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!

Yesterday sucked!

Man, I had the shittest day yesterday. Everything went wrong! Ok fair enough it wasn't anything major like getting run over (although I almost did!) or getting blown up or anything like that. It was just all the little annoying things. I can handle one or two annoying thinges but it was pretty much everything.

I didn't sleep well the night before - it took me ages to fall asleep and I kept waking up.

Work bugged me - everytime I tried to attempt a solution to a problem I'd get a phone call or email about another problem. I was working my arse off and getting nothing done. I even put my phone on Do Not Disturb at one point and then people started ringing the phone on the desk next to me - when I picked it up the person on the other end would say "Do you know you're phone was on Do Not Disturb?" NO SHIT!!!

I was farting like fuck! Well, I would've been but I have a social morality issue about farting in the office so I hold it in. This causes me to have tummy ache! I had to either wait until I went to the loo or until I got home. It's cos I've been eating healthily - Oats for breakfast, Wholemeal bread etc. When I got home and finally deflated it was embarressing. I mean, sure everyone loves a home brew but when you find even YOURSELF offended you know you're in trouble.

There was also a weird atmosphere between me and Lisa (no, it wasn't the farting!) I dunno what it was but I just felt like I couldn't relax or crack jokes like usual. There wasn't any arguments but I just felt distant. She was cool though - we just needed the evening to ourselves. Everything's fine now though.

There was even niggly little things. Like everytime I had a cup of tea and dunked some biscuits at least one biscuit per cuppa would break off and land in my tea! How annoying?!?

I'm putting it down to SAD (or Seasonal Affective Disorder) I think we all get it to a certain extent but yesterday it kicked my ass.

Mezzotints Last Thursday

...at the Portman pub. It was good!

There was also True Swamp Neglect and Shyhawks.. pics of that up as soon as I've stopped getting problems with the Flickr uploader!!

Read a review of it HERE on bhone.co.uk.

Bogey the Glasshopper

I was just here at work seeing if it had stopped raining and I spotted this little fella on our window. We named him Bogey because he's green! I don't know how he got up here cos this is on a first floor window... and there's no grass outside - it's a carpark!

Ten minutes after this shot was taken it started chucking it down and he was washed off the window and was hanging onto the window sill for dear life! He survived the torential downpour and gailforce winds until it died down and then he chilled out until he dried and then hopped off.

FIRE!! ... well, next door anyway!

Last Wednesday there was a fire in one of the flats in the house next door to Lisa's! We heard the alarm going off but it sounded like a car alarm. We only knew it was a fire when we walked out of the garden to go to the shop and saw the people living next door stood outside on the phone and trying to turn the alarm off. When we got to the corner of our road we saw 2 fire engines rushing to the scene!! We were like wtf?!? Anyway, we casually carried on to get some wine and when we came back they were still there.

Apparently it was a frying pan fire. The guy who lived in the flat fell asleep (He was obviously stoned - being an ex-kaner I know what people look like kaned!) and all he was concerned about was how did they get in cos he was sure he locked his door. He was trying to find out who kicked his door open and seemed more pissed off about that than the fact that his life was saved!! Geez, some people!!!

The Weekend (22nd-24th)

Jesus what a hectic weekend! Was planning to have a chilled one this week but NOOOOO! Social events just kept piling on top of each other and it woulda bee rude not to attend!

First up: Friday. Kim and Paul were down for a couple of days and wanted a catch up with friends and family (and monkeys too - they went to Monkey World!) She rang up a couple of days before to organise a small night out at 60 Million Postcards in Bournemouth. The place used to be Edwards. It still pretty much looks the same - same sorta lay-out - but with new decor and much better music taste. We got there a bit late cos I cooked us a pasta bake and it didn't finish cooking til 7:50 and we were meant to be there at 8:30!! Kim taught me how to make kick-ass pasta bake 3 years ago. Tonight my pasta bake tasted kick-ass!!

After feeding (and drinking a whole bottle of Pinot Grigio between us) we jumped on the next bus into town to meet Kim, Paul, Kirsty and new boyfriend, Glenn. I'd met Glenn briefly at Castlepoint a couple of months back. He's a sound bloke, really nice. Doesn't seem like Kirsty's usual type in that this one's NOT a complete selfish arsehole that will shit on her and drain her of her last penny! She needs someone like this and has said to me loads "Why can't I find someone who's just nice??" I hope they stay together. We got very drunk (no no... VERY DRUNK), caught up on the gossip, had a bit of a dance and took loads of mental pictures like these...

Me and Lisa decided to go home early ... well, I say early but we actually left at around 1am and didn't get back home til around 2ish. We walked home via a garage to grab some nosh to soak up the booze. We went the back roads back past a lot of the blocks of flats that Lisa used to deal with. One of them was a converted hotel and the reception area still looks like a hotel foyer from the 50's...

The rest of the pics are HERE...
Saturday morning I woke up with the worlds worst hangover knowing that I've got to go to my mum's at around 11ish!! Nightmare! I told her that I had a bit of a hangover and to expect me to be a "bit tired" and she was cool about it. Stayed there for a couple of hours doing a few chores here and there and ate some stew. She seemed to be in a relatively good mood despite all her usual aches and pains. At around 2:30ish I set off to get home - I wanted to meet up with Lisa in Boscombe. She stayed at mine hoping to have a couple extra hours kip but had a phonecall from Jen reminding her about the Harley Davidson ralley in Bournemouth (I think it was by the pier) so she had to go that. Initially she went begrudgingly cos she didn't want to let Jen down but by the end she was glad she went. She had a wicked time and it cleared her hangover... for a bit at least. We met up in Lansdowne and went to Costa Coffee for a refresher. Lisa had a Hot Chocolate with marshmallows (yuk!) and I wanted one of those fruity drinks I had before. I went for a Raspberry one. When I got it it turned out to be a raspberry milkshake and NOT the juicy fruit drink I was hoping. I stuck with it for a while but was not feeling the love so Lisa got me the Summer Fruits juice drink I really wanted! Yippee!!!

I know, check out
the bags under our eyes!

We got back to try and have a nap but that didn't really happen - I think we both got about 20 mins sleep before we had to get up and get ready to go out again and get pissed!!!

Tonight we had a birthday party to go to. My former housemate Kate White has turned 30 along with a lot of my friends recently - including me (although, mine was in January!) Plan was to go to Bar Vin for a couple of drinks and then moving onwards to Cagney's for the very last Room 101. Me and Lisa got to Bar Vin before everyone else even thought we were actually 30 mins late from the arranged time. in fact we were there a good 20 - 30 mins before everyone else and the way we were feeling from the night before we were thinking of going home and just hitting the bed. But then everybody arrived and drinks did floweth (I had couple lagers, Southern Comfort & lemonade and JD & coke). Was introduced to some new people including Sarah's new girlfriend, Lisa. She's absolutely lovely and hope it works out for them both (YAY! About time too, Sarah!!)

Cagney's was absolutely crammed full of people. Most of them have really dressed for the occasion. Room 101 has a retro Mod feel to it so there were guys in sharp suits (think Style Council) and girls in 60's mini-dresses. The music was great too. I'd been there before a couple of times in the past and it's been practically dead so it was good to see it packed. Drinks did floweth again (4 lagers, a shot of tequila and a shot of apple schnapps!)

Once again we left at 1ish and shared a taxi with Sarah & Lisa. Got home at 1:30ish to see Mooro and Alex leaving our flat just as we were going in. Had a little chat and said our goodbyes and went upstairs. Kim, Paul, Gary and Simone were still here! Gary and Scott were doing some weird experimental photography involving slow shutter speeds, movement and light... so I got involved in that. We were kinda hoping to go straight to bed once we got home but we soon shrugged off the tiredness once we started chatting again. Here's a few pics of that...

continued...

Richard Hammond in Hospital!

Little Richard!

Oh my god! Last night during the 10 o'clock news a report came over that Richard 'the hamster' Hammond, one of the presenters of Top Gear, was in hospital after a serious crash while recording the show. He was driving a jet powered car at around 300MPH when then thing veered off to one side and rolled leaving him uncouncious with serious head injuries. All three of us (me, Lisa, Scott) were totally shocked!!

First thing I did this morning is check out the BBC News website to see what the latest is - this morning his condition was 'improving' and now (at the time of writing this) his condition is 'stable' Read more about it HERE...

Get well soon, Hammy.

Speaking of cars (and stuff), Lamborghini have unveiled the new Gallardo Nera! Just look at this beauty!

Supergrass

... And cut finger £2.99. We just went to Choices to take back Star Wars Lego ... 3 days late. Had to pay a fine of £1.45. I thought it would've been more but nope! They had the new one there so we HAD to rent it out. While I was doing that Scott was rummaging around the ex-rental DVD's box and spotted a film he likes called The Supergrass. I'd never seen it myself but he had to make the purchase.

...oh and he cut his finger at work on a knife while cutting a roll at lunch!

Second test blog

Walking along the drive this morning with a fresh 2 pints of milk. My breakfast would've been dry without it!!

First test blog from K800i

My computer desk at home! About 9:00 last night!!

NEW PHONE !!!!

My wicked new phone...
The Sony Ericcson K800i

Yay!! I've got a new mobile phone!! Just as I was leaving work yesterday and struggling with my keys, sunglasses, sunglasses case, coat and trying to close the window at the same time - I got a call from Carphone Warehouse informing me that I am now able to upgrade my new phone. I thought it was odd, and was starting to wonder whether it was a prank call, because I went into Carphone Warehouse a couple of weeks ago and they said I couldn't get an upgrade until October 11th. The bloke must've just read the date wrong cos it actually said September 11th!!!

I pretty much quick marched it to Carphone Warehouse in Boscombe and asked if I could upgrade. She asked me if there was a phone I had in mind and without hesitation I said "Oh yesssss, the Sony Ericcson K800i thankyouverymuch!!!" She tapped away at the PC and checked whether I could upgrade to that and she said I could as long as I altered my contract to a 18 month contract (instead of 12) and that I have 200 free minutes talk time and 100 free texts for £25 per month (instead of £20 per month - which was what I was paying for my Motorola Razr v3) It actually was going to be saving me money as I was paying far too much in calls and texts! Try £40+ per month!!!

After skipping home with my lovely new phone and charging it for 2.5 hours (just like it said in the Quickstart Manual) I slung in my SIM card and started to play! I must admit I'm a bit of a Somy Ericcson fanboy. I used to have the T610 and the K700 and loved every minute of owning one. But last year I thought I'd try something new and went for Motorola. I was a fool! I shoulda known!! My first mobile phone I ever had was a Motorola Memphis (Just checked Google and it's actually called the MR201) and, although I was excited about having it cos it was my first phone, WAS A PILE OF SHIT!!!!!

The Motorola MR201
Not an actual picture of my phone...
I ripped this pic from eBay!!

And ever motorola I'd seen afterward (whether it belonged to friends or saw it in a shop) was also shit and never innovated. So what made me decide to go for the Razr V3? The fact that it looked cool! To be fair it's not a bad phone, y'know. I did enjoy having it. But after owning a K700 it felt like a step backwards.

Now I'm back with Sony Ericcson and, to be honest, I'm totally blown away with how cool it is. It's got enough built in memory to hold a couple albums worth of music. It's got a build in radio. It has a 3.1 Mega pixel camera in it - with flash, macro, zoom, and lots of other cool stuff. Only yesterday I posted a blog about how I miss having a decent camera. Now I'm back in action. The photos won't be the same quality of a proper digital camera but it's not far off. I can also do direct posts to this Blog from that phone!! Aceness!!! So expect to see little posts above this one from my phone in the next ten minutes. WORD!

Sunny Monday

Y'know, it's been forecast to be really rubbish weather today! But it ain't! It's actually really hot and sunny. Just like it was over the weekend just gone. Yet again the forecast was for storms and rain etc but instead it's been clear blue skies and blazing sunshine! Brucey bonus. Gives me a chance to top-up my alreadying fading summertime suntan.

Granted, I'm stuck in the office right now but on Sunday I was at a car-boot sale in Swindon taking in all the suns harmful rays while nursing a hangover by eating a lovely greasy bacon and egg roll! Nothin' was bought at the car-boot sale, although I almost bought a polaroid camera. I just stopped myself from getting it cos I remembered I've got one kicking around somewhere at my mums. I love the look of polaroid photos. They give a different feel to fond memories somehow. The problem with Polaroid photos is that the film is stooooopidly expensive.

Y'see? I'm even thinking about my Polaroid again because of my lack of digital camera!! AAAAARGH this is driving me NUTS!!!!

Feel like shit today!!!

Last night I didn't get to sleep til about 4:30 - 5am this morning!! I had the worlds worst indigestion and heartburn known to man! It must've been something to do with what I ate at 11:30! Basically for dinner at about 7:00 I cooked us a massive baton-roll filled with sausages and relish with a side order of chips. The roll was so big I only ate half of it and finished off the chips and thought I'd leave the rest til later. I'm not sure what time I ate the second half of the roll but I think it was around 11:30. We were watching 9/11 Farenheit on More4 and I really didn't know what time it was. Also some of the imagery was pretty fuckin gross and freaked me out a bit!! That was playing on my mind while I was trying to sleep.

This morning when my alarm was going off I hit Snooze 4 times and then switched it off but didn't get up til 8:58!! I was gonna ring in sick but though "Fuck it, man. I'm only tired!" and stumbled into work at 9:20. And like the subject says - I feel like absolute shit today!

Still, We've got a band practice later so hopefully that will cheer me up - I just hope I'm not snappy!!

Lee Ditcher's Solo Gig

Me, Lisa and Scott went to The Portman pub last night to give some support to Lee Ditcher (of Lounge). It was his first solo gig in 2 years and he was playing all new material - none of the lounge stuff. We completely forgot all about it until I suddenly remembered and told the guys. We'd all had are heart set on staying in and chilling out but we did promise Lee that we'd be there for him, and I really wanted to check it out.

We left the flat at about 9ish. When we got there Connie told us that quite a few people had pulled out. But that was a bonus for the other acts cos it means they get more stage time. The Green Room was completely packed so we sat out in the bar for a bit until Lee came on. Connie told everyone on the mic that "...members of Blind Voyeurs are in the bar drinking sherrys!" Arf!

Lee played quite late (2nd from headlining I think) and did really well. I couldn't tell whether he was nervous or buzzing with adrenaline (or both) but hew pulled out a great performance... despite Scott and I heckling to "Do your chores!" and "Play it from the heart!" He saw the funny side of it. He played 5 songs, each of which were good songs ranging from pretty up-tempo to slow numbers. One of the slow ones had a 3/3 time signature that threw Scott for a while but once I counted it out he got it.

After saying our goodbye's to Lee and commending his work we set off for home. It wasn't until we got outside that we realised how tipsy we were!! Finally got home and chilled out with some sounds from Scott's iPod before hitting the sack at about 11:30ish.

Wales

Goddamm it I wish my camera worked properly. Need to buy a new one!

Went to Wales with Lisa a while back for a bit of a holiday. We stayed at lisa's parents for first two nights, went camping for another 2 nights and stayed at lisa's parents for next two nights!

Came home!

That's it!

Like I said, I wish my camera worked cos I can't even begin to explain what we did. I could of told you about when we ate fish & chips in the official worlds best fish & chips restaurant! (My God it was amazing!) Or about the time our tent almost got blown off of a cliff face in the middle of the night with us in it during a massive storm! Then there's the day I went for a walk along some amazingly picturesque rapids and waterfalls. Or I could tell you all about when we visited the worlds smallest city (it's basically a village that just happens to have a cathedral - therefore it's officially a city)! I could've shown you my fear when I was taken for a walk along a clifftop trek that was 200 feet above violent waves and rocks with the path literally 6 inches away from a sheer drop in gale force winds!!! Or I could've shown you the milky way that I saw for the first time because there was no light polution from nearby streetlights - beautiful!

But alas, I have no photographic evidence. Well, ok I've got some pictures on my phone but for some unknown reason the Motorola Photo Tools software that comes with the phone has decided to stop working and therefore cannot retrieve all the pictures! Gah!

Instead I'll show you a picture of my make of phone and you can imagine it's my phone and that you can see all the lovely pictures I took in low quality, badly compressed VGA jpegs. *sigh!*

V Festival 2006

On the 18th and 19th August we went to the V Festival in Weston Park, Staffordshire. Kim and Paul came down from Leeds and Gary and Simone went up to stay with them a couple of night before hand and then went to the festival with them. I went up there with Lisa, Lottie and Scott in Lisa's car. Lisa's got a Peugeot 205 and it woulda been a squeeze with just me and Lisa with all our stuff but we also had Scott and Lottie in the back with all there stuff too!!!! They had a ton of stuff in the middle of the seat between them and a ton of stuff on their laps. Sleeping bags, dufel bags, carrier bags, they had food, they had alcahol, they had little fold-away stools, jackets and jumpers incase it got cold on the way.... you name it, they were buried in it. You literally couldn't see them for stuff!

On the way up about 2.5 hours into the journey we stopped off at a Little Chef near Reading. While we were here we texted to check up on the others, y'know to find out if they were there yet, to see if they're saved us a space and to let them know where we were. On the returning text we were told that they were already there, had saved up a space and that it was a mudbath. Great!!! A mudbath! Now I went to Glastonbury during one of they're roughest years (I think it was in '97 - I never can remember, that's how wasted I got!) so I was quite prepared for it and knew what to expect. Lisa, on the other hand, had not been to a festival before. She'd gone to the Isle Of Wight festival but she didn't sleep over in a text. She just had a day ticket. So I was kinda worried more for her than anything.

After waiting for nearly an hour for really shit food at a stupidly high price we set off back on the road. We decided not to take the M6 around Birmingham, instead we took to a couple of A-Roads around the other way through Kidderminster. It was actually better going this way cos we had better senery and more interesting surroundings to drive through (such as deep red rock cliffs, castles and general countryside) - it's a lot better than being on a monotonous 3 lane road going in a straight line. Anyway we got arrived to the queue for the festival and was let in and parked pretty quickly - I'd say within 15 minutes! The weather was ok when we got there - no rain just clouds and just a little mud. We found out that they were just winding us up about it being a mudbath! Gits! From here I'm gonna let the pics do the talking....

Paul on the phone to me telling me it's a mud-bath!


The V2006 gang!
(l-r:Paul, Simone, Kim, Lottie, Scotty, Gary, Lisa, Me!)


Inflating the 9 foot whale


Inflated!!!


Lisa loving Kula Shaker


Kripsin from Kula Shaker


Lisa having a pee with our protection!!


We Are Scientists


Radiohead's Thom Yorke

For more pics check out the Flickr Photoset