Boring day
Genuinely feel like crap today. Just watched Scrubs - Medschool, and X-Files. Played a bit of Football Manager. I also slept for a large portion of the day. Exciting day. I have to work on monday. I'm actually dreading it.
Denise Mahoney
I have no idea how many people actually read this on a regular basis, but I do know that every time I blog the page visits goes up....so that's sorta cool.

I started watching the new Scrubs episodes today, that is, season 9. Sacred Heart has been torn down and replaced with a Medschool, all the original characters have played some part so far, except Carla, which I don't think is a great loss. I think JD leaves after a few episodes, but the storylines follow a new intake of trainee doctors more than anything else. I feel as though I should say I don't like it, but I kind of do. It's got the same humour, but it's sort of refreshed. Plus, Denise (the grumpy blonde from season 8) is still in it, and she is hilarious.....and hot....in a dark sorta way. If you ever watch these episodes, episode 2 has a fantastic moment were JD dresses up as a cat....do not miss it.

Elsewhere, still feeling like crap, lots of snow, I got a cool new Hurley backpack because my 5 year old Atticus one broke and I made scones. Bleurgh.
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Easy on the tini...
I'm ashamed at my recent lack of posting. I have a bit of catching up to do I guess.

The Boys Like Girls gig was brilliant. It was in the G2, which is like a side venue of the Garage I guess, really small, so there was only like 200ish people there. It was such a good show, despite Martin, the lead singer having some asthma and requiring his inhaler. I think the shortened the show as a result actually, but promised they'd be back again soon. I would definitely go see them again. They mixed it up a bit by performing "Dance Hall Drug" as fast as they could, and for the last song (5 Minutes to Midnight I think) they pulled loads of members of the crowd up to the stage. Which looked fun.
I was one of the tallest people at the gig....and definitely in the minority as far as genders go. Super. Went for a few drinkies afterwards, which involved apple-tinis. So that's one life goal achieved. I <3 you Dr Dorian.

Not too sure what's happening with the 10km run I signed up for. All the places for it have been filled before Miss Donald signed up. She is a knob.

I'm currently on a couple of weeks holiday from work, and I have an epic cold. It's horrible. On the plus side, it's snowing, so I'm hugely thankful I'm not working.

I'm sure I have other stuff to talk about, but I'm too sick/tired/lazy to think what they are. Peace out.
Insane in the Brain
Right now I'm downloading "The Lovely Bones" to watch before I go to bed. It looks fairly decent, and is apparently sad or something. We shall see. I also just downloaded The Inbetweeners soundtrack, and can't wait to listen to it tomorrow on the train. It's 2 CDs worth, with some snippets from the show in between the tracks. Awesome!!!

Yeah, train tomorrow down to Glasgow. Apparently there are gonna be strikes on saturday.....so that's something to look forward to. Why did I decide to get the train again?! The last few times I've driven down, but I just don't feel like it this time. My car will probably appreciate it. I sense it doesn't like big cities. I'm really excited to see Boys Like Girls tomorrow. Their first album was superb. Second album was not as great, but yeah....AWESOME!!!

OH!! The big news, I won a Rage Against the Machine ticket for their celebration gig in London in June. I know one other person that's going I think, who lives near there, so hopefully I can catch up with him. The gig is allegedly kicking off at midday, and lasting right the way through to 11.30pm. That's crazy!! There's all sorts of speculation about who will be supporting them, my personal favourite rumour is Cypress Hill.......that'd be an added bonus!

No idea when I'll be blogging again.....sunday night should be a safe bet. Ciao for now!!
Life Plans
I've had very little to blog about lately. I've been exploring a couple of options in order to get the hell outta this village. I'm not going to talk about it in great lengths on this, I don't want everyone to know about it. All I will say is, that it's nothing I've not mentioned before. I'm just actually doing something about it now. A pretty large part of me wants to do the whole university thing again. I think I made a total mess of it first time round. I didn't really embrace it as such. There's people in my life I could blame for that, but that'd be stupid, because it's as much my fault as anyone else's. I think it would be good to do it again in many repsects, my only concern is how old I'd be when a re-graduated!!

On sunday, and yesterday, I went to the gym. Which is possibly the first time I have ever gone to a gym on consecutive days. Plus, I didn't really feel considerably worse for wear. So I'm pretty pleased. It's just a case of keeping this up, and constantly pushing myself.

Referring to my last blog; I think it was a mixture of niceness and stupidity. Which is not bad news I suppose.

I'm pretty psyched for seeing Boys Like Girls on friday night in Glasgow. I'll have to give them a good listen tomorrow, I've semi forgotten a lot of their material. I kind of have an urge to drink a bit more than I'm used to. Which is hugely unlike me I think. So I guess that's a warning to you Lianne, if you read this. Make sure I don't need you to walk me back to wherever I decide to book for the night. Really should do something about that actually. Tomorrow...

Also, I may have discovered the benefits of going to sleep before 2am, in that I can actually get up in the morning relatively easily. I may try this technique out again tonight. The crazy fool that I am....

Rage Against the Machine tickets go on sale tomorrow. If I remember I will apply via internet on my phone. If not, nevermind. I can't really see me going. Especially by myself. Gutted that so few people I know have a similar music taste to me. Another reason to get the hell out of here and meet new people. No offence :)

Goodnight.....and may the (mass times acceleration) be with you.

Also, pineapple.

That is all.
Loneliness
Today kinda sucked. I've been feeling kinda down lately I guess. I think that's to be expected when you pretty much have no local friends to talk to, or spend time with, or just open up to. It's been getting real hard lately. Not that it's not something that's new to me. In many ways I'm fairly used to it, I'm a fairly private kinda guy, and I'm an only child, which plays some part. I just really wish some of, or even one, of my good friends from High School was still around. If any of you read this, I miss you and appreciate you more than you will ever know.

Anyways, not much else to say about today really, other than, I did something that was either completely stupid, or kinda nice. I may not even find out. In which case, stupid it is....
Facehate
Wow. Drumnadrochit is actually Hell on earth tonight. Could this place actually be more mind-numbingly depressing? Probably......but it's pretty bad as it currently stands.

Facebook is driving me pretty nuts at the moment. Before the new site layout I had it on a setting where I logged in and only saw people's status updates, and had to click on the News Feed in order to see what groups people have joined, and pictures they've uploaded. I don't seem to be able to do this anymore, and it's driving me crazy. Why must some people join 20 stupid, pointless groups every day? Why must you upload EVERY photo of yourself posing and gawking like a complete moron at some nightclub. Bearing in mind you've decided to photograph yourself with almost every other person in the place. I think I'm going to be cutting down on my "friends" pretty soon. Sorry, no offence, I just can't cope with some of you.

Apparently I'm going to be able to download the new Angels and Airwaves album in less than a couple of hours. I kind of don't care, but I will stay up to listen to it. I thought their sophomore album (I-Empire) was awful, with at best, two good songs. I thought the first album (We Don't Need to Whisper) was pretty fantastic, but from the snippets I've heard, the new album "Love" is going to be a lot more like their second release. Which is a shame.

While I remember, I had a good laugh to myself at some guys in the gym the other day. They musta been about 45 or so, and they had both obtained pirate copies of Avatar. One of them had spent £25 on it!! It was just pretty funny hearing them talk about "6 foot high blue monsters and people in wheelchairs". Ah, the older generation. Gotta love em.
Rage Against the Hill Climbers
Well it's been an interesting couple of days since my last blog.

Yesterday, while sorting the mail, Peter handed me a letter, and straight away I was alarmed, due to the fact it was from a solicitor's office. I never get letters from anyone like that. So I was racking my brains trying to think why someone would wanna sue me or take me to court..... Anyways, turns out, my Great Aunt who died in october of 2008 left me £2,000 in her will. So I was jumping for joy at this point, but, the letter continued. Unfortunately, due to her having some mental problems, she was in a care home for much of her later life, which I guess cost quite a lot. So basically, she didn't actually have two grand to leave to me, and what I ended up receiving was £293.41. Which, considering I wasn't anticipating it, is a welcome surprise!! (So long as I don't think about how much I could have received......grrrrrr!!!)
Yesterday also consisted of a gym session and a rather severe haircut. Probably the shortest haircut I've ever had in fact. Which turned out to be a mistake.



So today, my dad, my dog Brin, and myself climbed (looks up proper spelling on internet) Meall Fuar Mhonaidh. Which is pronounced Malfoorvany as far as I'm concerned. Anyways, it was a really good day for doing it in some ways, because it was pretty frosty underfoot, so the various parts of the trek which are usually boggy were much easier to traverse. The first bit of the walk is pretty steep for a while, and as a result of my distinctly short hair cut, I had sweat streaming down my face. Which was a pretty distinct "Fuck My Life" moment. But once it flattened out a bit this situation was fixed. There was still quite a bit of snow as we reached the top, which sits at 699 metres above sea level. I've never really done any hill climbing in snow before, and I have to admit, going up wasn't so bad, coming back down was pretty terrifying though!!! Brin had a few slidy moments over icy patches, due to his inherant state of wrecklessness. Oh, and he tried to eat snow. I say tried to, he succeeded. It was phenomenally cold and windy once we got to the top, where we got some amazing views, but after a short time we just wanted to head back home!! We managed to brave a very quick lunch at the top, and I really don't think a cheese roll tastes any better than outside and on top of a hill.

Rage Against the Machine have announced the date of their free, celebratory show, which they promised, if they reached Christmas number 1 for 2009. As a result I've added them to the playlist. I want to go so much!! It's bound to be absolutely immense. "Sleep Now in the Fire" is an awesome song, about greed, slavery, and various actions by the US Government in wartime, such as the bombing of Hiroshima and the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. There's a pretty special video to go along with it, which shows them illegally performing the song on Wall Street, New York, and as a result the New York Stock Exchange were forced to close at midday. The video is directed by Michael Moore, who was detained and almost arrested by police. The video also shows the resulting news show, where RATM are described as being "anti-family and pro-terrorist". Good old America.

I'm going to bed now. After today, my legs feel like I've been beaten up. Roll on a full day of work tomorrow...

Extinction
Some people need to sort their lives out. Take a good, long hard look at themselves.

I'm one of them.

Anyways, today was a pretty good day. It was kinda weird actually, every something happened that was like a little nugget of joy. Work was surprisingly really good, only one person stopped me to discuss the sad state of affairs that is Royal Mail. Plus, there wasn't much mail, and what there was really brightened my day. It's fantastic to feel that good, before 8am. It doesn't happen very often.

I'm kinda impressed with the Rock Ness line up this year. The Strokes, Plan B and Enter Shikari would be pretty cool to see. Still, the rest of it is mostly not to my taste :/

I'm watching X-Files right now. I got the box set containing all 9 seasons in november or december, and I'm still ploughing through them. It's a brilliant show, which I think never really took off in the UK, to some extent. The episode that's on just now has been pretty deep. Apparently there's been various periods of mass extinction in the Earth's history, and it's basically querying how long till the next period (ie, human life is extinguished) and what triggered the initial spark of life to form the first single cell. Apparently over 97% of species that have ever lived are now extinct. That's pretty terrifying if you ask me. When you consider that all forms of life are really guests on this planet, it's horrific how we abuse and mistreat it.

Ok, I'll jump to my song of the day. This has been stuck in my head for the past few days. And it's pretty easy to get ma groove on to it!! Haha!! I first heard "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" on the radio in the car, while I was waiting in the car while my parents were in a funeral directors. It's funny the things you remember eh?

Finally:
1.Holy crap....I've listened to Motion City Soundtrack 107 in the past week. That's dedication. Go me.
2. Good luck tomorrow Becca :)
Apologies
I had a really quiet, uneventful weekend, hence the lack of bloggage.

I'm kind of dreading tomorrow. Dispatches on Channel 4 just had an episode where they went undercover in the Royal Mail, and highlighted what a useless joke of a business it is. I shall have all the people on my round tomorrow making the exact same jokes. How fun. Oh how I hate working for them. It's embarrassing now.

Just after I made my last blog, Fabio Capello stripped John Terry of the England captaincy. Definitely the right decision. I'm delighted to see Rio replacing him. He'll do a good job for them. By the way, don't get me wrong, I won't be supporting England in the World Cup, I just like to see the Man United players doing well. And I hate John Terry!!

Another gym session today. Its actually quite cool seeing how much more I can push myself from session to session.

I've been reading over some of my old MSN conversations with people. Some if it's really funny, in retrospect. People are such a fickle thing.

I'm going hill walking with my dad on thursday, my day off this week. Possibly some sort of bonding experiment? I actually think he's pretty bored and lonely these days, as he's cooped up in the house. I should definitely get some good photos. I kind of want to get into hill walking a lot more. Is that unusual? Dad actually bought me a magazine for walkers, and some of the places about Glen Coe are really spectacular.

Oh yeah, just a minor side note. I've been feeling pretty crap over this. A guy I went to school with blocked me on Facebook, and declined a friend request. I'm pretty sure one of your siblings will read this. We were sort of friends, but I guess we didn't really see eye to eye a lot of the times, and I guess I was a bit of a dick. If you ever read this, I'm sorry. I was a prick to you, and your friends, at times, but I'm sure we had our fair share of laughs now and again. I didn't really think you'd not want to associate with me again, I thought the stuff I did was just harmless fun, I realise it wasn't, so seriously, I'm sorry. So J, best wishes to you in whatever you do.
The Seven Stories that Rule the World
I actually had part of yesterday's blog typed up, but due to various circumstances I got majorly distracted, and then fell asleep. Pretty good excuse I feel....

I went to see Avatar 3D on wednesday night with Farquhar. It was good! I mean, obviously it was, considering all the various awards, nominations and broken records it's achieved. The CGI was mind blowing. I thought the storyline let it down a bit.....fairly predictable and done before. In saying that, I remember my English teacher from High School telling me that every story line will roughly follow, or be based on, one of four themes. I forget what those were, but it's obviously something that stuck with me.

Ok, so I looked this up, and, bear in mind there is some debate to this, there are only seven types of story plots in the whole world. So the theory is, that any type of story will fall into one or more of the following categories:
Tragedy
Comedy
Overcoming the Monster
Voyage and Return
Quest
Rags to Riches
Rebirth

That's pretty cool right? Or is it just me that thinks that?

Gym again yesterday. I seriously hammered it. Definitely feeling the effects today, but in a painfully good way.

I emailed my boss and her assistant yesterday about booking holidays, and asked for them to get back to me asap. So to be clear, the same email to two different people. Over 24 hours have passed, with no response. It's things like this that really piss me off. I mean, one of them MUST have checked their inbox in that time.

I have football coaching tonight for some primary school kids. It's the first session of the year, after all the snow we've had. To be totally honest, I really don't do much coaching there anymore, it's just become an excuse to go and kick a football about. Don't get me wrong, I'd happily get involved, but I'm not really given the opportunity anymore, and I can't explain why that is. I'm only really there to help out, and there's another coach in charge, and he doesn't really have much interest in actually teaching them all that much anymore. I don't blame him, he almost quit last summer, and I expect he will actually follow through with that this summer. The kids are just a bit too much of a handful. Being a kid has changed since I was that age. In fact, the attitude of kids, and particularly teenagers has changed dramatically since I was that age. The way the majority of them act, and treat other people, frankly sickens me.

I'm currently listening to Frightened Rabbit. I've not really listened to much of their stuff, but I've heard a ton of good things about them. I really suck at hearing about the upcoming Scottish bands, but I did hear about Twin Atlantic aaaaaaages ago, and gave them a listen, but they didn't really float my boat, at the time. I'm liking a few of their tracks now though. And then there's Biffy Clyro. I actually kinda tried to avoid them I think, when they really exploded on the scene. Since hearing "The Captain", I really like them too. I just need time to be won over by a lot of music.

Holy crap this blog post is getting pretty long!

I shall wrap it up with a new song on the playlist. I like to try and choose something that's a bit different or diverse, so that I'm giving you something new for your listening pleasure. I've made an effort to avoid my favourite band, because I don't want to be constantly raving about them and boring you. I've seen you roll your eyes at me when I start going on about blink, I know, I'm sorry, I really can't help it. Today though, I have given in. However, I've gone with a really not well known track, which is a Billy Idol cover. The track has been in my head, due to the abhorration that is Glee. Every bloody day on the radio I was hearing the Glee cast murdering Journey's "Don't Stop Believing", so when I saw their album in the shops, I sneaked a peak at the track listing to see what songs they would be attempting to cover in future episodes, and was pretty surprised to see "Dancing with Myself". Despite Billy Idol's explanations to the contrary, this song is often accused of being about masturbation. Something that blink-182 probably fueled. Idol insists the song is about seeing patrons dancing by themselves in front of mirrors in a Japanese nightclub, whilst on tour there, but I get a good laugh about the other connotations the song has. Judge for yourself.
Playing Away from Home
I am sooooo excited to be seeing Motion City Soundtrack next month. Last night I stumbled upon some of their live bootlegs, and last december they did three shows in Chicago, and dedicated each night to one of their albums, and played it out in it's entirity. Fantastic stuff. I'm very jealous of those that got to attend.

I'm a bit annoyed at myself, because I've opted to mix up my gym routine. I'm going to see Avatar 3D tonight, so I could have either made two trips to town, or gone to the gym before the cinema. Neither are ideal, so gym tomorrow, and either friday or saturday. I'll play it by ear. In some ways doing it this way, means I have another trip out of the house. Which is good.


I had an interesting discussion with a couple of people today, about the John Terry thing. It's the first time I've heard someone say he doesn't deserve to lose his England captaincy, because his private life is his private life, and is seperate from his career. There is a degree of accuracy to that, but when you start fucking your team-mate's partner, you're taking your private life to work. If I was Fabio Capello, I'd strip him of his captaincy and drop him for the next England squad. It's just my opinion that the guy needs to have it hit home that he is a huge role model to thousands of people.

I had a bit of trouble deciding which MCS song to add to the playlist today. I love so many of their songs. I think in the end I opted for "Everything is Alright". Apparently it's based on Justin-Pierre (the lead singer) and his struggles with OCD and memory loss.
Planning
I've been formulating some ideas of what to do with my holidays I need to take before April. There's a few front running ideas; cycling the Great Glen Way, walking the West Highland Way (apparently cycling it is horrendous), and an intensive 2 day snowboarding/ski-ing course down in the Nevis range.

All three ideas really appeal to me. I think as things currently stand I'm going to opt for the snowboarding course and the Great Glen Way cycle, but I'll see. I'll try to find out more about the snowboarding tomorrow. I've never done any form of snow sports before, so I think it would be a really cool thing to try out.

I was doing one of the van rounds at work today, so I got to listen to the radio. A rare treat for me nowadays. Anyways, as a result, I discovered that Owl City's "Fireflies" is at number 1 spot in the charts. I was really surprised. Yeah, it's a good track, but I didn't think it would get to that position in the current musical climate. I managed to get an import copy of Owl City's newest album, "Ocean Eyes" when I was down in Glasgow last year, and there is another, much more beautiful and touching track on it called "Vanilla Twilight". The song is about someone who's girlfriend has died, and has such gorgeous, heart fueled lyrics. It's the track I fall asleep to, at the moment.

I took a couple of, what I thought were, cool photos today while I was working. Mainly to test out the camera on my new phone, in a way. The photo I've embedded just caught my eye when I was getting back into the van. I liked how the trees sort of framed part of the loch. It was actually a beautiful day to be out on the round today, so I'll probably add a couple of the other photos I took, in future blogs.
Hayley. Mmmmm
I really want to start getting guitar lessons. This thought has been niggling away at me all day today. It's an instrument I've always wanted to learn to play, since I started listening to real music, at least!

I'm really wishing I'd gone to see All Time Low and The Blackout tonight. Gutted. I've already seen ATL twice, so I wasn't that fussed when it was all announced. Since then I've discovered I quite like The Blackout, and what else am I doing tonight?! Exactly. Nevermind eh?

I went to the gym again today. All the cardio machines have a little television attatched to the top of them, so you can plug your headphones in and watch what you want. Today I discovered the best things to run to are: episodes of Friends, and music videos by Paramore. Friends is really good at distracting you from the pain in general, and Paramore.....well, Hayley.....need I say more? Mmmmmmmm

I only got pissed off with dad once today. Pretty good I thought. I've got a pretty full day at work tomorrow, so he'll probably enjoy having the house to himself.

I've added Paramore to the playlist. This is my favourite song off their new album, and apparently is about a long distance relationship. It's got some really deep lyrics I think, and some that I can really relate to. Plus it's kinda poppy, which is always good!