Bitch be tripping snowballs!

According to the BBC weather page, we're looking at sunshine all week, maximum of 4 degrees Celsius. It never mentioned any more snow. Currently it's blizzarding once again. I imagine that every other country in the world is looking at the UK and thinking "pffft, that's pathetic", but I love it! The prospect of actually having a white Christmas is just overwhelming, now that we're so close, it can't melt! Thinking about it, this is the first time I've mentioned Christmas on this blog, so I might as well mention what it means to me: I love the social aspect of it. The fact that arguments are dropped, if only for a few days, it's almost magical.

Anyway, what I'm here to post about today isn't Christmas, it's actually birthday related. My weekend's been very eventful, so I'm going to split it into three very exciting sections, the first is named:

Day one:
Friday the 18th of December, it meant many things, last day of term, panto day, but most importantly, Eleanor's birthday. I've always found it strange that my two best friends' birthdays are within one day of each other, but I kinda like it that way too. Unfortunately, I woke up late, so had to figure out a quick route to Eleanor's house. I tried the number 6 bus, found it, got on it, asked to go to asda (a perfectly reasonable destination), but the bus driver told me the closest he could get me was the bypass. In other words, they'd changed the route due to the snow. So yeah, I trekked the rest of the way to Eleanor's.

As I reached the park next to her house, I found before me a rather epic snowball fight. It consisted of a number of teams that slowly fell apart before my eyes. I started stockpiling, I knew this was the kind of war you had to be prepared for. So, we fought for a while, then my stockpiling plans started to overwhelm the others, sides were taken, I had two willing fighters by my side and they had five or so cowards. We ran into combat, mercilessly tearing apart the opposition. Then they decided to turn, and I lost a man. Soon after our two factioned joined together to mourn the loss of this once great warrior, then all of them went home for tea and slippers and other warm things. I headed back to Eleanors to present her with presents and to play some scrabble.

In my defence, I'd only ever played Scrabble once before, against my Grandma (she tore me apart). It was intense. there was a time where I had a Z, a K and a W. Another moment had me looking at "zookeeper" as a word. In the end, I came third in the first game and second in the second (beating the birthday girl both times). A pretty decent day if I don't say so myself.

Day Two:
This was intended to be my "resting day" of the weekend. It was James' birthday, but his plans weren't going down until the Sunday, so I had pretty much nothing to do. I sent a couple of texts around, all with different intentions: one to James to wish him a happy birthday, and one to Nat (she'd offered for me to go to hers the day before, so I was checking to see if the offer was still open). One thing led to another, and I found myself walking to the bus stop for the second day in a row. I missed the bus by like 10 seconds, and the bus stop was practically an ice rink, so I decided to not wait for the next one and play one of my favourite games:

Beat the bus!
Rules: the aim of the game is to get as far as you can before the next bus comes after missing the previous one. This includes many risks, the biggest of which being that the bus could pass you while you're between bus stops, the big upside of the game is that you could significantly reduce your bus fare.

My destination was somewhere on the other side of the bypass, so I got walking. I don't remember it snowing the previous night, and due to all the busy, busy pedestrians the ground had become really icy. The sound of ice cracking beneath your feet is a really sinister sound, even when you know there's only concrete underneath it. I think I can safely say that I beat my bus, I got to the bypass and had seen no bus at all. Eventually, I got to Nat's and met a guy called Owen, who was pretty cool. We just sat and talked for a couple of hours, it was nice to just sit around in a comfortable social environment and "chillax" for however long (3-4 hours).

Day Three:
Today was the day I was probably the most psyched about, so much so that I'd set 10 alarms the night before. Poker day. I had no idea how many people were coming, or how long the game would last, all I knew was that today would be a game that was properly finished. I made this clear at the table, I was perfectly aware that people would have to leave early, their chips would either be scrapped from the game or split between the remaining players. All I knew was that I wasn't really due home at a specific time and it was James' house, so there would be at least two players left to finish.

As predicted, two players had to leave before the game really kicked off (a mere hour and forty minutes in). Leaving the three most experienced players (Eleanor, James and myself) to it. Only a couple of hands later, my run of bad luck ended with this hand:
For the people out there who don't play poker, it's a royal flush, the best hand you can get in poker. More importantly, there's a good chance I'll never get one again. The queen of hearts was my card, the cards above are James', he had a mere straight. To be fair, I didn't win many chips from the hand, it was the pride to have such an amazing hand that got me going. I was ready to get my poker face on, and to remove any predictability from my playing style. It worked. Eleanor received a phone call telling her she was leaving in 15 minutes, I took her out about 2 minutes before she left. She wasn't really playing properly because she knew she'd be going, and I know it. But hey, winning's winning (at least, it is when it comes to poker). James and myself soldiered on, and blinds (minimum bets) continued to raise.

I dropped my playing style soon after blinds hit 100/200, I wasn't prepared to shovel out bets worth 200 for the sake of a poker face, because it wasn't working so well anymore. I split my technique into two techniques, to disguise my predictability a bit. My luck had changed a while back. I was getting quite a few high hands, especially straights. It was getting tense and I was beginning to lose more chips than I was winning. I started placing higher bets than normal when I knew I was onto something, and won myself chips worth 2500 twice, eventually swinging the game back in my favour. In the end I won it on a pair of 10s, he had one too, so really I won it on a high card. Either way, I was just happy to have finished a game properly (we hadn't done that since the summer). After that, we played out our normal tradition of watching BBC3 until about 11pm, and then I made the short but Ice walk home.

Overall, I think the weekend was 90% success, obviously missing Eleanor's birthday plans was a bit of a downer, but I made up for it, Kind of. A good start to the holiday, I sense many happy times a' comin'!

(all pictures taken by me.)

Another of those compilations of drawings which are sequenced into boxes to form a storyline of some kind.

Here's another awesome comic I found on a site that Nat linked me to (click to make it bigger):


As you can imagine, I really have nothing interesting to post about these days. So the basic routine will be to show you videos and other random things I find dotted around the web. Enjoy!

Comic found @ www.vgcats.com

Monsters

This isn't mine by the way :P I just found it, but it's great, isn't it?

Mortality

Injuries seem to occur at the weirdest time, of course this provides a huge comedy value, as mine did. A friend and myself were simply hitting a bouncy ball across a set of tables to each other and my leg collapsed from under me. It seemed fine, just a teensy pain, so I decided to walk home with James. Injuries never seem too bad at first. I started getting some pretty bad twinges after james and me parted and so when I got home I decided to ask my father about it, you know, just to see if he could make a diagnosis. He revealed that I'd strained the ligament in my knee...

It didn't stop there, my knee continued to stiffen throughout the evening, my dad provided me with a crutch and the only thing that really kept me moving was grim determination. I put the rabbit away myself, I mean, I just wanted to keep moving so that my leg wouldn't stiffen up too quickly. Dad also revealed that he thought I'd torn the ligament...

I decided to go to bed at 12:45, it's late, but not too late, but stairs were virtually beyond me, so I found myself falling asleep in my dad's chair for nearly an hour, until I finally decided that I NEEDED to get to bed. It took me about 10 minutes to get up the stairs. Well, I say the stairs, it was only the top three stairs that provided the obstacle, because I had no higher stairs to hold on to, no stair rail either. But with some determination, I finally got to bed.

I wasn't able to get up at 7am this morning, so I gave school a miss. To be fair, I'd have had to traverse tonnes of stair cases so it really wouldn't have worked out. I'm not sure if I'll get my EMA bonus anymore either...

It makes me sound helpless, weak, pathetic, and I don't like writing this anymore than you'll enjoy reading this, but it's something I want you to read. I'm not the kind of person that faces injuries all the time, I'm lucky. But in a way, that makes me unlucky; when I recieve an injury it knocks me down for longer than it would others. There's nothing I can do, after all: I'm only mortal.

The Round Up

To be honest, I have no excuse for not posting for an entire week, it hasn't really been very eventful in anyone else's opinion, but full of paranoia and surprise for me...ish.

Monday to Wednesday consisted of me trying to stay awake, and occasionally failing. My free on Tuesday was used for sleep and the week wasn't looking too good for me. But then, by some miracle occurrence I managed to get a decent nights sleep and i was raring to go on Thursday. I stormed my lessons, taking no prisoners (for once). I can't really remember what happened on Friday, I imagine it was probably moderately important.

On the weekend (after finally getting up), I was kindly granted a 3 day pass to a game called Shattered horizon, just imagine any first person shooter in zero gravity and you're pretty much there. It's incredibly frustrating to get into, but worth it when you finally kill someone. So yeah, I've been either asleep or raging at stuff. I wonder what will happen this week...

Progress review day

It's basically a day off school where you go into school for 15 mins to have your progress reviewed (I hate anything that includes being somewhere for a shorter time than it took you to travel there and back). But you guys know me by now, I follow themes pretty heavily, today is about reviewing my progress, so review my progress I shall.

Socially, everything's sort of come together in the past week. I feel 100% accepted (instead of the shocking 95% before) and a friendship I thought would never be mended, have mended (took a lovely two years mind). Everything's cool. However, I still think that most of my social skills are a wreck, especially when someone's upset. But, where there's a will, there's a way I guess. Obviously all my friends are still awesome, especially those who read this.

The relationship scene is fantastic, I've not even thought about having a girlfriend since August and I feel so so great about it. I'm also hoping to host a "single for a year" party at some point in January (:

School's still good. Maths gets more exciting everyday (I'm serious) and I just started work on matrices. Matrices is the pluralisation of the word Matrix (cue lots of ridiculous movie quotes), either way, it's stupidly easy so far. I've had absoloutely no problem entering the matrix (bada boom) so I hope further pure maths stays that way, because decision maths is a cruel, uncaring bitch.

It's hard to review myself over a longer period of time, because I started this blog after most of my trouble finished up, and everything sort of repaired itself from there on. Well, that's a lie, I've lost a couple of people. Another lie: I know exactly where they went ^.^ Either way, I find that my biggest improvement over the past half year has been my development of the ability to just stand back sometimes. As a result I'm a lot more laid back and I get on with everyone a lot easier. I've also become very patient, and with my luck that's pretty much the best thing I can have :P

Oh, of course, I've got to review the progress of my blog. Well, I'm perfectly happy with 10 followers, even if a good percentage have forgotten all about this little adventure of mine. It hasn't been a little adventure though, it's been huge, and I love it. My readers, you've all proved your awesome, between you, you destroyed my little quote game, and I'm proud of you for that, top marks to you guys.

The future? I don't know: I'll post more lyric quotes whenever I make a new playlist and I'll give you guys more music vids and trailers and film clips or whatever. How about some more picturey stuff. Maybe some fine art if that's your thing? and obviously some more me.

Life grade: All round awesome but a tad rough around the edges ^.^

The playlist (the test)

Okay, time for an experiment, there's a good chance that between you, you know every song on my play list, so I'm gonna post lines from 25 songs on it. Answers are to be written on the back of a postcard and sent to me (or any other way of communication you have with me), most answers get a prize and if you complete the list you all get my love. Use my play list for reference if you need it, but no cheating!

1. Well you must be a girl with shoes like that
2. I can keep a secret if you can keep me guessing, the flavour of your lips is enough to keep me pressing
3. Keep your hands to yourself, these lips belong to someone else
   
4. She left me roses by the stairs, surprises let me know she cares
5. I want someone provocative and talkative but it's so hard when you're shallow as a shower
6. I'm a thousand miles away but girl, tonight you look so pretty
   
7. A certain girl, she took my hand and ran it up her thigh
8. Am I more than you bargained for yet? I've been dying to tell you anything you wanna hear, because that's just who I am this week
9. Look in my eyes, you're killing me
   
10. What do you expect to see every time you look at me?
11. I think you know what i'm getting at, I find it so upsetting that the memories that you select: you keep the bad but the good you just forget
    
12. Do you feel like a man, when you push her around?
    
13. Look at your watch now, you're just a super hot female
14. Careful what you wish for 'cause you just might get it
15. We need a taxi 'cause you're hung over and I'm broke
16. Aint got a care in world, but got plenty of beer, aint got no money in my pocket, but Im already here
17. Have another drink and then think this one over, you dig yourself a grave every day you're sober
    
18. I would love nothing more in the world than to watch you as you spill your guts
19. Another night, another dream wasted on you
20. Still so excitable and you're so desireable
    
21. I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you
22. Stacy got laid, boyfriend number one, took him to her room, and had a little fun
23. I'm crying tears of a rapper
24. Once a whore you're nothing more, I'm sorry that'll never change
25. All alone, he turns to stone while holding his breath half to death
    

I know it's demanding, but I have faith in you guys. If you don't know it, show this to your friends, and if they don't know it, get them to show it to their friends. Get to work peoples!

Doing my best

lately, I've been trying to keep some of my friends close by letting the "friends" go. It's working. I cut the strings of someone I never wanted to lose only today. They deserved it, every time I tried to speak to them I just got a frosty reception, so fuck them. Unfortunately, a string broke somewhere else, and I'm trying to reel the other strings I've got connected to them further inwards. It's hard, because we've both had an unlucky day and we've both done things to annoy each other without necessarily meaning to. Let's be honest, I'm trying way too hard for them, but I still think it's not hard enough. I still find people who tell me that I shouldn't care, because it's not worth getting hurt. I believe that, but it's worth feeling happy when people care back, worth the risk.

Anyway, that's not really the point, currently I'm sitting here listening to my Mayday Parade stuff: sorts me out when I'm kinda down. Things are okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. Maybe something will happen next week, apart from my mock exams, obviously...

Oh, and I might as well mention gaming while I'm here, now that I've finally found people to play with. Call me a geek if you really want, but every guy plays games (a hell of a lot of them play more than I do). Fuck knows if they've taken a shine to me, I can never tell straight away these days, I just have to "go with the flow". Fun fun fun.

It's not the winning that counts . . .

Ok, it is. This is just some lie that losers tell themselves when they need to get over it. As it happens, i don't.

So, over the past couple of Saturdays some stuff has gone down (poker and quizzing), so I'd better get blogging about them.

In three weeks we've had two games of poker, and to be honest, both haven't ended well. Not because I lost, because we just ran out of time, a rushed ending to a game (James got lucky) does not make it a game in my opinion. But that said, we all had fun so that's okay.

Either way, I still yearn to actually have a proper game of poker that we actually finish, I feel like I haven't played since August. Things will all come together in the end!

Yesterday, I went quizzing with peoples. I got Eleanor and myself a lift to Aaron's, where we were to meet the other happy quizzers: Tom, Nicole and Callum (and Rajiv turned up when we got to the hall place thingie). We had named ourselves well: Team Rocket! The most intimidating team there was a bunch of 40-something alcoholics, but that's because we hadn't seen the two "senior" teams at the front. We came fourth, not bad for "young people", as we were called. It won't be the last, we WILL win a quiz someday, someday...

The Playlist. (Made 12/11)

Yes, it's another music post. Yes, I know you don't even like most of my music. Yes, I'm desperate to integrate music into this blog and will do so if it kills me.

So this week I've had a(nother) grand idea. I won't tell you which are my faves in some list and explain why I like them. I'm just going to post my playlist on here whenever I make a new one and you can go and look up the songs, or go "I have that one, it's awesome, and so are you Adam!". As it happens, here's one I prepared earlier, enjoy!

Playlist made on 12/11/09:

The Kill - 30 Seconds to Mars
Punk B*tch - 3OH!3
Umbrella - All Time low
Coffee Shop Soundtrack - All Time Low
Almost Easy - Avenged Sevenfold
Halo - Beyoncé
All the Small Things - Blink 182
The Curse of Curves - Cute is What We Aim For
When a Jealous Man Finds a Gun - Enter Shikari
Situations - Escape the Fate
Sugar, We're Going Down Swinging - Fall Out Boy
Mercury Summer - Fightstar
Hurt Feelings - Flight of the Conchords
Bada Bing! Wit' a Pipe - Four Years Strong
The River - Good Charlotte
What You Waiting for? - Gwen Stefani
Let's Dance - HiTack
Another Way to Die - Jack White and Alicia Keys
Waking Up in Vegas - Katy Perry
Tik Tok - Ke$ha
You Should Have Known - Laura White
My Mannequin Can Dance - Matchbook Romance
Jamie All Over - Mayday Parade
Three Cheers for Five Years (Acoustic) - Mayday Parade
When I Grow Up - Mayday Parade
Your Song - Mayday Parade
Monster - Meg & Dia
Hot in the Dolls House - My Passion
Lifeline - Papa Roach
Misery Business (Acoustic) - Paramore
Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's
Come Right Out and Say it - Relient K
Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet - Relient K
Ghostbusters (remix)
Deadly Lethal Ninja Assassin - Reuben
Deadly Lethal Ninja Assassin (Acoustic) - Reuben
Antidote For Irony - So They Say
Summer, Man - Taking Back Sunday
Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
Papercut Skin - The Matches
Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy
Warrior's Dance - The Prodigy
Face Down - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Call if You Want to - The Riverclub
Reptillia - The Strokes
Bleeding Love - The Wombats
The Bird and the Worm - The Used
Jump - Van Halen
Slither - Velvet Revolver
Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt - We are Scientists
My Name is Jonas - Weezer
Finders Keepers (Acoustic) - You Me at Six
Poker Face - You Me at Six
Save it for the Bedroom - You Me at Six
Kernkraft 400 (live remix) - Zombie Nation

Ok, get revising, I'll give you a test in two weeks.

A snippet from the land of copy and paste.

This is just an improvised conversation I had on msn between Jordan and myself tonight. I've put the definitions of any unfamiliar emoticons in italics next to them. Enjoy!

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*:(
*Where were you on the night of teh accident 8-)
*Mr Batchelor :P
*yoru sounding very reserved :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*i suppose i might be

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*(H) [face with sunglasses]
*You say you recently palyed saints row 2 :O

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*i have indeed recently played saints row 2

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*Surely a video game of thsi nature must effect you psycologically :P
*As in the game you can perform hit and runs, similar to teh one which took place here :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*yeah; if i was a MENTALIST

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*There will be no further questions ?

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*i use semi colons, i can't possibly commit murder

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*Say have you had any health issues in the past 3 years ?

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*there was that thing with my eyebrow
*that was two years and 9 months ago
*i had flu roughly 9 months later
*14 months after i caught a rough cold which stayed with me for roughly two weeks
*and i've not had anything else for the last 10 months

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*okay how does your behaviou change during these periods of ilness :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*got a bit sleepy with the cold
*couldn't move with flu
*bought a sombrero with the eyebrow thing

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*so it seems that when your ill you can;t move :\ stuck indoors your frustration must begin to grow :p

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*no, i just sleep.

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*Really :P
*Any abnormal dreams ?

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*yeah, fire, lots of fire
*an entire city in flames
*anarchy
*and nothing i could do would make it any better
*the dream often repeated itself

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*This is interesting (Y) [yes]
** marcus have what Mr Batchelor just printed and on my desk please *
Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*never had it again after that week though

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
**marcus get taht down *
*Thats just Marcus, he's a wee bit camp :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*and scottish? :P

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*no thats me ;)

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*lol

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*Don't fucking laff at me you wee bastard :@ [angry face]

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*that's a rather aggressive tone you're using
*have you ever lost control and just . . . lashed out at a suspect?

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*No comment :)
*i'll do teh questions thank you very much :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*i suppose the way i'm questioning your authority in this interview is REALLY getting on your nerves
*maybe, you might just want to lash out at me

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*SILENCE :@

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*what? am i getting to you?
*I can see that thirst for vengance already growing in your eyes
*it might just grow large enough to pull off a hit and run incident
*another one, that is
*place this man under arrest!
*you see, you aren't the only one who's been conducting interviews, in fact, i've been getting to your "suspects" before you've been there to bribe them off or threaten them into silence
*maybe i missed one or two witnesses, for that is what they really are, but i have enough.
*goodbye, thank you marcus
*^.^

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*MARCUS AHVE THSI MAN PLACED IN A CELL IMEEDIATELY :P
*AND BRING UP HI FILE PLEASE :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*he won't listen to you, see, i'm the higher authority here
*robert foster, Mi5

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*I don't believe this :P
*Marcus the mans a pyscopath :O

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*he's also Mi5, don't you think his transfer and my arrival here was a little suspicious?
*we've been following your little spree of personal justice for a while
*that includes your deal with the local russians
*now, you can either stay quiet and we'll make you disappear, we do that. OR you tell us everything you know and you get a fair trial.
*the choice is yours

Jordan-is loving you ! Their is a way to make this right :P says:
*fine i'll talk :P

Adam(ip) Viva La Revolution! says:
*damn straight you will.
*:P

Cover Songs

It's been hella long time since I did a music post, and I understand that at least one of you yearns for one :P So, I'm going to talk about my favourite cover songs. You might wonder why I've chosen cover songs of all things, I was inspired to write about cover songs when I found a cover version of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", by You Me At Six, which is pretty cool.

In preparation for this list of all list, I scoured my massive music library for about 10 mins, looking for all cover songs. The filtering didn't end there though, I then deleted the ones that aren't cool (in my opinion, obviously). Eventually, I had a playlist of about 16 songs, not the best number for a list. But I had another card to play: Nokia Music assigns albums to the songs I already have, sometimes they're different. One of the songs I found was assigned the album "punk goes pop", so I had a peek and downloaded. Once filtering the songs to my liking, I had the perfect number of 20 ^.^ Then I deleted five of them because they were crap (in my opinion).

Anyway, here's my list, I advise/order you to look them up:

15. Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm
14. Feeling Good - Muse
13. Wannabe - Zebrahead
12. The 12 Days of Christmas - Relient K
11. Under Pressure - My chemical Romance & The Used
10. ...Baby One More Time - Bowling for Soup
9. Toxic - A Static Lullaby
8. Can't Take My Eyes Off You - The Ordinary Boys
7. Love Song - Four Years Strong (Sara Bareilles version, in case anyone knows of any different love songs :P)
6. When I Grow Up - Mayday Parade
5. Baby Got Back - Throw Down
4. Get Back - Sum 41 (Ludacris was in this version too, so technically it's a remix)
3. Bleeding Love - The Wombats
2. Poker Face - You Me At Six
1. Jamie All Over - Mayday Parade

Just to clear up, all of you Mayday Parade fanatic will now be in outrage, screaming at me because Jamie all over isn't a cover. BUT, Mayday Parade used to be two bands, and one of these two bands (called Kid Named Chicago) did this song first, making Jamie All Over a cover (or a half cover, as I like to call it ^.^).

So go, look them up. Do it now! Run!

Rage

Today, I'd like to talk about rage. Not the emotion, a film that I watched last night, I mentioned it on here back in september. I don't generally talk about films on here, and I should because they teach me like they wouldn't teach others; a lot of people just see films as entertainment, as they are, but as my amazing friend Eleanor is able to do with books, I can read beyond the entertainment. I can read the structure and messages within colours and angles of shot, sure, you learn that in media. What you don't do, is step back and look at the narrative, and the style as a whole and say "what did we learn here?". I do.

Rage isn't like other films, it makes you think. It does not have explosions and car chases, it merely has one character in the foreground and one colour in the background. That's all there is visually. The grand effect of this is that we are forced to focus on the characters (there are fourteen of them in total), they all have their own story within the story, their own opinion, their own angle. Because of this, we can learn a lesson from each of them, and then take a larger lesson from that. You can try and concentrate on the background, but the only intention of the background is to further project the character.


The entire film is shot through what looks like a mobile phone camera, you never hear the voice of the boy who holds it, you're just given general hints of his image and actions by the characters. It's set backstage at a fashion show, which is very significant because the film is very much about breaking image. The film shows what lies behind the image, it shows the different angles and positions of life and different mentalities that they provide. A few of those viewpoints are broken throughout the film, a character may come back and explain that events have changed their viewpoint.

Up to this point I imagine that you're thinking "such an indie film can't have much talent to it". Wrong. You'll find names such as Jude Law, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi and Dame Judi Dench. So that's one question answered, the other will most definitely be "What did you learn?". I'm actually not going to tell you, because the lessons I learned from the film were personal to me, and when I watch the film again I will learn more lessons. I know that this film is individual, and will teach individual people differently, that's almost a lesson in itself.

Of course, in order to watch this film again I'll need a copy of it, but I don't just want any copy of it. There are 250 (and only 250) special edition DVD box sets sold for £30 on the official website, I do not care for the special edition of the film, I want the signed shooting script that comes with it. I don't even care about the fact it's signed. The set has lots of other stuff too, looks pretty cool, but I want that, more than the rest.

The "To do" list.

As always, I'm bloody disorganised, so it's about time I made a "To do" list. This list doesn't include the obvious things, like "get a job," or "get a girlfriend" I'm being slightly more realistic than that.

I REALLY need to help Eleanor and Aaron (and Harjit) raise money for their awesome trip to America, and I intend to do so in the best way I can: wreckless gambling, I mean poker. The plan is to hold a "win your money back" tournament, which is self explainatory enough. What? It could work!

Second thing, I need to organize a homework priorities list and allocate days for each. I'm thinking it'll look something like this:

1.Maths - Monday
2.Media - Tuesday
3.Biology - Wednesday
4.English - Thursday

I also need to allocate time for watching DVDs, haven't quite thought that one through yet. Maybe Monday and Thursday at 9pm.

I very much need to go back and complete all the games I've left behind, like Bioshock, Mercenaries 2 and Tomb raider anniversary. God knows when.

So if I get all of this awesome stuff done, I have three days all to myself: good plan? I think so.

So here's the list:

• Pitch the charity poker game to the Harley.
• Create a homework timetable.
• Allocate time to watch my DVDs on rental.
• Complete all the games I've bought and stopped playing.
• Live.

Oh, and if you read this blog and want to get notifications by email when I put up a new post, leave a comment on here, talk to me about it over msn or inbox me on facebook (: I'll set it up exactly seven days from now.

The next step.

I'm going to ignore the holidays, the last weekend was fun, albeit incredibly unlucky: got my phone nicked, had the worst luck in poker ever (which seems to have carried on) and bought a headset, unknowing that a fucking book shop was doing them for fucking half price (yes, I'm angry). But I went to a games expo, which was cool (to the geeky side of me, bloody scary to the rest :P) and I played pool and stuff (like a true slacker). I'd show you pictures I took on my phone, but for obvious reasons I won't be.

So, what's the next step? Truth is I don't know, I can either step back into darkness and pretend I still had everything I had back in August or finally step forward into September. Two people I used to call my best friends have slipped into that old friendship where I'll never, ever see them again, except for that occasional off chance sighting, followed by an awkward conversation (due to my fucked social skills) and probably end up making my friendship worse in the end. All I can hope is that they'll carry on reading this blog and keep up with everything.

So, I take the step, try to impress a completely new group of people, half of which really don't seem to be taking a shine to me. I can't give up, that group's all I really have in terms of friends. I don't know, maybe what's left of my so called charm (I'm talking about friendish charm, not "ulterior motive" charm) is getting through, and they just have amazing poker faces, who knows. Maybe they need to read this. I tend to have visions of people spreading the word about this very blog to other friends of mine behind my back (it won't catch on).

The thing is, I have no idea how many of you read this anymore. I used to speak to the majority of my readers, now I don't I know that ONE of my friends I don't speak to very often anymore reads it and that MAYBE someone else still brings themselves to read the very blog that wrecked their friendship with me, but apart from that, who knows? Yes, James and Eleanor, my two bestest, bestest friends obviously read it. I'm not sure about various other people because they just seem so busy nowadays (with work, school work or their very important social engagements). I never talk to them anymore, it's ridiculous. All I can say to whoever's out there is "stick with it", it's one of the only connections I have to most of you.

Themes

I personally think it's time for a blog, so once again here we all are.

I've been asking around lately, and it has been only me thinking this but I'll say it anyway: my weeks are beginning to form themes. Last week was very much a week about self improvement, including human utopia, the uni trip, my awesome book and the like. So what's this week about? Pointlessness. Yes, it's a tad different from last week I know, but I don't exactly choose what my week's about (or do I?).

So, basically The Great Gatsby has dominated my learning week. It's subliminal meaning is that life is pointless, which is fair enough. Another aspect of all this is blogs: now that I finally have blogs to read written by all kinds of people beginning with the letter N, I get to see how people are human once again. Only today I read a very human blog focusing on the pointlessness of life and the author. In my very own opinion, this makes the author human and ultimately not worthless.

[Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who thinks having a heart is ultimately a good thing...]

The idea of pointlessness crossed my own mind earlier tonight, while I was at the gifted and talented evening. It was well after Eleanor's awesome speech and down to the very last speaker when the words "why am I here?" crossed my mind. I mean, it was ultimately pointless to attend seeing as my area of expertise is never spoken of anyway. Nevertheless, I went there to support my best friend if for nothing else.

Still, this idea of pointlessness dominates the week, whether it's considering putting off further education for a year or chasing some boy. Essentially, this blog itself is pointless, so why do I write it?



Because I love it ^.^


And you, the reader, you love it.


Therefore pointlessness is eliminated.

The End.

It's been a strange week...

That's becoming a bit of a catchphrase for me now, I must say it every Friday. However, this week is definitely up there in levels of strange, the good kind of strange. I'll get straight to it: admittedly, Monday was pretty normal, I'll give it that. Tuesday will need a new paragraph though.

On Tuesday, the entire sixth form had to go to an all day assembly called "human utopia". It was basically about us making the most out of life by getting into "the panic zone". It was fairly interesting, but the thing is that I think it came a few weeks too late. One of the activities was to bring people who didn't know each other together, which I did last week. Another was to stand up if we were bullied and say why. This activity was more like a year late, because since January, I've been working through it all with myself and it's not really been a problem. The thing is, the day did effect a lot of people, including my best friend. What makes it even worse is that I really didn't know what to do. I used to be a guy that could solve pretty much anything and always knew what to say, but that was for some kind of knowledge. Since then, I chose friends over knowledge and my amazing problem solving skills just disappeared, but at the same time so did my problem creating skills, I prefer things this way. It was then and there I truly realised how bad my social skills were, they REALLY need to be improved...

Wednesday was university preview day over in Portsmouth: I was there. The plan was originally to go and see a talk on Biology, a talk on Media production, a talk on Maths and a talk on Accommodation and finance. We got there late, so that was biology out of the window. The talk on Media Production was amazing: the university actually owns a TV station so that students can run it for the course. That wasn't the part I was interested in though, I wanted to direct. Some of the footage shown was amazing, they had won so so many awards. It's set that if I ever want to do media production, I'm going to Portsmouth. That was the only talk I went to in the end, apparently I didn't miss anything with biology and maths though, I'll go look for those elsewhere. After that we went to explore the local shopping area, which is pretty much just clothes and a line of restruants (literally), we found subway on the end of the line and ate there. It was an interesting day, running around a city I barely knew with nothing but a really rough map and a guy who shares my first name, it reminded me of my will that should help me find the way in life.

In a sense, Thursday was the strangest day of the week because it was set out to be a normal day. Obviously this didn't happen and I ended up spending ALL of my lessons in the sixth form study area because none of my teachers were available to teach my lessons at the right time. I also got my book, "How to win friends and influence people". But my album STILL hasn't arrived, some first class delievery...

Friday, today. Yesterday I found a message in my facebook inbox from callum asking if I wanted to go and see "Up" in 3d, I did. We had a normal school day and on the way home I got some cash out of the machine at tescos. A bit further up the road, James and myself saw a man using a golf club as a mimic guitar . . . while riding his bike! Anyway, I got home and sat down, replied to a text at 3pm and shut my eyes. At 5pm my mum woke me up. The strange thing was that the reply to my text came at about 5:10pm. Anyway, I got the cinema in time and as I met and greeted the ladies and gentlemen I'd be sharing my cinema viewing with, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye: it was only the one and only Emily Crye! I hadn't seen her since May (It was blogged), I spoke to her for a bit - further showing myself that my social skills were just plain bad - and then went back to the till to pay for my ticket. Or at least that's what I thought, because the ticket cost TEN POUNDS FORTY FIVE! Luckily, Aaron had some silvers. The film itself was good, I wouldn't call it 3d, just UHD (ultra-high definition). It made me laugh quite a lot, pixar films have always had that charming quality to them, and they're always original concepts (except maybe Nemo). I reccomend it, but maybe only the 2d version :P Afterwards I was offered a lift home by Aaron. It's a weird feeling having a friend who can drive, it's always something I imagined :P

So, thank you to Tom for keeping me company on the coach to portsmouth, Adam for keeping me company in media production, Ewan for keeping me company while everyone else went to games technology and on thursday, Rajiv for keeping me company on thursday and telling me the time of the cinema today, James for generally being a great mate, Callum, Daisy, Damaris and Aaron for a lovely cinema trip and lift home and most importantly Eleanor, for just being there.

Brains! (a geeky post)

One note before I start tonight: I FINALLY HAVE 10 FOLLOWERS!!! FUCK TO THE YEAH!!! WOO!!! Ok, let's begin.

Tonight, I thought I'd be generally geeky and talk about games. I'll focus on one game in particular: Left 4 dead. It's a zombie game, and if I'm gonna get back to Team Fortress 2 (for the updates!!) I need to nurse my accuracy skills back to health, surely blowing zombie heads to bits is the only way? So yeah, I killed some zombies, got pissed off at my team mates and felt pretty cool. Then I played online.

Ok, so the basic outline of the mode I was in was to survive for as long as possible in your team of four. No problem. Problem: my team mates were all Spanish. We did ok, our best time was just over three minutes and we barely shot each other at all, I just followed them and shot things, like a good team mate. then I always died trying to get to them to help them get up or by getting punched off of the top of a lighthouse into water by the biggest fuck off zombie ever. About 5 rounds passed until I had one of the best L4D experiences ever.

The round started in the set up phase as normal, but then a couple of shots were fired between two of the four players. The other player and myself ran to the top of the lighthouse and watched below as the action unfolded, my "lighthouse buddy" started firing some shots downwards, I stayed quiet. Soon a carefully placed grenade from one player blew the other guy down, and another took the other player down, thrown by the "lighthouse buddy", he followed up by going down and finishing them both off. He healed himself, I thought "great, I wonder how long we can really survive with only half a team", then the inevitable happened: a shot fired at me. It hit the rail in front of me, I instinctively crouched and emptied a clip in the direction of my ex lighthouse buddy.

What ensued can only be described by me as epic. It would make a great movie scene any day. He ran out of sight, I climbed down and picked up a shotgun from the stash for short range combat, we fired off a few rounds inside the lighthouse until i decided to retreat and retrieve my rifle again. he used this opportunity to throw down a few molotovs and block my path so he could heal himself again, I headed to the roof and did the same. The gunfights followed by healing continued to happen (at various places around the area) until there were two medical packs left: I quickly took advantage and used one and took the other for later use. Turned out I needed it, he got the advantage at close range and we took the fight to the lighthouse balcony. While he stayed up, I headed down and took a sniper rifle.

During the cease fire that followed, I suddenly realised that no zombies had arrived yet, I haven't a clue why, maybe they just saw the gun fire and thought "fuck that, they're mental". Anyway, the cease fire ended when my team mate turned opponent decided to jump up to sneak a few shots in, I was ready and crammed in two sniper rounds before he landed. Eventually I realised that the fight was mine, and so did he. He said something in Spanish, and then jumped again. I finally picked him off with a sneaky shot where he just accidentally left his head in view while walking around the lighthouse. The following scene involved me standing over my incapacitated foe on the edge of the lighthouse balcony (who was still wielding two pistols even though he couldn't walk), punching him in the face. I'd quite happily add dialogue of "You bastard! You bastard!" for dramatic effect. It just showed that breaking the rules to create a game of your own is cool (but only if every one's up for it, if not, you're just being a dick) and more importantly, that I'm a winner =D. Anyway, my geeky session is nearly over now, I'll just leave you with this spoof video of the game, because I love it ^.^ (it's very true when related to game play).

Spider season

It's strange, I think there's now a spider in every corner of my bathroom and I still haven't touched the fly swat. The summer's still attempting to fight off the winter here, it started raining really heavily the day after my birthday and the only sign of autumn you'll find is the smell of damp leaves. I missed that. I have a feeling that there wont be much autumn this year. I mean that in the sense that a warm end of september changed instantly to a cold, wet start of october. Maybe that's all autumn ever is, the fight between winter and summer, and the leaves just can't take it. Excuse me for being poetic.

I like October, not for what happens during it, just for the general mood. Unfortunately, October is the month where I generally realise that things are going to pot for me, and let's be honest, they are.

The (Late) Birthday Blog/Zombieland

Today was (technically) my birthday thing. The original plan was to just go to my favourite (not closest) cinema and watch a good zombie film with Emma, who also wanted to see a good zombie film. Later I successfully added to this the concept of pizza (: So, the final plan was to meet in Hemel (or "the OTHER town") and then walk to the cinema, eat pizza, see a zombie film.

Obviously the theory involves rainbows and bunny rabbits and all that jazz, the reality involved me standing out in the rain and dark, waiting for the bus that decided to be ten minutes late. No bother, better late than never. By the time I arrived in Hemel, Emma's mum had already offered to give us a lift to Empire (my place of worship), So even though my bus was kind of late, we ended up arriving at pizza hut earlier than expected. We ate (I wont give the details) and then watched our film. Another ticket to add to my collection (Yes, I do keep my tickets)

The review - Zombieland

Zombieland is a film set in an America overrun by zombies. The protagonist of the film is a survivor due to the aid of a set of rules that he wrote himself (for instance rule #1: Cardio, you need to be fit to outrun a zombie), he meets a "badass" partner and they travel together. That's all I'm going to tell you in terms of story (:

Basically, when I said I wanted to see a good zombie film, I just meant a zombie film. It was just an added bonus that this particular zombie film IS actually good. First off: it does provide your daily allocation of gore, Secondly: it's funny (and I'm not generous when I give marks for American comedy films). If I was to do an "*Insert film name here* meets *insert film name here*", I'd say it's Dawn of the Dead meets Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. That might not sound good to you, but the important thing is that it's ORIGINAL. One of the clever features of the film is that whenever a rule is obeyed, it pops up somewhere on the screen (but in a way so that it goes with the camera shot displayed) just to remind us.

Overall, I think it's worth a good 8.5/10.

P.S. Thanks for coming Emma! It was pretty damn awesome (:

Blogging

Lately, I realised that writing a blog was all very well and good, but I really wanted one to read myself. I started checking everything else out, I thought that Hertfordshire would be a reasonable size area to look for blogs in. There were loads.

I decided to only check out blogs that had been updated sooner than mine (they had about 2 days to do it in), the first blog I read was a guy living not too far away. He spoke about a boy called Lee, and the way he's described, I think I know him as the Lee that came to and went from my school.

Another blog I read was talking about how "everyone is on the blogging scene now, which is good," It would be good if anyone stuck with their blog for more than two months, I found no blog longer than 26 posts, and no blog that'd been running for longer than two months. It's almost depressing how my blog is such a rare breed. The only blogs apart from mine that have been running this long/have this many posts are fashion blogs. I like reading a nice casual blog, such as my own, but it kinda sucks if I have to write it myself. Anyway, I failed to find me a blog to read but no worries, I'm sure I'll find one sometime soon.

Motivational Poster

Normally, I find those joke motivational posters a bit crap, but this one is hilarious! I honestly laugh everytime I see it. Enjoy!

Time For a Life Story

If you logged on today looking for a content, uplifting post, you're out of luck. Try my top 100 music videos or something. Today I'm going to talk about the past. In fact, I'm going to focus on one date, October 2nd.

I'll start as far back as I remember, year three. Let's see, it was 9 years ago, I'd moved to Abbots Langley from South Oxhey in April, finished year 2 at Oxhey Wood primary school and started year 3 at Leavesden Green. The kids in my class had been together since year 1, they were close. I wasn't made to feel very welcome by them at all, although my teacher did try. Throughout the year, I only made two major friends, one of which left in year 5, only to return in year 9 as a total prick. The other friend was the first friend I made at the school. As for the girls, they took pleasure in tormenting me for the entire year, so yes, I was bullied. Anyway, returning to our magic date: I only had one friend and as a child, I was extremely excited that my birthday was fast approaching. The day came, and my friend didn't, he was ill. I spent the entire day either alone or being tormented by my bullies. I can't remember which, but at eight years old, I'm not sure which is worse.

In year 5, I just wanted to invite the "cool kids", so they could use me for a good day out. In year seven, I only really had two friends, I can't even remember what happened.

Skipping to the end (or close to it anyway): Year 10, I had my first "real" girlfriend (meaning local and lasting more than a week), had my mates round for the day, and to be honest, we just played games and I got touched by some slut, not realising how I looked to my friends at all. Year 11: The girl that I was so tragically in love with decided to totally ignore the fact that I existed for the day, just to prove some twisted point. The following day, we all went bowling, but everything was falling apart: my girlfriend and two of my friends split from the main group and that was that, depression.

So, "how does this story end?" I hear you screaming, begging for a lovely ending. Although, I think you all know I've already set the tone for a tragedy. September 2009: Things couldn't be better. I had my best friends, all five of them. Nothing was wrong at all. Emma had her birthday on the 14th, leaving me to step up next. Everybody kept telling me "You HAVE to do something on your birthday!" and I believed them.

I started arranging, I'd been arranging everything else all year but it was decided that I'd have to arrange my birthday too. So I started. I decided what to do (a meal). I started looking at the places, they were either too expensive, not to everyone's likes, not vegetarian etc. Eventually we half decided on one, this was about two days ago. It had been hell, I was at the end of my tether and quite happy that we were sorted. Then I found out that everyone couldn't do Friday (October 2nd), some people still wanted Friday, others wanted Thursday. Today, on September 26th (which is a date I don't really like anyway), I cancelled my birthday plans.

Let's face it, half of my friends didn't even know what date my birthday was anyway, and I regret telling them. I didn't really want to celebrate it either, due to reasons revealed here, in this post. I'm sorry if you don't like it, I'm sorry if I'm being a selfish twat, but I thought my birthday was the one day of the year where it was about me, not about me going through hell arranging something for everyone else. I just want a break, and it doesn't feel right to have to arrange that break myself. If anything, I wanted a break from arranging plans. Sorry people, it's off, I don't want to hear anymore about it and I don't want anything from you. I don't even want to hear a "happy birthday" on the day, that's what will make my birthday a happy one. Thanks for listening, I hope you understand now.

7 Days and Counting (Rage)

Things have settled this week, and it has been unbelievably boring.

I tried to drop English, the people up top told me to stick with it and if I get an E, that's still 20 UCAS points, ok then...I hope the teachers see it that way.

Ummm, I think I should probably talk about films a bit more on here, seeing as they're a big percentage of what I think about. I was looking at a film called "rage" today, it looks quite interesting. Basically, the entire film is a series of one on one interviews set behind the scenes of a fashion week in New York (even though the majority of the cast is British), filmed as if being recorded through a mobile phone. The premiere was yesterday and the film's released on monday. The most interesting thing was that it was supposedly the first "interactive" film, because afterwards, a live broadcast was shown were viewers text/emailed/called in from the cinema to ask the cast and director questions. Check out the trailer:



Anyway, on to my main point. Anyone who knows me well enough will also know that my birthday is in seven days, and arranging a celebration is proving to be harder than expected. Truth be told, I wasn't really looking to celebrate in the first place, but everyone else wanted to, and who am I to deny them of that? As long as I actually get to relax, I really don't mind what happens...

Decisions

Today, I failed an assignment for the first time this year. My teacher was very reasonable about the entire thing and gave me an extra day to do it. I hear that if you fail an assignment in college, you're thrown off of the course. I'm beginning to feel like I've made the wrong decision.

Little under ten minutes ago, I realised that maybe A-level English wasn't a good idea. Even though I got an A for my coursework, I only got a C overall. Surely that means I got something like a D in the exam?

The truth is, it's just a basic research assignment, and I'm really struggling. It's just wasting time, now I'm behind on my maths because of it. Everyone around me has a plan of what they want to do in life, some kind of basic outline and what courses they're going to need...everyone except me. So I thought "Maths and English are the two main subjects, they'll look good on my results."

Maths isn't a problem for me, never has been, never will be, but English has always been "rocky" for me, to say the least. I can produce amazing things when given the time, and I have no problem with structuring my writing (otherwise this blog would be non-existant) but I just can't keep up. I mean i'm struggling with basic, basic research assignments, what the hell?

I don't like giving up, at all. Especially when there are people I know who give up straight away and waste their talent. I'm thinking along the lines of "know your limits", I don't want to push myself and get an average C in everything when I can drop a subject and get something like two As and a B. It seems like people are dropping subjects left, right and centre for really petty reasons, such as they "just don't like it". I like to think of myself as an intelligent person, but from here it looks like I've not made the clever decision. I want to go for deputy head boy, how can I do that if I'm going to drop a subject? I just don't know anymore

Obviously this failed assignment's going to set off alarm bells up at the top and my place on the course will be reviewed...I think I know what I want to do.

Fatherhood

I get people all the time who complain about their siblings, about their hyperactive sister or bastard older brother. For the record, my youngest brother has ADHD and is so, so annoying. But I deal with it, because it's not something he can control. However, my dad is a different story.

I know already that my mum will tell me "His dad wasn't very nice to him", so that instantly justifies the fact that he can take it out on me. I, like many other kids, expected some happy little father-son moments, what I've recieved is nothing. I just want to learn some simple things, I have to learn because if I ask I get "it's about time you fucking learned to do it yourself." Obviously I have to teach myself.

It's all very well and good, but I'm afraid that I'll turn out like that...

Early Morning Ramblings of a Late Night Guy

Just finished installing the essential essentials back onto my computer. You see, I wanted it to turn on way back on Friday, the computer disagreed. So today has been all about reinstalling things and playing Batman, which I completed about an hour ago ^.^

Also, my rabbit growled at me the other day, I was quite happy because it's the first noise I've ever heard her make, but then again I wasn't happy because she was being a stubborn cow. She's lovely though.

Things are still running on "mental" at the moment, sixth form is heavy stuff and I've not gone out since...monday, nevermind that bit. Oh yeah, on a less rambly and more important note, it's...12 days until my birthday and I STILL have no idea what to do. Obviously I want to see people, but it's hard to convince people to see you when you have no idea what to do...

100th Post!

Hell to the yes!

I'm so proud right now, you actually have no idea. All my life I've had issues with dedication, and all I wanted to do was keep something running. This is that thing. The thing is, this blog means a lot to me; It's almost a form of escapism to me, and I like comunicating to the world. More importantly, I just wanted to have something out there.

I've been taking a look at all the other blogs around lately. It was slightly worrying to find that most of them haven't been posted on in months and hadn't been running for very long at all. I always thought that there were more blogs out there that were still ongoing, like a regular thing. However, I guess that makes my blog even more of an achievement.

In celebration of this grand occasion, I've completely changed the design of the blog. I really thought it deserved more than a basic template from blogger, so I found a template site and found a really cool style. Then I went into the html and edited out all of the flaws (putting my geek skills to the test). and now it's perfect (:

It wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention the most important part of this blog: the people who read it. It goes without saying that without them, this blog wouldn't still be here. Yes, I'm gonna name people :p James, Karolina, Emma, Antony, Eleanor, Jazmine and all the others, the fact that you all read this makes me really happy and in return, I'll continue to make you all really happy with this wonderful blog,

Thank you.

Tat

Third post of the day (it doesn't happen often so enjoy it :p). Today I'm here to talk to you about the artists of one of my favourite songs: Tat.

As any of my following veterans know, Tat have been top of one of my missing lists and second in one of the not so missing lists, with their song, Pessimist. I got into researching them today after a spell of pessimism and Emily's marvellous quoting and perfect timing. The quote looks a little like this:

"Every silver lining has it's cloud, can I be yours?"

I learned a few things from my little adventure through the internet:

1) Tat are English (Very important)
2) They're very down to Earth in person (Very cool)
3) Tatiana is very attractive :p
4) They may top my top 5 this week with a different song
5) This different song has a video, and it looks like this (and it would have been in my top 100):



I also found two interviews with them, one in video form, the other written, I'll show you the written one another time, but I'm going to leave you with the video inter'. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Tat!

Scarred

Scarred is a program on MTV that shows horrific injuries acquired by skaters/BMX people/anyone who does stunts. I came across it while my father was channel hopping and stopped on scarred, and we all huddled around the television and watched some great family TV, all four of us (obviously not including my youngest brother).

A few weeks later, while only me and my younger (not youngest) brother were up, he found it and put it on. It was the "worst of the worst" program, his reactions were absolutely hilarious. Anyway, here's the number one, the "worst of the worst", I showed it to Tom and Eleanor the other day ^.^ great reactions. I know it's just a recording of it on TV but hey, MTV probably are pretty heavy on copyright.

WARNING: not for the squeemish (although I recommend you watch it anyway :p).



By the way: Yes, that is the guy from Papa Roach.

Life and Times

Well, it's the name of the blog...and I've not really been focusing on my life lately. Time to bring you up to date.

First weeks of school are always really hectic, I didn't expect some kind of exception for sixth form. But there aren't normally as many pros, maybe it's because I have some kind of new positive mentality or something. Anyway, I've been hanging around new people, and it's been fun, I've not been bastardly antisocial about it. Although i've not enjoyed being taught by a few of my teachers in the past, I believe that I have a good variety of teachers so I can work to the best of my ability for all of them.

There hasn't been a top 5 songs this week, simply because I've not had time to listen to music ): But the good side of finishing my top 100 music videos is that I can post random videos whenever I please now (:

Also, I've started labelling my blog lately, I thought it was something that needed to be done. I'm also going to give it a makeover sometime after my 100th post (only three posts to go now!). Speaking of my 100th post, I've finally figured out how to celebrate it, more about that in the future (three posts from now to be exact :p).

I should be going out tomorrow (thank god) to see Emma. It is her birthday after all. It should be good.

So yeah, there you go, you're back up to date on the life of times of Adam.

Top 100 Music Videos! (5-1!!!)

Well, I've kept you waiting long enough, so I'll only leave one more thing between you and my top five:

Special Mention: Every Time I Die - The New Black

Right, I found this video after I started my top 100, so I wasn't able to edit it in. I posted it before on my top 5 songs, but who reads that? Apart from you...JAMES! :p So...yeah, I'm putting this here because if I had found it earlier, it would've been in this top 5.

I like it because the guy reminds me of me: tries to be cool at parties, is seriously freaked by strange people and makes terrible first impressions ^.^ Oh and the ending is greattt!



5. Pendulum - Voodoo People

If anyone REALLY knows this song, they'd know that it was originally done by the prodigy, but then Pendulum remixed it (I'm kinda split between the both of them). I just sort of found this video while mindlessly wandering (virtually) through a music video database online, and it was awesome!



4. Weezer - Pork and Beans

I've not ever really been into this song. But the video had me right from the start. Basically, it parodies all of the Youtube Legends, from dance videos to some gay guy crying about Britney (whatever the fuck that was...). I'm lying, I've seen 90% of the videos that make up the music video: I've only not seen two.



3. The Raconteurs - Steady as she Goes

Any fan of this song may have put the video on down at hollywood bowl and seen some derranged video at a barn or something with some cows (animals, not women), this is NOT that video. This is the second version, involving an amazing soap box race between the band, all in appropriate vehicles ^.^



2. Katy Perry - Hot n' Cold

What?! Katy Perry makes it to NUMBER TWO?! Short answer: Yes. This video is so kooky, crazy wedding dress ladies, old school hip-hop, 80s style disco. But it then provides the question: Which Katy is the best? For the record, Green eye shadow = yummm.



1. Foo Fighters - DOA

Yes, that's right, Grohl and the boys made it to number 1, and no sign of Mr. Black in sight. It was practically the first music video I REALLY got into, the reasons have changed over the years but I still love it to bits ^.^



So...yeah, I hope you've enjoyed it, I know I have, looking through all those videos...Any ideas for another epic countdown anyone?

All good things come to an end

Well, today is officially the last day of holiday, and I must say, it's been something.

Things haven't always gone smoothly for me during the holidays, and I've not let many people forget it. This one was different, simply in the sense that things actually happened.

I should probably start by saying that I lost a hell of a lot of friends (or should I say "friends"). The liars, the people who just knew me for a joke. That aside, I gained another best friend. That doesn't sound very important, but trust me, it's VERY hard to fully gain my trust in everything. To be honest, I think they're just as surprised as I am...in a good way of course.

But unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Most of my friends are here, but that doesn't mean I wont be missing seeing those that have gone to college and have jobs and everything. I have no idea how September will play out, that's how it is. I trust people to sort things out by themselves, I mean, a lot of people just drifted over the holidays but I just put that down to expired friendships. We'll see.

Omnia causa fiunt.

Top 5 Songs (or Tunes) Week Starting 31/08

Yeah, I've gotten into some tunes and remixes this week (yesterday) ^.^

5. 10 Miles Wide - Escape the fate
I've had this song for about 2 weeks without actually knowing what it was called, and I feel really silly for not guessing :p this is only REALLY in my list because i accidentally listened to it too much and got it stuck in my head :p

4. Warrior's Dance - The Prodigy
I've always liked the prodigy (to some extent) and i guess it's the bass that REALLY makes this tune work, it's craaaazy :p

3. Mercury Summer (Nero vs Ohms Remix) - Fightstar
In answer to your question: no. This DOESN'T count as the same song appearing on two lists, because this is totally different to the original. It's a lot more...dancey. It basically just steals some snippets of lyrics and a teensy bit of tune then puts it's own tune in and makes it sound just as awesome as the original (: short lesson for you.

2. Showdown - Pendulum
"It's been such a long time coming, I thought you'd understand" and then we kick off into the most amazing tune I've heard over the past few days. I've always loved Slam by these guys (who are surprisingly Australian, even though they're based in the UK) and I thought that nothing would equal it. I was wrong (:

1. Summer, Man - Taking Back Sunday
Ahh, you didn't expect for an actual song to make it into number one did you? Well, here you go, Taking Back Sunday make it back for...is it the third time now? Well, I believe that makes them the band to have the most number ones so far then. Anyway, it's about the summer ending, so it's pretty relevant, even though I like it for the tune and the lyrics and didn't notice until just now :p Loving it.

(by the way, I couldn't be bothered to proof check these, I just copied them. In the case that they're wrong, please call me, I'm open weekdays from 10am-8pm)

yeah,i played dead, immersed
in that technicolour kind of black and white type,
counting one, two... seven through the roof
if my lady only knew how high i am,
i am tonight

i crack open the safe myself, nine,
fourty-five, twenty-two, june until september,
three months 'til december

the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."

'cause i ain't working for you anymore,
no, i ain't working for you anymore,
so go prove to the world what you
already proved
that you just couldn't do on your own.

let's have a talk about the good times
but you were always giving in
let's have a talk about the good times
boy, you were only giving in

the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."
the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."

let's have a talk about the good times
but you were always giving in
let's have a talk about the good times
boy, you were only giving in to...

the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
be seeing you around.

the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."
the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."
the summer is over
and i doubt,
i doubt i'll be seeing you around.
"i'll be seeing you around."

Top 100 Music Videos (10-6)

I bet my two week absence got you all really excited about my top 10. Well, my little Video Seekers, behold, the first half of my top 10!

10. The All-American Rejects - The Last Song
Yes, yes I know, three songs out of four. I chose this video over the over two because i can connect with it a lot easier, awww.

9. My Chemical Romance - Helena
This has always been one of my favourite music videos, it carries so much emotion, and is so well staged. I love it ^.^

8. Ok Go - Here It Goes Again
This music video is LEGENDARY. It's so simple yet so awesome to watch. Very clever indeed.

7. Lostprophets - A Town Called Hypocrisy
This was the first video where lostprophets stopped looking American and actually showed their true British roots, and for that, I am proud. I don't know why there's like two minutes of nothing at the end either...

6. 30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill
This video made it into my top 10 because it's full of freedom and mystery. And the bit with the argument? Better than sex (give or take).

Catch up.

Today I had my interview to confirm my lesson choices for sixth form. Long story short, I'm in.

Seeing as this is some kind of life story thing, I'll tell you my results:

Maths: A
Science: A
English: C
English Literature: C
IT: C
Food Technology: C
Performing Arts: C(x2)
Religious Education: E

Also, I'll inform you of my musical tastes lately, the week before last my top songs were:

4. Murderland - I created a monster
3. Escape the Fate - Friends and Alibis
2.Chiodos - Is it progression if a cannibal uses a fork?
1. Chiodos - Lexington

And last week my top song was most definately Pessimist by Tat.

In the poker game you missed I came last (karolina took my out) but I later took over from James (he had to leave) to play for "the lads". I got my revenge on Karolina and just about got it even before the game was postponed until a few days later...The lads won (:

Crazy golf with friends standings:

1st: Emma - 67 strokes
2nd Me - 70 strokes
3rd Karolina - 73 strokes
4th Eleanor - can't remember
5th James - can't remember

Top golf and crazy golf with family:

top golf position: 3rd (out of 5)
Crazy golf position: 2nd - 63 points

And finally, on results day my glorious friends and I went bowling, here are the results:

Game 1:
1st: Eleanor (barriers)
2nd: Emma (barriers)
3rd: Karolina (barriers)
4th: James (no barriers)
5th: Me (no barriers)
6th: Tom (no barriers)

Game 2 (No barriers):
1st: James
2nd: Tom
3rd: Me
4th: Karolina
5th: Emma
6th: Eleanor

and we played a mini pool tourney:

Semi Finals:

Tom Black

Vs

James Ellwood

Winner:
Tom Black

Adam Batchelor
Vs
Emma Peters

Winner: Adam Batchelor

Final:

Tom Black
Vs
Adam Batchelor

Winner: Adam Batchelor ^.^

Now, do we feel up to date?

Dear Blog 2.0

It's just come to my attention that I haven't written to you in nearly two weeks :( I've missed out a top 5 (or two), a poker game and TWO games of crazy golf...

I feel so guilty...

However, those things have passed and are unfortunately undocumented forever. Me writing here is to take up the responsibility of bringing this blog back from the dead, starting now.

Top 100 Music Videos (20-11)

The last installment of 10, hope you're still following (: These videos were all competitors to my top 5. Exciting times.

20. Korn - Twisted Transistor
This video was possibly one of the best ideas ever in the music industry. The members of korn are played by Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, Lil' Jon and David Banner (They're all rappers, if you don't know).

19. The Automatic - Monster
Sorry but the beginning is missing on this one, this was the only version I could find. Classic song, good video.

18. Fall Out Boy - Sugar We're Going Down
This has always been one of those videos that made me feel all tingly, for some reason...

17. Good Charlotte - Girls and Boys

16. Taking Back Sunday - Sink Into Me
This man (coincidentally called Adam) has sex appeal.

15. Feeder - Just a Day

14. Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal

13. The All-American Rejects - Gives You Hell
Aw, friendly competition (: against yourself?! Loving the arguement bit.

12. The All-Ameican Rejects - Move Along
:o Two in a row?! the whole shirts thing is awesome though.
11. Reuben - A Kick In The Mouth
I really like the contrasts presented in this video...And the guitar solo bit :p