Facebook

Yep! That's me addicted, too!!

Everyone's been banging on about it fo rthe last couple of months but I had a look, didn't get it, and shyed away back to MySpace again. But now I've given it a proper go and I'm hooked!! Typical!

The funny thing is, just as I'd signed up and started using it properly, there was a feature about it on Richard & Judy. At one point they were interviewing random people in the street and some were saying they had, like, 400 friends! They must be using it like Myspace where you add random people because they're fit or they're a band or whatever. I'm gonna be using it just to keep in touch with people I know, I reckon.

Lisa's Birthday

It was Lisa's Birthday on Thursday 21st. I had the day off work so we could spend the day together. I bought her a pink iPod Shuffle - she loved it! She couldn't wait to wake up on Thursday so I let her open it on Wednesday night after midnight. Everytime she looks at it she forgets how small it is!

Also on Thursday, Simone Hudsbith finally gave birth to her first child - Amelie Jane Hudsbith. Congrats to her and Gary. So that's two people I know's birthday's that fall on the Summer Solstice. Speaking of which I woulda liked to have gone this year but the nasty weatherman told us it was gonna rain... but it didn't. Nevermind, we had a great day anyway.

Simone's not the only one to have a new addition to the family. Me and Lisa got ourselves a kitten. She's a little bit older at 6 Months (she was born on the 29th January 2007 - 9 days after my birthday!) and she's a mental bundle of loveable fluff. Completely dizzy and has mad spells - but on the flipside she comes looking for cuddles. Perfect.

Last night me and Lisa sent out a round robin text go get some people to come out for a pint at the Malt & Hops to celebrate Lisa's birthday. It was a bit last minute - we were expecting rain - so it was a small affair. Rachel turned up first. We hit the pool table for a couple of games. Then Kate and Glen turned up - they got the taxi. Had a few more games of pool. We were just getting into the swing of things and ready for some serious drinking when they called time at the bar! No fair. So me and Lisa went back to Lisa's flat with Glen and Kate to have a couple more drinks and introduce them to our new cat and watch a bit of Rambo II on the tele. Top night.

Big Brother 8

Anybody watching Big Brother this year at all?? Nah, me neither. I've caught a few episodes here and there but it's not grabbing me! But I will say this, when I saw that Chanelle, the posh spice wannabe, walk into the house I thought to myself "She looks like someone but can't think who!!" The obvious thing would be to say that she looks like Posh Spice (well, that's what she want) but no!

It wasn't until I read Limmy's blog that it all became clear. in fact he hit the nail on the head. She looks like B'ellana Torres from Star Trek:Voyager. Look....


B'ellana Torres


Chanelle from Big Brother


Spooky isn't it!! All Chanelle needs is the Mars Bar forehead and a deep tan and she's spot on!

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.

Music on the blog...

I wanted to find a way of being able to post music on this blog. Not so that it plays automatically but so I can talk about a particular tune and then have a link where you can either download it or listen to it in a stream.

After a bit of searching around I signed up to podbean.com. They mainly specialise in podcasting so it made me think it might be a good idea to have short podcasts every now and again. I was thinking could cast a couple of tracks of what I've been listening to this month or a recording of a gig I've been to or whatever. And because I've signed up with podbean it'll also be available to download via iTunes and put onto your iPod. Interesting.

Sat on the blog...

Fuck me it's been such a long time since my last post that I decided to start this post off with a four-letter f-word shocker!!

So what have I been up to exactly. Well, since my last post (the one about my lovely new macbook) I've been up to Wales to see Lisa's parents. We must've brought bad luck with us cos during the course of our stay we witnessed a sheep giving a difficult birth, a tree falling down across their neighbour's driveway and their TV packed in! Since we left Wales we've heard that their fridge and dishwasher had packed in too!! Oh dear.

Lisa's taken back the goldfish. Me and Scott have been looking after her goldfish for about a year and now Lisa decided that she'd like to have her around her place for a bit. I'm not bothered mind, but I kinda miss the little bugger swimming around in the corner of our lounge.

During the weekend just gone, Lisa and I drove up to Worth Matravers to see James and co for a birthday drink. James, Emma, Potts, Summer and friends were staying at a cottage for the weekend to have a murder mystery weekend. I was invited (along with Lisa, Scott and Lottie) to go too but none of us could afford it. Anyway, we went to this little pub called Square & Compass. It's a great pub with great atmosphere. There's chickens wandering around the grounds, people playing harmonica and guitar, some people go there to make sculptures, real ales straight out of the barrel and it had the worlds smallest bar (I don't know if it's actually the official worlds smallest bar but it was pretty darn small!) Such a chilled out hippy vibe. Loved it.

My band, Blind Voyeurs have just released a YouTube channel called Blind Voyeurs TV (or BVTV for short) and it will eventually have lots of video clips of us lot. We're planning on having clips of gigs, clips of us practicing and generally larking about. Right now we've only got two videos uploaded but that's only cos we've just got started. In the favourites section we will have a whole load of videos that we like from some of our favorite and influential bands. If you get bored or there's nothing else on TV head on over there to see what we've got. If you've got your own YouTube channel add us as friends or subscribe to our channel to keep up to date.

one word... MACBOOK!

Yep, that's right folks. I've just bought a new macbook! And, after playing with it for only a short amount of time I have to say that I absolutely LOVE IT!! Coming from being a PC user for about 12 years it's pretty obvious that I've got a lot to learn but when it comes to computers I'm a fast learner. What suprised me most about when I opened the box was the lack of massive thick manuals! And after switching on and going through the usual 'new user' intro stuff I could begin to see why. Everything is totally intuitive. I'm still finding it weird just having one mouse button but I'll soon get the hang of that.

I'll mainly use it for music production. It already comes packed with Garagebands (a piece of software that Matt told me he uses for Tex La Homa) but I'm hoping to get Logic Pro as I'm planning on doing some seriously thorough manipulation. So the more control I have the better. I'll also probably use it a bit for video production, web design, photoshopping and blogging.

But this all stuff which will take me at least the next month or so to get my teeth into. Right now, I'm just gonna explore what I can do with it straight out of the box and go from there. This next week or so will be just simple tasks such as writing and playing DVDs, manipulating photos and surfing the net.

Chk Chk Chk at The Thekla, Bristol

On Saturday 24th March, Scott, James, Rob and myself went up to Bristol to see Chk Chk Chk. I have to quite honestly say that it was one of the best gigs I've EVER been to. The gig was originally being held at Bristol University but got moved to The Thekla - which is a ship converted into a night club/live music venue - because one of the stage lights had fallen the day before and work was being done. James drove us up there in his Clio and we had to suffer the wrath of Scott's smelly arse all the way up there!

We stopped off at the Crown Pub just outside Bath on the way to Bristol for a meal and a pint cos we were starving. The pub was dead and our food still wasn't in front of us 45 mins later!
After I complained our food finally arrived. My burger looked like it had been barbecued, the cheese had evaporated and the salad was hot! It was obvious the food wad been stood under those heater lights waiting to be taken to our tables for about half an hour!!

This is our feedback!...



When we eventually arrived in Bristol we had to start looking for a hotel or hostel to crash in cos there was no way were were gonna drive back after the gig. We went into pretty much every main hotel in the city... well, when I say WE what I meant to say was I as I was the one sat in the from passenger seat. Rob and Scott were in the back and we were in a 3 door car so it was easier for me to do all the negotiation. We were looking for a couple of twin rooms - that is a room with two beds. But we figured we could probably get away with getting just one twin room and then sneak the other two in to sleep on the floor. We eventually found a place (Premier Travel Inn) that was doing Double rooms with pull out beds sleeping a total of 4 people for only £55 a night. Wicked skills!! Me and James got the room. We were given two keys so we kept one for us and gave a key to Rob and Scott to sneak in while we parked the car. The room was well bigger than we thought it was gonna be. It's actually a really good value place to kip - I was well surprised!!





When we got there all of us needed to 'christen' the en-suite with a turd from hell! Well, it was a long drive and, unlike Scott, we held our farts! Anyway... this is getting gross!

We headed for the Thekla and luckily it was just a straight walk from the hotel towards the city centre and we were there. The Thekla was probably one of the weirdest venues I'd ever been too but after I got my head around the weirdness of it all it turned out to be such a wicked idea!! I want one in Bournemouth!!!





The first band we saw were Blood Red Shoes. They were ok - nothing special. Kinda like the opposite of the White Stripes. Girl on guitar singing, boy on the drums ... also singing. Booze was nice and cheap. It was a student hang out.

Eventually, Chk Chk Chk came on stage and we were stood right at the front. I can't really express how fuckin good this gig was, man. I've got a few pics and some video clips but it doesn't really explain how good it was. You just had to be there. Band members were swapping instruments and just jamming, lots of interaction with the crowd, crowd surfing...although this was accidental. One of the singers was stood on the edge of the stage and got pulled into the crowd. He was surprised but after a couple of seconds was loving it giving a 'bring it on' gesture to his band mates. When he eventually surfed back onto the stage he was dropped on the middle monitor speaker and landed on his back!! Later on in the evening he was stood next to me during the DJ set and I asked him how his back is. He said "Right now I feel fine - I dosed up on painkillers and tequilla" I laughed and said "Man, you're gonna feel that in the morning!" He agreed.






After Chk Chk Chk had finished their set the crowd were whipped up into a hyper-active frenzy. Plea's for "More" and "Encore" were ignored as the sound engineers and roadies started taking apart all the equipment and packing stuff away. After it was obvious that they'd finished their set people grouped at the bar and chilled. They'd certainly left the place in a buzz.

On wondering where to go to next, Rob asked some random person if they could recommend any other clubs to go to. It just so happened that this person was they guy who organised the night at The Thekla! He said jokinly to Rob "Y'know technically I could take that as an insult in that you're literally saying that you'd rather be somewhere else!" But he knew we were only asking cos we thought that the night was over. It wasn't! The bass player was about to start DJing. And he played an AMAZING set!!

That was followed by another touring band called The Mules. They were pretty cool. A bit rock-a-billy-ish, they would be good for Fish Seeks Bicycle. They weren't amazing but after a couple of songs and people started to get what they're about everyone was dancing. The main star of the band was obviously the drummer. He was also the singer and obviously the song-writer. I didn't take any photos of them but if you go to their MySpace you'll see pics and hear some tunes.

Knowing that the clocks were going forwad that night we decided at about 3:40 that it might be a good idea to head back to the hotel! Bearing in mind the DST factor the time was in actual fact 4:40 and we had to get up at 8 to head home! We eventually only had about 3 hours sleep! All too evident in the following picture!



On the way home James was starting to feel the effects of the hangover so stopped for a breather! Unfortunately, the field right behind him had just had muck-spreading so it wasn't really the best place to stop!! If anything it woulda made him feel MORE sick. I know it did for me. We were not happy!




But we got home safely and the first thing I did was have some cereal (cos I hadn't eaten) and then went to bed for about 4 hours before heading off to Southampton to see Lounge play at The Joiners!!

Joiners Gig for Blind Voyeurs

Yet again, I've not updated in a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time - so I'd best fill people in on what's been going on!

My band, Blind Voyeurs, had a gig at The Joiners Arms, Southampton supporting Maps and The Longcut. Tone from BHONE has done a full review of the gig. The nigth went really well and we had a great reception from people who had never heard of us before. One guy said we blew away the headline act! I wouldn't have said so in my opinion but thanks all the same.


Taken on my mobile during soundcheck









Below is an 8 minute video clip from the gig taken by Tone from BHone. In it we're playing The Christening followed by Pale Blue Dot. Apologies for the darkness of the clip!

Karoke at the Malt and Hops

...with a rebel yell

Photoblog 2 - Bournemouth Rally 2007

On Friday 23rd Feb we went to watch the first stage of Bournemouth's annual Sunseeker Rally at Bournemouth Gardens. This stage is just a short run the gardens towards the pier and then on the coastal road along East Cliff towards Boscombe Pier. I went down there with Lisa, Jen, Scott, James and Emma. Lisa was loving every minute of it and was in her element. I was enjoying it but not as much because it was freezing, it started to rain and couldn't see anything properly. So after about an hour we left Lisa and Jen to it and headed off to 60 Million Postcards for a nice pint or two.

As the gardens were all boxed off we had to walk the long way around - around The Pavilion, towards The Square and round past The Moon In The Square. When we got The Moon we realised that we shoulda come here first cos all the cars were lining up here waiting to get the green light to race. I sent a picture message to Lisa to show what was going on and told her to get her arse over here!!

Time for pics...




Belive it or not there IS a car in this pic...
...it's just going too fast to capture it!


What we saw outside The Moon







And now a couple of video clips pasted together
in one glorious YouTube bonanza...



We finally got to 60 Million Postcards, bought some drinks and sat down in the big comfy leather chairs. We the realised that we coulda come in here all along and watched it from here cos it was all happening just outside the window!



...and then the copious drinking commenced! Don't remember much from this point. The only point of reference was from the photos left lingering in the memories of phones and cameras. Without these I woulda forgotten that people were taking turns to shave my head!... ok apart from the fact the I woulda woken up the next morning with found that my hair was substantially shorter that I remember! Anyway, here's some more pics of that night...

Photoblog 1 - Weekend at Charlies...

On the weekend of 17th Feb me and Lisa trekked up to Newbury to stay at Charlie's for the night. We hadn't seen them in a while and originally were going to go to a relative's Christening but Eastender-style friends/family feuds got in the way! So instead we went up there and got pissed on about 3 bottles of wine. The medication for my tooth had finished the day before so I had the all clear to drink booze! We started drinking at about 5:00 in the afternoon and carried on til about 1am. We all got hooked on the Wii. It's so true about how the Wii has converted non-gamers to it's charms. It's not overly complicated, it's not mindlessly violent, it's just simple fun. No really ... it is! If you haven't tried one yet get yourslef round someone's house who does. Get lots of wine or beer in and order a pizza cos you're guarenteed to a good 4 or 5 hours of solid fun!


Fudge - the cutest cat EVER!


James pretending to be a dog!


Charlie drinking like a lady


Showing Claire how to play Golf on the Wii


This was all I can see from where I was sat!

New toy!!

Yesterday our band's new toy arrived. The Boss SP-303 sampler. I've got one thing to say - it's wicked! You can do sooooo much with a sample once you've got it in the memory. It's so easy to mess up and distort and twist sounds completely out of recognition. For example last night I was just sampling me saying something random into a microphone taking small sections of the sample and looping them forwards and backwards and mashing it up with weird effects! One of my favourite FX is the 'Lo-Fi' effect. It emulates a real basic 8-bit sampler, sounds much like an SK-5. And then there's the 'Radio Tuner' effect that makes it sound like some sorta detuned radio. Oh and the 'Vinyl Simulator' with adds crackle and flutter to a sound to make it feel like it's coming off a record! Amazing. Now all I have to do is learn how to use it properly! For more information read THIS.

Floppy Disks are dead?

I've just read a news article on the BBCNews site saying that PC World are no longer going to stock 3.5" Floppy Disks. You can see why though. What with the internet and people needing to store larger sized files the humble old floppy can no longer cope as a file transer or file back-up device. And it's an all too familiar sight to see a pile of floppies sat inactive on a dusty corner of at least 3 people's desk in the office. But I've got to say that I'll kinda miss that blue square of data storage.

I even remember having my first EVER floppy. It was a demo disk on the cover of Issue 13 of Amiga Format and had a demo of a game called Cadaver on it. I didn't even own an Amiga at this time. I knew that my Dad had promised to get me one for Chirstmas so I started collecting the magazines. I think I read that magazine from cover to cover several times and sat there looking at my new disk at all angles. How very very sad of me!

But they did represent the cutting edge of technology at that time. I remember the clunk clunk clunk kkrkrkkrkrkkr rkkrrkrkrkkr noises of Commodore's wonky 3.5" drives (yep I had 2 drives on my machine!), echoing now like voices from a lost Jerusalem. By which I mean a lost age of rampant piracy, boot sector viruses and gurus, meditating. Pictured is the BSOD-like nightmare presented to Amiga users when floppy read operations failed (among many other things.) Ahhh good times...

Getting to the root of the problem...

Admitting that you've got bad teeth is something people don't generally like to do. I don't want to even say it myself but I'm starting to suffer. About 2 weeks ago I started getting a constant tooth pain in my top right molar. Lisa said I should go see the dentist. I ignored her at first thinking it would go away but it didn't, it got worse. So I had to set up an emergency and appointment with the dentist.

He took an X-ray and compared it with an X-ray from about 10 months ago. It turned out I had an infection in the root and will eventually need root canal treatment. Great! Look forward to it already!! *sarcasm*

He gave me some amoxocilin and set me up for a two stage appointment for the root canal work. I don't think he gave me enough pills cos half way through the course my face started to swell up - only a little bit but it was noticable. During my 'swell' time the pain started to go... but then I ran out of pills.

I rang up yesterday to get a repeat perscription. He wanted to check my tooth first (understandable - I coulda been a druggy hooked on antibiotics!) so set up an appointment at the end of the day at 4:30. I thought "yeah, no problem. All he wants to do is have a look. He'll see that the gum has gone red and swollen and that my face is bigger on the right side and scribble out a perscription instantly" but noooooo! He had to drill a whopping great hole in my molar without anaesthetic right the way down til "you can feel pain, Mr Beck" OUCH!!!!! My infection had turned into an abscess and needed to drain so he made a hole for it to drain through. I hope you're enjoying your lunch/dinner while you're reading this... cos I won't be for the next week. Everytime I try to eat something I'm in pain! But he gave me a course of Metronidazole which is a type of antibiotic that fights against bacterial infections and told me to come back in a week to fill the hole in.

Fingers crossed!

First Footy Match

Bournemouth V Leyton Orient

So I went to my first live footy match on Sunday. I was pretty excited.... but that was soon squashed after about 10 minutes. Basically, my flatmate (Scott) is an avid Leyton Orient fan and as I don't support anyone in particular me and Lisa thought it'd be fun to go watch them when they come down to Bournemouth to play. Everything was going well until Bournemouth scored... and then scored again... and again. Basically the final score was 5-0 to Bournemouth. We left after 60 mins!

Verdict: Footy matches are fun - but make sure you're supporting the winning side!

Louis Theroux back on TV

I'm so glad Louis Theroux is back on TV. After a good 2 or 3 years of nothing, except maybe the occassional watching of one of Scott's DVDs from past shows, it's great to see a new series on BBC2 Sunday's at 9 til 10. Coupled with Top Gear, that's on from 8 til 9 also on BBC2, this is 2 hours of Sunday evening television bliss.

Last nights episode kicked off the new series with Louis focussing his attentions to the gambling and gamblers of Las Vegas. There ia a podcast on the official BBC2 website HERE where Louis reflects on his experiences. There's also a couple of clips there too including a granny that has spunked $4million of her son's inheritance money in the last 10 years. And another clip of a guy who's been gambling for 26 hours straight, lost his 'winning streak' but still won't give up (also I reckon his awakeness is 'chemically enhanced'!)

Now that Torchwood has finished this will be my latest regular Sunday night viewing. Make sure you watch it too, the man's a genius!

EDIT: I've just found out that it's not a regular weekly programme! It was a one off! Nooooooooo!!!!!