Sightly more than a mouthful!

Wooo! What a weekend! A 12 hour bender! It's like being a student again!

After several pints whilst watching our brave chaps giving the Italians a swift and resounding kicking at the rugger we decided to go for an afternoon's constitutional and take in the sights and sounds of Camden Town's bustling bazaar, however after only a brief foray into the early evening sunlight we decided that the strain was too much and we would have to have "one for the road" in a passing public house. One, it seems means, three and a "constitutional" appears to imply staying in the pub and reading random tombs from yesteryear in some form of bastardised, alcohol fueled, Jakanory session, including expertly read passages from such literary masterworks as "Dude Woman" and "A Piper's Remorse"! After we had had our fill of popular literature we decided there was still time for our brisk walk in the nations capital, however our minds changed quickly when we realised it was dark and we couldn't be bothered. Instead we decided to gather the various constituents required for a game created only the previous night by several of our party who evidently had far too much time on their hands.

This game of skill was know only by the mysterious title of "Slightly more than a mouthful"! After buying a six pack of that bastion of drinking games, Fosters and a large quantity of vodka of a dubious quality we head back to the flat. Upon arrival the rules of the aforementioned game where spelled out to us in all their complexity. The complexity being you had to sit on the sofa, hands on knees with a tumbler in front of you on the floor, containing, as one might expect, slightly more than a mouthful of beer. The challenge was to drink the slightly over-sized shot down and place it back on the floor in the shortest time possible, a feat which sounds simple in theory but I assure is much more difficult in its execution!


Needless to say this game coupled with the dubious vodka lead to a comfortably high position on the funky inebriation scale. We soon left the flat and headed to what can only be described as the greatest club I have ever seen, a barely converted opera house with the worlds largest disco ball.


In the words of some great dude " 'nuff said ", anyway after some crazy dancing,



a game of stick in the mud, and large amounts of cheap sambuuca,


we returned home.

The next morning, to our utter shock, no one had a hangover. Proving once and for all that dancing and alcohol are good for you!


I rest my case!

Sia - Breath me

Not brand spanking new but a great chilled out tune! Nice to see she has made beautiful music away from Zero 7. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm a Twat and I'm a PC!

The recent Mac TV ads with Michelle and Webb are blatantly condescending and portray the the Mac user as somehow socially superior to us lowly PC users, I could go on a massive rant about this but Charlie Brooker beat me to it! read the hilarious rant here!

David Ford - State of the Union

The web 2.0 in a nutshell!

Found this video on a tour of youtube! Really interesting description of how the new shape of the web came about and how it will change things! Anyway watch it and make up your own mind!

The legacy of Salford......

Ahhh well that was another great weekend in London! Come on England! About time we beat someone at something! Was good to see Mike again, we schemed more about moving to Manchester and starting a property empire and also managed to book up every free weekend of mine from now until I move to Manchester! I hate free time anyway I never know what to do with myself, a legacy of Salford uni I guess! God I am so glad I never have to go through that hell ever again! WoooooHooooo!

Any excuse

We rarely need an excuse to party! Last weekend I was in Cambridge with Lou, Ben, Alice and Ruth and this weekend I was there with Mike, Lou and Ben! We had a f'in excellent time, went to a rock club, alienated Lou's friends (who to be fair ain't the rocking type) the preceded to mosh our rocks off to fall out boy and disturbed! Haven't had that much fun since the days of the Leicester fan club! More of it I say! MMMMMMMMMWWWAAAAAHAHA!

From hectic to boring and back again via a lot of procrastination!

Yes it has been awhile and yes I always say I will blog more but that last few months have been all over place, from hectic to boring and back again via a lot of procrastination. My last post was just after me and my girlfriend had broken up. That was a confusing time, went though the classic "We're gonna be the best of friends" phase to the "I hate you so much right now" phase and then through the protracted "I really should have a reason to be angry at her so should rehearse as many arguments as possible" (that one was a brain melter!) to finally excepting that us breaking up was for the best and things are much better now than they would have been if we'd dragged it out (flogging a dead horse and all that).
So that mental fuzz boxing went on for a few months and in the mean time to my great surprise I passed my driving test (with 2 minors - Get in!), moved to Suffolk, started my job and finished my dissertation! That was a horrendous experience in itself. I came home from work every night, made dinner, watched the news then sat at my desk and crunched numbers. It was decidedly half arsed number crunching however, when I finally managed to secure a week off work to "write up" the results of my 3 months of computations I realised that they were all completely useless! So in classic student style I researched, analysed and wrote up my entire dissertation in a week. 20,000 words of grade A bull digestive by-product! Handing it in felt surreal though, that year in Salford was really hard work at time I didn't think I could take anymore but I made it, 2006 generally will be a year I will try hard to forget but there were some good bits!
So anyway here I am sat in my own house, on my own sofa, with my own shiny laptop blogging away listening to Gilles Peterson's (the legend that he is!) minimal house mix, thinking "funny how things work out"!

A note from the otherside....

Well it has been nearly 2 months since is posted last! And alot has happened in that time! First and probably most importantly my girlfriend and I have broken up! I was gonna post when it happened but realised I would end up writing some semi-emo self obsessed "woh is me" bollocks so just let myself just float along. I went to london for a few days after it happened, stayed with a friend of mine, Emily, it really helped. I can can relax around Emily and we've always got something to talk about and she is one alexs oldest friends which in a stange was good too as iot help sort things out from her perspective. After a few days bumming around london I headed back to manchester to get started on my master dissertation! Since then I've to a few gigs, brought some records and gernerally ticked over for the past few weeks! Really need to get on with some work but its tough going, not looking forward to the single way of life, I was happy to be with Alex partly because it meant I didn't have to go through the rigmarole of "pulling" which I frankly suck at! Still life would be boring without challenges! On the up side its my old friend crazy lou's birthday next weekend so I'm returning to the mighty D for some old school schinanigans! Anyway as always I am gonna state that I intend to post more, not because I think people will read this but more because I can look back on this blog like a sort of diary and remember when things were good (and bad)!

Right well back to work!

Oh i'm getting too old for this!

Wow nearly a month later he posts again! Well what has happened this month..... thats it you guessed it assignments!!!! Yesterday I handed in number 14! Only 3 more too go! Apart from that my life is a bit thin on the ground; this course seems to be designed to eliminate all semblance of social interaction, joy, hope or any of the other things that make life worth living! Moral on our course is low to say the least! But I have finally started to learn to drive which is actually really fun and its my birthday this Wednesday (17th)! I have managed to convince my friends to down their tools of solitude and come out for a night frivolity, which I and everyone else (I hope) is looking forward too! 22! I am getting old!
Further in the future lie some pretty cool gigs, going to see get cape, wear cape, fly in Manchester on the 3rd of June with my good buddy Dom from Leicester and then going to see Gilles Peterson in London in July with my mate mike form Salford, also trying to sort lost prophets, snow patrol and others in there as well so its going be a busy few months. Oh yeah got to do a dissertation and learn to drive too but lets not worry about that!

PS. Please note the top artist box on the right, this lists my weekly most listened to artists! Its very cool! Check out last.fm for your personal music database and stats as well a great way to discover new music!

What an easter.....

Well what an easter I'm having. We've been going out nearly every nite and having a good old time! HA! Had everyone round on saturday for a drinking/chips and dips/listening to random music evening (photo above) then we headed into the mightly D for more of that wonderful watering hole, the clive! Anyway I have finally set up my flickr photo gallery, so I can finally fit all my photos online! So far only got the photos from this easter at home but will eventually have all the salford and leicester ones up there! So here is the link enjoy!

ahh but blogger is still the best!

Well I have a myspace now (a term soon to enter the dictionary no doubt)! I only did it cuz people were moaning that I didn't! Frankly the layout is a bit cluttered, there is far too much going on with the interface and any of the layouts you use just make your text unreadable and crummy but what the heck its done! For a look at my.....space click here!
The one thing that seems overwelmingly obviouse with myspace is the incidious self advertising that most people seem to go through! I admit i did a bit of "biggin' myself up" but some of the stuff I've seen goes above and beyond! But what does it matter? It's a way for people, particularly teenagers, to express themselves and meet people so it is probably a good thing!
However in my opinon blogger is still the easiest and best way to express yourself on the web! I won't be changing anytime soon, also it doesn't seem possible to import a rss blog feed so I can't get my beloved blogger on my less than loved myspace oh well their loss (don't laugh)!

More than one hundred reasons to be happy!

Yes I saw them again! Hundred Reasons! The first time was amazing and this one lived up to all expectations! Took my brother to go see them at acadamy 3 in manchester and I think it was fair to say he enjoyed it! These guys are amazing and you should take any opertunity to see them, the energy they produce is fantastic and I really hope their new record goes far, it should it is f'in great!

Robin hood, Robin hood, riding through the glen, robbin beer from other people then going to the bar again.......

This was the aftermath of our Digital Signal Processing hand in day I'll leave you to fill in the blanks........

Another salford nite out!

Here we are again! The salford crew on another piss up, on a friday nite this time! It was for the big guy MARK HAMBLY's birthday! The photo above is courtesy of his very own website, where you will find a load of photos f his life in Canada and here in sunny salford (as to which he prefers you'll have to ask him!

So much to say.......

Where do I start ? Well the first thing to say would be that I've got a job! Yes I have a career, well the start of one! From the end of this year I will be an employee of Sound research Laboratories Ltd of Suffolk UK! Crazy! I'm the first on the course to have a secure job offer! Company car, just under 18G a year and I'll be near london (most likely Colchester)! Can't really belive it, hence the large number of exclamation marks in the preceeding text!
Apart from that amazing news, I also got the new Hundred Reasons album "Kill Your Own" which is (as expected) amazing so go an buy it now all you rock loving monkeys! Whats more amazing is that me and my bro are going to see them on the 4th april in manchester which will be sweet!
Also been re-discovering my love of jazz particularly nu-jazz thanks to my friend mike and his viynl collection, I now also want a record player! Started listening to Gilles petterson on radio one and through the magic of mini discs now have some interesting stuff to keep me occupied and provide another distraction from work! Thanks to Gilles me and mike have found out that a nu-jazz duo called kyoto jazz massive are playing manchester next weekend so were gonna go check that out adn you all shoudl too if you can, promices to be funk filled fun!
Not been very active on the blog recently, which is dissapointing, but gonna keep trying, I've setup a flickr account so hopefully I can put a permanent link to my photo gallery soon, so all the drunken photos will be plain to see! In the mean-time my msn space has a load of photos on it (link should be on the left hand side bar).
Well back to listening to Gilles and playing on my gameboy, the ultimate chill out!

Well its snowing.......

Walking in a winter wonderland......bla bla bla. I think unless it is christmas or your under 14 snow is a pretty annoying thing, it a combination of two really annoying things, being wet and being cold! Don't get me wrong when the hills are covered in snow its a beautiful thing but when your walking to work or to uni its pretty annoying. Anyway enough talk about the weather, I have been going through the very scary process that is applying for jobs! Sent off CV's to about 7 companies and will have to find a few more before the month is out. I got the expected chorus of "Thank you for your CV we will contact you soon." a bit soul crushing but did get an email from the managing director of one company to come in for a chat so thats a result!
Had to go to my girlfriends grandpa's funeral this weekend, which was a sobering experience as I went to my nan's golden wedding the next day, I've been on a bit of a merry dance around the country in the past week and now I have to get on with yet more assignments as well as worry about going for this "chat" with this prospective employer whatever "chat" entails?
Anyway oh neglected blog of mine.... I shall be back soon I promise!

Well its time for a change....

Well as I am sure no body has noticed I have changed the look of my blog! I really should learn how to use HTML then I could make the place look a little less generic but that is for when I have time to spare which I don't foresee happening for atleast the next 6 months! I have added a few links to check out on the left (more to come) and a funky little skype button to tell people when I'm online, not that anyone I know has skype apart from my girlfriend which may highlight a major flaw in that particular plan but what the hell it looks good!
I haven;t blogged in ages because I have had nothing but assignments to do for the past month and have nothing but assignments to do for the next 3! Oh well its the price you pay for success, or failure (as is very likely in my case!), it will all be over one day and I will look back on this post and laugh.....Or cry depending on my mood I suppose! Well enough rambling form me! I really should get back to work!

One bloody good reason and a hundred more!

One reason to fight on through the quagmire that is my current assignment schedual is the fact that hundred reasons are touring! Yes a new album in the works and a chance to see this amazing band live again! Their web site has had a much needed content boost in the form of free (yes free) downloadable tracks, several live tracks and 3 amazing demo tracks that everyone must listen to, they are classic 'reasons and the track "This Mess" just moves me! There are nother words for it, it is a moving track. So GO NOW and download them.............why are you still here?......get your browser over to www.hundredreasons.com and go to the media section NOW!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!

Well i've just got back from Manchester. After the last few weeks if feels great to be free of assignments, work and any resonsiblities (for a few days atleast). Handing in my Pyscho-acoustics assignment felt so good, i really was saturated after that one, burntout would probably be a better description. Anyway happy christmas and a merry new year to all those who bother to read this blog. I will proceed to eat, drink and be merry for the next few days and forget for a moment that 4 more assignments await me on my return!