Wenches and Mead is all I need

Today I had a day off work, it didn't have much of a lie in as I had an appointment with the psychiatrist again. This time we re-did the questionnaires I did on my first appointment in April and compared the results then and now. Every aspect had improved, some minor improvements leaving work still to be done, some major improvements showing the work has almost solved those problems, and a few aspects had been reduced to zero on the resulting scale. All of this confirmed that my time there is not wasted and the stuff I'm being taught is genuinely helpful, which is awesome. After that I headed to the currys superstore to give Matt the money for the Barcelona Manowar trip. In the process I obviously met a load of my previous colleagues who all seed genuinely interested in how I was getting on at the high street which was nice. This afternoon I went with my family and the relatives staying with us to Moniack. Here I achieved my short term life goal of purchasing some Moniack Mead. It is my favourite alcoholic drink and I have never tasted the Moniack one. Upon tasting it tonight I can see why it is meant to be one of the best Meads in the UK. It's amazing. And so to celebrate I have chosen song of the day to be Alestorm's "wenches and mead". I feel I can truly connect with the lyrical content of the song.

It's all about the vowels.

Today was pretty much uneventful, with work going without any real excitement. I still left content that it is much better than the superstore though, because it was really cool to walk out of work straight onto the busy high street rather than cautiously ambling past Dalneigh and other dark patches of Inverness, wondering if the next passer-by is going to stab you. I went to HMV in search of bearing witness to Beats by Dr Dre headphones in the flesh but all I found was display boxes, with no demo models. The assistant I spoke to just so happened to be a DJ who is currently saving for the very things, stating them as "the ones to have". He explained what makes them so special; the speakers in them are essentially tiny studio monitors meaning you can hear every little sound in your music, including many that you have never heard before. This made me even more desperate to sample their quality but am still unwilling to pay £250 for them (thats WITH my discount at currys too). I fear that once I be e achieved my goal of passing my driving test and owning a car I will be tempted beyond resistance by them. The bus home was accompanied by Aiden and Calum macleod. It was an extremely decent journey as we spoke a lot of films. This evening went without consequence with the only really notable thing being listening to some Japanese music with my aunt who speaks very good Japanese, getting her to roughly translate the point of the songs. So a relevant song of the day is Inochi no Namae, written by Joe Hisaishi. According to my aunt, it is generally about nostalgia and deep emotional feelings. This makes sense as it is a main theme of Spirited Away, or Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi to be an arrogant arse. Beautiful song, I will hear nothing against it. One thing I love about Japanese music is that the language is so suited to singing, with the very strong, pronounced vowel sounds. Because vocals in music are all about the vowels. It sounds silly but listen and it will make sense.

Veerrrryyyy Slllooooowwww

This morning I awoke to discover Calvins miracle hangover prevention does indeed live up to its monicker. The only thing it didnt fend off was overpowering tiredness that didn't wear off for the whole day, manifesting itself in the form of complete brainlessness; total inability to comprehend simple instructions. I had breakfast at macdonalds which wasn't at all unpleasant; the bagels were nice and were extremely cheap but there's always something I find disheartening about eating in a fast food chain. I left with a satisfied stomach but somewhat disappointed about the experience. Work went well, it was apparently a fairly quiet day but I got through it without getting very bored. I did happen to serve the most attractive female I have ever witnessed. I even initiated an acceptable level of banter with her as opposed to my usual routine of awkward fumbling and stuttering. The evening went without any real consequence, except for the bus journey home where for some reason I didn't have to pay, and I started listening to one of my favourite bands of a couple of years ago. Thus song of the day is Fight for your King by Fairyland. It's ridiculously cheesy but i find that acceptable. While the whole song is pretty good, the instrumental part before the solo at 3:00 blows my mind. I get goosebumps every time I hear it.

Almost killed by a Terrorist Arrow

This morning was the usual routine of dragging myself out of bed (metaphorically, not in some strange Jim Carrey way) and walking to my bus. Here I met Jamie who I spent the next while with i wasnt starting work until a bit later. Also in this time I was expecting a phonecall from someone at sky because yesterday marked the second time an engineer had failed to visit us on appointment to install our phone line. It goes without saying that I never received this phonecall. Work went pretty well again, it was quieter than yesterday but all went well. There was an annoying woman arguing with me over cameras after she specifically told me she has no idea what she was looking at. It was really petty points she was arguing about but she was so stroppy and expected to get something amazing for the price of something shit. If someone looks at a shit camera I'm honest with them. But she clearly didn't want honesty. Though if she had bought it and discovered it was rubbish it WOULD have been my fault. This evening was spent firstly with Drew and Darroch, doing filming for Milk Paton. This was a break for drew from his tedious animating as he was.m dabbling with some practical effects with terrorist arrows in undergrowth and in the river. It was moderately successful; we got one or two shots that should look great, but moreso it was excellent banter. Afterwards me and Darroch headed to the Ben where we met Duncan. Then we got talking to a group of tourists around our age, from Arizona, Switzerland, France and Catalonia.

Insert meaningful title about new beginnings.

Today I woke up really anxious about starting at the high street. As is natural to me I was assuming the very worst scenario would happen where it was horrible and I will hate it many times more than the big store. Thankfully I was wrong and as soon as I started I realised it was a much more laid back environment to work in, and a much higher morale. I had a good day, getting to know the people working there; all of whom were sound. Once the day came to an end I was safe in the belief that transferring was a good decision. It was extremely cool to get a phonecall from the big store where a couple of people asked how everything was going, further proving my notion that the only really good thing about my previous job was the people. After work I met Davie on the bus who I have not spoken to for ages, so it was a good catch up. a major conversation point was music, especially discussing how Lady Gaga has become extremely tedious with her meaningless blatant controversy hounding, most obvious in the Alejandro video: there's no point to the imagery present beyond the immature notion of "ooh, theyre dancing around a CROSS" etc. Also I discovered I really badly want to try out the beats by Dr dre headphones: apparently they are amazing. I remain sceptical until it is proven to me. On getting off the bus I met Danny who only yesterday got back from his jolly around America. He apparently had a good time which I'm really pleased about and he's currently an abnormal-for-a-british-person shade of brown suggesting the weather also was good. Much better day that I feared, possibly even better than I hoped. Song of the day is Bridges Will Burn by Iron Fire. It's got an extremely irritating intro but it becomes something unlike any bands I've heard for reasons I can't quite place. Come the second half its got a really original, effortless power that really surprised me on hearing it this morning.

Awesome.

Today was the last of my days off before I start at the high street. Last night saw the arrival of my aunt & uncle from Derbyshire, along with my three year old cousin Hannah who since I saw her last has started walking and talking. This mornig was a relax, catching up with them before this afternoon where we went to the aigas open day. It was a pretty high brow occasion but a nice afternoon. In the house I took a picture that I am so pleased with; its definitely one of the best photos I've taken in my opinion; its a long hunting lodge grand hall with ornate staircases and stuff all over the walls. I took the photo into a highly polished silver platter which gave it a strong fisheye appearance, warping the view of the long dinner table and all the people. It's got a sort of escher appearance that I was really pleased with. Of course it'd have been far better to just upload the picture but still no internet. Decent relaxing day, and Ive got a mixture of excitement and apprehension about tomorrow which I think is justified. Pretty sure it'll go fine though. Song of the day is sons of odin by manowar because in September I'm hopefully going with Matt and his house mate to barcelona for the weekend and will be seeing manowar live atop a mountain. Awesome.

A good day. OR WAS IT?

This morning and afternoon were completely uninteresting; I completed assassins creed 2 and made smoothies. That leaves it to this evening. I went to the cinema with Florence to see inception. Ive heard a lot of hype around it, with it being cited as breathtaking and all that so I went with a bitter expectation of being underwhelmed. My expectations were not met. It genuinely is a truly amazing movie. The plot is by far the main focus which seems obvious but is rare in recent blockbusters. It is an extremely complicated plot that is carried through with ease by the dark knight director. It's a slow build with the first 45 minutes or so dedicated to explaining the highly complex basis and physicalities of the upcoming story. Somehow I felt like I knew so much aw though I had read a book on the ins and outs of the dream techniques when actually I hardly noticed anything being explained: its all expertly conveyed through the first act of the plot. By the final act it is edge-of-your-seat gripping interspersed with genuine emotion. All the while the high concepts are present while the basic components of plot, character and tone are maintained at a level above most "no concept" movies, with a periodic comic relief that is delivered in dry, witty, and completely natural forms. Acting is never less than great, Leo especially verging on excellent at times. Finally the spectacle of the movie just adds a whole new level of wonder. Effects are all CGI, but are genuinely brilliant. One scene in particular; a hotel corridor fight with constantly shifting gravity, is the best fight scene I have ever seen. It is literally jaw-dropping as my mouth was wide open for the duration, in an emotion somewhere between tension for what will happen, sheer wonder at the visuals, and complete bafflement at how it was done. I can't remember the last modern film that made me think "how did they do that?". I can't fault it in all honesty so I give it 10/10. Finally song of the day is the polygon song because the infernal ditty has been lodged in my mind all day. OR HAS IT... sorry, had to make the obvious Inception joke.

Pauline's blog

Today was another day off spent at our old house emptying it of yet more stuff. My room is finally very close to being empty. With the sun it was much more pleasant than the other days moving amidst a constant downpour. Completely shattered when I got home, I made more progress in Assassins Creed 2 before heading to the Ben. Here I met Catriona, Florence, etc. It was a great evening; I much prefer that sort of thing, sitting in a nice pub with two or so good friends talking about everything, rather than cramming into a loud nightclub filled with 16 year old whore wannabes. It's been both a productive and enjoyable day and some relatives are due to be staying with us from tomorrow who I haven't seen in ages, which will be cool. Song of the day is Together in Electric Dreams by Philip Oakey and someone else whose name escapes me. Another cheesy 80's song, I listened to it a great many times today. Probably one of my favourite songs of the decade actually.

EXIT LIGHT!

This morning I got the bus for town as usual, heading to work. In a half awake state I was completely oblivious to the fact that I sat in the adjacent seat to Darroch. After a few seconds of him alerting me to his presence I discovered that he was heading to exeter for his cousins birthday. While exeter isn't at the summit on my theoretical list of "places I someday want to go", it should be limitless banter for a couple of days just for the realisation that it is not Drum. Elle then joined us on the bus and we decided to go to the little French cafe opposite eastgate. It was a really nice start to the day in extremely agreeable company. Once this was finished I had to run off to get a taxi to work, walking through the doors bang on the minute my shift started. It was my last day at the big store which meant periodic goodbyes and well wishes from the awesome people I work with; I'll undoubtedly miss them but I won't miss the store or the job one bit. Just have to see what the high street is like. A large bit of banter was had with Gavin where we considered Mr. Hetfield of metallica, whenever switching off a light, screaming at full power "EXIT LIGHT!", and placing that into everyday moments such as putting his kids to bed or getting into bed with his wife. I digress. In addition to the goodbyes the deputy took it upon himself to give me a load of ridiculous tasks by the end of the day. I'm not sure what the psychology behind this was but it certainly quelled any second thoughts brewing in the back of my mind about leaving. Come 8 o clock I was glad to be going. Song of the day today is System Addict by Five Star. This signals that I have gone really deep into my 80's revival. It's the type of music that's totally unacceptable for any other era but everything about it is somehow awesome in its genuine, unforced retro sound. Because there's nothing I hate more that false "retro" attempts. Well, 50 cent and all the other smug modern rappers I guess, but that's another story.

Sky on fire...

I wrote this last night but had to.wait for this morning to upload it as my phone was updating...Today I had day off work which was spent with my Dad at our old house trying to move even more of our belongings between the two. My room is finally coming pretty close to empty. Despite the horrendous weather, extreme dustiness of the house with years worth of dust on certain items I came across, it was an acceptable afternoon due to Vince DiCola's accompaniment with the transformers soundtrack. This evening started off by annihilating sky over the phone because the engineer callout we booked for today never turned up, after my Mum sitting around all day. Turns out the moron who booked it told me the wrong date; its in fact next Monday. I carried on fuming at them though and we should be getting some money back. Lastly I played assassins creed 2 for ages, going insane trying to figure out the glyph puzzles; one id been stumped on for literally half an hour turned out to be a fibonacci sequence style encryption and upon solving it decided to go to bed because my brain hurt. Song of the day is Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty. Awesome.

Driver; the 80's, please.

Today was really pretty dull with a strong hint of disgruntledness. It started off amazingly as, since I was on a late start, I spent the morning playing assassin's creed 2. I've got back into it and I love it again. Eventually i headed off to the bus which turned out to be not just citylink, but the expensive citylink. Therefore it was the expensive expensive bus: £7.70 for a single from drum to town. Horrific. It was late which meant I also had to get a taxi from town to work. Once there it was like yesterday, with hardly any staff but things went mostly smoother, the main flaw in the system today being that the much-mentioned deputy was in charge today. Enough said. Once five o clock came round there was very few of us on the shop floor until 8 and even fewer customers. For some reason terrible dance music was playing in the store too so I called enough was enough and got my ipod, starting up a mix of various 80's electronic music before playing the entire 1986 transformers movie soundtrack. It was amazing and it apparently did well because in the last hour or so we did quite a lot of sales. It's been a pretty dull day really, but the downbeat day at work has made me pretty glad to be moving to the high street. Song of the day is borne of the 80's craze I had today. It was mostly triggered by a new DAB station I found at work: Absolute 80's. It obviously plays 80's music but the major selling point for me was the every-20-minutes traffic report was the usual fare of a bored sounding reporter informing what motorways are shut, except this one has a backing of really cheesy upbeat 80's synth. I almost cried with joy the first time it came on. So song of the day is one that played on this station and also featured in my mix: joy division - love will tear us apart. It's a really good song is all I can say. I just want to go back to the 80's really. Knowing what I know about modern day I'm pretty sure id love it. Definitely living in the wrong era.

Brain. No longer functioning. ABORT.

Well today was a mixed day. It started off with me going to work as usual where I found that there was hardly anyone working this afternoon. On top of constant problems with systems not working and such it ended up being an extremely stressful afternoon. Come the evening things settled down a lot but I was completely mentally drained so was really slow and pretty much babbling to customers making no sense at all. At the end of the day though the manager came up to me and informed me that I could start work at the high street a week today. This is what I've wanted for a few weeks now so am thrilled to be getting normal shifts and not having to get taxis and walk ages just to make connections. When I got home my grandparents were over celebrating my Mums birthday: I hadn't forgotten this as I had bought her a Kenwood food processor at work. Sounds like a mediocre gift but her old ones broken and the was really pleased with it. After my stressful day I feel like my brain is about to die so that's it really. Song of the day is complicated by avril lavigne because I used to really like her old stuff but upon listening to it this morning for nostalgia value I was gutted to find that she's always been shit, not just after she sold out. Finally I'm not jealous of Catriona seeing her live in Glasgow all those years ago.

The Seven Trials of Tesco.

This morning I woke up absolutely dreading going to work. I'm not sure exactly what I was dreading but there's a few valid potential reasons. Anyway I hauled myself out of bed and walked the novelty short distance to the bus stop. On the bus I met beast who had far more reason to dread going to work as he was late due to there being no earlier buses yet his management were readying to give him a disciplinary on his arrival, even though it was his first proper late in three years. Obviously I was gutted for him but his misfortune did help me get a bit more enthusiastic about going to work. It turned out to be an okay day; nothing beyond minor annoyances to detract and nothing amazing. It was relatively busy but 75% of the customers were "browsers"; a totally acceptable thing to be but their presence makes managers give us a hard time because we're not looming over their necks forcing them to buy stuff. If a browser walks out without making a purchase, we have essentially failed in their opinions. End of low level rant. After work I went to Tesco with my family to accomplish the weekly shop as with no internet we can't get it delivered as we usually do. It was a truly abhorrent, scarring experience, with such a large proportion of tortured souls wandering aimlessly for hours, days, even weeks on end in vain attempts of finding the items they are looking for in the endless Narnia of sky high shelves. The signage only prolongs the agony as in one example I found the Quorn goods in a section marked 'soups'. Eventually we completed the hunt and I went to pay for a couple of items at the self service desk while my parents paid for their goods. These machines are the most heinous, deceiving part of the whole sadistic labyrinth. They lure you in with the promise of cutting queues and the novelty of doing the 'beepy barcode bit' yourself. But when you get there amd scan a couple of items, thus commiting yourself to the trial you discover it is the final challenge set by the blue striped overlords, designed with the sole intention of ending the lives, or st least diminishing the sanity, of those who have made it this far. You scan a loaf of bread and place it in the sacred bagging area, where the omniscient voice of judgement declares "please place item in bagging area". After shuffling the bread around and forceably placing it on the desk as though the inanimate machine will heed your over dramatic movements, one of the slaves of the underworld approaches, their limp soulless faces contorting into some sort of smile, clearly mocking your mortal existence, knowing that you are one basketfull of items (ten or less) away from becoming one of their kind. You eventually work through your load of items and proceed to the payment screen. here the machine senses you are strong, having not yet succumbed to the draw of the darkness and shows that it has become self aware, tricking you by boldly declaring "unexpected item in bagging area, please remove item". This last attempt comes close to working, making you think you will be framed for attempting to steal your items, you panic, wondering what will become of you, until one of the fallen ones approaches, sensing the strength in you that they had not mustered when facing the final task. They commit themselves to eternal damnation by waving the barcode suspended around their neck across the lasers, overriding the system, allowing you to complete the task. Finally you must ensure you have remembered the passcode to your funds and are then granted exit from the trial. You glance back at your rescuers who waves you goodbye, a solemn goodbye as while you have completed the trials and are finally leaving to return to your life in the outside world, you know they never will. They are doomed to an eternity of enslavery in the labyrinth of torture..... all in all it was an okay day, and tomorrows my Mums birthday, though I'm working all day so won't be involved in Amy celebrations. Song of the day is Year 3000 by Busted because I found my Busted t shirt from 2004 and it still fits. AWESOME!

Terry Wogan's Cock

Today was really good. I started off by utilizing my new, more central situation by walking to Drews house. There, I helped with some filming for milk paton, including a highly serious matter of trying ti sellotape a toy fiat 500 to a kitchen knife with a flashing light suspended above it. Stupid as it sounds, even I was laughing at it, sure enough the test footage drew got was pretty effective. That's one thing I love about film making; you literally make do with what you've got, ending up with some ridiculous scenarios like above but you work around it so that in the final piece it looks completely in place, sometimes even totally unremarkable. What they say is true though; the best special effects go by completely unnoticed. Also this afternoon I went with drew, darroch and josh to James redmonds 21st barbecue. It turned out to be more than acceptable banter. They even had some Quorn for it as they didn't know I was a veggie but someone else was, so GREAT SUCCESS etc. This evening I went into town, driven by Darroch who was picking up Beast. Along the way we encountered the hordes of people marching towards the rod Stewart concert. We did sit in the car screaming."rod Stewart's shit!", reenacting his gruff voice and comparing his general appearance to a 'drunken squirrel' as darroch put it, but we realised this was drunken neddish behavior and stopped before our voices got loud enough to be heard by the human herds. I stayed in town, not to see Rod, but to go to Ironworks to take photos of nick and Matt's band, seed of sorrow. I got a backstage pass which was awesome as not only did I get in for free but there was free beer backstage meaning the night didn't cost me a penny. The support act were called Bin Laden's Daughter and were a punk band who sung imaginatively titled songs ranging from 'Condoleeza Rice' to 'Terry Wogan's Cock'. They weren't my sort of music really but played well and were sound guys. Waiting for seed of sorrow I was excited about seeing my friends' band completely aware that even if they werent that good id enjoy it because they're friends. However when they broke into their first full song I was blown away: they're really really good. Matt is the vocalist and he completely owned the stage and audience. Everyone else had great presence as well, so the relatively small crowd were all hooked. I got some good photos which ill sort out once I actually have a computer in the house. Song of the day really has to be clown puncher by seed of sorrow. You won't find it on YouTube though.

Moving house is hard work...

Today was finally the day that we moved into our new house. But first off all I had another appointment with the psychiatrist which went fine. Nothing major was discussed, but they always help. When I got home from the hospital we went full force moving all the furniture and such between houses. It was knackering moving all that along with the kitchen appliances and everything else but eventually, at about 7:30, we were officially moved in. It's great having a new, airy, clean, bright house unlike our ancient croft cottage with no natural light and stale dust and soot constantly present in the air. It's also going to be great to be actually in Drum too. That's really what took up ky entire day; no time left for movie reviews, anecdotes or insights. Just heaving sofas and washing machines. Song of the day comes from when I woke up this morning and I was in the annoying mood where I can't think of what to listen to. After randomly picking various songs I came across 'Hurt' by Christina Aguilera and I was reminded how amazing it is; its a great song made all the better by her ridiculously good voice. I've heard people slagging her off recently, saying she's copying lady gaga... Erm no, she's been around much longer, is much more talented and will be around long after people tire of lady gagas progressively more unimaginative freak show tricks as I have.

Drive! DRIVE! oh wait, stop.

This morning I woke up relieved to find the hole where my wisdom tooth used to be was not painful at all. This made me pretty enthusiastic about the day and I headed down for the early bus. My good mood was soon dampered by the bus stopping at lochend because a battery warning light had come on. The driver phoned the mechanics who told him "ah it doesn't matter; keep going". He did so, and about half a mile later three more warning lights came on, including one that has the rough meaning "stop the bus' engine immediately". So now the bus was officially broken down and I had to phone for a taxi. Whilst the taxi driver was struggling to find me based on the terrible instructions he was given by the call centre I had a chat with the driver, as the only passenger on the bus. He's Polish and through the discussion he was saying that he was actually happier working back in Poland as a mechanic. I thought that was a really surprising twist to the argument that 'they come over here and take our jobs' and all that, suggesting they're just here for easy money. I eventually got to work where it was fairly quiet for the first half of the day, picking up a bit mid afternoon. It was Allans last day before he leaves to work in Harveys, incidentally right next door to currys. He's basically the best salesman there and is the main man with the answers for any technical queries. This means that his absence is going to ruin the stores results in PCs, naturally a major section. This fact is apparently clear to the deputy who spent all day in complete meltdown, running around getting more and more annoyed at the inevitable events that were occuring and being extremely bitter to Allan. I had a few run-ins with him throughout the day which are always entertaining. One featured him claiming I wasn't paying attention to customers which I rebutted, firstly with my sales being top for the day, almost double those of the person in second. Furthermore, I was able to tell him what every customer in the shop was looking for and a brief summary of the conversation I had with them. Every single one. That's the sort of annoyance you have to deal with there. This evening I bought Gran Turismo 5 prologue at gamestation and spent ages playing it with my brother. I have very mixed thoughts of it. It has stunning graphics and all that but the cars feel sluggish, like you're driving a corsa instead of an impreza, and the physics are atrocious. I was blasting round the Daytona speedway at about 150mph when I decided to slam into the wall. My car gently bumped away straight back into my previous racing line with no damage or serious loss of control that a couple of flicks of the stick didn't rectify. On a rally style track I was duelling for first place so decided to ram them off the track. We both slowed down considerably from the impact and floated away from each other very slightly, just like dodgems going really slowly. I sincerely hope they fix these flaws in the final release because it has great potential. Song of the day tonight is 'oh' by girls generation. They're Korean and feature on a promotional blue ray that plays constantly in the LG section at work. They feature because LG always sign in one or two Korean groups to their marketing, being a Korean company. Now if anyone thinks its an odd song for me to pick, YouTube the video for it and consider that I was being paid to watch it. no more needs said.

Excruciating nostalgia.

This morning before work I decided to sort out a dentist appointment. This triggered a whole shitstorm of confusion. Firstly I phoned my old dentist who informed me I have been removed from their list by the NHS, but the NHS haven't registered me with another one. So I had to try and get an emergency appointment which eventually was sorted out after the usual madness on the phone with NHS 24; "Are you conscious and breathing, sir?"... "Yes." etc. So I informed work I would be late and headed off to raigmore where I was given vague instructions on where the dentist is. These directions turned out to be completely useless and I spent nearly three quarters of an hour walking around the outside of the hospital in the pouring rain. Eventually I got there and was recommended I have my wisdom tooth removed because it was too far back. I never expected a tooth extraction to be so rudimentary; after the anaesthetic numbed my mouth she got to work with various types of pliers literally yanking away at the rogue chomper. It worked though and it was taken out to reveal the roots to be at ridiculous angles rather than the uniform shape they are supposed to be. I headed to work after this was done with the anaesthetic still making half of my mouth completely numb making talking a difficult task. Once there I discovered it was horrendously quiet with hardly any customers at any given time. As the day went on the anaesthetic started to wear off leaving me with an agonizing pain across the whole right side of my head. As I was surplus to requirements and was in a lot of pain making me terribly moody I went home early. After going to my grandparents for a brief while I went home where I spent the evening on my computer with my brother looking through all old photos and videos in the lack of internet. He was amazed to see pictures of himself from five years ago, aged 2. And it is really strange to look at them, remember clearly the scenario in which it taken before looking at him, realising how much older he is now. The few that I cropped up in were equally as terrifying, seeing how different I look too. Another cool thing I found was todays song of the day. It's fool for love by Das Pop. I remember seeing them at rockness in 2008 where I had never heard of them but ended up being my favourite act of the day. They're pretty straight forward pop rock really but nonetheless I think they're really good and this is the only song I have of theirs just now; its a good'un though.

Horrendous day

Today was set to be pretty straight forward; a day off spent packing. For the first half this is what i did and with classic fm playing in the background i was having a great time. Unfortunately the afternoon got complicated and annoying. Firstly I had an apppintment at the doctors becaue ive had really bad pain in the back of my gums for a few days. Turns out its a wisdom tooth that is attempting to protrude at a Jaunty angle thus getting into bother, creating an absess at the back of my mouth. I have to see a dentist to get it sorted which created problems because I don't actually have a dentist with the shortage just now. So I have to phone the NHS early tomorrow morning to try and get an emergency appointment.

More fun was had with BT. Their promise to reconnect our line today was not met so I phoned up. I was informed that they had cancelled the reconnection instead of the transfer which we had requested be cancelled last night in addition to the first attempted cancellation last week. I was fuming and instructed it be sorted immediately where I was told they could have it fixed by friday. Essentially that's three days to press a button. I told them it wasn't a matter of days I wanted it sorred but a matter or hours. So he made some calls and it was sorted this afternoon. Meanwhile dad found out BT had taken the liberty of cancelling our internet with zen and in phoning them about the cock up was told it would cost £130 to have it reconnected on friday. So that's no internet for us, therefore im on my phone again and will be for a while. The last chapter of this saga is when I phoned my dads mobile to ensure the line was fully functional. Sure enough I got through to him without hitch; only problem being that its not our phone number theyve reinstated to our line; its a whole new number. What this means we have no idea but I couldn't handle another half hour on hold with the same ten second loop of music.

This evening i watched the box, directed by Richard Kelly who directed donnie darko, my ravourite movie. It was gripping throughout, completely unpredictable and genrwlly very well made. I loved the was it was filmed to look like an old 35mm movie, being set in the 70s. My. only gripe is that in the third quarter it gets a little bit too high level and doesnt quite pull off the big ideas it introduces. Nonetheless it pulls everyrhing together for a dramatic final quarter that leaves you thinking for a while afterwards. Perfectly acted and mostly well written, it doesn't come close to donnie darko in my estimation but is still a very good film. 9/10.

Due to my non internet having I can't embed songs for a while but ill keep song of the day going. Today its bullet for my valentine - your betrayal. I heard it this morning and immediately adored it. So much so that not being able to go online to hear it again I sky+'d the whole evening of scuzz and fast forwarded through it all unttil finally it came on. Sure enough it did and I think its a really original song with some great ideas in it. Face melting intro, stunning verses and a catchy classic BFMV chorus its a mind blowing song, definitely one of my best of the year so far.

Raging

This morning i got the buw to town as i always do. Except today I had to get a citylink, in the knowledge that it would be slightly more expensive. Upon asking for my ticket, a single from urquhart castle to Inverness I was charged £8.10. That is literally just under two hours wages gone before I have the opportunity to earn it. How the government can urge us to be 'green' and use public transport when these sort of prices are involved is a joke.

Work went fine, nothing to note really.

Tonight when i got home I found out that our internet and phone line had been cut off by bt even though we cancelled the line switchover last week. When we phoned to rage they were all ready to install a new line and charge us £127 for the priviledge. So I've had to do my blog on my phone relying on drums atrocious signal to load pages. Hence any typos in this.

Song of the ive decided is phantom of the opera from the 2004 movie. It's amazing and I realised today that i love some of the lyrics too. That is all, I can't embed the video because it would take me hours to load YouTube on two bars of G mobile network coverage.

I was pulling out my hair.

I wasn't starting work until 12 today so me and Dad went to some shops to get stuff for the house. Started off in B&Q where we somehow managed to spend over 70 quid on literally nothing; screws and brackets basically. Horrific. After this I looked at the furniture shops for a sofa. It disgusts me how they're so expensive. I walked around DFS without even pausing and six assistants approached me asking how I was, etc, etc. The seventh guy asked me what I was looking for to which I replied, quite honestly, "something cheaper than what you've got here." He guided me to the cheapest sofa, a vomit coloured disgrace to modern interior design for the 'bargain' price of 350 bucks.

Work went okay. It started off really quiet but picked up as the day went on. I spent literally an hour with one elderly man who had no idea about technology but wanted a digital camera and to be able to print them. He didn't have a computer so it was complicated explaining how to do it with one of the printers with a screen. To sum up the conversation nicely would be to quote his question upon seeing the camera I recommended: "Where does the film go?" He finally got a vague understanding of what everything was and left happy with his new toys.

This evening I watched the World Cup Final. It was pretty boring if I'm honest. First half featured two terrible teams playing with little more urgency than a friendly. Second half both teams racked it up a bit but still weren't showing off any sort of skill that justified them being in the final. It wasn't until the end of the second half and during extra time that they seemed to care about winning but still it was in the last couple of minutes that Spain managed to score their winning goal. Not a great end to the world cup coupled with the ridiculous amount of yellow cards being thrown around for the crazy amount of fouling occurring. Highlights of the match for me were firstly in the opening where the commentator said "It's Orange versus Clockwork" I immediately got the Clockwork Orange reference but it took me a minute to figure out what it meant; very clever, BBC, very clever. My second highlight was the ninja kick dealt out by one of the Dutch players. Amazing. Thirdly was the funniest part where Puyol ran into his own goalkeeper who was in mid air causing a huge mid air collision of a flying goalkeeper and long flowing locks, which looked beautifully hilarious in slow motion HD.

Song of the day today is one that I have had stuck in my head for a majority of the day. It's Marina and the Diamonds - Guilty. It's my favourite song from her album. It took me a while to get into it because it doesn't have the instantly catchiness of some of her other songs but after a few listens I really started to like the power of it and it's a really unusual yet easy to listen to song. When I saw her live a month or so ago this song was mind-blowing. So the first video is the actual song and the second is form the gig I was at. It's the best quality version I could find on youtube at the expense of it only being part of the song.

I kissed Bella. And she broke her hand. Punching my face.

Today I had a stupidly early start, needing to leave the house at 7 in order to get to work for a meeting about the company before actually starting work at 9. The meeting was lead by someone from Head Office who was pretty sound.

Once we opened it was fairly busy for the day. The best part however was the Sharp Rep visiting, to showcase the Quattron TV's. I was tasked with assisting her and, as such, being trained on them. As previous posts explain, I consider these TV's to be a con based on the physical attributes of light dictating that all colours in existence are derived from Red Green and Blue. However, the Rep made a convincing display in gifting us a couple of Quattron branded magnifying glasses tuned such that once pressed against a TV screen you can see individual pixels. Sure enough the Quattron has yellow pixels. The lady went on to explain that the extra colour pixel also has the bonus effect of the blacks being sharper and deeper. I questioned how this works, confident in the knowledge that it was a blatant lie as black is created on an LCD screen by the LCD shutter being closed, disallowing ANY light from passing through, yellow or not. She didn't give a real answer, literally repeating the phrase "the extra colour pixel". After this I resorted to thickly-veiled sarcasm, suggesting that Sharp employ this four-colour technology in cameras amongst other technology. She was genuinely interested in my feedback so clearly didn't get the joke.

Tonight I went to the cinema with Florence to see Eclipse. It was actually pretty good in a genuinely decent film sense, not a trashy fun sense. This time they focused on the plot rather than spending half of the running time having silly little flourishes of 'stylish' shots and general annoyance. The biggest thing I was impressed with was that they portrayed the vampires much better than the first two did. Previously they were pretty pathetic and wingey, but in this they are animalistic monsters as they should be. They still have the characterisation in them but there's the dark edge to the whole thing that was missing before. This dark side allows more violence too, with a climactic battle featuring vampires limbs being torn off all around amongst an ultra stylish flurry of good vampires, bad vampires and werewolves. It's short lived but really well choreographed. The CGI is pretty good too, not mind-blowing but the scenes where Bella interacts with the CG wolf are certainly well done; far better than New Moon's attempts. There are a number of gripes I have however; firstly is the shaky cam. Whenever there's a low-level talky scene, the camera is wobbling all over the place, not just in a steadycam style, literally force 5 earthquake style. In theory I understand why it's there, to add some interest to the frame, but I really feel that the beautiful grading of the whole movie adds more than enough interest to such scenes. I found it very distracting when the camera was so lively. My other gripe is some of the acting nuances they seem to have given to characters. I've noticed mostly that whenever Kristen Stewart is required to display an emotion she pulls a brief grimace as though suffering from trapped wind. Seriously, look out for it; "I *grimace* love you, Edward". It is so consistently apparent that I don't think it's fair to say it's a sign of bad acting, more somewhere along the line someone has decided it works well when in fact it looks atrocious. Overall though it is a very entertaining movie and outdoes both of its predecessors. 7/10.

Song of the day is Claire De Lune by Clause Debussy. It plays in Eclipse and as soon as I heard it fading in I decided to have it as song of the day. It's very nice. And I'm so tired that I shall say no more and shall sleep.

ZZZZZAP!

Today was a day off in the sense that I was not at work but I ended up doing more work than I do at Currys, spending the day moving boxes and furniture to the new house. It's horrendous looking at the amount of boxes containing everything I own and considering how it is all going to fit in my room. Also when I was starting to unpack a few things I realised it is going to take me a lot of getting used to having neighbours; every sound or movement from outside had me peering suspiciously out the window. This is because I haven't actually had neighbours or lived in the vicinity of other houses since I was 3. Other than that though the new house is going to be great.

Once we packed up for the day we had a takeaway from the chippy; my pizza had the addition of the centre still being half-frozen. On the bright side you could say it cooled me off after working hard all day.

Lastly this evening as I was watching TV with my brother he noticed my Fly Zapper, an electronic fly swat that electrocutes the creature. Long story short I explained that if the red light is off the metal hasn't got electricity in it. He decided to touch it just after the red light went off, and there was still some charge left so a small bolt of electricity leapt across to his fingertip prompting him to scream the house down thinking he'd literally been electrocuted. After a minute he realised it wasn't actually hurting any more and that everything was fine. I considered being a brave brother, zapping my own finger to show it doesn't injure you, it just hurts for a second, but I chickened out because I get electric shocks off of shopping trolleys let alone sticking my finger into a live mesh.

Song of the day is by Equilibrium, a german folk metal band. This track is off of the bonus CD of their new album Rekreatur, where they do acoustic covers of previous songs of theirs. It's a great song on the normal recording but it also sounds really cool acoustically.

So very tired...

As expected this morning was horrendous, needing to get up at 9 after getting home at 3. I wasn't at all hungover, again thanks to the endlessly helpful advice from Calvin a while back about drinking loads of water before you go to bed after drinking. However there was no dodging the tiredness and I spent the majority of the day in a stupor, failing to comprehend simple conversations with colleagues and spending much of my time walking around in an aimless daze. I discovered the vague possibility of a job going at the High Street store; someone who can run the camera section. It would mean a simple exchange if it works out well, and if there's enough hours to make it worthwhile it would mean no more annoying late shifts and running around spending loads on taxis trying to catch buses. I'm phoning up tomorrow to find out more, and mentioned it to my Deputy Manager. I don't want to make out I'm a star colleague by any means but I do my job without any real problems. Because of this he doesn't really want me to leave but instead of straight out saying so he resorted to mind game tactics as he so often does, but misses the mark as he so often does, making it difficult to keep a straight face as I simply said "I'll phone up and discuss it tomorrow" to his claims of why I will hate it there.

This evening has been completely inconsequential, literally nothing worth mentioning. Tomorrow was meant to be the day of our move but my parent's mattress was due to be delivered today and the courier phoned up to inform us it was torn, asking if we still wanted it. We declined their offer so due to them having nowhere to sleep we've got to postpone it a few days. Tomorrow will be less fraught therefore, but will still be taken up largely by lugging heavy stuff around.

Song of the day was chosen by Iain Rough, who turned 16 today. He un-subtly suggested in a facebook message that I choose this song and dedicate it to him as a birthday present. So here it is, Bullet For My Valentine - Waking the Demon. It's definitely one of their best songs and it's got a cool video too. In looking for a video on youtube for it I confirmed something I though when I saw it on Scuzz ages ago; there's two versions of the song. A gay one and a good one. The good one is below and the gay one is uploaded by Bullet's own youtube account so is not embeddable by some copyright paranoia. HERE'S a link, but it completely destroys the power of the proper version.

Inverness... oh no.

This morning I was set to go to work but just as I was getting ready to go I heard there had been an accident somewhere along the Loch. I checked the BBC site and sure enough a wood lorry had caught fire in the early morning and even by mid-morning the road was still closed. Phoning stagecoach confirmed that buses were not running. So I had to get to work late, getting a lift from Dad who had to go to town to buy parts for the Exhibition which had effectively exploded in a power cut early this morning. Whether the power cut was related to the wood lorry fire, both occurring somewhere around 7am, I don't know.

Eventually getting to work I found that my presence was not at all necessary; at no point during the day were there more customers than staff. It was unspeakably boring; I spent the majority of the day in the state of mind where you're so deeply bored that you almost don't know how to walk or think any more and you feel like you're about to fall over and die. The one good part of the day was that for the first couple of hours of my being there someone had put on a Busted CD over the sound system. I solemnly swear it wasn't me so it was a genuine delight for me roaming around aimlessly listening to Busted. Eventually 8pm struck and I headed off to town for the evening's festivities. We were celebrating Catriona's upcoming 19th Birthday; we being Catriona, Fiona, Fiona's flatmate, Florence, Laura, Claire and Victoria. In waiting for them to get to town I sat outside MacDonalds on the benches where I got speaking to an insane person called Hannah. Though insane sounds like an insult they're usually the best people. Folk arrived and we headed off to any bar that had free seats because the match was still playing at this time. We finally settled on a pub on church street, the name of which completely escapes me, but it was really nice. I noticed a cocktail called 'Zombie - Not for the faint-hearted'. Naturally I ordered that immediately and it was lovely, so apparently I'm not faint-hearted. Once we'd been here for a while we headed to Studio25. I have not been in a nightclub before so it was set up to be an experience for me. It turns out that it was even worse an experience than I had imagined it would be. In general I find it just too intense and the music is annoying, but specific to Studio25, the DJ was atrocious, playing music too loud for the speakers to handle, so it was a distorted mess; and it was full of under-age girls being hounded over by guys easily in their mid-twenties. This borderline paedophilia really annoyed me and eventually I left, consoling myself by listening to Power Quest for a while until the rest had finished their revelry and we got a taxi home. No offence to anyone who was there, though I dwelled quite a bit on the horrific nature of my time at Studio25 I did have a decent night with great people; a far better evening than if I'd been sitting at home watching people falling over on youtube.

Song of the day is appropriately by Busted. It's from their second (and final) album, the one which was playing today. I may have been spotted singing along to this song heartily on the shop floor, hence it's choice for the day.

A curse upon thee, Sky.

Today was another day off so I spent the majority of it doing more stuff for moving house. The morning was completely unproductive because I spent it phoning Sky trying to arrange the re-installation and to get Broadband and Phone through them. Theoretically that would have made me the perfect customer and everything would have gone smoothly, but of course not, as I was dealing with Sky. They won't book an installation until they've installed the phone line which they won't do for another two weeks, so we're looking at a month without TV but we've still got to pay out subscription in this time. Also, the previous reps I've spoken to have told me I can have unlimited broadband for £7.50 a month but now this person says that 'because of my postcode' I can only have a 40GB cap service for £17 a month. When the time comes that I can actually book the internet I plan on having a showdown with Sky.

Once this was done a ridiculous amount of time had passed so I went mad in my room, packing more of the endless amount of stuff I have accumulated over the years. Listening to Power Quest and rummaging through drawers of stuff from younger years it was actually a pretty good time.

Tonight I had a massive metal debate with Vinnie, Iain and Robert which was awesome. It turns out Vinnie likes terrible music. Iain and Robert both like some good music though except for Pendulum who I realised today use exactly the same beat in a lot of their music along with the same synth sounds which explains why I don't like them much. Iain showed me a song which I have chosen as Song of the Day. It's Rihanna and Eminem; a duo I hadn't even heard was possible let alone had actually happened. It's brilliant; it reminds me of Eminem's older music, rather than the really tacky stuff he's done more recently. It's also much like some older music by Rihanna like 'Unfaithful'.



Last thing, I just heard from Jennifer (who works at the cinema) that they've found the DVD and Blu-ray I bought on Saturday night and somehow manager to leave there. All I have to do is go in and sign for it. Massive thanks to her because I was pretty miffed at the twenty quid I'd literally thrown away.

Milk paton yeah!

Today I had a day off so I spent the first part of the day sorting more stuff out for moving. Biggest thing was phoning sky; after a long conversation with sales about what we wanted, what it would cost, etc, etc, it turned out we couldn't put it through because the first person I spoke to had done something wrong, blocking any changes to the account for the rest of the day.

This afternoon I went down to Drew's to do "filming" for my part in Milk Paton. It's not exactly filming because it consist of posing for a few photos; Milk Paton is done in a style I have never seen elsewhere, with a mixture of computer-enhanced surroundings, animated photos of people and occasional live-action elements. It's very hard to explain but is very unique when seen completed. It's a small part so my end of the deal didn't take long but it will be the beginning of hours of work on the computer for Drew as the visual effect is the result of an awful lot of fiddling around with various softwares. Once this was done we walked to the chippy where I was ashamed to find myself ordering a battered mars bar. Due to this I abandoned my chance of a lift home with Dad and cycled home to try and quell the clogging up of my arteries.

This evening I did very little worth mentioning. The only notable point is that on The Vault they had a No Doubt through the years program which was amazing because they're one of my favourite bands. It ran right through to Gwen Stefani's more recent solo songs, including 'what you waiting for' which I was horrified to find out was released a whole six years ago. They also played today's song of the day; It's my life. It's amongst my favourite songs of all time and I know it's a cover but I much prefer this version to the original. Gwen Stefani's voice is great and I absolutely love the little guitar riff that plays before the chorus.

Far away in a bygone age...

Short post tonight, because there's very little to write about.

Work went okay; it was extremely quiet again and the duty manager was under pressure to hit certain targets for the day but because he's the soundest manager in the store he didn't rack the pressure onto us, making it clear what those in the upper echelons were expecting but not making it seem like a matter of life-or-death. In the end we did as well as can be expected given the small flow of customers. Of the customers I dealt with, all were friendly so there was nothing actively bad about the day at work, I just don't like having nothing to do. I ended up spending a reasonable amount of time in the stockroom with Matt discussing different metal bands and sub-genres. On a related note I heard KoЯn's new song this morning (yeah, backwards R!). I have never been a massive fan of them, quite liking some of their songs and completely hating many others. This new song marking their comeback is an atrocity. It's barely listenable, let alone 'not very good'.

After work we went to the new house briefly, to sort out more things, and after that I spent the evening writing and programming music for Milk Paton. I finished a full version of the opening music, marking the first completed track. I'm really pleased with the outcome and in my head at least it fits in quite well with the intended scene. Most importantly it gained the approval of the overlord of the film; Drew.

Song of the day is Far Away by Power Quest, an English power metal band. This band, along with a french band called Fairyland, are what got me into metal a few years ago. It's an incredible song from their first album. The intro especially is still like nothing else I've heard.

Get it on.

This morning I woke at 8am in order to get the earliest bus to work. It was most unwelcome after the party last night and it was a generally greatly unpleasant morning. First was the terrible feeling of getting up at least 3 hours before it would be comfortable; Secondly was the coldness of the morning, accentuated by my lack of a jacket due to my foolish assumption it would be warm; thirdly was when I finally got on the bus and started relaxing to some music the young woman in front of me started vomiting into a paper bag. I don't claim it as inconsiderate of her to have done so as I'm sure it was a downer on the start of her day too, but it was most inconvenient to my relaxation.

Work today was ridiculously quiet for a Saturday. Though I didn't really notice until the end of the day upon looking a the figures, because I was still completely shattered. However, midway through the afternoon the skip was emptied all over the back courtyard by some disgraceful human being leaving the only stock guy clearing it all up. This meant that the replenishment of washing machines and such needed done by a volunteer. My attempted fitness plan for the summer kicked in and I jumped at the chance to lug around heavy appliances. Strangely enough it turned out to be the best couple of hours I've had at Currys for weeks. It left me feeling much more awake somehow.

After work I headed to the retail park where I met Catriona, Florence, Lou and Jamie. Firstly we loitered around tesco where I discovered a new release DVD called Pimp starring Danny Dyer. It caught my eye because I recognised it as a film my cousin plays some sort of part in, of unknown importance, and has been awaiting release for some time. I didn't buy it but I'll try and watch it at some point. Also nearby was Sherlock Holmes, also featuring the same cousin. It was really cool how there was two DVD's in the chart featuring him.

Finally we went to the cinema to see Shrek Forever After 3D. It was acceptable. I think the first is a movie deserving of the cliched oxymoron "modern classic". However, every sequel has been sellotaped on completely unnecessarily and the third and fourth especially feel more like feature length episodes of a TV series rather than movies. The plot was like an episode of Fairly Odd Parents with the '"I wish everything was different"; wish comes true; cue madness' formula which doesn't make for a gripping or even fully entertaining movie. The alternate reality idea does allow for some very funny variations of characters which I won't spoil even though I believe they have all been spoiled in the trailers. This was it's only major merit; there was a large number of funny scenes, but nothing particularly lasting or outstanding upon leaving the cinema. When the ending eventually came around I wasn't at all sad about the franchise coming to a speculative end, more relieved that we managed to escape with only mediocre sequels that don't entirely tarnish the greatness of the original. It was an entertaining 90 minutes but nothing that stuck with me after the credits rolled. A fair 6/10 purely for the comedy.

Song of the day is a very cool song by Eluveitie; swiss folk metal masters. I love the chorus with the clean female vocals overlaid with the harsh male vocals. The growling style of vocals is not my favourite but this band have a sound that fits these vocals well and are one of a few exceptions to my dislike of screaming.

Where is the rum gone?

Today I had a day off and I spent the morning helping Dad out with various tasks in our new house. They were boring and completely un-blogworthy so I won't dwell on the point. After this I spent the afternoon packing more stuff in my room. It's horrific looking at all the boxes of stuff I own and considering how to store them all neatly in my new room as my current room is a tip; things have slowly crept into it so the mess has organically formed.

This evening I went down to Drum for the leaver's party, which I was chuffed to find myself on the guestlist for. It was by Drum standards not bad at all; very well organised and kept largely under control but I'm just not into that sort of event; I prefer simply going to someone's house, going to the pub or something as a small group of friends and initiating banter. I'm not keen on the loud music, crowded hall thing. I walked around Drum with Angus trying to find his Rum which someone had hidden for him (so he didn't have to take it to the leaver's dance and risk being kicked out), but hadn't taken it to the hall for him. Along the way we met some folk who I ended up spending the next hour or so with. Once they started planning on going home I went back to the party where, as soon as I walked through the gate, people started fighting. It was amazing, though nothing unusual; it's traditional at these parties for some over-zealous neds to arrive and pick a fight with someone. This created some extreme banter and livened my night up considerably. After this the party did slowly die down to a stop where I helped pack up and got the bonus of a lift home from Laura, meaning I didn't have to do a one am walk in the rain.

Decent evening; far better than if I had stayed at home.

Song of the day is a video I first saw the other day, and it keeps coming on the music channels and it is completely awe-inspiring. The song is amazing and the video is just so perfectly filmed they merge together to make something really special. The video is really cliched in parts, especially what a lot of the fans say to the camera but 30 seconds to mars somehow manage to pull even those parts off. Other than that the live clips are breathtaking. I can't embed it because of youpoof copyright restrictions so here's a link to the video.

CLICKY CLICKY

Magic everywhere in this bitch

This morning was horrendous. My midnight cycle home was followed by a terrible night's attempt at sleeping so when 8 o clock came round I was completely destroyed. I made it into work but I didn't properly wake up for most of the day, just lolloping around in a zombified stupor. The deputy continued his disgust at my 3/10, making such an issue of it that I eventually informed him that based on today I had revised my score to a 2. After work I was delighted to see a double-decker bus pull up to the stop and I was anticipating a front-top seat as is customary on such a vehicle, but they were both occupied by foreigners. I mean, they come over here, steal our jobs and NOW OUR FRONT-TOP SEATS??? I joke of course, but they did steal my mentally allocated seat.

This evening I watched Mock The Week which was hilarious as always, along with investigating memes on the internet. I came across this video which completely dumbfounded me:



I have watched it a few times and I find it mesmerising. It's one of the most disturbing things I've seen, but also awesome. I also finally heard the song which features the immortal line "fucking magnets; how do they work?". Turns out the rest of the song is just as ridiculously stupid. It's worth seeing the video and hearing the full lyrics so I have it as song of the day. Of course, I hate the song, but it's hilarious nonetheless. I just hope it's self-referential humour rather than genuinely attempted insightful lyrics.

Don't mention Beast.

This morning was nothing exciting, I played DJ Hero and lazed around before my 3pm start at work. My biggest achievement was the lunch I created; pasta with cheese and some vegetarian spicy 'meat' stuff I found in a shop.

Work was an average day really, except for Allan finding a new job before finally breaking the news to the deputy near the end of the day. He was a little miffed to say the least and went on to ask me how motivated I was on a scale of 1 to 10. I negotiated the terms of the scale first, agreeing that 5 was an apathetic medium, with 4 being slightly disgruntled and 6 being fairly happy, continuing up or down. My honest answer was three, prompting a tantrum.

After work I headed to the Benleva with Drew where we met Darroch, Jon, Pepe and Beast, who doesn't want mentioned in tonight's blog. Jon treated me to a viewing of the video in which Jamie MacKay broke his arm, filmed the other day. It was pretty nasty, the cracking sound. After some decent banter Drew, Darroch, Beast and myself headed down to the cover for a general wall. At the river we stopped and talked for a while, throwing rocks at a tree for about half an hour. Beast did particularly well at this, though he isn't to be mentioned. On our way back Drew treated us to a sneak preview of his new play about Domestic Violence, coming together in a whimsical musical number "Where can I hide the body?".

I ended the day with a cycle home which I won't pretend I enjoyed, but things like that are essential if I am to achieve my goal of getting fitter this summer.

Song of the day was something I discovered in Last.fm this morning. It signals me getting properly back into metal after a hiatus of a couple of weeks. It's not the greatest song I've ever heard but it's really catchy and I like the way they use techno keyboards without being shit (cough cough, enter shikari).