365 Da(v)y(d)s - June

So, here we are, or were more accurately, in June, the start of summer. And it was a true start to summer as Viv and I were both completely done with university for the year. Now was time to chillax and enjoy ourselves. And we got off to a great start, with one of the first days out a trip to the cinema with my Viv. We saw Terminator Salvation which was better than Terminator 3 (not saying much), but not as good as Terminator 2 (again, not really saying much).

On Thursday something happened that I have been dreaming of for years! I saw Blue October live for the first time ever! It was easily one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. It was a very intimate affair with a great set list and Justin built up a brilliant rapport with the crowd. It was also another first, it was Viv’s first live music gig and she really enjoyed it!
I would’ve brought back some pictures from this amazing experience, but I decided not to take my phone (which doubles as my camera) so I had no way to take pictures. This is normal for me as I generally don’t like to risk my phone getting damaged, lost or stolen for the sake of taking some pictures.

The next day, me and Viv made an epic trip to the ice cream paradise that is Morelli’s! Let me make this is as clear as possible. They make the Best Ice Cream In The UK (if not the world!). I will demonstrate with pictures:

I’ll explain what you’re looking at. That is vanilla ice cream. That is chocolate ice cream. That is REAL HAZELNUT ice cream. That is a cup of chocolate hazelnut sauce, with real hazelnuts SERVED IN A CHOCOLATE CUP! And it’s topped with real whipped cream.

Here’s another picture that really gets the point across. This is honestly the only ice cream I would pay £10 for and feel I’ve got a massive bargain. If you ever come to Birmingham, UK, you have to go to the bullring, visit Selfridges, and buy something from Morelli’s in the food court. It’ll be the best ice cream experience ever!

Little note of interest, Saturday the 6th of June this year gone was the 25th birthday of Tetris! Now you have the Tetris theme in your head!

Exactly one week into the year, I got my second semester grades and was really pleased to know I got a high 2.1. For those of you not familiar with the university grading system, it is a bit weird. The highest grade is a 1st, followed by a 2.1, then a 2.2 (known as a Desmond) and finally a 3rd. A 2.1 is effectively a B, which is quite good IMHO.

There weren’t many highlights until the middle of the month, when me and Viv travelled south to the barren wasteland that is Bicester (it isn’t that bad I guess) to visit for my brothers birthday.

OMG Train

We were only there for the weekend, and went to what Bicester passes as an ‘all you can eat’'. Now let me explain the ‘’ marks. You see, in Birmingham, all you can eat means fuck loads of food that you approach with the singular intent of creating a pile as big as possible on the biggest plate you can find. You then proceed to insert said food into your mouth, regardless of your actual level of hunger.
Now in Bicester they do things a little differently. They have a menu of say 20 items (a third of the Birmingham AYCE menu). You then proceed to order up to 3 items each or something like that. Once you’ve ordered, they cook the food and bring it to you, which you then eat in a civilized fashion. Once finished, you may order another serving of different items, should you be so inclined.
Needless to say, me and Viv, who are seasoned AYCE veterans found this all rather quant and amusing. The food was of a better quality than what you usually get in a brum restaurant, but the selection was where it was lacking.
Oh god, now I want Big Wok (the best chinese AYCE in brum, IMHO)
It was quite nice visiting my brother and meeting his girlfriend for the first time. All in all, it was a nice weekend and a bit of break from things.

Viv looked STUNNING for the meal btw!

Apart from a few ‘witty’' tweets and status updates (Animals have rights: Animals have the right to be TASTY), there wasn’t much eventful happenings until me and Viv went to the cinema for the second time that month to see Transformers 2.

Now I want to say something. Transformers has never been the most interlectual of concepts. I can imagine the design meeting back in the day going something like this:

Guy 1 “Well, what do boys like?”
Guy 2 “Hmmm, cars and planes and guns”
Guy 1 “True, but what else do they like”
Guy 2 “Giant robots?”
Guy 1 “So how can we get these two together? Giant robots racing cars?”
Guy 2 “How about giant robots that turn into cars?”
Guy 1 “Brilliant, start designing the toys”

So when it comes to watch a film about giant robots, well nothing goes better than giant explosions and giant boobs, I mean Megan Fox! I really enjoyed the more global setting and the bigger, badder robots. Overall, it was an amazing film and I really have enjoyed both films.

Following this cinematic experience, I didn’t really do much else during the month. I did though pick up two brilliant photos.

Giant metal Freddy Mercury will ROCK YOUR WORLD

Legs 1, a strip joint for amputee fetishist

So overall, a brilliant and busy month and as such, less status updates. It’s always a good sign when you’re doing too much about to actually comment on it. Here are there statistics.

Number of Updates: 18, that’s almost half as much as previous months.

First Update: “Davyd is looking forward to cinema 2moro and then BLUE OCTOBER ON THURSDAY!!! WOOOOOOO! (Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:47:33 GMT)”

Last Update: “Davyd can't wait to get the N97 (aka the iPhone killer) (Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:42:10 GMT)”

Favourite Update: “Davyd If you ever think "everyone is shit but me" than you're a double bacon shit with fries, Mr Shit-Face (Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:59:27 GMT)” A tough pick again this month, but this brilliant Yatzee quote wins hands down.

365 Da(v)y(d)s - March

This month started off with me feeding my current SF IV addiction, starting with my love of the Hadouken! I don’t know why I developed such an adoration for this game over other beat ‘em ups, but needless to say, I was hooked (I’m really looking forward to to Super Street Fighter IV in spring 2010).
At the start of this month was the release of Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, an arcade/sim combat flight game from the Tom Clancy series. Technically the game was a sequel to the 2008 title Tom Clancy’s EndWar which was a 80% voice controlled RTS game. H.A.W.X toned down the focus on voice control, using for key functions such as weapon switching, missile launching and activating the HUD guidance system know as ECS. It was a very fun and fast game, featuring an ‘assistance off’ mode which enables intentional (and unintentional) stalling of your craft.
I found this game really fun and addictive, especially the online multiplayer which has a system of weapon and plane unlocks. The dog fights could get really hectic and overall, it was a good game for the month of march.

A few days after getting HAWX (I’m dropping the full stops), I headed off to Vivs for some love and attention, and to go her chemistry society ball. It was a most awesome chance to doll ourselves up and have some posh nosh.

Viv looking stunning as usual

I look equal parts surprised and menacing

I was only down for a few days, which makes the fact that I took my Xbox all the way there all the more ridiculous! I almost got Will addicted to HAWX!

After coming back to Birmingham, I settled down to do some uni work while enjoying the new Blue October album, Approaching Normal. Looking back now, I cannot understand why I was so apprehensive that it would be a good album. Currently it’s my most listened to album in my whole music collection.

It was also in this month that I got my first internet connection that was ALL MINE, MWHAHAHAHA! I did share it with one other flat mate, simply because I couldn’t be bothered to make up a reason why not. Looking back I really should have, seeing as how frequently he slowed it down by downloading porn. What was worse was when he would constantly ask me why the porn was slow downloading. I was not impressed so eventually I changed the password and kept him off!

I finally got round to some serious guitar practise. I had managed to procure off my mum a nice acoustic guitar, which I had finally figured out how to tune. You see, the problem is that I’m tone deaf, so tuning by ear is a real pain. But using a piece of PC software that records and analyses the string you play using your pc’s microphone, I was able to tune it properly, and thus begin so practise. I actually practised to the point my fingertips stung. Come on those guitarists callous’.

Only ten days after coming back from Viv’s, I was on my way back. I was understandably annoyed that while trying to sleep in the quiet zone of the train, an area I had specifically booked, I was being kept awake by a child that could only be described as noisy as sin! Why anyone would bring a winey child into the quiet zone I do not know. ‘Oh, I wanted a quiet place for my baby to sleep, but if he doesn’t sleep and decides to cry instead, well fuck everyone else!’

The highlight of this month had to be the epic phail on my part in booking the return ticket to bring Viv back to Wolverhampton. You see, there are two routes from Guildford to Wolverhampton. Either you change at Reading, or you go through London. Guess what I did? I bought Viv a single via the London Route, but my return ticket was via Reading. We didn’t realise that we were travelling through London until we actually crossed the Thames. I spent the next few hours panicking that I’d get my ticket checked and get a huge fine. Fortunately for me, no one checked my ticket and we made into the travel west midlands railcard zone with no trouble. I have never been so paranoid and nervous in my life! Lol.

Overall I have to say this was a busy little month. Travelling to and from Guildford twice (that’s almost 400 miles travelling overall) and managing to take the exactly wrong train is lol-worthy. A good month me thinks. Now for the science part!

Number of Status Updates: 24

First Update: “Davyd HADOKEN!!!!! (Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:11:34 GMT)”

Last Update: “Davyd half 6 ish fine, we can meet you at new street, pick up some drinkies then head back? (Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:37:57 GMT)”
This one makes no sense at all. Maybe I tweeted something by mistake. lol

Favourite Update: “Davyd wasn't supposed to get a train through london. Well crossing the thames might be a giveaway that i've got the wrong train. (Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:46:05 GMT)”
Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? lol!

FilmPost #02 New Moon Soundtrack – No Blue October?

Okay, first things first, disclaimer! I am NOT a Twilight fan. I read the books when I used to work at WH Smiths because they were free and I had read all the Discworld and Warhammer 40K novels. That and there was so much hype at the time. I’m not going to do a book review here, but there weren’t that impressive and it was one of the few books where I hated the lead character so much.

But the important thing is that I’m a HUGE Blue October fan (as in all the albums, signed album and poster, met the band and seen them live 3 times, including twice in the same tour). What, you may ask, does this have to do with Twilight? Well, specifically it is regarding New Moon, the second book in the saga which is very soon coming out in cinemas.

You see, Stephanie Mayer is, like myself and many other people with good taste, a Blue October fan. In fact, the lead singer Justin Furstenfield did an acoustic tour with Stephanie to promote the last book, Breaking Dawn. It was during this tour, well before even the first film came out, the Stephanie stated that while she was writing New Moon, a particular Blue October song, Hate Me, was in her mind when she writing the scene where Edward, the most annoying vampire ever, leaves Bella, the most annoying character ever, full stop.

Now I must explain these two components; the song and scene in the book. I’ll start with the book first. The scene in question features Edward leaving Bella to go to Italy because he believes that being around her, what with the desire to suck….her blood…would be dangerous for her (will ignore the fact that during the only scene in the book so far where a vampire tries to drink her blood, it’s actually Edward who protects her). He tries to get her to forget about him, stop loving him, do anything to move on (I know, so emo, if it wouldn’t be so completely redundant, I’d say for him to just get it over with and slit his wrists)

Now this scene was written with the song Hate Me, by Blue, in mind. The song tells of a guy, possible Justin himself, who even though being in love with a woman, wants her to hate him enough not to love him back. (“Hate me today, hate me tomorrow, hate me for all the things I didn’t do for you) This way, she can leave him so she doesn’t have to suffer their destructive relationship (“an ounce of peace is all that I want for you, will you never call again”). Even though he knows this is for the best, it still tears him apart (“I have to block out thoughts of you so I don’t loose my head”). Now this song is incredibly powerful and emotive, possibly what I’d call an anti-love song. Not a song about hate, but a song about love that is totally and utterly depressing.

Now, although the song is quite dark and mature, it was clearly the source of inspiration for the key scene in the book, and now film, and as such I was incredible disappointed that it won’t be making the sound track for the film in any shape or form. This is not because I plan on purchasing or even downloading said soundtrack. Instead, it would be great to see Blue October getting more publicity, even on a sound track for an annoying tweeny film.

Now this isn’t all. There’s even another song that is just as appropriate, instead for another character, Jacob, who is in love with Bella as well (I don’t get it, she’s an annoying, whiney little cow). This premise is simple, the song is called Should Be Loved and is about just that, a guy who is suffering from unrequited love even though he’s given everything to this girl (“I should be loved by you, that I know is true, I can’t breath when you’re around”)

They could even put it on the album like this:

2. Hate Me (Edwards Song)
5. Should Be Loved (Jacobs Song)

These brilliant bands need their mainstream break. I don’t believe that a great artist should be your little secret, a private members club. If you love a band, if you love their music, you should do all you can to share it, get it out there.

End of rant!