'll be about 10 minutes. We stood out in the rain for about 35 mins before one turned up, we let the girls get that one. The other never arrived so we flagged down a random taxi. Got to the Tudor Grange hotel but missed the speaches and cutting of the cake - Thanks for never arriving to pick us up, Star Taxis (the only time they let me down!)

Saw the 'first dance' and the emotional 'proud dad dances with her daughter' bit. All the girls were all welling up. Time to hit the bar. After a couple of jars we did a bit of random dancing to cheesy 80's hits. Paul's Brother, Stuart insulted Claire and brought her to tears. Paul and Dave sorted that out - she got an apology.

Kim threw the bouquet from the balcony, Dunno who caught it but Glen found it and rushed to give it to Kirsty. I think that's a proposal in disguise! Details are fading cos I was pretty drunk but all in all, good times were had by all!

Here's a couple of vid clips...

Time goes by so quickly!....

It's true! It really does. It doesn't feel like nearly a month since my last post but hey. It's actually getting harder to get round to doing a blog post these days. Y'see I not only have this site to manage but I also have my Facebook page, my Myspace page, my band's Myspace page, my Flickr page, my YouTube page and my band's YouTube page to manage. Also, I do actually get pretty busy at work so I don't have a lot of time to update stuff then. And in the evening I've been concentrating on Blind Voyeurs debut album (which, by the way, is coming along nicely!) .... then there's video clips to edit and flyers for gigs to design...blah blah blah!

Anyhoo, I went to Pauls Stag Do last weekend. As you know Paul's getting married to Kim and so it's customary to get the stag (Paul) as rip roaringly drunk as possible to remind him of how good life is when you're not married. No longer can he have night's out like this. ..... or so they say. You know, I don't think that still applies these days. I'm sure Kim will let him go out as often as he does already whether they were getting married or not. and the same goes for most of the couple that I know - I'm sure if they got married it wouldn't change a thing. Such is the modern way.

Anyway, For the stag do me and Kirsty's fella, Glenn, drove from Southampton trainstation to Paul and Kim's place up in Leeds. (Lisa drove me to Southampton to meet up with him) We made pretty good time actually - left the station at about 9 - got to Leeds at about 1am. We were greeted by Paul - Kim was out with Kirsty and Fran. He gave us both a nice cold beer each and then watched a bit of crap telly and then we crashed. I crashed on the sofa with the sleeping bag. Just as I was dropping of the girls came back from their night out and jumped on me. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then they all went to bed.

We got up early the next day to get suited and booted. We were off to Haydock for a day at the Races!!!!











I won 100 quid on my first race! That pretty much paid for the rest of the day. Below is a video clip of Glenn helping the 'Hen' from a hen-party get her phone back as she dropped it over the barrier...



After the races we went into Liverpool to do a bit of a pub/club crawl. I really can't remember much about this but I have a few photos and a video clip...

Neglect is an ugly thing!!

Ok, it's 11th June, so here we go with what now seems to be a MONTHLY blog post! Why am I leaving it so long to actually post something I do not know. Will have to sort it out. The thing is, I've done sooooooo flippin much in this last month that if I sat down to go through it all it would be July 11th!

So let me summarise what I've done in real quick fashion...

. Me and Lisa were going to have kittens (YAY!)
. The Kittens died! (BOO!)
. Lisa's parents came down to stay for 10 days. It was nice.
. My band played a gig at 60 Million Postcards. It was nice.
. We've written some new tunes. They are nice.
. My mum bought a new TV. It's bloody HUGE! (47" HD-LCD!!)
. Mum complains that she STILL can't see the TV!! WHAT?!
. I'm growing my hair!
. Went to a local mini-festival organized by the Fire Dept. It was great!
. Went to bhone's all-dayer at The Gander before it closed down. That was amazing.
. Discovered Tarantino/Rodriguez's double bill film called Grindhouse! Excited.
. Enjoyed reading the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels vs Betika nonsense on solidair's message board. Ridiculously pointless but heart-stoppingly entertaining.
. Bought Tomb Raider Anniversary! Totally amazing!!
. And finally met up with Kim and Paul on Friday after work and had a wicked random night out in town.

There! Hope that covers it all. There are lots of pretty pics in my flickr account covering a few of the above events. Go check it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and keep this up to date.

Last couple of days...

I can't belive it's Thursday ALREADY!!! Time just flies tooo quickly! Especially when I work all day and am too busy in the evening to make a blog post. I'm having to squeeze some of thi sis during work. I'll make it brief!

Friday was mufti day at work... Jeans for Genes day. Everyone had to pay £2 to charity. We met Kirsty in the Bell at lunch for a pint and chips. Me and Lisa totally convinced her that we couldn't make her party on Saturday night. Mwahaha.

Saturday morning mum was a bit ill so I didn't get my usual 10:00 wake-up call so I slept in til about 11!! Rang my mum, she was ok... she just fell back to sleep. So Me and Lisa went into Bournemouth to see if we could get her a birthday present. Couldn't find anything (she wanted a cardigan) but we bought ourselves some stuff. We also bumped into Kim and Paul (and Kim's parents) in Debenhams. Went back home and had some food before Kim and Paul came round ready to go out. Scott wanted to come cos of White Rose Movement were doing a DJ set at 60 Million Postcards but couldn't when he heard that Fran was going to be there! He was gutted. So me, Lisa, Kim and Paul head off - Lisa was driving and had to leave early cos she had a family commitment the next day. It was a pretty damn phenominal night. After that we headed for the Consortium to continue the drinking and dancing with some pretty old school alternative music (think Pixies, think Charlatans, think Beastie Boys). It's all good fun. Staggered home at 4.30 in the morning and was completely sparko til the next morning

Then on Sunday I had a Mezzotints come round to practice for an acoustic gig tonight. I was acting as sound engineer/producer and recorded everything for them. After that we WERE gonna go back to 60 Million Postcards cos Hot Chip were doing a DJ set before playing at the Old Firestation. We were gonna head there for a sunday roast and check out their set (maybe slip them a CD of some of my band's stuff) but the recording went on for too long and I was too knackered! I hadn't eaten all day (couldn't face food) so by now I was starving. We ordered a take away curry and watched Clerks on DVD.

Monday was 'struggle at work' day. The weekend was starting to catch up with me but by the evening I was fine. Completely forgot about Lee's solo gig at The Portman until he texted me during my lunch break. Told Lisa and we HAD to go to that. Lisa had an interview for a new job. Lee's gig was cool - pretty empty but that's kinda better cos people actually listen to the music instead of chatting all over it.
Other acts included Si Genero's final gig EVER (I think he said he's going to America next week apparently). I missed the last act (Stuart O'Connor) cos I was knackered and wanted to go home.

On Tuesday night was the acoustic Mezzotints gig at Centre Stage. Other acts playing that night were Steven W Lake from A & E Line, and Stuart O'Connor once again. Stuart played first this time so I actually got a chance to hear him. Pretty darn good I thought. Utilising loop pedals to great effect. After him Steven W Lake played what I think he said was his first solo gig and he said he was "shitting himself". He had nothing to worry about cos his usual quirky creative genius saw him through. His short films were being projected onto the screen behind him while he sang randomly and experimentally over his piano playing. Cool. After him was the Mezzo's with their set of 7 songs. They too were nervous. Their usual front-man, Ben, sat out of the first 5 songs and then was beckoned onto stage by Mooro for the last two. Considering they only had 4 hours practice (at my place) they sounded alright I thought! After the set Me, Scott, James and Lee were discussing what actions to take with Blind Voyeurs and decided to book our first gig!! Woohoo!! Now we have something to work towards. We set the date for January 4th 2007 so put it in your diary folks! We've got something special lined-up for you!

And last night I spent most of my evening experiment with video footage and creating test demo's with Premier Pro. I also had a wicked Chinese take-away with Lisa!... and now I'm knackered! Not going out tonight that's for sure!